, 1923-02-28

1t is preSumptlon, no doubt, TO
question the acts of our lawmakers
who last week concluded an orgy of
lawmaking, but, having a brain of a
kind, we sometimes cannot keep it
from working.
The action of the senate in voting
$4,000 for the Wyoming National
Guard set it in motion.
We had understood that the mem
bers of the house and senate were
elected largely upon the strength of
their promises to reduce taxes by
every means possible; that they went
to Cheyenne committed to a program
of economy, and with the understand
ing that every expense not needed for
properly maintaining government and
keeping up necessary institutions was
to be reduced or eliminated.
Yet the senate, knowing full well
that the delinquent tax lists fill pages
in the country weeklies, that fore
closures for money borrowed to pay
taxes are of painfully frequent
o~ccurance, that low prices and high
taxes have all but made paupers of
the farmers, that the burden of city,
county and state taxes rests heavily
upon every person who owns property
quite casually voted $4,000 to keep
up the most useless, and farcical or
g%anization in the state, namely the
Wyoming National Guard.
Guard.
And that, too, after having pre-
viously voted $4,000 to make up a
deficit which we are informed really
amounts to $4,000!
What purpose do they serve, of
what use are they, these imitation
soldiers of which our own Troop F
is a fair sample? What service do
they render that farmers who cannot
pay their grocery bills and buy
clothes for their children should be
taxed to support them?
In a state like Pennsylvania where
there are occasional labor toubles'
there may be some excuse for them
but if any disturbance has ever occur
red in Wyoming that a sheriff and
six determined, straight-shooting,
level-headed cowpunchers could not
handle we have never heard of it.
In the event that some situation did
arise where troops were necessary, is
there any law to prevent the soldiers
of the regular army stationed at Fort
Russell, just out of Cheyenne, being
upon to handle it?
A few inquiries made at the capitol
elected the information that the other
over the State occupied about
the same place in the public esteem
our local organization.
According to the statement made
by Major Clyde Simpson, who called
recently for the purpose of enlisting
our support of the plan to build eight
$4,000 armories in Wyoming, it
costs $4,000 yearly to pay the ex-
penses of Troop F. here in Cody.
T~hirty-two head of horses which
are not used enough to have proper
exercise, stand in the corral costing
the taxpayers $1,000 annually for
their ARE and forage-$3,000 for
care-takers wages and $4,000 for
were the Majors figures.
The full strength of the company
is 60 members and 40 are required
to be at drill before they are entitled
to compensation. When did any
body ever hear of, much less see, 40
members of Troop F drilling? If
any of them drill when and where
does it happen? And, anyway, why
they be entitled to compen-
for doing something which
should be a pleasure and a privilege?
Troop F and other troops like it
are a travesty, a costly farce main
tanned Mt the expense of some deserv-
ing institution which could very well
use that $4,000 that will now be
spent to enable these uniformed
loafers to strut until the next ses-
sion when they will be on hand with
another deficit and a piteous plea for