Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-11-27

$30, 600 upon the people OF the city, IN
a year of slack work, decreased wages
and poor business. In doing this, the
Republican administration promised
they would use the money to pay up
all arrearages and start off fresh, with
clean slate. They did pay up some OF
the floating debt, and lifted the deferred
electrict light bonds, which was COM
paratively easy thing to do, since they
had raised extra money from the peo-
pie, but they violated their promise in
that they did not lift the Gas Board
over-check Of more than $4,000.
On top of this, and in further viola
ton of their promises, they began to
pigeon-hole bills, and to keep from be-
ing found out, they debarred the repre-
sentatives of the Register from obtain
ing information in the Office of the City
Clerk for more than year.
When the present administration
came in, in January last. it found as a
net result of two years of reform Re-
publican administration that there were
more than twenty thousand dollars OF
outstanding orders and very unsatis-
factory condition of things generally.
During the present year to date this sit
uation has not improved, but on the
contrary has grown worse, and as re-
suit the leaders at the City Hall have
ascertained definitely that it will be
utterly impossible to pay these orders.
the outstanding stone bridge balance,
which has been tied up in litigation for
six years and which comes due the first
few months of next year, and lift the
gas overcheck, now between nine and
ten thousand dollars, without more
money. They did not dare to increase
taxation again, and as result the re-
funding scheme was devised as con-
venient way out of the hole into which
they had fallen by their own fault ex-
clusively.
The ordinance once determined upon,
every nerve has been strained to get 1t
in shape and before the people before
the present year runs out, for if relief
is to come it must come before the
first of January. And as the best
means of obtaining this relief the out
standing ORDERS incurred through NAL
administration and in violation OF
promises, the gas overcheck, which they
promised to pay in 1895, but did not,
and the stone bridge balance-which
was regularly appropriated by Demo-
cratic Councils, before 1895, annually,
but which the present Council, in this
present year, has neglected to appro-
pirate, and which, as matter OF fact,
they have spent for other purposes,
have all been incorporated in the new
issue of bonds and made part of the
new bonded debt, which is to run ten
years before the first payment and for
thirty-four years before it is fully paid
If the City Hall people can carry
their point before the people to-day,
they will have safely put their shortage
out of the way for at least ten years to
come, and will use the money now be-
ing paid, under the law, each recurring
year to reduce the principal of the pub
lie debt, and thus tighten the interest
burden upon the people, to blow in
where it will do the most good, and will
be in easy circumstances for ten years
to come, but at the ultimate expense of
the taxpayers of the city.
To carry the loan, the city admin
istration has instituted regular lit
erary bureau, have passed the word all
along the line that the ordinance must
be put through at all costs, and to-day
they will attempt to do it. 1t remains
for the people to block this little
game, and to insist upon a policy of
economy and debt paying at the City
Hail.
This is the issue before the voters to-
day. The result is in their hands