The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-07-21
STORIES DON'T AGREE.
City Officials TumbIing Over Each Other
in Their Anxiety to Deny Respon-
sibility for Burns Dismissal.

Yesterdays Tribune as everybody
in Northeastern Pennylvania and a
good many people in a great many
other places know, contained an ar
ticle to the effect that Select Council
man NJ. J. Burns of the Eighteenth
ward has been deprived of his position
in the street commissioner depart
ment by the city hall ring because it
is illegal for city officer to have any
dealings of profit with the city. The
article further stated that it was May
or Bailey who had instructed Street
Commissioner Dunning to lay off Mr..
Burns.
Yesterday afternoons papers con-
tained the following:
Select Councilman NJ. ]. Burns, of the
Eighteenth ward, and official bricklayer
for the city has had his head cut off, by
order of Mayor Bailey" said morning
paper.
The mayor, when seen by Times re-
porter today, stated that he took excep-
tions to the uncalled for gossip of the
morning paper, and branded 1t as false.
He claims that in regard to Mr.. Burns
case he is in complete ignorance of the
whole affair and wishes to emphatically
state that he never made remark which
wished the city work to be taken from
the hands of Mr.. Burns. In fact" said
the mayor Il did not know he was doing
any work for the city. How the report
was started l do not know, but that it is
falsity and a very unjust one do not
hesitate to state"
Street Commissioner Dunning to the re-
porter said: THE mayor has never men
toned Mr.. Burns name to me in any re-
spect. / was informed that hereafter MIR.
Burns orders would be held and further
that it was illegal for him to do city
work. In this matter the mayor should
be exonerated from all blame. The report
which has been circulated is as untrue as
it is unjust. Times
A story is going the rounds of city hall
that Mayor Bailey had ordered Street
Commissioner Dunning to cut off from
Select Councilman NJ. j. Burns, of the
Eighteenth ward, city brick laying pat
ronage. The mayor spoke to Truth re-
porter this morning concerning the story,
and said II knew nothing of any such an
order until saw 1t in print this morning.
l did not give it, but do not know what
Mr.. Dunning may have thought best to
do about the men employed by the city.
There is nothing in the story."-Truth.
Now for the facts of the case.
Mr.. Burns told the Tribune reporter
tndI MT. lOlu hin IL was tiiS
mayor and city controller who had in
structed him to cut off his work. Mr..
Dunning when seen about the matter
said it was none of the his doing; that
the mayor had directed 1t.
What the mayor says about it is
contained in the interview in the af-
ternoon papers. Mr. Beamish, the
mayors secretary in defending his
chief yesterday said it was the city
controller if any who did the deed.
City Controller Robinson when seen in
his Office across the hallway imme-
diately afterward disavowed any con-
nection with the affair and said the
first he knew of it was when he saw
it in The Tribune.
The Tribune is not particularly in
terested in the why's and wherefores
of the matter but merely wants to
show that the report was not as "un-
Just as it was untrue" Messrs. may
or, controller and commissioner can
settle among themselves which Of them
is afflicted with bad memory.