The Washtenaw Evening Times seems to be ...

The Washtenaw Evening Times seems to be laboring under the sad delusion that the University of Michigan and the Normal School belong to Washtenaw county and that any appropriation made by the state for them is made for Washtenaw county. These two noble institutions belong not to the county but to the state. The increase in state taxes this year is not due to any large extent to the increased appropriations for state institutions. Much of it went towards creating and maintaining positions for party patriots. Too many of the legislators had sons whom they wanted placed on the rolls as pages at S2.00 a day to swell their father's salaries. So far was this mania for pages carried, that the attorney general was given a page for which he had no use as he distinctly told the legislature, to provide a place for a senator's son. It might be well for the republican party of the increased taxes was for state institutions, but it is not. As will be seen in our local columns the increase of the state tax in this county over two years ago is $13,355.25 divided in the apportionment into 26 items, and the increase in one single item, that of general purposes is 11,990.38. This is the fund out of which the pages are paid, the fund out of which the republican state officials draw their increased salaries, the fund out of which the large number of extra clerks in the state offices are paid. The Times twaddles about the Argus depending upon the ignorance of its county subscribers. The farmers of the county read more carefully and digest what they read more thoroughly than do many of the city readers, and they are usually pretty well informed regarding politics. They can see that the Times in its effort to shield the republican party should desire the Argus to cease calling attention to the $500,000 increase in state taxes under the republican administration. When any fact develops which hurts the republican party, the Times may be relied upon to come to its rescue.