Los Angeles herald., 1890-11-16
Men and Acts the Repub-
licans Must Shoulder.
The List of Officials More or
Less Derelict.
A Strong Indictment of Some Acts
of the Council.
Eight Republican Officials Found Want
ing-A Party full of Criminality
and Turpitude.

Ell IldulAOllu, uCldulLiLS leCpuOIICdlL
county tax collector.
A. A. Montana, Republican county
auditor, charged with issuing fraudulent
county warrants.
Frank Lauterio, Republican deputy
county auditor, charged with issuing
fraudulent warrants.
Henry w. Edelman, Republican dep
uty county clerk, now on trial, charged
with issuing fraudulent warrants. There
are forty indictments pending against
him.
Robert S. Platt, Republican county
tax collector, short in his accounts and
removed from Office by judicial pro
.cedure.
John w. Francis, Republican county
recorder, investigated by his bondsmen,
who have withdrawn from his surety.
James M. Damron, Republican men,
ber of the legislature, charged with
numerous forgeries.
Walter G. Lockwood, Republican city
justice of the peace, charged with con-
cealing a person charged with a felony
to-wit: his warm friend, Hon. James
M. Damron.
Then there is the city council. None
OF the members are charged with any
crime. They are not under any indict-
ment, except that of public opinion,
but they and their acts are, together
with the above-named worthless, charged
to the account kept by the people, with
the Republican party.
Then there is the board of education,
with its teachers agency connection,
its constant appropriations for unfore-
seen, but alleged to be necessary, addi-
tions to new school buildings.
Then there is the library board, which
expends large sums of money on opera
scores, and pays the librarian salary
while visiting in the east.
Then there is the district attorney,
who has failed to convict any one of his
derelict fellow officials, or to collect a
sou marquee from their bondsmen.
Then there is-but the list could be
prolonged indefinitely. The burden is
large for the moribund party to bear,
and it forms stencil in the nostrils of
all good citizens.
The HERALD proposes to give in de-
tail the facts which show the criminal
ity and turpitude of the Republican
party, both in city and county matters.
The following statement from Mr.
Theo. S. Shaw, well-known attorney
of this city, anent the city council is per-
tinent and meaty:
Retrenchment in Municipal Expenses and
Less Robbery in Street Work.
eve have city government, city Off
cials of various kinds and grades. A
common council for the city of Los An
geles, and within our corporate limits
we have other unconvicted criminals.
Our orthodox friends also tell us that we
have in existence the devil. We have q
city government, that, with one or two
honorable exceptions, has been the most
extravagant, villainous and oppressive in
all measures affecting the general public
interests, has ever cursed any munich
pality upon the Pacific slope. With no
settled line OF conduct in municipal af-
fairs beyond fixed belief in their inher-
ent right to the spoils of Office, and di-
vision of the revenues derived from taxes
and assessments wrung from the toiling
taxpayer, among a flock of needy depu-
ties and other cormorants living upon
crumbs from official tables, the present
city council, with the exception above
stated, has, during the period OF its un-
fortunate existence. hatched and brought
to light more villainous schemes for the
spoliation of property owners and the
benefit of contractors than were ever be-
fore thought possible.
''This council entered upon Office at a
time of depression in all lines of busi-
ness. Real estate had deprecated in
value and had no marketable value out
side of few localities. A great num-
ber OF property holders were battling to
pay interest ON loans and mortgages
and stay foreclosures. The flush times
of the "boom days" had left an aching
void in mind and pocket. 1t was a
time demanding honest, careful, eco
nomical city, gOvernment-a retrench-
ment OF expenses; a cutting down of
taxes and assessments; lessening OF
municipal burdens, that the toiler IN
every avocation along the highway of
life might be able to discover through
the over-hanging shadows some CLEANS
of celestial sunshine. But from the
very inception of their administration
insatiate thirst for public plunder and
the division of the public revenues
among those trained to be useful and
silent led to almost every thieving
scheme imaginable under the guise OF
so-called municipal Improvement.
Opening of Streets.
Among the most vexatious and op-
pressive of all these schemes has been
that of the laying out, opening, extend
ing, etc., of streets, and to condemn and
acquire property for that purpose,
under an act of the legislature OF the
state of California, approved March 8,
1885,
GAS an open, patent. indisputable
fact, there were so many so-called
streets, avenues and alleys mapped off,
laid out and dedicated to the city's use
by real-estate operators during the
"boom times" all over the thirty-six
square miles of city territory, that the
great and instructive fact became ap-
parent to the most ordinary mind that
even under the most generous appor-
tionment of public revenues for street
purposes, it would be an impossibility
for the city to properly improve any
considerable number of streets thus laid
out and accepted, and that fully one
third of them should be closed up and
thrown back into cultivation for orchard
and garden purposes. All over the city
for two years have been and still now
are streets accepted by the city author
ity upon which no street work has ever
been done-streets quilted out by win
ter torrents. or the floating dust swept