The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1900-06-15
A BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION.

A BUSINESS" ADMINISTRATIONS.
AT the council meeting last week
by the casting vote of the Mayor, the
Farmers Friend was again made the
official city paper.
Isn't it queer what men will do when
politics gets mixed up in the question?
Here is the mayor of the city of lola,
and four Democratic councilmen, Mr..
Edison, Mr.. Swartz, Mr.. Hershberger
and Mr.. Servey, all reputable men
out side of politics, and fairly good
business men. And yet last week
two of them fatty broke their word,
and all of them voted to spend the
city's money in a way that not one of
them would spend his own money.
We venture not one of them will deny
that if he were advertising his own
business he would consider it better
bargain to have his advertisement in
serted in the Daily and Weekly
Register at cents line for both
papers, than in the weekly Farmers
y
after taking an oath to transact the
city's business to the very best of their
ability these gentlemen deliberately
vote to make contract which they
would not make if it was their own
money they were spending, and which
they know does not get for the city's
money the best value. They know
also that at least nine-tenths of the
tax payers of lola, if the matter were
left to them, would vote to have the
city's advertising printed in daily
paper.
And the funny part of it is that
these gentlemen were elected on a
''Citizen's" ticket. They were mon
partizans." They were going to man
age the Getty S business on business prin-
ciples without regard to so base and
degrading a consideration as party
politics. When "A proposition came
before the council they were to regard
neither party nor creed nor sex nor
color; they were to be away up above
such baseness, up in the blue ether
of absolute, ice-cold business fairness.
Great is humbug
The REGISTER has no criticism
of the Friend. 1t had a perfect
right to secure the appointment if it
could. And we do not insist that the
REGISTER should have been chosen,
although we think if the council had
voted their judgment and not their
prejudice it would have been. What
we do assert, and what every business
man in town who is not wholly blinded
by prejudice asserts, is that some
daily paper should have been made
the official city paper. The DAILY
REGISTER goes to more than 600
houses within the city limits of lola.
Will any gentleman who voted for the
Friend even claim that that paper goes
TO one-half or one-fourth or one-tenth
of that number? Again and again
last year, when the street commits
sioner went to put down sidewalk
which the lot owner had failed to
build after being ordered by ordi-
nance to do so, he was met by the in
dignant delinquent with the eXplana-
tion that he had never seen the ordi-
nance. So far as conveying informa-
tion to the public is concerned the
money which wiz be paid for the city
printing this year might just exactly
as well be thrown in the fire, and the
gentlemen who are responsible for it
know it. Their votes can be eX-
planned only on the principle "The
public he ID. We will do as we
please" The public can't help itself
now, but it will take good care to at
tend to the matter next spring.
The REGISTER wishes to return its
sincere thanks to the Republican
members of the council, Mr.. Robin
son, Mr., Dowler, Mr.. Allison and
Mr.. Kasebeer, tor the forty votes
which they east for this paper These
gentlemen never pretended to be better
than any party. They admitted all
along that they were just common
every day Republicans, who would do
their duty as they saw it, remember
ing their oath of Office. The chances
are they will have occasion to stand
together more than once before the
year is over, and the city will have
no cause to repent their election.