The San Francisco call., 1898-01-29
LOS ANGELES
 COUNCILMEN
 MUST ACT Citizens Are Weary of Their Repeated
 Delays. Want Consideration of the Water Question
 Expedited. Public Sentiment Will Be Ex- pressed at To- Nights
 Mass Meeting. HAZARD WILL PRESIDE. Syndicated Press Gives No Notice O the Important Gath ering of the Masses.
Public Sentiment Will Be Ex- pressed at To-Night's
 Mass
HAZARD WILL PRESIDE.
Syndicated Press Gives No Notice O the Important Gathering of
 the Masses.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 2S-The meet ing which has been called to convene at Music Hall tomorrow evening will be one of the greatest successes that have characterized the popular agita- ton in connection with municipal con- trol,operation and ownership of a water plant. This afternoon a committee waited upon Hon. Henry T. Hazard, and requested him to preside. Mir Hazard accepted, and will be the chairman of the evening.
 It is fit and proper that MT. Hazard should thus officiate, for no citizen has the confidence If ths people to a de- gree greater than has Henry T. Haz- ard. Twice within recent years the people have elected him Mayor of the city after he had been nominated by a Republican convention. During both terms as Mayor MT. Hazard gave the water company the hardest fight it ever had in its efforts to encroach upon the rights of the people. He has had expe- rience with the corporation, and he knows how to deal with it. The peo- pie know that he protected their rights once against the grab-it-all policy of the water monopoly. and the fact that he has again enlisted in the fight in their behalf will be pleasant intelli- gence to hundreds of overburdened rate payers who are pouring their hard earned dollars into the coffers of the water company.
 Despite the fact that the mass meet ing was announced yesterday after noon, the water company's syndicated three dailies have as yet utterly failed to give it any kind of mention. The combined dailies realize that this meet ing will carry with it the voice of the people on the water question. and for that reason they will endeavor in ev- cry way possible to discredit 1t.
 Among other things, it is proposed to form a permanent organization from this mass meeting, to take the fight of the people in hand and wage it to a successful conclusion. The plan is to designate committee of public safety. comprising one member from each ward and three members at large. This committee will be the representatives of the people, and will see to it that the public servants elected to the City Council and to other positions in he City Hall where they have executive authority, are faithful to the interests they are sworn and pledged to protect.
 It has arrived at that point where it Is not only necessary for the Council men, the City Attorney and others to say that they. are with the people in the water fight, but it is essential that before the people believe them they must prove that they are by official acts and deeds. Windy pledges to pro- tect the people right up to the time vote is taken in the Council, and then casting a vote for the water company policy of delay and inactivity are going to count for nothing in the future. The people are unanimously of the opinion that it is high time t. move in these water negotiations. They are shut off from the local daily press, and they propose now to meet in mass conven- tion and express their views of the people who are holding this matter back in the City Council.
 It is these conditions and circum- stances which not only insure the suc- 1 cess of the mass meeting. but render | it imperative The idea of appointing ! a committee of public safety has met with popular approval on all sides. It l IS now d hHONH ldCI lndI the Syn0l- cated dailies can safely be relied upon to betray the people into the hands of any monopoly that may come along seeking a special privilege, and this committee on public safety, if the plan ! is carried out, will be ever on guard | to protect the rights of the citizens.
 For the present the sole topic of dis cussion is the mass meeting, and the results that will flow therefrom. It is believed that as an outcome of the ac- tion of the people taken tomorrow night the City Council will be forced to do something on Monday in the reg ular and legal way toward procuring arbitration as to the price of the water company's betterments to the city's