The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1891-11-23
MIR. CLARK AS AN ExEMPLAR OF
MUNICIPAL ECONOMY.


the less worthy, champion of the citizens
Of Providence, the guardian of their
liberties, the faithful protector Of their
treasury, and, as he informs the men,
bers of the late Republican city conven-
ton by inference, the genuine and una
dulterated representative of the Grand
Old Party of Abraham Lincoln and
Charles Sumner
20, What rise was there. my contrymeni"
il it is allowable to slightly alter the
words of the immortal bard of Avon to
meet the circumstances.
This is not unfamiliar role for the
unselfish Mr.. Clark. During the admin
istration of the late Mayor Doyle, whom
the misguided and infatuated citizens of
Providence would persist in reelecting
seventeen times, in spite of the warnings
of the fervent and disinterested Mr..
Clark, he attacked the reckless extrava-
gance, which was giving the city good
streets, laying out parks, erecting a
City Hall, reorganizing and making eff
cient the police and fire departments,
and maintaining a municipal admins
tration worthy of the second city in New
England and its opportunities for growth
and advancement, and showed, with less
success than might have been expected,
how the city treasury was being bank
rupted, the tax rate was increasing, and
ruin and despair would fall upon the
citizens collectively and individually, if
they did not rise up and crush at the
ballot-box the knaves, fools and harpies,
.who were trying to administer the pub
lie affairs of Providence in a manner
somewhat larger and more enterprising
than those of Exeter and West Green
wich. If the owl boots in the deserted
corridors of the Equitable Building and
the cony makes his burrow in the aban-
doned coal pockets of Water street it is
not from the fault of one wise, far
seeing and patriotic citizen.
In times past as now the self-sacrific-
ing and altruistic Mr.. Clark has not con-
fined himself to warnings, published in
the newspaper at his own proper cost,
but has disinterestedly offered himself
for the suffrages of his fellow-citizens.
The fact that the misguided citi-
zens of Providence have at no time
rewarded Mr.. Clark's efforts in behalf of
himself or another does not in the slight
est degree detract from their moral sub
Unity, and at the close of each disastrous
election day he could wrap his mantle
around him and say:
"'Tis not in mortals TO command success;
Well DO more, sempronius Spencer,
Well deserve It,"
Every good citizen must now be graft
fed to know that by the operation of the
Australian ballot law the benevolent
Mr.. Clark will not have to bear the bur-
den of the expense of vindicating muni-
cipal economy in his own person, but
that the purblind and ungrateful voters,
who refuse to favor his candidacy, will
have to sustain the greater part of it
themselves. The cost of preparing
and distributing the ballots and other
necessary election expenses will have to
be borne by the municipal treasury,
"already drained by reckless expendi-
ture in improving the city" Indeed,
if Mr.. Clark should be able to
obtain a sufficient number of votes to
defeat the election, he might be able to
inculcate municipal economy at cost of
5000 or $4,000 per lesson, and perhaps
renew and repeat it an indefinite num-
Der of times during single campaign.
This would touch even the most reckless
and extravagant taxpayes, who have
been Indifferent so long as Mr.. Clark had
to pay his own bills for patriotism, and
convince them, even more effectually
than his able pen and eloquent voice,
that the only way to save the city from
bankruptcy is TO elect him mayor. 1t
may take some time to accomplish this,
but Mr.. Clark is as persevering as he is
patriotic, and so long as the city can
borrow money enough to pay election
expenses, there is no reason why he
should abandon his labors in behalf of
municipal economy.
If he should not eventually succeed,
if the brief duration of human existence
should prevent what a cycle of time
might be required to accomplish, still he
can, and probably will, persevere so long
as the city is able to pay for its in
struction, to teach il economy at the
rate of 5000 lesson, and when the
time comes for his grateful fellow
citizens to erect his monument in the
public streets. his efligy with eager face
and outstretched arms holding an lAas-
atrlian ballot box, will bid defiance TO the
foes of municipal economy and the super
scription tell to future generations that
this was the image, rs he was in life,
of HENRY G. CLARK. FOR TWENTY
FIVE YEARS NoN-MAyoR OF PRovI-
DENCE.