Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-08-08
WHAT IS A "CLAss oFF1c1AL?'' ?''

Writer in the Journal, Trade Paper,
 ss Tries to Show.
 Certain newspapers are worried about the mayor of Bridgeport. These are newspapers that probably mean well and believe themselves to be inde- pendent and impartial. But uncon- sciously they. are controlled by the pocketbooks and opinions of the few rich men or corporations to whom their proprietors look up.
 Bridgeport's S mayor used formerly to be a workingman. In recent strike of the street car employees he is alleged to have sided with the workingmen.
 As a matter of fact, he sided with ninety-r1ine out of hundred of Bridge ports population, for practically the entire citizenship opposed the street car line whose methods are piratical
 The disturbed corporation newspa- pers discover and announce the follow ing fact.
 Cities must give up the idea of elect ing "class officials" Glass officials are dangerous and must be given up.
 An interesting discovery, truly, but what is a class official A class. we should think, would be. a certain limited portion of the population.
 When, in a big city, nine hundred beings out of a thousand work for a living. would you call ''class official" if he were chosen among the nine hun dred?
 < Is it not a fact that if you choose a workingman for mayor, you choose a representative man, whereas, if you select your official from the small mi 4I,r TJ Tfaon business men, lawyers, etc, you then select class man in the correct sense of the word class?
 If the corpora tion newspapers be Iieve that a workingman is unfit to hold office because of insufficient ln- telligenee or integrity, they should say so honestly. But they should not ap- ply the word class to nine-tenths of the entire population of the country.
 This newspaper realizes as every sensible man does that in the past, as a general thing, the greatest ability, official and otherwise. has been found outside of the ranks of those who work with their hands This is not due to, any inferiority among the workers. but to the fact that the worker of superior intelligence soon comes to make his
 
 manual worker.
 Nearly all of our great executive and other officials come from the working class, the Lincolns, Jacksons and so on. But they usually, through their own efforts and through American. oppor- tunity. get out of the manual class of workers before they are chosen for orn- cial place.
 h workingman should not be chosen for office while he still works at his trade. We believe that this habit of choosing officials among the actual workers will steadily increase, and for one reason especially.
 The reason is this: Where there was one educated workman a few years ago there are hundred to-day. Where one man working with his hands was capable of concentrated and unbiased thought few years ago. a thousand are capable of such thought to-day.
 The widespread distribution of books and newspapers the telegraphic system which enables the poorest man to review the activities of the entire world in his newspaper every day. have done infinite good in promoting 8 wide range Of thought among millions of people.
 The splendid fight that the unions have done for short hours has done ev-- erythfng to encourage thought among those who work with their hands.
 The American mechanic no longer begins work at daybreak to stop at dark. He works his eight hours, and after he has given fair days work to the country he has still some energy