The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-12
Republican newspapers please copy.
THE SATURDAY, NIGHT FIzzLE.

THE SATURDAY Y NIGHT FIZZLE.
EXACTLY what the persons who tried to get
up mass meeting on Saturday night at the
Academy of Music proposed to accomplish
by inviting the respectable citizens of Phila-
delphia to sit in hot theatre and hear the
report of the self-appointed committee of
anti-Penn Squarites who made themselves
ridiculous at Harrisburg last winter, it is i'm
possible for us to tell. 1t looks, however, as
if they desired to make their grievances
an issue in the political campaign
now opening, and to place an anti-Penn
Square independent ticket before the public.
The meeting, however, was a disgusting
fzzle, and less than five hundred per-
sons appeared to represent the twenty
five thousand names said to be at
tached to the petition for the aboli-
tion of the Building Commission which was
carried to Harrisburg not many weeks ago by
the self-appointed committee aforesaid
There was much sound doctrine in the report
read on Saturday night, and in some
of the speeches made, in re-
gard to the necessity for reform in
our municipal government; but as reform,
according to the report and the utterances of
the speakers, appeared to mean nothing more
than the non-erection of the much-needed
public buildings, unless they can be erected
in the neighborhood of Sixth and Chestnut
streets, we are afraid the only result of the
meeting will be to make those who partici-
pated more ridiculous in the eyes of the COM
munity at large than they have hitherto been.
The character of the opposition to the plans
so;o Coz nf fha,
lie buildings is we'll understood by the people
of Philadelphia, and as the corruption so
loudly charged upon the commission has thus
far existed, all appearances, only in the imagi-
nation of those who are interested pecuniarily
in another site than that chosen by an i'm
mense majority of the people of Philadel-
phia last October, the plain, practical citizens,
who desire to see proper accommodations
provided for the courts and the municipal
offices, find it impossible to get up any en-
thusiasm in behalf of any of the too transpa-
rent lodges of the anti-Penn Squareites.
The attempt of the Washington Square
property-holders to make the real reform
movement now in progress, with fairspros
pect of success, bear the burden of theil
grievances, is disgraceful, and it shows how
utterly mean and selfish are those who have
been fighting the Penn Square project The
meeting on Saturday night should prove t.
those who have been excited by the Chinese
thunder of the anthem Squareites hov
utterly without influence they are, and hov
little they can rely upon any support from tn
community at large. A cause that canno
collect five hundred persons at a mas
meeting after all the noise has been mad
about it, that is possible, may be set down a
practically worthless; and the anti-Penl
Squareites, having now demonstrated thei
weakness to the satisfaction of themselve
and of the public, ought to subside, and b
putting up the rent of their offices fifty pc
cent. try and make as much hay as the
can while the sun shines, for ere many yeal
the office-letting business viii certainly ceas
to be very profitable in the vicinity of Wasl
ington and Independence Squares. There
no use in trying to prevent the inevitable.