The record-union., 1893-10-14
QUESTIONS OF PRIVATE RIGHT
AND CITY IMPROVEMENT.

QUESTIONS OF PRIVATE RIGHT
AND CITY IMPROVEMENT.
A respected correspondent, to whose
communication we gave place last week,
complains of the severity of the speed
with which improvement is going on in
this city. The points of his complaint
are that there is disregard of personal
rights-of supposed vested rights, etc.
He complains that a portion of the COM
munitv imagine that they have monop-
oily of progress, and therefore denounce
those who resist improvement at this
time as silurians, etc. Some of the ordi-
nances in the line of improvement he de-
clares to be autocratio and severe in the
extreme.
Thus, years ago, he was compelled to
to pay to pave street with cobbles; now
he is compelled to pay again to put on
bituminous rock. He has awnings that
cost him several hundred dollars, and are
good awnings, resting. on posts in the
street. Now he is compelled to pull them
down and put up a new style of awning,
if he erects any at all.
He declares that he had legal right to
put up the posts and has a moral right
and probably legal right to maintain
them" One portion of his complaint is,
that the city never accepted the streets
which are now to be repaved, and hence
the city as whole is not required to foot
the bill for the new paving, which is an
injustice.
This is fair statement of his case. 1t
reflects the complaint of all others who
oppose the present improvements at this
time. But it seems to US that our friend
wholly mistakes the matter from the be-
ginning to this time. First, he never had
the legal right to plant post on property
he does not own. He has no moral right
to plant post in the highway to sustain
an addition to his house, extending over
property to which he has no title. He
put the posts there by sufferance and
must be presumed to have known that
he had no legal or moral right to do So
that the people through their represent
atives could at any time compel him to
remove The nuisance.
So in this regard his complaint falls
Iifeless. It makes no difference whether
his awning is good one or not, the peo-
pie through their representative body
have declared that the trespass on their
property shall not continue. The people
are supreme, and their will is the law,
and it is neither autocratic nor unchris-
tian to enforce it, since it is the supreme
power and all presumptions are in its
favor.
Again, the awning movement of reform
is not sudden. 1t began now nearly three
years ago: it has been pushed vigorously
ever since. By what right does our friend
claim the continuance of the sufferance
under which he erected his posts in the
street, until he shall determine in his
own mind that the time has come to take
them down? Who gave to anyone but
the people the power to determine that
matter?
So too, as to the streets. Four years ago
the second agitation began in favor of
economic street construction and the
abandonment of the costly old system of
annual street making. By vote at the
polls some time after, and by two-thirds
majority, the people decided that street
Improvement should go on. and that the
whole public should bear a part of the
cost to the extent of hundred thousand
dollars, for which the city credit was by
that vote pledged.
If it is autocratic and 'Czarish'' for the
people to decide such matters according
to the Constitution and the laws, then
our friend is unfortunate in residing
among autocrats and Cars in sufficient
number to rule.
1t is urged by our correspondent that if
the City Trustees have the authority to
order down an old-style awning and
order up new style, by the same rule
they can order down business front and
order something erected more in. accord
ance with their ideas of ''style."
Not so. That is begging the question.
The business front stands on private. not
on public property. Unless it is danger
GUS to life or limb, is a menace to the
public health, or infringes sanitary laws,
no power is possessed by any one to in
terfere with ii. Were it not so, K street
would not be disgraced as it is to-day,
and the whole community shamed by
the miserable, rickety, tumble-down and
unsightly old shed, that stands on one of
the principal corners, and is the scorn Of
all who look upon it-a thing for which
the people are all the time apologizing to
visitors. The owners right to maintain
it is stronger than the peoples desire to
interfere in the matter. So the cases cited
by our correspondent are not analogous.
Our correspondent is mistaken in say
ing that the city compels him to replace
his unlawful awning with one of pat
tern the authorities select The city