The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, October 21, 1915, Page 7

g ki b 915 o ot OSSR RS BT B s b R BT s L )“ ) ;:— Tt > e e ;08 S PO a3 N e 4 e B AT oet 2 <. ") . B U L3 ke 1 D e Lot e _the state capitol. penses, being back as far as June, | - day. Burke county farm lands was $240,- THE NONPARTISAN lEADE'Il PAGE SEVEN /i acts About the Hanna Business Admzmstratton Bismarck, N. D., Oct. 27.—In a re- cent statement, undoubtedly inspjred by Governor Hanna, it was declar.d@ that™ the state’s bills had bzen paid up to September 15th; that. there| were: ample funds in the treasury to care for all eurrent expepses; that | the contention that the state geienral * fund = was embarrass:d was malicious and untrue and circulated for the express purpose of injuring Governor Hanna, himself and other state: officerz. This statexent was spread broadcast over the state through the columns of the controiled newspapers. In view of the wide publicity given the statement-an in- vestigation was undertaken which has. proved both interesting and in- ‘structive. The' inquiry was made as to the 1 30th, 1913, the total pay.ents fiom accumulation of unraid bills, it ap- peared that all bills had been paid up to September 15th. A little cross examination, however, revealed the fact_that the bills paid were only those which had been allowed by the state auditing board, but that: that| bedy had before it a large amount of unaudited and unpaid bills.” Just how | large this amount is could not b= definitely ascertained, but it‘is prob- able that it ranges som:where be- tween three and four hundred thoua- sand dollars. Today, October 8th, the balance in| the general fund as shown by the books: of the state treasurer is $17,- 765.63, but auditor’s warrants have been issued against the entire amount so that there is not a dollar. to meet current expenses. Smce “Sep- tember 15th no bill of any. deserin- tion has been paid except the salar- ies of the officials and employes about The traveling ex- have net been peid. The ‘state edu- cational and renal and charitable in- | stitutions are without funds and have been for many weeks. The statement was spread. bxoarl cast over the state through the ‘con- trolled press that the state met its vayroll on October 1st, and had am- ple funds for all purposes. -The: truth was that on October 1st the ‘state paid in the neighborhod of $25,000 to officers and employes about the capitol, but there was no money to pay the employes of the state' peni- tentiary, the state insane asylum and| other penal and charitable *institu- el Is the. State of North Dakota M ortgagedP Is North Dakota mortgaged? . The Fargo FORUM says it is net. It grows angry if anyone claims this. Here are & few figures gathered by a Burke ceanty farmer. They ave taken from the Ward county records They cover only two months These are figures you do not see'in the’ average newspaper. You are go- ing to see such figures in the LEADER gquite often. > During the twenty-five-days in: Au- gust 1913 a mortgage indebtedness of $268,848 was recorded in. county.. : This means that the citizens of | that county went behind at the rate| of $10,739.38 per day. i Now skip to November. ' This month the county went backward one: million, forty thousand and| eighty-nine dollars, and -fortyleight cents, “This is at the rate of $43 33706 per There were 3548,204 26 in chattel mortgages; judgment and mechanics! liens, and $491, 885.22 m real estate moxtgsges. The totat assessied Valuatlon of [940: this year. ¢ led real estate mortgages totalling 1 $481,885.22. In twenty-four days the people of Ward county went into the 'press property in Burke county was $18,871. | debtedness of $43,337.08 per day for| .twenty-four days in November was Ward | maind | yow: | debt. One million, forty thousand, eighty-| 008,95. This is the yearly interest tlons, nor the teachzrs and o.her em- ployes of our various sta e educa- tional institutions. Builders and con- ftractors .. furnishing supplies, and many others to whom ti.e ‘state is honestly indebted, were noi paid. Mang.of them have waited 10or weeks and all must continue to wait for many - weeks more before they are paid. ' The taxpayers of North Dakota are fentitled to know the truth and why the finances of the state are in this condition. The general fund is the medium through which the tacpayer ' pays the -running experses of his istate government and the rea on for its present condition is not 1ar to seek: For the biennial period ending June the: general fund, were $3,064,413; the expenditures for the currant bi'nrisl reriod ending June 30, 1917, will not ‘be less than four million dollars, an 'increase of 30.9 per cent. For the biennial period ezd'ng Jure 30th, 1904, the expenditure . from the general fund was $1,078,174, and if 'the exrenditure for the current bien- nial pericd prove to be four millien or more, in the fourte:n ye.rs inter= vening, the expenditures of t! e state 'will have trebled.. If the cost of the state govern- 'ment is doubling every four and one- half years. it should occasion general alarm among the taxpayers of the state, and e.pecially mong the farm- ers. As nearly 73 per cent of the increased tax burden falls on the | farmer it is high time that he took La business view of the situation and introduced busines methods into the ‘state government. Governor Hanna, and other mem- . bers of the political machine in con- trol of the state government, befog the istue by pointing out to the farm- a sand dollars of the state debt has ‘been paid. This debt payment is an- other snare and delusion. We have money to pay off 4 per cent bonds, which might have been loaned to the farmer at 6 per cent, thus securing 'a larger return on the money and also furnishing much necded capital for the development of our agricul- ‘tural interests. . It is quite true that the activities of the state government are ever | phers employed, nor ers that three or four hundred thou- | | of the state. w1demng; that. there is an ever in- creasing legitimate demard upon the state treasury. However, there are many expenditures which are purely political in their nature and ought not to be tolerated. ¥For instarce: The large appropriation to maintain | 2 building at the World’s Fair at San Francisco; (This building is being used very largely for the purpose of promoting the political interests of Governor Hanna and his fellow poli- ticians); the arpropriation for an im- migration board; the appropriation for public accountants; the establish- ment of a fire mafshal’s office; the game law; the increase in the num- ber of deputy public examiners; and the oil inspection bill. It takes no Solomon to know that the business tranmcted in the state capitol at Bismarck, for instarce, costs the state an exorbitant sum in proportion to the amount of business carried on. It is admitted that a private corporation would carry on the business at 33 1-8 per cent. The excessive cost is not occasion:d by the numb:r of :anitors or stencgra- necessarily by the number of hours they work, but it results from the overlapping of employes, the paying of several high salaried officers to do work which could be done by one official. These officers and employes, overlapping in their work, and traveling back and forth over the state in droves, when one man could perform the same work. Last winter with much pomp and show the Lathrop committee was in- augurated and it was blatantly an- nounced that now the era of busiress administrtion of the state affairs had arrived. The work of the Lathrop committee iz illustrated by their cut- ting oft the law librarian who drew $1,200 a year. It was a peculiar bus- iness sense that prompted a legis- lature to leave a seventy-five thou- sand dollar law library without a cus- todian or librarian. The Lathrop committee allowed a large increase in the appropriation for . the public examiner, which de- rartment costs the state now in ex- cess of $50,000 a year, and it is respectfully submitted that it is not of fifty cents value to the people It is, however, a mag- nificent political asset with its swarm of examiners traveling up' and down By Orange Wright Ward eounty record- hole over twice the entire valation -3 Burke county farm lands: Here's another way to look at it. The total assessed valuation in 1912 of all telephone, telegraph, and ex- Ward county’s average in- ‘over: twice this.. Over twice as much EVERY DAY, In 1913 the assessed va.luatmn of Ward county was: Real $6,580,752; personal, $1,932,109. This is a total of $8,513,411. Fifty-six per cent of the peeple of | Ward county live in cities and towns. ‘Tt is only fair fo assume t at least 50 per cent of the assessed val- jon: Nes there. = - Thsleavesupareentoftbepeo- ple with only one-half the total coun- ty assets to bear this burden of nine-dolars and twenty-siv cents at '10 per cent interest means $104,- ‘kota has ‘increased faster than the ' price of wheat., - '80e would ‘buy a great many tons that the Ward county farmers must pay on debts contracted on only one month’s farm operations. This- is = what the FORUM calls :xpa.ogress'n * There are twelve months in a year. In order to be more than fau- we'll say there are only six. Six months: of this progress would mean six times $104,008.95 or $624,- 053.70. This is the amount of intefest that the farmers of 'ONE county are pay- ing ‘every year. You know and ¥ know that this is putting ie only too f conservatively. Wheat -was then 70c per busheL This meant that the 44 per cent were: compelled to haul 831,205 bushels to town just to pay for a dead herse. ‘Today wheat is around 80c¢. The} average indebtedness in North Da- But ‘suppose it hasn’t. We'll say the amount of interest paid by the Ward county farmers this year. is ex- actly the same. That the 44 per cent pay only $624,053.70. At 80c. per bushel it will take over 78,000 bushels to pay this year’s bill Seventy-eight thousand bushels at | capitalists. " the farm. the state. They allowed the immigrae - tion board idea to become a law, worth absolutely nothing to the peo- ple of the state, but again a mage nificent political asset through, its newspaper advertising and the ap- pointments placed in the hands of the governor; the same is trie of the exhibit at the World’s Fair; in short, the Lathrop committee cut off a few janitors, clerks and stenogra- phers, but created several expensive departments and left all the expens- ive officers and expensive machinery intact and in working erder. % That the Lathrop committee’s work, or more properly sppaking, the work of Treadwell Twichell, th> chairman of the house committzc on appropri- ations and the dominating influence of the appropriation coxrmittees of both houses of the 1915 legislative assembly, was a revision upward rather than downward, is proved by the fact that for the first eight months of 1915 the total exparditure from the general fund was $1,277,308, as against $1,044,342,57 in 1913, an increa'e of 21.13 per cent. In other words, the penalty which the people of the state pay for the blunder of ¥r. Twichell and his co-laborers, was an increase of more than cne-fifth of the enpenditures of the state. - The statement solemnly announces that there was on Ssptember ist about $700,000 in the state treasury. It fails to explain, however, that this sum of money is in the permanent endowment funds - of thke public schools and the educational, penal and charitable institutions. = This repre- sents money ‘which had been received from state land sales, the payment of bonds and ‘farm. loans, -waiting re-investment. - The general fund is the true index to the condition of the state finances, and it is in a worse condition today than it has been for the past fifteen years.” Ordinarily “there is a’ shortening of funds in the latter part of the second ycar 6f the biennial period—but now, eight ‘months after the legislature adjdurns and six months before the new tax will begin to come in in any great amounts—there: is a few theuwsand dollars in the general fumd and hun- dreds ef thousands of dollars of un- paid bills before the state audltmg board’ and ' many menths ahead ‘in which the receipts will fall-very much short of -the -expenditures. of coal,—or suits of clothes, or au~ tomobiles. st These 78,000 bushels of wheat are going to buy .tons of ceal, and suits of - clothes, and. automobiles,—but for someone else. ah “ . For the fellow'who holds the mort« the FORUM. telt you. ‘Who. gets an~ gry when someone dlgs up the facts. These luxuries are for the ba.‘nkerl ; and: their families)—and the eactern NOT for the Ward county farmers. i “Figuring fifteen bushels to the acre and 80c-per bushel, itftakes By acres of Ward county land to B | pay this tribute. - This is just one county. Remembern ;$his is largely true of YOUR county. It is county. There: isn’t a county in tl!e state approximately true of every ‘of North Dakota that fails to shew the same brand of “progreflsqg' o IS North Dakota mortgaged f Follow your LEADER into other counties. You will lears things thati will astonish .you. - You will find out how fast you are getting ahead on “The Leader fight for fln&"farfie‘fsl . gage. - Who dictates what papers like | ;