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Show II II PUBLICITY FOR THE PUBLIC The greatest thing in the world to prevent corruption is publicity. Things done in the dark and never shown the light of day, can be easily glossed over, and nothing come of them. The same things spread in the light where all men can see, assume as-sume a different character. And this is, particularly true of the various boards and commissions that spend the public's money. Long after a thing has taken place, by some accident, acci-dent, it comes to light but then it is too late, and only a nasty smell is the result.. What the public should know, is, what is going on, how is the moneys-pent, why was this or that done, and who voted to do it. The one important matter to the taxpayers, particularly in the country districts,' is to know what the county commissioners are doing. In several counties mild scandals have developed, develop-ed, and the principal reason is that no one knows what is going on, except ex-cept a few. If the full proceedings of the county commissioners were published pub-lished in the country newspapers, there would be less scandals, less doing things in the dark, and the taxpayers of the country informed at all times as to what their commissioners commis-sioners were doing. This can be accomplished by a law passed at the coming session of the legislature requiring the minutes of I he board of county commissioners to be published in one or more newspapers news-papers in the county. The cost of this would be slight, compared to the safety and prevention preven-tion of "deals" which easily cost the county ten times the amount. We need light on where the money-is money-is going, and the taxpayers should rot set contentedly by and let things go by default, and then wake up later when it is too late. |