St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-02-20
DENOUNCED AT HOME.

1
One Of the most extraordinary feat
! ures of the agitation in favor of the
| Howard charter is the fact that, after
| having been got together by Minneap-
order that all of the other cities Of
| the state might be obliged to conform
! to the Minneapolis idea, it is now re-
| jected, condemned and abused in the
| strongest terms in the city Of Mime
apolis itself. The people of st. Paul
| are requested to change their system
| OF government to accommodate Min
| neapolis, while at the same time Min
neapolis has discovered, since the last
| legislative session, that she is as aIlx-
1ous as any one to get rid of it. When
an opponent of the Howard charter
| system was chosen to meet its repre-
sentative in joint debate in this city,
most ardent unbeliever in it was
found to hail from Minneapolis. Now
comes the Minneapolis Times and says
| that there are advocates of NUM-
cfpal reform who, strangely and unreal
sonably enough, favor vesting large
powers in a municipal council in pref
erence to concentrating them in an ex-
ecutive head of the state government,
to be exercised through the heads Of
departments; and in every city where
the plan of government by council has
been tried the results have been alto
gether unsatisfactory" Taking up
the experience of it's own city, the
Times declares that the system of gov
eminent by council in Minneapolis has
been recklessly extravagant and an
utter failure.
They have tried the Howard char
argue about generalities, or to pit alb
stract principles against one another.
They have eaten Of the dish and find
1t unpalatable. The Minneapolis mu-
mclpal system today is essentially the
Howard charter system. How do the
people like it? The Times says: at
is under this government by council
that contracts have been awarded so
recklessly and corruptIy as to become
public scandal" AS a relief from
the intolerable abuses of the system
which has existed there, which
it has required executive vetoes.
backed by mass meetings and threats
OF lynching to prevent from doing it's
worst, the people of Minneapolis are
ready to do almost anything to get rid
OF a scheme of local rule that has
proved worse than a failure and to
make trial of concentration of power
and responsibility in one head.
We do not wonder at their position
we are glad that they have learned
by their sad experience But is it not
an extraordinary and unheard-of thing
that, with this example set to us by a
city whose boundaries join our own,
there should be an active ele-
ment in St. Paul today which insists
that we shall take up and put on the
discarded garments of Minneapolis:
and abandon charter that, whatever
its defects, has saved us from finan-.
c1al ruin, in order to adopt one that
shows itself the parent of corruption
and abuse? The thing is inexpIicable
by any of the motives that govern the
conduct Of men in ordinary affairs. We
do not need to refer the people of ST.
Paul to any far-fetched analogies or
distant Illustrations, Let them look at
Minneapolis and harken to- the opin-
ions of intelligent, public-spirited. cit
liens there, and they can under.
stand for themselves what would be
the consequence to them of a change
to the Howard charter system of in
famous possibilities, that have become
more or less realized in the experience
OF every city that has adopted it.