Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/175

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FINANCIAL HISTORY OF OKKGON. 167 the tax-paying habit under pressure from the territorial offi- cials had at the end of it become fairly well established. 83 There are other evidences of rudimentary fiscal conditions. The Auditor in his first report finds it necessary to remind the legislature "that the offices of Auditor of public accounts and Territorial Treasurer are without salary, or other means of remuneration of service. ' ' Some features of the reports of these slighted officials indicate correspondingly inchoate ideas of what the public funds they were instrumental in extorting from the counties were for. For instance, the Auditor's "es- timate of expenditures for the next fiscal year" repeatedly includes the item of the salary of the territorial librarian when that obligation had from the beginning, and uninter- ruptedly, been assumed by the national treasury. 84 There were special acts for the "relief of individual cred- itors," but never a regular or general appropriation bill of territorial moneys. Therefore, we find no treasury "funds," and no segregation of items of expenditure according to ob- jects to which they were applied. The following table of classified expenditures was arranged from wholly unclassified lists of "warrants issued" and "warrants paid," of which the reports of the territorial auditors and territorial treasurers are mainly composed: TABLE OF EXPENDITURES OF TERRITORIAL REVENUES-OBJECTS. Date. Adminis- trative. Prosecut- ing attor- neys. Peniten- tiary. Care of insane. Internal improve- ments. Locating Ter. roads. Pilot service. Legisla- tive inci- dentals. Miscel- laneous. 1852 $ $ 800 00 $ $ $ $ $ 75 00 $ 168 75 1858 . 1,482 90 1,040 75 1,748 40 1,072 00 1854 825 73 431 42 1,069 49 541 50 98 00 321 00 1855.- 1,142 81 2,614 45 5,198 90 2,081 00 339 00 41200 1856 702 86 2,168 00 5,080 25 2,156 96 1,268 00 113 50 503 25 1857 2,128 82 1,891 18 8,828 99 1,733 06 1,990 57 503 05 2,633 05 1858--. 2,680 51 2,067 19 10,779 96 250 00 2,870 05 1859 8,807 46 930 70 10,041 99 125 00 877 50 1 12,620 59 $ 11,123 69 $ 42,692 95 $ 3,890 02 $ 5,881 07 $ 878 05 $ 62550 $ 7,752 60 83 As late as March 20, 1857, the Territorial Auditor says: "I am just about instituting suit against at least half of the county treasurers in the Terri- tory for delinquencies." Letter Book of Territorial Auditors, 1853-1860, MS. Some outlying counties, like Jackson and Wasco, were most dilatory with territorial taxes; others, like Coos and Curry, were prompt 84 See reports for 1852, 1854 and 1855.