Blake, Joseph (1833-1910)

BLAKE

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 1/1/2017 at 19:13:04

The Advocate Tribune, Indianola, Iowa, Thursday, Oct 21, 1897, p.1

WARREN COUNTY TRIPLE ALLIANCE CANDIDATES
Member of Board of Supervisors – Joseph Blake
For a generation Mr. Blake has been a successful farmer in Palmyra township. He is one of the best farmers in the county and is as well posted in politcal matters as he is in farming. He absolutely refusees to make canvas whatever. While he has accepted the nomination and will accept the office, he did not ask for the one and will not ask for the other. He is simply staying on his farm attending to his own business there. We feel confident that his election would mean the saving of thousands of dollars to Warren county tax payers and we feel constrained to hope that the voters will regard the good of the county as more important than party success and give him a handsome endorsement.
The people have habitually paid too little attention to this important office. The members of the board practically hold the purse strings of the county. They not only levy our taxes, but control the disbursement of a large portion of the county revenue. To be fitted for this office a man should be thoroughly successful with his own business. This is an important qualification that seems to have been generally forgotten, and men have year after year been elected to this office who had been conspicuous only for the failures they have made in conducting their own business, and then people have wondered why our taxes were so high. We have always insisted, too, that the best interests of the tax payers required minority representation on this board. The law should forbid that all three of the members belong to the same political organization. This would give each party an opportunity to watch the other, and would very much lessen the probability of jobs, trickery and corruption. The law is defective in this particular, but the voters of Warren county can remedy the defect for the present by electing Joseph Blake.