The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-05-28
U. 6. |. Company Has Its Gas
Lease 0rdlpanc 9 Withdrawn.
MAYOR VIEWERS VICTORY.
Boss Durham Feared Disruption
OF Philadelphia Machine.

wants inc FlSnt SOntinucd-Durnam
Foresees Vast Injury to the Machine II
Such Course Is Followed. and Finally
Persuades Dolan to Withdraw the
Concerns OHer-Publlo Indignation
Vas Fast Winning Converts to the
Mayor Organization Plans to
Continue Its Fight Against Hin.
PHILADELPHIA. May 27.-At 2 O'Clock
this afternoon citizens in the neighborhood
Of the City Hall and the tall building OF the
United Gas Improvement Company oh
served with some curiosity a large American
flag drop from the pole on the top of the
U. q. I. Building and settle to the roof
The lowering Of the flag at that particular
monnent was without special intention but 1t
soon seemed to have peculiar significance,
Two minutes afterward the whole city
knew, it seemed, that Thomas Dolan, presi-
dent Of the United Gas Improvement Com
pany. had sent letters to the Presidents of
the Councils Withdrawing the offer of his
corporation to pay the city SIS, OOO, 900 for
the privilege Of extending it's lease fifty
three years after its termination in 1927.
Tho news spread with extraordinary rapid
ity. Men at work in their shops caught a
word Of II, rushed into the street to get more
and remained there to spread it farther.
Bunting appeared at windows like magic;
band or two started playing somewhere;
the fever of the good news appea red to be
intoxicating. Customers Of BARRIERS sprang
from their chairs and took to the street
~ l.1f Ia 81. Il , 4
themselves out furnishing extras to citizens.
who grabbed at them voraciously.
FEARED DISRUPTION OF THE MACHINE.
The United Gas Improvement Company
had struck its colors, but not until Presi-
dent Dolan was convinced that further
antagonism OF the public would be pure
folly and would lead certainly TO the abso-
lutte disruption OF the r epublican machine
already shaken and battered by the furious
hammering given it by Mayor Weaver
and public opinion.
Israel Durham himself counseled sur
render and in the opinion of Philadelphians
who SO to tho bottom Of things. the boss
never played a shrewder game nor turned
q neater trick. even though the gas lease
had to go by the board. While Mayor
Weaver Is a popular hero tonight in this
city, and the brilliant James Gay Gordon
and useful John M. Mack are praised In no
small measure, it is to Durham. the crafty,
that the public mind turns with something
approaching admiration, with the applause
that goes to the bold and skilful, even in
. bad cause.
Nobody intimately acquainted with the
present situation denies for a moment that
,,rho ha, 10
ton fairly intact, but that he has succeeded
in placing the Mayor in a lamentable hole
by his surrender to the public and the with
drawal Of the gas lease proposition. The
Mayor wins laurels, but he will pay dear
for them, wise men believe.
o. O. I. WAS LOSING couNcLMEN.
Tho end Of the bitter struggle, SO far as
the gas deal. which has oonvulsed this
steady, slow acting city as has nothing
tor 4 quarter Of century, is concerned,
came tameiy enough. With dawn this
morning the belief had come to something
like Z certainty that Durham, with all his
power, and the U. G. l., with all its induce
meats, would never be able to hold in line
enough Councilman to pass the gas lease
ordinance over the Mayors veto,
unanswerable arguments Of trade had
Of the men who helped pass the ordinance.
They were falling away FIR ON Durham and
q. g. I. and hocking to Weaver and respecta-
hility. Tho machines support was melt
ing like a cake Of ice on hot sidewalk.
Tho Mayor had made gains that aston
ished his foes Councilman who had sworn
BY Ill that was good and bad that they
would turn a deaf ear to the public and
swing the ordinance over the Mayors head
slipped into Weaver's Office and told him,
sometimes with tears in their eyes, that
they simply could not stand to be ostracized
by friends and neighbors and treated like
the dirt under foot. Would he please take
them back and give them letter written
on his official paper so they could show it
TO their constituents in proof of recantation?
BY noon to-day it was figured that Mayor
Weaver needed only seven more votes in
the Select Council and ten in the Common
Council to protect his veto. Six Council
men, three OF whom had boasted that they
would never 60 back on Durham as long as
there was a sun in the heavens, ate their
words and called on the Mayor before noon.
The detection OF Selectman George b.
Edwards from the Twenty-second ward,
Germantown, was a blow that Jared the
gasmen 1t finished them and brought
about Boss Durham's advice to Dolan
to quit while there was a chance to save
the carcass Edwards is one of the oldest
members Of the Council. He is a member
Of tho subcommittee on finance which
steered the gas lease ordinance through.
He was regarded by the gang as absolutely
safe.
But the people of Germantown turned
on him. His neighbors did not zee him when
he bowed His customers informed him
that he need not count upon their trade.
His wife implored him to stand up Tor the
right. He went to Weaver.
poLAN WANTED FIGHT CONTINUED,
The man most interested in the salvation
Of the gas lease ordinance went first at Q
o'clock this morning to the Office OF Israel
A,vhs m In thu Pat > pNildinO President