Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-08-04

their refusal to let the city have. for instant
use. a portion of the fund In their charge
The members OF the board of health de-
clared, in the most emphatic terms, that they
needed ten thousand to twenty thousand dol
lars instantly, nOc, IN order to so thoroughly
cleanse the city as to render the advent of yell
low fever here most improbable; that with this
immediate financial help hundreds of lives
and millions of dollars would be saved, and
the fact probably placed beyond cavil, that
Memphis can always be protected against the
endemic 1t was said the Towards had
upward of forty thousand dollars at their
command, of which this city gave ten thou
sand dollars IN 1873. LISTENING to the ur-
gent appeals for money made by physicians
in whose Judgment we all have implicit CON
fdence, | offered a resolution (verbal) that
committee wait on the Towards and see what
could be done; and that the same commit e
wait on individuals The resolution was sec
onded by Judge Smith, but withdrawn by
me at the request of Clarence Hunt, who had
some written resolutions, more general in
their scope, and embracing the object | had
in view. In the course of the discussion it
was understood that while the Towards, as
individuals, would like to do all in their
power, yet, as an association, they had no au-
thority, under their charter, to use their
money for anything but to nurse the sick and
the destitute; that they Endorsed all the views
of the physicians as to the great good which
a few thousands of dollars could do now, and
the, terrible evils that might be averted but
their charter forbade their letting the city
have one dollar of the ten thousand she
gave them in 1878. They argued thai
the only thing preventing the loan was their
want of the legal power to do so; for no one
doubted their individual wishes on that head.
Now, | knew they had been using their fund
in buying United States bonds as an invest
ment. | knew they had bought and sold
ctn of ba Of
that fund; and no one can explain why they
cannot buy and sell insurance or bank stock
as legally as gas stock. If their charter
allows them to buy United States bonds and
gas stock as an investment of their funds,
why can they not buy Memphis bonds? No
one will question their right to make any in
vestment of their fund they may deem safe;
aud if our city bonds had the credit which
United States bonds have, there would be no
doubt that the Towards would loan the city
ten thousand dollars or twenty thousand dol
lars, to be used as she might choose. Know
ing what the Towards had done, under their
Otca construction of their charter, | thought
the reasj given for refusing to let the city
have ten thousand dollars as unkind and I'M
natural as they were illogical; and on this
strained construction of their powers l COM
mented in terms | now regret for their Sc
verify, though | had not an unkind thought
of the Towards as body. Everybody COM
to the sick and destitute of Savannah and
Brunswick, last year; and some of US thought
it not only wise but humane for them to give
some now, to prevent the introduction of the
epidemic here. The thought was to guard
against plague which, besides burying
thousands of people and wasting millions of
wealth, would leave our stricken city with
cheerless, dismal future, and with ''her poor
and destitute" quadrupled on her hands. In
ninety days after its advent, the forty thou
sand dollars would all be gone, with many
valuable lives, because the charter of the
Towards, as they construe it, while authorH-
ing them to deal in gas stock as an invest
ment, does not permit them, on the threat
ened approach of an epidemic, to act on the
wholesome adage that IAN ounce of proven
ton is worth pound of cure This narrow
view of a vital question was the cause of my
comment, and not the Towards as body.
Will you do me the favor to publish this?
Truly, J. It. IRRELEVANT.