OCR Text |
Show THE WORLD'S FAIR DEFICIT REPORT. Senator Johnson in his personal explanation ex-planation with respect to the money on hand whereas a deficit In the St. Louis exposition accounts had been reported, was, without question, absolutely correct. cor-rect. It was right, also, for him to make this explanation. It would have been a grave mistake for him not to have made It. There was an actual deficit, which was stated at ten thousand thou-sand dollars; all at once It appears that there Is on hand upwards of two thousand thou-sand dollars. Senator Johnson, who has recently succeeded Mr. Hoyt Sherman Sher-man as treasurer of the World's Fair Commission, owed it to himself as well as to the public, to explain this apparent appa-rent anomaly. His explanation Is perfectly per-fectly straightforward and conclusive, Viz., that certain vouchers for expenditures expendi-tures had been lost or mislaid, and in lieu of them there was money in his hands placed there by the secretary- But this by no means concludes the matter. The investigation made by the special committee leaves the main question untouched. There are the blanket vouchers that need to be segregated, segre-gated, divided into their elements, and the various Items explained. A blanket voucher, which lumps together various amounts and accounts in gross only, for sums expended, Is by no means a satisfactory satis-factory way to account for public moneys expended. The details, the ultimate ul-timate bills and receipts for every item carried in such voucher, should be at hand to corroborate and confirm it. Now, as to tho deficit. What is the Legislature going to do about It? And how about the future? The making good of Illegal deficits ls a business expected of every Legislature in succession. succes-sion. Shall this making good of what has been absolutely forbidden by law, be continued? Or will this Legislature take steps to end peremptorily and for good, this evil practice? |