Omaha daily bee., 1903-03-06
BURBANKs ELASTIC CHARTER.

departments of municipal government,
has evolved out of his inner conscious
ness an elastic charter as a substitute
for the patched quilt charter bill intro
duced by the Douglas delegation. Mr..
Burbank is quoted by the World
Herald as follows:
There is no use of beating around the
bush. We kept out Of the charter amend
ment bill everything that the railroads and
francbised corporations would be likely to
seriously oppose. We we're careful to keep
the important charter amendments in which
we were interested In a bill by itself, so
that these powerful influences would have
no particular reason to interpose objection.
That included the change in the charter
as to the time OF the election, which is now
fixed for next month. but which will there
after be changed from spring to fall, and
the terms OF office made two years instead
Of three. We have sought to rob
the charter Of some Of the features that
contribute toward the maintenance OF
political machine and those provisions we
have incorporated in the charter bill. We
have tried to change the street gang pro-
vision so as to prevent the employment
OF a small army at public expense to do
political work for the machine without
anybody knowing anything about 1t until
the bills come in after election.
If Mr.. Burbank is reported correctly,
his prolific mind has performed a stu
pendous task. The Burbank charter Is
strictly original and should by all
means be patented or copyrighted. Its
conspicuous feature is the duplex and
delicate mechanism by which the old
machine lis to be smashed and the Bur
bank machine substituted. With the
Burbank charter in operation, the mu-
nicipal government is to be as far as
possible kept out of party politics and
at the same time all city officers, men,
bers of the school board and county
officers, district judges and supreme
judges are to be elected on the regular
party ticket with a single cross7mark
in the ring in November instead of hav-
ing city elections separated from all
other party elections, as has become the
prevailing custom in every large city in
America.
Mr.. Burbank is one of those rare men
who can eat his pie and keep it at the
same time. He can pulverize the ma
chine, departisanlze the electipns and
at the same time nominate all his
candidates by machine rule at party
primaries and ram down the throat of
every voter the straight ticket from top
to bottom, yellow dogs, cats and all.
The stress laid upon the virtues of
the double action. self-adjusting, elias
tic charter improvised by Mr.. Burbank
and in part approved by the republican
members of the Douglas delegation is
the extraordinary provision that re-
quires every street sweep, garbage
hauler and sewer laborer to be con-
firmed by the council before he can do
a stroke of work for the city. The in
ventor Of this reform evidently does not
take into account the possibility of a
heavy snowstOrm blockading the
streets, or a great freshet washing out
sewers and culverts, or a cyclone
strewing the streets with signboards,
billboards, telegraph and telephone
poles, which would call for immediate
action on the part of the Board of Pub
lie Works for the prompt protection Of
the community. .
He would have the mayor convene
the council first and then require the
Board of Public Works to submit the
names of the street sweeps and COM
mon laborers for confirmation, and If
the council happened to be in a dead
lock he would have the whole city
paralyzed in order to forestall the pos
sible use of the street cleaning and
street sweeping force In a primary
election.
But Mr.. Burbank and his followers.
who nearly all afe expecting to break
into the city hall in some capacity,
would not object seriously to have the
street gangs, sweepers, repairers, sewer
men and all mustered for the support
of the straight ticket on election day If
they were candidates for city or county
offices.
The truth of the matter is that the
city treasury has never been looted to
pay polltlCdl slTeel SWeeDefS under the
present Board of Public Works. As a
matter of fact, only a fraction over one
hundred men were employed by the
city all in all at the time of the pri-
maries before the presidential election
two years ago, or at the time of last
falls primaries.
1t is matter of notoriety that any
one of the frenchised corporations EN-.
ploys twice. thrice and even five times
that number Of men and no amount OF
charter tinkering will prevent them
from appearing at the primaries. The
only instance, within the memory OF
the oldest inhabitant. where three OF
four hundred men-political street
/ sweepers-have actually been paid fol
by the city was at the end of the frs
term of W. ]. Broatch as mayor OF
Omaha. But even that abuse, which
was an impeachable offense, would moi
have justified the legislature in the en-
actment of law that would preven
the Board OF Public Works from EN-
r ploying common laborers on shor