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Show H Emil Siedel, the new Socialist mayor of Mil- B waulcee, took office early in the week, amid a great hue and cry from the business men of the H city that business was about to be paralyzed, and H the town launched into a local financial and in- m dustrial panic immediately. H The new mayor's inaugural address, however, ft can hard'y be said to bear out the fears of Mil- M . waukee's Democratic and Republican citizens, H though, of course, a year or two will tell the B story more effectively than 'either the new m mayor's promises or the hubbub of the Milwau- H lcee business interests, and if, on the other hand M Mayor Siedel is as good as his word, the So- H cialistic administration of Milwaukee's affairs will H not hurt that town very much. H "I want," declares the new mayor, "to relieve H the public mind of apprehension that our vie- m tory means the entire overturning of business in H Milwaukee. There will bo no Utopia, no millen- H ium, none of the wild antics charged to us. Our m plans are now embryonic, but nobody need be H alarmed. As to corporations, I shall make them H pay their share of the taxes. We shall do noth- H ing revolutionary. If any question arises which H the administration can not handle we will refer H it to the electorate as a whole. After all, they H are the only 'bosses'. Socialism has been given H a chance to show its merit. We can only do H this by insistent and consistent conservatism. H "Through the city police power we shall try m to prevent overcrowding of street cars, to com H pel the service to furnish enough cars, to clean H cars regularly, to sprinkle the streets between H tracks and keep the dust down, to keep tracks re- H paired and to give the shortest route for transfers. H These propositions are all reasonable. Financial H reform is also to be attempted. There will prob- H ably be introduced new methods of purchasing, H contracting and accounting in most of the city H departments. Let me say that not a job has been H piomlsed and not a job has been asked for. This H itself is a remarkable thing in the municipal poll- H tics of America. The best men will be secured H for any and all positions in the public service." H Here are some of the other reforms promised H in the platform of the party that will control the H mayor, comptroller, treasurer, city attorney, seven H new aldermen-at-large, twenty-one aldermen, a ma- H jority of seven in the aldermanic body: municipal H ownership, including gas and ice plants; sprlnlc- H ling streets hy the street railway company over B all its lines; a seat for every passenger In street H cars; three-cent street car fare; eight-hour day for labor; cheaper gas; cheaper bread; work for the unemployed at union wages at an eight-hour day; levy on corporations for their fu'l share of taxes. A resolution that will probably go before the city council of Salt Lake in the immediate future fu-ture and one that deserves the support of every member of the council, is that which will require out-of-town wholesale and retail merchants who are in the habit of once a year bringing a very large stock of their goods into Salt Lake, open ing them up at one of the local hotels and disposing dis-posing of them to the Salt Lake trade, to pay a heavy license and tax to the city. At present a company may ship twenty-five thousand dollars worth of wearing apparel into town, send out announcements of their arrival all over the city and dispose of their entire stock, their only expense being the rent of two or three rooms at a hotel. They pay no license, nor any tax on their stock, while local merchants are required re-quired to do both, and tiho stock tax here amounts to a very large sum with almost every reputable merchant in the city, he present laxity of the laws governing the situation is most unfair and unjust to Salt Lake dealers and results in enabling enab-ling the out-of-town dealers to sell their goods here direct to consumers on a basis that is prohibitive pro-hibitive to fair competition. |