Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1922-03-16
0USTED
FOR DEREL|CT|ONS
"HousecIeaning" in Kansas
Results in Separating
Many From Jobs.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

| Special Dispatch to The star.
TOPEKA, Kan, March 16-Kansas
Is cleaning house just now. Within
the last two or three months the state
| has ousted from office fifteen different
| county officials for various derelic-
lions of duty in handling the affairs
of their counties. It has also sep
jobs of administering the affairs Of
their cities or in enforcing the law.
| Some of the county officials became
F: careless and negligent Of the AFFAIRS
| Of the public. Last week the entire
| county board of Atchison county sent
designations to the attorney general
and the county clerk and county
treasurer Joined with them in getting
| out Of office.
| The county treasurer is charged
| with buying Atchison county bonds
| year ago at a low price, and q short
time ago the county board discovered
1t had some money in its sinking fund,
| SO it ordered the treasurer to buy
bonds with this money. The treasur-
| er bought the bonds Of himself, there
| by making a nice profit. It Is assert
| ed that the losses to the county on
! account of various transactions which
were not inherently wrong legally.
but were morally wrong. will amount
| to $4,000 or more, and after securing
| the designations of the officers the
county is preparing to bring suit to
recover the money.
In Reno county three county COM
missioners and the county engineer
were forced to resign because Of ir-
Irregularities connected with the road
construction in that county. Ont in
Rawlins county the county commits
sionerS. laid out quite a large DIiuSe
construction program. They let the
contracts all to one man who hap
pened to be relative OF one of the
county officials.
Engineers Thrifty Ways.
In Sheridan county there was quite
a large amount of bridge construction
under way and there did not appear
to be any construction firm that
wanted the job. So the county en-
gineer organized a construction COM
eral relatives. Then he made the
plans for the bridges, Net the con-
tracts to his own firm and acted as
inspector of the work for the county,
simply inspecting the work done by
his own firm. The county commits
sioners of that county were told that
they ought to have been ousted for
just plain carelessness. but upon their
promise never to do 1t again. the state
accepted the resignation of the en-
gineer as a public official.
In Crawford county, the sheriff let
the mine workers, make speech
from the balcony of the county jail
one afternoon after Howat had been
sent to jail for contempt. Gov. Allen
called the sheriff by telephone the
next day and asked him about it.
When the sheriff told the story the
governor asked him how quick he
could get his resignation to Topeka.
The sheriff was not enthusiastic about
it. but the resignation came in the
next morning.
There has been more ousting Of Of
ficials in Kansas during the past year
than in any period since 1906. when
the state began the strict enforce
ment of the prohibitory law. During
the first year of that period some
twenty city and county officials were
ousted from office because they had
failed to enforce the law. During the
past six months there have been six
teen county officials ousted by the
state for failure to obey and enforce
the laws.