The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-03
A BONDED DEBT.

The City of San Francisco has arrived at
turning point in her municipal history
and reached crisis in her civic career.
| She is called upon to take her choice be-
tween moving forward to a progressive
and prosperous future by the adoption OF
a new financial policy, or remaining mud
bound amid the ruts and sloughs into
| which she has been led by the silurian
fiscal policy of her past.
1t seems impossible that San Francisco
should hesitate for a single day over the
problem as to which course she should
pursue. With the Half-million Club ask
| ing eagerly for that assistance which shall
enable it to double the present population
of the City; with the Manufacturers AS
ISOLATION seeking earnestly for that en-
couragement which shall aid it in the de
velopment of local industries; with the
| people of the great interior valleys looking
anxiously to the metropolis OF the State
for a sign of the inception Of new era, II
does not seem conceivable that San Fran
cisco will longer be content to lie back
supinely, satisfied with stagnatlon, doing
and attempting nothing for her citizens,
nothing for her industries, nothing for
herself, nothing for the State.
The time has come for action. If this
CITY would respond to the hopes and de-
sires of its generous and ambitious people
and become Greater San Francisco 1t
must adopt the measures and policies by
which other cities have gained increase and
grown great. She must cast away the silly
fetch of dollar limit and cease to @have
spasms at the idea of bonded debt. She
must begin to display the activities which
her silurians have religiously instructed
her to avoid, and to indulge in the stimu-
lants from which she has been hitherto
taught by her tight-isted and small-souled
tax-shirkers to abstain. In a sentence she
must enter upon an epoch of municipal
improvement to be made and paid for by
drafts upon the future in the form of NUM-
cipal bonds.
The legal power of the City of San Fran
cisco to incur an Indebtedness for public
improvements to be evidenced by serial
bonds is ample and explicit. Under the
consolidation act and its various amend
ments in the form of special statutes passed
prior to 1879 the City had not the power
to issue bonds for such purposes. The
new constitution, however, pointed out the
way in which city charters might be
broadened in this respect by the passage
OF general laws. The Legislature in
1887 and again in 1889 enacted
such laws and thereby enabled cities
to issue bonds for needed improve
ments after securing the sanction of their
citizens therefor.
Under these general laws other cities
in California have proceeded to issue
bonds for civic Improvements. They
have found no difficulty in disposing
of such bonds. They have expert
enced in splendid streets, in perfected
systems of sewerage, in ornate and ele-
CANT public structures the benefit of max
ing timely municipal progress. They have
realized an even greater advantage than
that accruing directly from the possession
of good streets, sewers and public struc-
lures in the impulse to all private forms
of industrial enterprise which the public
energy awakened. They found an imme-
diate advance in property values and in
crease in the population. They received
returns of most practical kind from
their widening reputation as progressive
communities, and have discovered that
capital was pleased to come and to remain
where other capital was being actively and
fruitfulfy employed.
This is the universal experience of cities
which resolve that bonded Indebtedness
for public Improvements is blessing and
not a curse. 1t may be the experience of
San Francisco if she will only reach out
and seize the opportunity with which the
folly of her past silurian policy has brought
her face to face.