Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1905-09-28
FOR AND AGAINST.
A City Charter-Some of the
Reasons Why We Should
Adopt Better Form of
Government.
Communicated J

Communicated
A brief comparison between what our
town was thirty or forty years ago and
what it is today may help Us to con-
slider the duties and responsibilities
which have been forced on its citizens
under the changed conditions IN which
we find it. and the propriety of adopting
a stronger, more systematic and effica-
cious form of government
Less than forty years ago Butler was
a town of less than two thousand in
habitants, shut in from the outside
world, and accessible only by country
roads; today it has population approx
imating eighteen thousand inhabitants
connected with the outside world by
telegraph and telephone lines and rail
roads leading to almost every point on
the compass, affording means of COM
munication and traffic with the com
mercial world. Less than forty years
ago the industries and manufacturing
interests of our town were confined to
two of the old fashioned burr Touring
mills, dependent on the grain drawn by
farmers from the surrounding country,
a foundry; planning mill and come other
small manufacturing industries; today
our town boats of a large Plate Glass
plant, Steel Car Works, Lead Works,
Bottle Works, Silk Mill, extensive ma
chine shops for the manufacture or
boilers, engines, and oil-well supplies
and machinery. and the modern auto
mobile. two large Roller Process flour
ing mills engaged in the manufacture
of -four from gram shipped in from
other states and shipping their product
out to the markets of the world and
many other industries in which our
citizens are engaged for wages or prof
il. Less than forty years ago the few
merchants of our town were engaged in
the various lines of business on a small
scale, and their business was for the
most part confined to the exchange OF
goods for farm products, which were
disposed of by carting them over the
wagon road to the Pittsburg markets;
much of the business was done on run
ming account, squared and settled at
long periods of time after the manner OF
business in early days, money was a
scarce factor and trade slow; today cur
town boasts of its mum Der of large store
rooms filed with high class of goods,
equal in size and quality of their stocks
to those found in some of the much
larger towns and cities, with their brisk
clerks exchanging goods for money.
Less than forty years ago the business
interests of our town were financed by
one bank. with but few transactions in
the commercial world; today our town
boasts of four banks and trust COM
pany filled with millions of the accum-
ulated wealth of our citizens, whose
business transactions have risen to d
magnitude of Importance, and whose
pulsations are in touch with the fnan-
cial world Less than forty years ago
our town was confined to but a small
square of territory surrounding the
Court House; today it is spread over a
wide scope of territory with an increas
ing demand for more room.
Less than twenty years ago our town
was without paved streets or sewers.
and our taxes were annually cast in the
mud holes on the streets as a propitia-
ton to the musical bull frog that claim
ed its place of quiet resort, today many
of our principal streets are paved and
severed, our streets have been extended,
many fine homes and commodious bust
ness blocks grace our streets, electric
lights and street cars have been install
ed, and we see evidences on every hand
of the progressive spirit of our citizens
Our population has increased, our town
has changed and new conditions and in
creased demands have arisen and an
onerous burden of public duty has been
cast on our borough officials, that will.
sooner or later, have to be met by some
more systematic and more efficacious
machinery of government. Our town
has outgrown the loose and weak ma
chinery afforded by borough laws
1,,% 1a
members of our Council which require
them to spend half, if not more. of their
time on the public streets in the inaugu-
ration and construction of public im-
provements. They are unskilled in this
of them try to do their duty, but for
results of many of their efforts have
proved unsatisfactory, and they are
publicly condemned for not doing in a
proper manner what they did not know
how to do.
They experiment, temporize and do
the work over again. They fail in
many cases to secure permanent and
lasting results in the expenditure of the
public funds. They have no system.
no head; the council is replenished every
year with new recruits to try their
hand in the expenditure of the public
funds according to their notions Many
men of limited means think it no sacri-
fee to to go on the council and spend
much of their time in looking after
public interests, without compensation.
How they can afford to do it if they
have wives and children to provide for.
God only knows. Business men say
they can't afford to leave their business
to serve the public. Then a cloud of
public suspicion gathers around the
men who think they can afford to do it,
and the cry of corruption and graft, and
complaints of high taxes and the wan
ton and injudicious expenditure of the
public moneys, is heard on the streets
of Butler and wise men shake their
heads; members of the town council are
criticized, abused and even roundly ex-
coriated, whatever that means, by an
indignant public; language of bitter
denunciation and vituperation is indis-
criminately hurled at these pitiable OBJ
jects of public hatred, in volume and
character sufficiently peremptory and
mandatory to send them all to perdition,
until the range of all the bad language
in Websters Unabridged Dictionary, is
exhausted. Yet, whilst we have pro-
gressed in all other respects we go on
year after year and place men IN these
positions year after year under our
loose and creaky old borough govern
ment, and require and expect them to
spend much of their time looking after
our public interests; to live on nothing
and be honest and faithful and withal
to accomplish much good work, and II
the results fail to meet cur expectations
we again resort to the bad words in
Websters Dictionary This sort of
public worship is opposed to good
morals and extremely wicked.
Our expectations of good results from
these requirements and conditions are
more unreasonable on our part than
were the requirements of the Egyp-
tians when they commanded the poor
Isrealitish people to make bricks with
out straw. If the pubic funds have not
been properly expended or have, in any
manner, been wasted in the construc-
ton of experimental and temporary i'm
provements; if our taxes are high, and
higher than they ought to be; If our
municipal affairs are run too loosely and
satisfactory results are not secured, to
what are these things chargeable, but
the loose and weak system of borough
government under which our affairs
are managed and controlled? 1t may
be conceded that taxes are higher in the
borough of Butler than they are in the
East End of the City of Pittsburg, but
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