Bisbee daily review., 1921-03-25


 the state audltor are, together. the loan board of. the state. They called Ion banks for assistance, but the banks are not interested. even though state paper were at s percent insteead of ,. The situation was that one bank. the Central Bank of Phoenix, had about S500.000 of state finances on inactive deposit. and the other banks could not be interested because they were not carrying any large amounts of state money. The Central bank has since failed, but the state money is secured by surety bonds, and the state will not lose.
 Senator Woodward of Gila county introduced bill to limit the amount of state funds deposited in any. one bank, passing the amount on the com bined surplus and capital stock of the bank. When the bill came to the senate for the second reading he asked the privilege of withdrawing it, declaring that he feared it's passage would close several banks which had state money on deposit Subsequent events have shown the wisdom of not passing the bill.
 Bond House Offers Solution
 "A bond house offered solution in what are termed 'anticipatory' bonds This means, in effect, putting a mortgage on future revenue to take care of immediate needs. The state is now behind in tax collections about $1. 200. 900. Also when We went to the semi annual payment of taxes we fell behind six months, that is,s the state gets the revenue six months after it is due. When this. bond issue is sold it will turn over about one or one and a half millions to be used to pay outstanding warrants. -7r- present situation is that of mortgaging six months revenue ahead 10 pay our bills.
 "The banks are strong for this meas ure because they get two chances at the money in this way: When the an Itisipatory bonds are sold the cash IS used to take up outstanding state war rants. which means the distribution of this cash in the state nnder the provisions of the ,anticipatory- pond bill. When-Ihe taxes are paid, the first payment, falling in June, this money must be held by the state treasurer to pay off the bonds, which means that he must deposit this money with the banks in the state
 ..I have been asked to talk about the omnibus bill It was originally introduced as an emergency measure. The fight was to prevent any money being spent on this special road Dlll. thought all along that other similar special road bills would be introduced and it was decided to hold this blll and see what others would come ln n. hers did come in, totaling aocut $500. 900.
 Fouoht Omnibus Bill
 aAbout this time I found that the omnibus bill would be brought in, in ulace of these special road bills l will say now that l fought the omnl- bus bill \from start to finish Many have theN impression that no money would be spent on roads except for the omnibus bill, but such is not the case. The 10 cent levy. the auto H. cense tax. the tax on gasoline, ana inc prison labor fund these alone would bring in $1,3i0,00O a year TOT roads if the state legislature did not do 2 thing. 1 believed that under rreseny conditions that would De enough and tried my best to kill the
 
 bill that was introduced.
 ..rrbe first bill introduced as the omnibus bill carried $975, 1000, of which inc RoIderland would have had $2OO,- O0O. This was pork barrel measure designed to get votes, as may be seen hv inc appropriations for the various counties. in Santa Cruz county S5o,- GOO was allotted for building two miles of paving on road that today is as good as any in the state, ana would have looked like a tombstone in the desert. When the senator from Santa Cruz county called up the state highway department and asked if he couldn't divert this S5O,OO0 for building culverts and bridges else where in Santa Cruz, he was advised against it.
 In Pima county $95,O0O would have been used on the Tucson-Nogales road on which today is operated one Of the fastest stage lines in the state. In Greenlee county s75,000 would have been used for an entirely new read from Clifton to the New Mexico state line. For Mojave county $15O,- 1000 would have been spent for new road-more pork. As matter of fact S2OO 900 for the Borderland and S5O,- OCO for the Santa Fe Trail was all of the omnibus bin that would have been expended on through state high ways.
 / House Raised Total
 "The senate finally passed the bill to read Sl,O25 900 and when it went to the house they raised it to. read $I.125,0OO and amended the pot pro vision which was to- enable the state engineer to use the funds to pay off the indebtedness of his office. Mad dock. needed the money to continue operations on the same scale until June l, which was the real reason for introducing the bill.
 When the bill came up l tried to get definite information from Maddock as to the financial condition of his
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