The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1895-04-19
NO GOVERNMENT.
A Kansas Town That Has No
Municipal Officers.
How Humboldt Manages TO Avoid Paying
Debt Contracted Nearly Twenty
Years Ago-History of
the Affair.

Debt Contracted Nearly Twenty
Years Ago-History Of
the AFFAIR.
The town of Humboldt, Kan, is an
organized city Of the third class with
fifteen hundred people, and for
eighteen years there has not been
a municipal officer in the town,
although the city election has
been held every year. Thereby hangs
a tale, told by the Memphis CONNER
cial Appeal. And as it contains warn
ing against the voting Of bonds and go-
ing into debt it should be told. In the
spring of 1870 there was projected south
from Junction City to Parsons a rail-
road called the southern branch of the
Union Pacific. Humboldt was not a
young town then, but bond voting was
the fashion, and Humboldt, which was
old enough to know better, voted
bonds to the extent of one hundred
and seventy-five thousand dollars
for the road. Not satisfied with this
debt, in 1876 the town voted twenty
five thousand dollars to the Fort Scott
Humboldt & Western, road known in
the west as the "Old Fifth Parallel. !"
This road was graded from Fort Scott
to Humboldt, but twas never equipped.
The grade may be seen to-day by pas
sengers riding along the Missouri Pa
cific. But the grade did not bring the
flood of trade that was expected, and
the bonds being sold to the usual sim
nocent purchaser" the town began to
sl1irmish around the courts tokeep from
paying an unjust debt. The inevitable
came, and in 1876 the town as legal
corporation dissolved into thin air.
When the officer of the court came to
Humboldt in 1876 to compel the mayor
to turn over the interest due on the
bonds he found that, although there
had been a red-hot election the spring
before, and although there was a man
there called mayor, there was in deed
and in legal truth no mayor at all. The
situation has remained the same for
eighteen years. In two years more the
debt will be outlawed. Then Humboldt
is coming up to breathe the free air
once more as municipal corporation.
At present the programme is written
upon tangled web" Every year
the mayor and city council are elected.
The old administration retires and the
new administration comes in--only it
doesn't. 1t comes to the threshold, but
it doesn't enter. 1t does not qualify"
The council meets without taking
the oath of office. The mayor is mere
ly chairman of committee of citizens
the council-and the meetings of the
committee are held regularly. Ordi-
nances are passed giving the city mar
shal and the street commissioner power
to keep the town orderly and clean.
The council cannot handle any public
money. The little money used by the
council is raised by private subscrip-
tion among the residents of the town,
and as it does 60 through any red tape
machine and as everyone who pays
these volunteer taxes knows just how
much he pays for everything, the
money is not squandered. 1t is, in fact,
business administration. The city mar
shal is only a fat functionary. AS city
marshal he has power to do nothing
except scare small boys who throw
melon rinds in the alleys and to notify
owners of pig pens to clean up, but as
constable of Humboldt township he can
st men and enforce the laws as
well as the best policeman in the world.
The street commissioner has no power,
save with the consent of the people,
whose property he grades up or
down. He is a sort of advisory board.
The city clerk issues licenses to show
which are clearly fat, and his records
of the proceedings of the council would
have no weight in any court None of
these appointive officers qualify. The
whole machinery of administration in
the little town is carried on by common
consent
The present mayor-the man who
was elected, but who has not qualified,
and will not-B w. I, McElroy, editor
of the Humboldt Union. Mr.. McElroy
has been in the little town for thirty
years, and his paper is twenty-nine
years old. He thinks when the citizens
get out of this hole the man who offers
to vote bond on the town site will be
hanged. He says that the city stands
ready to compromise with the limo.
cent purchasers" of the bonds for ex-
actly what the purchasers are alleged
to have paid, twenty-five cents on the
dollar. This proposition, he declares,
has been made and rejected several
times. Every few months an officer
from some court tries to find funds of
the extinct corporation in some bank in
the county. Not long ago the officer
tried lola. But SO far the courts have
been unable to get the funds. The lit
tie town seems to have the best of the
contest, and only time will release it
from the trouble.