The $37,500 Handshake: How Benton County's Tax Crusaders Blessed a Courthouse Deal

Never have the Prosser Tax Leaguers shown their true colors so vividly as last Monday, when Jim Clements and Alec McNeill were making records for themselves as the two 'crustiest' generals who ever operated a steam roller.

Where were these champions of the rights of the down-trodden taxpayer; these low-tax patriots; these whole-souled, loyal-hearted gentlemen who had given of their time and money to free the defenseless taxpayer from the yoke of the tax-saddler — these fearless emancipators who have haunted the corridors of the court house night and day, clamoring forth their protests against the reckless expenditure of hiring a janitor when the office holders might well clean their own cuspidors, or against the prodigal despoliation of the taxpayers' substance in engaging a county agriculturalist or paying a horticultural inspector, or against the wilful waste of paying a stenographer ten dollars a week to take dictation when a phonograph placed in the lobby would do the work for all who wished to dictate — where were these uncompromising economists last Monday? Oh, they were there, busy as ever — but strange to say, every mother's son of them had exchanged his tax hammer for a sop with which to grease the skids upon which the court house deal had been framed.

Of course, it should be remembered that this was not a case where the taxpayers were being robbed and bankrupted to pay a janitor's salary — it was merely a trifling matter where the taxpayers were being soaked with a bonded indebtedness of $125,000, and paying somebody $37,500 for the privilege of being soaked.

'But what can we do,' boomed one old leaguer whose voice had grown husky shouting lower taxes, when asked what stand the Tax League was taking in the matter. 'We have fought that bunch of county commissioners right down the line at every turn, and now what can we do?' continued the leaguer.

Yes, what could they do? What did they do but hunt up that fine old Christian gentleman named Houston, who was the only man who had it in his power to head off the deal, and talk him into changing his mind. And changing his mind in this case meant repudiating his published pre-election pledges, breaking promises which were scarcely cold on his lips, and aiding and abetting a deal which had been secretly framed to defeat the wishes of the taxpayers of the county — a deal which, to say the least, means the needless squandering of many thousand dollars of the taxpayers' money.

It should be remembered that Houston was the tax leaguers' candidate; the man chosen by them to safeguard the interests of the taxpayers and protect them against the practices of a county board which, they claimed, was rank with corruption. Saturday he was bitter in his denunciation of the present commissioners, saying they should be in jail. On Monday, he says, were he on the board, he would do just as they had done, and condones and abets the very practices which on Saturday he had denounced as corrupt.

We would have but small regard for Mr. Houston or the other members of the Tax League were they not loyal enough to their own interests and their home town to want to see the county seat permanently located in Prosser. For the most despicable, the most contemptible character on record is that of the man who proves false to his own colors, betrays his own friends, deserts his own cause, and conspires against the interests of his own people. Yet no matter how great may be his zeal in the county seat question, we do not believe there is one man in Prosser who can honestly and conscientiously endorse and sanction the methods that have been employed in the present attempt to build a court house. Certainly it cannot be justified without going beyond the spirit of the Tax League's slogan: 'A dollar's value for every dollar expended.'

SETS A NEW RECORD

We can recall of having read of only one other case that is analogous to the Clements-McNeill deal to build a court house. As we remember it, we read of this other case in the Bible, where we are told that it was not enough that the Jews crucify Christ, so they made Him carry the cross to the scene of the execution. It was not enough that Clements-McNeill conspire to make the taxpayers pay $125,000 for a court house, but they must pay $37,500 to somebody for the privilege of being made the victims, and then $600 more to pay the experts who guided the deal.

Really, insofar as these two cases go, the minute book of the county commissioners out-Bibles the Bible. Had the Bible story gone one step further and recorded that Christ's slayers seized all His goods and chattels to pay the carpenter who made the cross and for the timbers of which it was made, the cases would have been truly analogous.

The $37,500 represents the difference between what the bonds were really worth on the market and what the commissioners sold them for, and the $600 is the bill of the Spokane, Seattle and New York attorneys who prepared the resolution and had the bonds printed. It is the common practice that the successful bidder on a bond issue pays for the cost of printing the bonds, and the prosecuting attorney receives his salary every month to furnish the commissioners what legal advice they may need and to prepare such resolutions as may be necessary. In the event there are any irregularities in the proceedings authorizing a bond issue, those defects are pointed out by the bond buyer's attorney and the bond buyer foots the bill.

To sell a bond buyer a commodity which he could re-sell the next day at a profit of $37,500, and then pay the expenses of the sale, is a transaction that just naturally annihilates our vocabulary. What we cannot understand is why Geo. Keeler, the successful bidder, didn't put in a bill for his per diem and mileage.

TRUE TO HIS COLORS

No matter how strained his relations with the other members of the county commissioners board may become because of Monday's proceedings, Commissioner F. L. Bash can return to his home with the satisfaction that he has been true to his public trust and has cast his vote to protect the interests, not only of the people of his own community, but of the people of the county as a whole.

By refusing to become a party to, or to sanction, a deal which, if it can successfully stand the test of honesty, cannot possibly qualify as good business, Mr. Bash has gained a stronger hold upon the respect and confidence of the people in this end of the county, and as the days go by he cannot fail to gain popularity with every right-thinking taxpayer in the county. His negative vote, as recorded in the official proceedings of the board, stands as a testimonial to his integrity. He should be made to feel that his action has the hearty endorsement of a large majority of the people in the county.

Knowing that there is probably not a man nor a woman in his district who is not strongly opposed to building a court house at this time, or at any time in the manner in which the present attempt was made, Mr. Bash could not have voted 'aye' on the proposition and come back home without wearing the despicable brand of the traitor.