The log cabin Democrat., 1921-01-14
HOPES M'RAE WILL
 ADHERE TO PROGRAM
Dr. J. M. Reynolds of Naylor Also Favors Repeating Vital
 Statistics Law,
Editor Log Cabin Democrat:


 Editor Log Cabin Democrat:
 l will come again if you will give me space in your valuable paper. noticed in the July 8, 1920, issue of the Log Cabin Democrat, statement from our present governor, Thomas c. McRae, in which he pledged him. self to program of economy, includ- ing the abolishing of offices which he termed useless or improperly con- stituted. Among them are the corpor- ation, highway and penitentiary com missions and state board of control of charitable institutions. I think this program would be of some benefit to the taxpayers of our state and as see it there are other officers that should be erased from our laws.
 For instance, the township regis the Log Cabin Democrat of July 3, 1920, there was approximately two and one-quarter million dollars paid into the state treasury in 1920 to the credit of the vital statistics fund.
 I have been a practicing physician for over 30 years and am in my 18th year of age. I have always tried to abide by the laws of our country. have made a report of every birth and death that 1 have attended, but l can't help but think that law is inn posing upon our just civil rights. 1tv,1y of oF fo, fly dies I have to go to the registrar and get permit to bury, or if 1 do not l violate the law Does it look like we are free people? Then again, is it any benefit to the public? As I see it, it is of no benefit to anybody but the officers. We have the census talk en every ten years by the government, which think gives more information to the public than the vital statistics give-and think how much it would cost in 10 years.
 In regard to the legislators, I think if they would spend their time in repeating laws and doing away with so many officers it would be worth more to the public than it would to make more laws. I hope Governor McRae will use every effort he can to carry out the pledges he has made to the people and try to make times better in Arkansas. And I hope he will not use the pardoning power as broadcast as it has been used in past days, as see it. causing more crime to be committed than anything else that is done. I believe in justice being done to all, with special privi- leges to none. Respectfully,
 J. M. Reynolds.
 Naylor Ark, January 12, 1921.
 (In his reference to the amount Tn 1 the state treasury to the credit of the | vital statistics fund, Dr. Reynoldds | was probably misled by story ap- bearing in the Log Cabin Democrat i last July. The Arkansas Democrat and Memphis Commercial Appeal had | just published statement issued by | the state treasurer in which, through | the simple error by these newspapers ! of emitting a decimal point for cents, | each fund in the state treasury was | magnified 100 times. Thus the vital i statistics fund was printed in the Little i Rock and Memphis papers as if it | were S2,25O,00O, when the proper in sertion of the decimal point would !, have made it $22 800. -twenty-tw thousand, five hundred dollars instead of two and a quarter million dollars In an ironical vein, the Log Cabin Democrat commented upon this and other "vast sums" in the state treas ury which had been discovered" by the Little Rockk and Memphis pa pers.-Editor.)