The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1921-08-04
WE THE PEOPLE OF BENTON
COUNTY
iContinued from page u

"Bear in mind" admonishes tn
pamphlet writer, "that certain phase
of the law force us to include onl!
acts of very recent date" Here i:
an admission that most of the so
called counts in the recall petition arr
invalid and cannot legally be con,
sidered in a recall proceeding. The
purchase of the tractor was not of re.
cent date; the purchase of the Hall
trucks was not of recent date; the al
lowing of Mahan Brothers bill was not
of recent date. Why are they in
cluded in the recall petition?
Voters will do we'll to heed the warm
ing and bear in mind that any acts
of Mr.. Pratt during his former term
cannot legally be considered in the
present proceedings.
The pamphlet writer reaches a eli
max when he says, eff some of the
positively proven and established facts
below seem trivial, bear in mind that
we are dealing with shrewd men,"
If some of the facts seem trivial
grand jury was called at thousands
of dollars expense to the taxpayers !;
it sat for weeks, called 1O2 witnesses,
combed all the records from soup to
nuts, and heard all the gossip and pet
ty ISLANDERS from the far corners of
the county; state accountant, some
times two, was kept on the probe of
the records for months; a recall was
Snively was engaged and
there were more months of probing
by him and his clerks; four and a half
msnths have elapsed since the grand
jury went into session, and for four
and a half months the county rec
ords have been fine-combed front and
back, narrowed and cross-harrowed,
probed, reprobed and dissected. Be-
hold the results as embodied in the
recall petition! The taxpayers of the
county are asked to dig more thou
sands out of their pockets to pay for
an election to recall Pratt because
the county hired another man to work
French's team on the roads, paid him
$27.50 and French got part of the
some of the charges seem
trivial-My God, they are trivial,
there's no seeming about it! .-
The Courier-Reporter agrees with
the pamphlet writer that grand jury
returned "weak-kneed" report. 1t
pointed out that fact at the time the
report was given to the, public. And
now to spend thousands of dollars on
a recall based on a Weakened" re-
port is certainly weak-headed bust
ness. r .r.- a. 49,. .s.-
Furthermore, anyone who studies
the jury's report finds such shock
ing accounts and disclosures of al
most criminal waste padded pay
rolls exclaims the anonymous
pamphlet writer. What has become
of these shocking disclosures of GRIM
inal waste and padded payrolls?
Snively overlooked them when he
wrote the recall petition and for some
reason the grand jury failed to point
out just what payrolls in Commits
sioner. Pratt's district were padded.
The anonymous scribe gets very
chummy in one paragraph and tells
some of the inside secrets of the
grand jury sessions. He says the fail
ure to return indictments was due to
the efforts of little group of Pros
ser jurors known as the soft pedal
bunch who wished to make Bash the
goat and shield Pratt and French.
There were Is Prosser jurors, any
II of whom. could have brought in a
verdict. The loud-pedal, or better,
loud-mouthed bunch were determined
to "get" Pratt. There were six or
more of the jurors who insisted that
each commissioner should stand alone
upon his own record and be held ac-
countable for his own acts. There
was no evidence upon which an indict-
ment against Pratt would stand. The
result was a compromise verdict in
which the fury was as reckless in
words as it charged the commission
ers had been in expenditures.
The cause of the whole fuss can be
very briefly stated. Commissioner
Pratt has not conducted his office to
the personal liking of Taylor, Stock
dale, ct al. Consequently Taylor and
Stockdale, like the three London tail
ors, have met, counselled, deliberated
and proclaimed, eve the people of