The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-10
THE PROPOSED COMMISSIONS.

The introduction of the Commission bills,
whether they pass the Legislature or not, will
have served one good end at least, in thor
oughly arousing the taxpayers of this city to
O sense of the danger which threatens them.
1t will convince the respectable gentlemen
who now stay away from the polls habitually,
who take merely mildly sentimental inte-
rest in politics, and who have not time to
attend to their public duties, that if they do
not value their liberties enough to preserve
them by paying slight attention to public
affairs, the chances are that they will not
have any liberties ere long to preserve. We
scarcely expect to make any decided impress
sion upon the non-voting respectability of
our city, however, by appeals to
them to aid in preserving our republican
form of government in its integrity, and the
liberty of thought, speech, and action which
depends upon it. This theme has been
harped upon until it has ceased to be attrac-
tive, and the cry of "wolf, wolf" has been
raised so often that no one pays any attention
to it, and the men who ought to have most
influence in public affairs attend to their
factories, workshops, and warehouses with
the most perfect confidence that liberty is
secure, end that public affairs will take care
of themselves. This class can be alarmed,
however when their pockets are threatened,
and the incipient schemes of plunder which
are contained in the three commission bills
now before the Legislature should open the
eyes of every citizen, and force him to con-
slider where we are drifting The tax-rate
is now $3.50 on 800, but
it will be no exaggeration
to say that if the proposed commissions go
into operation the rate will, inside of five
years, be increased to $4 or more, and the
city in addition will be burdened with debt
to which our present pecuniary responsibilities
appesr a very small matter. Property holders
now comp'a ain that the taxes are heavy; but
what will they say when they are more than
doubled, as they assuredly will be? Property
will in very many sections of the city not be
worth owning, with an ever increasing tax
upon it, and liability at any time to be called
upon to bear the burden of the expense at
tending indefinite Improvements" pro-
jected and carried out by all-powerful and
wholly irresponsible commissions.
The second section of the bill for the crea-
tion of the Board OF Public Worksstates that
the said board shall have exclusive cogni-
zanee, control, and agement, frst-for
we need go no further at present than the
first clause in this extraordinary list of powers
granted to the commissioning ell highways,
and of the opening, altering, regulating,
grading, tagging, curbing, and guttering of
all streets, roads, places, and avenues, and of
the right to purchase, control, and use all
materials connecte Herewith" This
makes the commissioners absolute
owners of the streets already in existence, and
of any they may choose hereafter to open in
any section of the city. 1t has been suggest
ed in connection with the Penn Square agi-
tation that it would be good thing to have
fine broad street running diagonalIy across
the city, between Penn Square and the Park.
If the commissioners should choose te adopt
this good ides they can, under this bill.
cut through all the buiIdinos
in the northwest section of the central Dor
tion of the city without regard to the wishes
Of the property y-hOlders, without asking the