OCR Text |
Show j: Commission Form of City Government Gov-ernment Is Subject, Under Discussion. WEB-FOOTERS. HOWEVER, GIVEN ONE. BIG VOTE ' This Shows That Contest Was Not Walk-Over for Home ' Talent. ! Thc"'Umvcrsit' of Utah debaters, con- ' tending thnt. the present form of muni- ! oipal .go'wrnmcnt is preferable to the ' commission plan, won their debate from' the representatives of the Uni- j verity of Orcpou, who nrucd for the affirmative of the question: "lie- solved. That municipal government by commission is preferable to The prevailing prevail-ing form of American city government.' govern-ment.' before a rathor small audience, in the Salt Lake theater Monday evening. even-ing. The the debate was o-vcftptionally close is manifest from t lie fact, that the vote stood two for tho negative and ono for the affirmative. The judges, Superintendent of Schools D. II. Chris-tensen. Chris-tensen. Governor Holier Wells and George P. Holniaii sat in different parts of tho house and did not confer with I each other as io the decision, so that the oue vote for the visitors could not have been of a complimentary nature. Thomas Townsfud opened the argument argu-ment for. the affirmative Ho main-tained main-tained that the present system was un-i; un-i; satisfactory, inefficient rind expensive. ! and then proceeded to give a series of examples of the success of the com-; com-; mission system in some of tho cities 1 where it. has been adopted, pnying tho grentesr attention to Galveston, Texas. Tie said that the plan was no longer an experiment, but that its efficiency and practicability had been clearly J. proven. Great emphasis was laid on I; the point thnt. the running of a city government was in every way analog- I ous to the operation of the business of Ij a large corporation. II Utah Has Inning. I H. II. Burgess, for Utah, described I the present plan, explaining the func- i. tions of the various departments and - officials. The essential differences, he ( said, lie in the methods of election, the i number of officers and the concent ra in tion or fusion of power. Those differ- II ences, he maintained, would ultimate!' K lead to inferior government, corruption t and gang rule. A corporation, he said, ft does business to make money, a city U government !s business is to spend ! monev secured by taxation. k Earl Kilpntriek was perhaps tho most If effective speaker of the evening, I though his arguments m.13' have lacked 1 1 the force of those presented by tho 1 fT:ah men. ITe called atteniion to the I fact that the commission system opcr- F, ated with equal efficiency, both from liil a Icgislativo and from an ndministra-W ndministra-W tive standpoint. He said that demo- t cracy consists in the ease and finality I of public control, and laid much eni- I ph.isis on the idea that, better men I could be secured under the commission I rilan. I It, W. Young, Jr., Heard. ; In regard to this contention. K. W. k Young, for the negative, failed to seo ! how the commission plan taught the voters how to vote, and ho said that the matter of getting good men lay entirely en-tirely with the voters. Tho main con- tcniions of the negative were that the commission plan would afford fruitful j fields for graft, and boss rule, and that I it was fundamentally undemocratic in f. principle. , i The refutation of neither side altered r the situation to any great extent and I consisted for the mot part in tho re- ; iteration of points already brought out. f The judges gave their votes to Stato f Senator V. N. Williams, who acted as moderator, and he read the decision as 5, gi en. I Two selections from tho mandolin and 1 guitar club, and a solo by Miss Ivy 1 Evans, were appreciated by the audi- enee.- |