San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-05-01
SHORT STOPS.
What the People arc Saving.

What the People are Saying.
A former old resident of San Antonio
on recent visit after years of absence
found himself unable to account for til
growth and prosperity of the city, an(
expressed il as his opinion that the place
had outgrown its surroundings and mus
do something different or go backward.
i
He suggested that the esta bliShment o.
manufactures alone would check the ten
dency TO retrograde until normal con
dition was reached.
| Our city seems to be puzzle to its bust.
ness men, let alone the stranger. We are
q community OF consumers; we live of
trade and traffic; the Stranger,-the mul-
| titudinous stranger,-helps us to the tune
| of thousands of dollars yearly; Uncle
Sans establishment helps us; but above
| all the great boundless frontier pours in
| natures StorehouSe.
So extensive is the field from which
comes all our prosperity that even Shrewd
business men fail to comprehend it. We
know that our merchants sell their goods,
that our mechanics and laborers have
ness, and we seldom stop TO make an in
vestigation of the sources of our business
activity and commercial life.
San Antonio needs more than she does
factories, comprehensive, intelligent
system of public improvements. Private
enterprise has run ahead of public i'm
provements The city has outgrown its
city government.
A few blocks of paved streets; a few
grass plots; a new city hall; some new
bridges, are the sum total of the public
improvement made in the last ten years,
and in that time the population has more
than doubled.
San Antonio is no longer a Mexican
town, although its lack of a modern sew
erage system is the chief characteristic OF
Mexican town.
A sewerage system; the building of am
pie public drives; the opening and orna-
mentation of parks; with commodiOuS
hotels, will do more for us now than fac
tories.
When manufacturing interests begin to
| shift this far south, San Antonio will get
her share without any special effort on
the part of her capitalists.
n
The forced growth of any interest is
| likely to be a sickly one. Let us put our
house in order TO receive company, and
our visitors will find way TO interest
| themselves.
| The strict enforcement of the laws of
the state intended TO suppress sporting
houses, and the social evil, to enforce OBJ
Servance OF Sunday as a religious day,
| would kill any other frontier city but San
Antonio; here our officials can experiment
to their hearts content, and yet our city
continues to grow.
When our grand juries have had the
Sunday law under consideration; and the
| district attorney and sheriff can walk to
their devotions without seeing fifty open
violations of the law, the public conscience
will be purged.
! How foolish it was to let Texas legis-
| lature pass law that fitted some little
seat of learning like granfather's hat, and
live, liberal, cosmopolitan city?
|
| After all the people are a law unto
themselves; they know their own bus
mess best; the laws are meant for their
| benefit they must be administered so as
not to be TO their disadvantage or injury.
| This is an unwritten code, but it Is as old
as civilized man.
Sunday is observed in our city as a day
of rest and recreation; a day of religious
ferver with all religious sects; day of
| freedom by the great bulk of the people;
all attempts to screw down the coffin lid
| of the state law have been firmly resist
ed; yet it as much the duty of the officers
of the laws, of the grand juries to punish
! Sundaylaw breakers as to punish and
suppress the music of the keno wheel.
To the Voters of the Sixth o. Ward