Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-08-16
THEY DO STRANGE THINGS
The Force of Circumstances in the Flee
trio Car Proposition.

trio Car Proposition.
The Davenport Democrat takes
issue with other papers of the three
cities. including THE ARGUS, in their
position on the matter of electric
cars on the Rock Island bridges.
While TIE ARGUS has been fully
aware of the attitude of the Demo-
crat. and, in fact, all the papers in
the three cities on the street railway
Improvement question since the is
sue was made, it has not until now
taken any other paper to task for its
opinion. however different from its
own. Believinging itself to be in the
right, and on the side of progress,
and. champIoning the vehicle of the
masses, it has taken pride in main
tanning it, and while ordinarily car
ing little for the position of other
papers, it has been source of graf
iicatiOn to know that with the en-
ception of two instances in Daven-
port, all the papers in the three
cities are favorable to the adoption
of electricity, while one paper in
this city has cunninglv avoided man
ifesting seeming interest in the mat
ter at all. OF course, no one know
ing the course of the local sheet on
all occasions where the ferry inter
est were in jeopardy, would be for
an instant misled by this subterfuge.
A Frail Argument
Adopting as text statement APP
pearing in the ARGUS relating to the
way the petitions were being signed
praying for transition to electric cars
and also the general disposition on
the part of the public to endorse the
movement, the Democrat proceeds
with column discourse, the general
tone of which is to attack the street
railway company right and left and
upon points which are not relevant
to the subject at issue, andwhich are
sadly lacking in consistency with
the Democrats declaration of few
DAYS ago, that it harbored no feeling |
in common against the railway peo-
pie. But the most ridiculous part of
the Democrats argument is the as
sertiOn that the people of Rock Isl |
and and Moline are favorable to the |
electric cars because they will scare |
horses on the bridges and thus keep
them from going over there, and con-
sequently Davenport will suffer.
The ARGUS is surprised to see such a |
silly statement in the Democrat 1t
regrets to witness such appalling |
evidence of REORGANIZATION on the
part of n newspaper that is generally
found in the van of champions of
public improvements. The ARGUS
would rather prefer to glance
backward, say half dozen
wears. and recall from its columns
after argument, telling and
sensible arguments, too, in behalf of
cars on the bridge line with here and
there body blow whack at the ferry
for its efforts to twart the peoples
wish to have better means of COM
between these two grow
ing sister cities. You would have
seen no such assertion as the one
herein referred to appearing in the
Democrat in those days. They were
times when there was no immediate
prospect of cars of any sort on the
bridge line, but finally the day when
it did begin to look as if the long
sought for improvement would come,
the Democrat astonished its readers
by changing color one day, and then
when, as time progressed, and the
cars over the bridge began to look
like dead certainty, the Democrat
began to fight on the other side,
cautiously at first to be sure, but
no less surely. and one Sat-
urday morning just before the
Rock Island council was to act on the |