_ of taxation covering a period of about ten years,
which if true is of no importance in this connection because the same
has no bearing upon the material point now under consideration. The
tax _rate_ is always determined by the amount of money needed to meet
the obligations of the State, predicated upon the assessed value of
taxable property. Changes in the tax rate, therefore, are liable to be
of frequent occurrence. The material point at issue is the volume of
money paid into the treasury and the disposition made of it. In this
connection a slight amplification of the figures already given will
not be inappropriate. In 1875, the last year of Republican rule and
the year the State was _redeemed_, the total receipts from all sources
amounted to $1,801,129.12. The disbursements, same year, were
$1,430,192.83, or $370,936.29 less than was received. In 1907 the
receipts from all sources amounted to $3,391,127.15. The
disbursements, same year, were $3,730,343.29 or $339,216.14 more than
was received, and $2,300,150.46 more than was paid out in 1875. In
fact, the financial condition of the State during several years was
such that the Legislature was obliged to authorize the issuance of
bonds upon which to borrow money to meet current demands, thus adding
materially to the bonded debt of the State. Can any thing more
inexcusable and indefensible than this be imagined? That any one of
the Reconstructed governments could possibly have been guilty of such
maladministration as this is inconceivable. And yet, this
administration typifies what Mr. Rhodes is pleased to term the
restoration of home rule at the South, for which all lovers of good
government should rejoice.

The expert admits that I am right in what was said about Senators
Alcorn and Bruce, but asserts that Senator Pease, Mr. Brace's
immediate predecessor, was opposed to Ames. This is another assertion
that is not in harmony with the truth. Ames was a United States
Senator when he was elected Governor. When he resigned the Senatorship
to become Governor there remained about fourteen months of his term.
There devolved, therefore, upon the Legislature that was elected in
1873, the same time Senator Ames was elected Governor, the duty of
electing a Senator for the full term and also for the unexpired term.
Bruce, an Ames man, was elected for the full term and Pease, also an
Ames man, was elected for the unexpired term. If Pease had been
opposed to Ames he could not have