The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-01-29

inquired and ohstructed by unsightly tele-
These wires should be removed and placed
unoer ground, as in other cities. or as our
local telephone wires are. nearly all under
ground; The result is that our. citizens
Suner because infant industries like the
western Union and the Bell Telephone
companies must be encouraged.
Ihe intelligent reading citizen will APP
preclate our position regarding the water
question. This Board is impartial and
consistent, and believes there is time
Ior all things and it is now and has all
ways been opposed to the Introduction
OF any vexed question at it's banquet, nor
mas anything ever been done intention
ally to mar our pleasures or hurt the
feelings of our guests
The Rev. Dwight Galloupe of Newark
popular young clergyman of that city
spoke upon ''Our Country Mr.. Galloupe
immediately put himself upon good terms
with the company by beginning his ad-
dress with some funny stories and then
he launched forth into an eloquent eulogy
OF the political institutions of this coun-
Try. He built his speech upon the foun-
dation, THE State was made for the in
dividual. not the individual for the State"
The thing that impressed him most he
said, was the responsibilities of citizenship,
e. and ne wished to impress those response
pfilties upon the younger men of the party,
as he was young man himself. He was
aStonished at the Indifference of the great
mass of citizens to the great issues of the
day. and he warned them that if the coun-
try Went down in a whirlpool Of anarchy
they went down with it.
Congressman Charles NJ Fowler of Eliza
beth spoke on The Question of the
Hour which he said was simply Per
sonal Integrity and National Honor"
There was no politics in the question, as
there could be no politics in question of
honor. The Government must have rev.
enue Which will meet Its expenses. He
would not say upon what that revenue
should be levied, because that would be
politics. The eyes of civilization, he said.
were upon US. while. We debated whether
We would have fifty cent or one hundred
cent dollar. The only way out of the diff
Guilty was for the Government to put into
It's contracts that they should be payable
in gold. Mr.. Fowler wanted the Board of
Trade to pass a resolution embodying the
currency platform of the Indianapolis con-
vention and requesting the reformation of
the currency and send it to Mr.. Mckinley
and United States Senators and Represen-
tatiyes at Washington. He predicted that
unless the currency was reformed the
next Congress would be a free silver one
and the next President a free silver man.
/. He was followed by Francis j. Swayze
Of Newark who spoke on ..The True
City, which, of course, was Newark.
Mayor Wanser spoke next on Our
Municipality" He said
Mr. President and Conference.-The priv
ilege of responding to the toast Our
City," while usually accorded to the Chief
Executive, is at all times an honor, which
especially appeals to me. The love of
to interest in local affairs is more often
referred to as local or civic pride, and
while one may exist without the other
on account of peculiar conditions the
more apparent the local pride, the more
intense Is the other quality. 1 regret that
the conditions have been such in this
city in the past that there has not ap-
peared to exist sufficient evidence of
that proper pride which our citizens
should exhibit, but the removal of many
of these conditions have resurrected this
m if a N
is rapidly making apparent the substan-
tlaiity of its existence. True there must
be something tangible in a municipality
upon which civic pride must have its
base and If there be no such cause there
is something wrong in the local govern
ment. Jersey City has had its day of
abuse and like the simile of truth crush
ed to earth, has risen again. Its rise has
been so rapid and so remarkable as to
excite the envy and diSparagement of at
least one of its neighbors, in whom the
fear has been rapidly growing that our
city was on the march of progress to the
goal ana the proud title of being the first
city of the State. On the occasion of your
last annual dinner, at which / had the
honor of responding to this toast, / took
advantage of the opportunity to elaborate
rather extensively upon the progress we
had made during the few years preceding
and to indicate upon what lines the work
would be continued. I had not the de-
sire then, nor have 1 now, to be ex-
travagant or say anything that might
U
present administration, nor had / intended
in the brief expression of my sentiments
on the subject of this toast this evening
to make but slight reference to what has
been done in municipal matters, but
rather proposed to devote my time to a
discussion of several intricate and i'm
portant municipal problems, the proper
settlement of which largely depends upon
cooperative agitation on the part of
bodies such as yours. But I am sure
that you will pardon short depression
tunity of replying to the unwarranted
attack recently made on a similar occa-
sion upon our city by my quondam friend
Mayor Seymour of Newark. have al
tack and might reply to it in kind with
more force than accompanied his did
not feel that such a course would be un-
dignified. There was a time when our
city submitted to such indignities but
that is past. We have no apology to
make for what we are or what we have
and while His Honor had little reason,
as the Evening Journal aptly put it,
to serenade himself concerning the con-
dition of his own city, of which he has
not been long enough the Chief Executive
to show any results, by visiting jersey
City he would see more excuse for local
serenades that exist there. True, we have
considerable debt, which appears more
considerable in the light of the enormous
shrinkage of our assets, made possible
by the operation of laws enacted to con-
vey to the railroads the benefits of an
unequal system of taxation. This debt is
not the creation of this generation, but
of that which preceded us. But; unlike
our sister city, we have been expending
our energies to accumulate sinking funds
by which to reduce that debt instead of
issuing obligations of Indebtedness aggre-
eating hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually. True, we are contiguous to the
great metropolis, but that proximity has
operated in many ways to retard our
growth in business and trade circles and
in municipal matters by the making of
1nv1dlous comparisons, and even to our
loss and Newarks s gain. Since we met
together early in 1895 our city has gone
on with steady march, In it's era of pro-
gress.
Our financial condition is a healthy one.
All bills are paid promptly and our obli-
| cations are in demand and no longer go
begging In the market. We are daily in
receipt OF inquiries from financiers
throughout the country requesting infor-
nation to the probability of the Issuance
OF new bonds or the renewal of those
maturing. The ComptrolIer's books show
| that our bonded debt now amounts to
s13, BAG, ,2S4. 81. Our sinking funds amount
to 81, ,983, ,113. so, thereby leaving a net debt
of 81, 1868, 11.07. I have not included in
this statement the amount of improve
ment certificates Issued during the past
two years to pay the cost of the many
| retire themselves, very rapidly after the
combinations of the assessments Their
longest life is six years, their shortest
one and the promptneSS with which the
assessments are being paid has justified
| the legislation which was enacted at our
request and which admitted of the in
stallment system of paying for improve
ments. Our water debt is $5, 10000, and
| the water sinking fund is $780, 8SS.61, and
rapidly accommodating. The past year has