Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1900-10-29
Why Santa Fe County Needs Good Officials.

The city of Galveston is almost as bad
off as Santa Fe county as far as its
public debt is concerned. The ravages
of the recent storm have made Calves
ton city and county bankrupt, and the
city is to be put in the hands Of a re-
ceiver. A committee is at work upon
plans, and Galveston will soon appeal
for the legal measures required. The
case of the city of Memphis is cited as
a precedent for the proposed action. The
yellow fever visitation of 1878 almost
depopulated Memphis. The city debt
already was large, and in 1879 was reck-
oned at one-third of the value of all
the property within the city limits. The
debt of Santa Fe county is even higher.
Enormous expenditures for sewers and
similar Improvements were plainly i'm
perative if a recurrence of the plague
at Memphis was to be avoided. The
Tennessee legislature repealed the
charter of Memphis and created the
taxing district of Shelby county, to be
| lieu Wy lHItt toIilllllSSlOlltIS lldIllt'i ny
the governor. These We're leading citi-
zens of Memphis. and served without
compensation. The city was turned over
to the absolute control of these COM
missioners, who had power to adjust its
debts and make the necessary improve
ments.
BY 1886 an equitable adjustment of the
city's debt had been made with it's cred
itors, and extensive improvements were
under way. The good work has stead
lily continued. The taxing district gov
eminent has been honest and economi-
cal. Memphis to-day has one of the best
eve systems in the world, is better
paved and lighted than most American
cities, is one of the healthiest and most
prosperous large towns in the south,
and has gained in population since 1890
more rapidly than any other city of it's
age in this country.
Memphis has fairly paid or is paying
all it's honest debts, and it's citizens as a
rule regard the receivership into which
it was put as a positive blessing. 1t has
preserved their property and their mu-
nicipal honor and credit and increased
their prosperity.
Now Santa Fe county does not want
to go into the hands of a receiver. 1t
has not the excus of a plague or a
storm for having a debt one-half the
amount of it's taxable valuation. But it
has a chance to compromise it's debts
IN terms agreeable to it's creditors, and
will do so if county officials are elected
who will see to it that the debt is hon-
estly refunded. Men who will do the
work for Santa Fe county and even
Santa Fe city, what the legislative COM
mittee did for Memphis, are needed at
the helm of affairs.
Outsiders will certainly have no con-
fdence, and citizens can have no conf
dence in county authorities of that
stripe. But with a tax collector and
treasurer like Fred Muller, county off,
cials like Charles w. Dudrow, and 9TH
ers or the straight Republican ticket
who are taxpayers and men of business
experience, the county will be in honest
as well as in competent hands, and will
be able to adjust it's debt as satisfac-
torily as Memphis did it's debt, and the
result will be the same. Memphis is
now the banner city of Tennessee, and
has made a more rapid growth than
any of the other Tennessee cities, hav-
ing to-day a population of owe 100, 900,
and a taxable valuation running into
the ten of millions. Santa Fe county.
and city. too, rid of their debt. will take
the lead again in New Mexico that
every citizens interest to vote for a
ticket which will bring this about?