Evening star., 1896-01-21
Identifying the Bond Bill.

rrhara orc one or two persons In Wash
,ngton- anparently much interested IN the
local bond bill, who have curiously confused
notions concerning its identity. Evidently
they would not recognize 1t II they shoulo
meet 1t face to face. When the harmless
and necessary appellate court amendment
of the highway act was brought before the
Senate District committee these persons
promptly recognized in it the bond bill, and,
scenting with suspicious facility imagined
jobbery and corruption, filled the air with
cries of Bond steal! Thieves! Robbers!
They have never entirely recovered from
this notion that the highway act and the
bond bill are the same. When at the first
meeting this year of the Board Of Trade
representatives of the suburban property
owners, complaining of the harshness of the
highway act, secured an adjournment Tor
the purpose of a more thorough considera-
ton Of their grievances, these persons con-
graduated the suburbanites upon exposing
the jobbery and corruption of the bond bill
steal and upon defeating it. Since the street
extension money provided by the bond bill
would be paid to the suburban property
owners for their land. these owners were in
effect amusinsly congratulated upon their
honesty in exposing themselves as alleged
thieves and jobbers, and in frustrating in a
manly way their own nefarious schemes.
The latest evidence of q confusion Of the
bond bill and the highway act in the minds
Of these individuals Is found in their detec-
tion OF suspicious coincidence in the
amount of the Commissioner estimate Of
the cost of street extension, eight millions,
and the amount of the bond bill, seven and
half millions, the intimation being that
the estimate Is made to fit the proposed ap-
preparation. This suspicion is based upon
the erroneous assumption that the bond bill
provides for nothing but street extension.
No one can deny that there IL only half a
million Of difference between eight and
seven and a half millions, but there Ii no
striking coincidence between eight millions
and two millions six hundred and fifty thou
sand. which Is the amount set apart for
street extension by the bond bill.
1t must be remembered by those who know
and learned by those who are ignorant. that
Of the seven and a half millions provided by
the bond bill four millions three hundred
and fifty thousand are to be expended upon
sewers, and that the provision of s., $50 600
for street extension involves the contribu-
tion by the United States of its share Of this
expense, and thus Indirectly amends in a
vital point the highway act, which exempts
the United States from participation in all
expenditures under 1t. 1t Is this amenda-
tory feature that has most strongly COM
mended to The Star the bond bill provision
concerning street extension. Without some
such amendment appropriations under the
highway act, which 1t must be remembered
is existing law, will come exclusively from
District individual tax payers and suburban
property owners. Not one cent should be
paid for extensions under the highway act
until this outrageously unjust provision ha:
been corrected, If not by the bond bill theI
in some other way. The District canno
afford to permit the highway act to be car
ried into final effect until 1t Is definitel!
known what the cost will be, and until
just and satisfactory arrangement Is agreed
upon as to who will pay it. The outcome
will probably be either revision of the high
way act and passage Of the bond bill o.
defeat of the street extension feature of tn,
bond bill and repeal of the highway act
II this law is repealed outright, withou
the substitution by amer dment Of anothe
plan in its place 1t Is generally concede,
that no harmonious and general extension
of the city streets will hereafter be possible
The steady increase in the value Of the Ian
to be taken will forbid any future legisla
tioE in this direction, The question Is on
of grave Importance to the public welfare
and deserves thoughtful and intelligen
consideration.