Wichita eagle., 1889-06-28
PAYMENTS, WHAT AND HOW.
the Editor of the Eagle

TO the Editor OF the Eagle.
1t may be unnecessary to give any opin-
ion on the question Of what pavement we
are to have.
The scheme may now be in soak. The
character of the pavement may already be
fixed The contractor may be now get
ting ready.
There seems to be a fatal singularity in
all city works that outside people, disin-
terested people, contracting people, first
see the needs, wants, desires, wishes and
demands of people before any Of the peo-
pie at home feel the need OF 1t.
This was true of the street cars, true of
gas, water and sewerage, and it may be of
pavement. and whilst many good, reliable,
prominent, large taxpayers advocate
pavement yet l am not entirely con-
WINGED that the foreign element
did not first discover what bind people we
were not TO see that pavements were the
only thing needed to make first class
city in each, every and all respects. Time
was when pavements followed bushes.
but pavements now are so constructed that
they draw business as magnet draws
loose iron filings.
The writer of this piece, though opposed
to any general scheme of paving from pru-
dental motives, has lived ID the
west long enough to know that
prudence is denominated parsimony
frugality as stinginess, and that prodigal-
ity and public spirited qualities are con-
vertible terms. and that any opposition to
any improvement which is TO be paid for
from taxes and earned by laborers is a per-
sonal insult to every man who favors the
Improvement. Hence the same prudence
that moved the writer to express his opin-
ion that we ought not at this time to pave,
restrained him from opposing the pave
ment.
Pavements on Main street have
been ''resolutely resoluted" upon,
also on Market street; also
on First street. Douglas avenue will
follow soon, and Water street; also Second
street; also some purely residence streets.
We have been noted for trees, for fine
buildings, for street car service, fine
water works, gas and electric lights and
packing houses, as well as churches and
colleges, and railroads, and now the past
is past and we shall dim the luster OF
all other western cities on the
question of pavement, both as re-
CARDS quantity and rapidity. l also
hope as to permanency and quality if not
in expense to the property holder.
As tax payer is it too much to ask that
all streets to be paved at the expense of
the tax payer be paved with such material
as majority of the resident tax payers to
be affected by the pavement see tit to de-
eide, provided, however, that all the streets
named shall have voice to the end that the
scheme adopted shall apply to Main, Doug
las, First and Market streets.
AS the city council has measurably left
this thing to owners by apportionment Of
citizen committees, it seems fair that the
owners decide this question of what pave
ment shall be put down. The writer
hereof has no pet pavement" no CORES
pendent in paving business" no FAX to
grind" in paving, but simply desires that
the best pavement be put down, and the
cost of which is in his mind secondary. To
the Spectator who desires to pave that he
may sell out the quality of pavement, is
secondary, but to the permanent investor,
the man who buys to hold, the man who
expects to reside in Wichita, stand by its
fortunes and see its streets daily for life
time, the question of durability and per-
manency is the entire proposition, the
question of first cost minor item. Z.