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Show WITH BARE KXUCKS. LOCAL MERCHANTS CO AFTER THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. They Ion't Ask the Karth but Want to bo Put on an Even Footing With Outside Out-side Competition A Blow at the Present Freight Rate. The merchPiits are agitated all over town concerning AValden's bill to abolish their license which cumes up before the council again next Tuesday night for, final action. Several of them were congregated in a prominent prom-inent wholesale house this morning discussing, discuss-ing, the proposition which has now overshadowed over-shadowed all others market reports not excepted when aTiMEs representative made his appearance. They were determined. "I will be one of a committee," piped one of them who believes all fair in love and war, "to raise a fund, a .merchants' campaign cam-paign fund, to oppose any member of the council who opposes the bill, and who may put up his head at the polls in February. We have gone into this uow to win" 'You can bei your shop ou that," chimed the group. "A;id," resumed the speaker, "we'll drv the blue pencil across this name of ccry man who autogauizes us. That's politics." "Hear, hear," interjected the audience. "AWll not only scratch him ourselves but we'll stand from sunrise to sunset at the polls and show the consumer that it's to his interest to do a little scratching iu time. We don't ask the earth nor one of those valuable val-uable franchises that the council has ou tap. It has never done a thing lor us aud now that we've got our hand in, we propose with the fair-minded members of the body to help ourselves. They have a petition before them, signed by several hundred of us, asking that the license li-cense be abolished, and to this is added the endorsement of the chamber of commerce, not to mention the daily papers, and yet they have been unable . to let go and do something. some-thing. There is no valid reason under the suu why we shouldn't have the same protection protec-tion and rights as cities we compete with, espe'cially when our freight rates are so exorbitant. ex-orbitant. . If Waldeu's new schedule is adopted it places u right in the circuit with the Missouri river towns and Denver, and the only objection raised is that it will make a difference to the city of ?15,000 yearly in receipts. Now if out of a yearly income of nearly a million dollars the cit3" cannot afford to give up $15,000 for helping build up business, it is a sorry sight. They could get that for any of the railway franchises they have given away. The council-men council-men that oppose it are not paying a dollar's license to the city, and it's an easy thing for them to quietly say among themselves, them-selves, 'We'll saw wood and let the merchants mer-chants whistle.' There are 700 merchants in this town and we expect to be heard from in February. We propose to have fair play if we have to go to the ballot boxes for it," Although the meetiug was an informal one it was made quite evident that the merchants are determined to havlittle legislation in favor of local comrJ interests, and while tarif 'aV free Vare agitating the natics bf,a , ,t. TtlI i of the merchant will be mad Vjm' the ffTTtig campaign. ' n va ' i-i |