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Show The Question of the Bonds. H The City Council lias published the uses to I be made of tho $600,000 in case the property W holders of this city vote to issue the bonds. S There will hardly any one deny that the work flj should be done. It is necessary in the best in- W lerests of the welfare and health of the city. The JH opposition will only be partisan, and that oppo- H sition will be intensified by ecclesiastical hate 1 of all progress unless it be under priestly direc- 8 tion. The press that specially urged the issue of i i the bonds under Mayor Morris, are fighting the j proposed issue. They have suddenly grown dis- i trustful of the integrity of purpose of the present S city government, though when Mayor Morris was W buying useless titles to water, though he was plunging on, In many ways apparently indlffer- H ent to the best interests of the city, they had not B one word of protest, not one word of caution, jfl even. But now they are much exercised. They m charge dally a bad record which the physical Con- M dition of the city refutes, but their chief argu- m ment is a fear for the future. It is a (alse, dis- ij honest cry, as every taxpayer can see for him- m self just by following their reasoning. For in- B stance, when the News declares that the men v are honest enough in themselves, but cannot re- n sist the power that' is driving them on, what fi could the News reply if forced to explain what 8 that impelling force happens to be? It makes j wholesale charges of official dishonesty every flj day, not one of which it could verify if brought into court and a demand was made of it for l proofs of what it charges. It is an old habit with W the News. All people who were here two years n ago will remember how it tried and convicted mt Chief Sheets every day and that during all that IB time it had not one fact to justify its charges. W Its files extend back more than half a century. M If any taxpayer is curious enough to go back and m wade through those files he will find two proml- B nent facts regarding its career. One is that it m has steadily opposed all progress save it met the jfj sanction of the church, and in doing this it has j scrupled at no statement, no matter how false and m preposterous. The other is that it has from the ffl first been the abject slave of the priesthood in m all things. In the first forty years of Its existence jl It never had the independence to ask that the j streets be sprinkled, even. Rather, when that j was urged it sot its face against it, denied that it was a sanitary measure, and had a physician ! of its own school, under oath, declare that dirt j was healthy. It is well to keep in mind that the first year after the city was wrenched from priestly control the death rate was reduced more i than 60 per cent. It has helped to rob the people ) that have supported it for half a century. |
