The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-12
4 NECESSARY SAFEGUARD.

In connection with the proposition to
put up new market house somewhere
or other in st. Paul the suggestion has
been made that a deal could be ar
ranged were 1T not forRthe pEagisiOn
in the city charter which prohibits the
council from entering into contracts for
more than one year at a time. The
hope is expressed by a contemporary
that the charter commission will make
a change on this point, and permit
longtime contracts to be made on the
part of the CITY, 50 ,that~We- can have
the. adgantagetQfs the. better terms of,
fered for a long term than a short one
We venture to express, in the most
emphatic terms possible, the hope that
the charter commission will do no such
thing.
If there is one section of the city
charter, aside from it's strict regulation
of the different funds and it's prohibit
ton of borrowing from one to help an
other, most valuable and necessary to
be preserved, it is that in question
If St. Paul has been measurably free
from the scandals that have assailed
the reputation and weakened the finan-
ces of other cities, 1t is because of this
safeguard. If we are not today at the
mercy of lot of scoundrelly contract
ors, feathering their nests through col
fusion with constituencies members of
the council, and if our hands are not
so tied up that we cannot hope for
either honesty or economy for a long
term of years to come, it is, by virtue
of city contracts.
OF course, we do pay something for
this exemption from jobbery and rob
berry. 1t is perfectly true that, in
few departments of the public service,
better terms might be made if the
council were authorized to bind the city
for term of years. Where the dis
charge of such services requires the in
vestment of considerable capital. it
cannot be found to engage in the work
with no assurance that the plant which
it must construct will be occupied for
more than twelvemonth. We do not
think that the loss on this account is
serious. As a matter of fact. we escape
being lured into a lot of attractive but
worthless engagements, and the prices
that we pay for services that would
otherwise be done on the longtime
contracts are not excessive. Any mar
gin of additional cost that may actual
ly exist, however, is returned to us a
thousandfold in our exemption from
what is, in other municipalities the
most prolific cause of dishonesty and
waste.
A city council ought not to have the
power to bind the public which it rep
resents beyond its own term of office.
1t is inherently absurd and contradic-
tory to the very idea of representative
government that, after the people have
held an election and chosen their local
Legislature, that body and the people
through it should find themselves tied
up with contract obligations for years
to come. 1t matters not how corrupt
may have been the deal by
which the arrangement was made:
it matters not. if syndicate
of boodlers2 put up fund and
succeeded in. buying outright major
ity- of some council whose members are
satisfied to Fetire permanently from
public life on the8proceeds Of a single
steal, that engagement, when formally
ratified, is transformed into a. vested
right, and the people have no recourse.
1t is through the operation of this
deadly obligation, fixed upon them by
irresponsible parties, that the people
are Systematically plundered and I'M
able to apply a remedy.
1t is because of the continuing
appropriations made on longtime con-
tracts that congress is unable to re-
duee expenses, and hundreds of mil
lions Of extravaganza, that might be cut
off if we had the power. are immune
~ Us