Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 12.djvu/112

 104 F. G. YOUNG state's institutions of charity and correction is becoming a task of such proportions as to justify the creation of a state board of control. The organization of the system of control now in operation lacks, in a wide range of its affairs, the essential principle of check and supervision of one official over another. The auditing of the account between the state treasurer and the state is also imposed upon the secretary of state. He is "to carefully examine semi-annually the books and accounts of the treasurer and the moneys on hand in the treasury, and immediately thereupon report the result of such examination in writing to the governor, specifying therein the amount and kinds of funds particularly." And further, "he shall keep an account between the state and the treasurer, and therein charge the treasurer with the balance in the treasury when he came into office, and with all moneys received by him, credit him with all moneys paid by him pursuant to law." To make the semi-annual examination of "the books and accounts of the treasurer" effective he must necessarily use his own "account between the state and the treasurer" with which to check up the treasurer's accounts. The confession n the secretary of state's report for 1901 is that up to that time the disbursement account of the treasurer had been obtained in the form of "a verbal statement of the disbursements from the various funds." 1 The secretary's report for 1872 had been particularly frank about this requirement made of the secretary of state "to keep an account between the state and the state treasurer." He held that it was "utterly impossible, unless the secretary copies the treasurer's books if the secretary were a good copyist the accounts of the two officials could be made to agree admirably; but I am unable to see what good purpose would be served by it. I take the liberty, therefore, to ask that the provision of the law under consideration be repealed. Let the secretary of state keep his own books accurately, and no others." The above statement, made in 1872, also claimed that "payments of interest on loans are constantly being made i Report of Secretary of State, 1901, pp. 49-51.