Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-06-03
ABLISHED 1910.
THE MEETING TO-DAY AT 2 O'CLOCK.


A meeting of citizens has been called to
assemble at the County Courtroom to-day,
TO secure an expression of public opinion
not as to the ffty-cent act, which may be re-
garded as defeated and dead-but upon some
plan and rate of settlement of the debt of
the extinct municipality OF Memphis that
will satisfy the creditors who hold its bonds,
coupons, scrip, ledger balances, judgments, or
mandamuses, and such settlement as the
Taxpayers can pay promptly and meet the
general demands of the Taxing-District gov
ernmeut for paving, policing, sanitation and
other purposes.
As will be seen from the interviews with
six members of the Taxing District Council,
elsewhere given in this issue of the APPEAL,
the fifty cent act is regarded by them as a
measure so mischievously confusing that
even Philadelphia lawyer could not ex-
plain it as having any coherency, or as lead
ing to any sequential or logical result
through direct and. definite provisions. In
deed, it so far "o'ersteps It's purpose" as to be
Objectionable to the bondholders themselves.
They object to it, we understand, because
they doubt if any bonds issued by virtne of
it would stand before the courts. But this
we put aside. The people have no faith in
the bondholders who, under the Fippin
Compromise, only funded the tainted
bonds, and refused to fund any
others, Though begged and beseeched to
do so, and who pushed their mandanuses
through the courts until in one day 1920, 900 |
of this class Of judgments was thrown like a
crushing avalanche upon the people, most of
whom were at the time questioning whether |
it would not be better to flee from city |
which the CREDITOR, more than the yellow |
fever epidemic of that and the year before, |
had helped to bankrupt. 1t was TO get be-
yond their cruelty. calculating, 'cold-blooded,
grasping and grinding power that the Tax
ing District form of government was substi-
tuted for that of the obsolete municipality
with its back-door. shaving-shop trickery, its
ineficiency and its mean, contemplate po-
litical haggling and huggermugger. When
that government was organized specific
declaration was made that the step was taken
not with a view to cheat even such remorse-
less creditors as glori6ed in pressing man
damuses on plague-smitten people, but only
to rear a rampant of defense against their
efforts to destroy what little the continued,
the almost annual yisitations of disease, Of
commercial disaster, and the political up
turnings and civil war had left to the long -suf-
fering community. The name of the city was
surrendered and its anomalous history was
closed with the chapter of legislative relief
and release. the benefcencs and blessings of
which are 80 patent to the poorest and
plainest that not one man can be found who
would suggest a change in it or even moot
its surrender.
On the night OF the last day of January,
1881, at public meeting called for that
purpose, the citizens of the Taxing-District
for the second time declared their purpose to
pay the debt of Memphis and rendered in
its settlement sum believed TO be equal to
that which the bondholders thought they had
secured under the 6fiy-cent act which the
Council are about to- reject. They were
offered twenty five cents of the face value of
all the Indebtedness (ssve the 100000 of
Flippin compromise bonds) and the assets
of the defunct city. At the meeting at
which this settlement was agreed upon-a
meeting, by the way, thoroughly rep
resentative-the attorney OF the Tax
ing-District reminded those present
that the Tdring- District government
" had nothing 10 do NTH the settlement Of the old
" city debt. He wosild nerer agree to gipe the
" creditors Of The old city gouernment an oppor-
"tunity TO put mandamus on The people of
=" Memphis for any purpose. The old tarss are
" 10 befarned over 10 the 6OndhoIdrs, and the sum
Of tiOenty five c,nts proposed TO be paid to the
creditors tCiH gre them fifty cents or oper on the
dollar for bonds Which they paid but treaty or
thirty eertsJor." This was the spirit of that
meeting, and it ought to be the
spirit of every meeting called to con-
slider the settlement Of the debt Of
the defunct municipality of Memphis,
and should be the spirit guiding
the Taxing District government whenever it
is invited to face a settlement, whether by
act of the Legislature, by petition or by rese-
lutions. That government has legitimate
and well-d defined functions-the settlements of
the debt of Memphis is not one of them. On .
the contrary, as the above extract from
Heiskell shows, any interference or attempt, I
by advice or otherwise, to interfere with or
assume the settlement of that debt, is in vio-
lation not only of the law OF its being but OF
the purposes the people had in view in its
creation, and the spirit that has animated
them ever since. A purpose they emphasized
at the meeting in January, 1881, and have
still more emphaiically emphasized by the
interviews published in the APPEAL, with
ii
the Council 10 agree. The meeting of JAN
uary, 1881, in the resolutions then adopted,
declared that the settlement then proposed
should be separate and distinct from the netp
gOU;rnment"
As in 1881, SO in 1882 the 'bondholders,
still piling up their judgments and man
damuses, come demanding a settlement
through the Taxing-District government, J
whose every citadel they have vainly assailed
these past two years in the State and Federal {
Courts. These courts-the Federal and State
Supreme Courts included-have distinctly
declared that there IS no tpay by ,chieh the Tar
ing District government be made responsible
for he debt of the city Of Memphis or be forced e
10 ley tar TO pay il safe by act cf the Legis-
la.ure.
Such an act they knew they could not get
the people to sanction, the Legislature !
to pass, hence this covert and con- /
using fifty-cent act which Judge Clapp de- /
clares connects the Turing District nth the !
yof Memphis by lis fiji section, WhicI reriUes
and makes operative tie sirth section Of The Ftp
pin act, Uh;ch made the Iery of a tar to pay the S
inte,e est and prineipI Of the debt obligatory upon
the Council.
If the Taxing District Council were to g
adopt this fifty-c act the door would be t
thrown wide open for m andamuses, and the =
work necessary to keep the city in a good 8
sanitary condition and p ave its streets would
come to an end; and even should contest as a
to its validity be brought about by iniunc- !
tions and suits in the courts-as would inev- ;
itably follow, the results would be
equally disastrous. Distrust and de-
spair would come to every man, :
the spirit of the people would be broken, b
and the brighter prospects now breaking S
upon us would give way TO gloom. Besides, I