St. Paul daily globe., 1890-03-30
The Retrenchment Side.


| On the 18th of January the city coun-
Gil made pretense of attempting to re-
duce the salaries of city officials. The
! municipal otficeh0lderS were making
too much money, said the aldermen,an
as the latter were desirouS of pretend
ing to carry out their ante-election-
pledges, they concluded to take up this
matter. No one ever thought for a mo-
| ment that anything would come of it,
and nothing did. 1t was the middle of
January when this matter was brought
up. and by the 1st of March the
committee having the matter in charge
reported on it. Nothing was attempted
with any of the salaries except those of
| the employees of the city engineers Of
! fee. they not being political workers,
and, therefore, of little account, and, in
| the end, not even those were materially
changed Another bluff and another
characteristic ending.
About the middle of this same Janu-
ary the p. G. held very important
meeting, supposed to have been impor-
tant from the fact that outsiders we're
carefully excluded. at which it was eX-
, pected that the much talked of investi-
cation of Capt. Harvey's connection
with the Davidson robbery case would
Cured. There had been good deal of
| talk of Harvey's cro0kedneSS. but he
! was allowed to go unmolested and un-
rebuked even. Another matter entirely
caused Harvey's decapitation some six
months later.
For the 18th of January was reserved
! the honor of being the date of the enac-
| ton of another brilliant piece of NUM-
| cipai law carpentering. The eight
| hour ordinance, with regard to city
| work. was repealed. The law which
| had been demanded by every labOring
| man in the city. the law which gave
| universal satisfaction to all concerned.
! the law which was credit to the city
| in every respect, was stricken from the
| statutes and another retrenchment and
reform pledge was carried out.
| Jan. 2S was red letter day in the
! other gigantic stride toward the millen-
! ium was made. The p. c. decided. with
| all the pomp and circumstance of its
! mighty power, that tall men, and tall
men only, were wanted for the police
! force, and Immediately thereafter the
earth moved more steadily in its orbit.
| just about that time, too, the first real
| rude, unSeemly quarrel arose in the city
| council, and there has been quarrel of
some kind on there ever since. Aid.
| Downs was an old member of the COun-
| Gil; Aid. Potter was a new one. Aid.
| Downs thought he knew more than Pot
| ter; Potter differed with him. Then
they had it, and they had it hottie
first of long and complicated Wrangle.
| But the SHOWS were fast disappearing,
winter was casting longing glances at
the lap of spring before saying good
] cts nf or III
| nature, either in the way of retreuch-
ment or reform, had been done. The
city's funds were being expended 'just
in the old sweet way' and they were
not being increased. The aldermen
| cast about them. chanced upon the en-
| ployment agencies, which seemed to
| be making money, and proceeded to
| bleed them forthwith. Their licenses
| were increased to an eXorbitant sum.
| This would have been very we'll, but it
has been recently decided that the Ordi-
nance was illegal and the employment
| agencies are now getting their money
back. Another piece of work ending
| i'll blunder.
In the early DAYS of March, when the
sun began to pour his rays down on the
streets of Minneapolis, and the frOsts of
winter began to leave the earth. the
| tnof0ugnfareS or tne city became well
nigh impossible. which condition was
fostered by an occasional spring rain.
Was any effort made to put the streets
into anything approaching the condi-
ton supposed to prevail on we'll paved
| and we'll kept streets in a well regu-
lated city? No; retrenchment and re-
form would not admit of it. No matter
! if citizens were compelled to wade in
slime and mud and ooze, so long as the
of the year would show a small saving
over the expenditures Of Democratic
administration.
Having every department Of the city