The weekly Iberian. (New Iberia, La.) 1894-1946, 1905-09-09
CITY OFFICIAL JOURNAL.
Official Publications.

Daily Leader was read, III when
the management Of that jourDa!
begged the city fathers to instruct
the Clerk of the Council to furnish
them with a copy Of the official
minutes as speedily as possible
for the information of the public
Councilman Indest promptly
moved that the City Clerk be in
structed to furnish the proceed
ings Of the Council to the Official
Journal and to no other paper.
Councilman VOORHEES, raised an
objection to this motion on the
grounds that he saw no harm in
granting the request; that the
city had daily paper and he
thought 1t but right to encourage
the enterprise
Councilman Indest replied in
defence Of his motion that the
past course of this daily paper
should, in itself, bar it from a
favorable consideration of this
request. That in former pub
LEGATIONS of official matter the
management had cut ont such
parts Of the proceedings as did
not suit their purpose to publish.
That promises Of publication Of
these excluded parts had been
made, but that the promises had
not been kept.
Councilman VOORHEES, again
arose and said that he was not
satisfied with the reasons advanc-
ed by his confrere. He declared
his opinion that there were parts
of former proceedings that were
better left unpublished. He
then called upon Mr.. Willard, the
editor Of the official Journal, re-
questing that he give the reason,
if any there be, why the request
of the Leader should not be grant
ed.
Mr. Willard being granted the
consent Of the Mayor to address
the Council, outlined briefly (what
is perhaps more concisely formu
lated here) that the granting of
the request of the Leader carried
with it more Objectionable features
than there were good ones to com
mend it.
The past course of the Leader
had been abusive to the public's
interest in that it had repeatedly
withheld from publication import
ant parts of official documents, uD
der promise Of future publication
which promises were never kept.
Official proceedings should be first
published in continuous, cOnsecu
tive order, for the reason that a
taxpayer taking up the official
publication, reading paragraph
Of matter that he had formerly
read, would likely cast the paper
asaie under the impression that
he was acquainted with all of the
Councils d0ings, white the official
publication actually contained
matter affecting his material in
terest, which matter had been eek
cluded from prior publication for
want of space"
The Official Journal is bound to
publish all of the proceedings.
There can be no omission, and no
misconceptions. AS ordinances
cannot Become effective until pub
lished in the Official Journal, it is
but right to the public that the
Council should not give out, any
Of its proceedings, eveno under a
semi official cloak, to be garbled
according to the within or conven
fence Of any publisher, until the
public has at least had their first
impression formed from the official
publication.
1t is not reasonable to expect
that the Council would favOrably
consider proposition to continue
a system that is liable to put it IN
a false light before the public
Its interest in the matter should
dictate that the official pnbllca
ton should be first and complete.
The Iberian's interest in this
issue is plain. There are many
citizens of this city who subscribe
for the local paper because of the
rx,r-