The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1906-10-03

tHt SHOIli uil ldllcu III IL, VI IdhiA6
the police out of politics.
Indeed, at the start 1t looked as II
his administration might be wreck.
His first director of public safety was
proved to have been a thief, but the
mayor promptly got rid of him. The
city treasury had been robbed right
and left by Bardsley, but the mayor
lost no time in getting his experts
into the Office and putting Bardsley
under arrest. The Queen Lane reser-
voir was charged with being infected
by the ranllest jobbery, but the chief
accuser broke down in court of JUS
iice and an equity suit was dismissed
from consideration by the judges.
When the first boulevard or parkway
bill passed councils, largely at the in
stance of the Pennsylvania railroad,
Stuart vetoed it, but he took the
ground substantially that it was doubt
full whether the city could afford it,
and that the majority of the people,
as was then true. were probably OPP
posed to it. This subjected him to
criticism as a man who was not bold
and progressive enough to lead in the
making of a great municipal improve
ment, and the same kind OF criticism
was directed against him with much
vigor by the Traction company or its
spoiesmen when he halted the origi-
o1t oh
no doubt that the majority of the peo-
pie were against them also. But the
outcome of Stuart's action was the
most valuable concession the railway
interests have ever made to the city.
This was the acceptance of the obli-
cation to put asphalt improvements on
the streets which they occupied and to
maintain the pavements; and it has
been chiefly under the operations and
effects of that covenant in the past
dozen years or more that Philadelphia
became one Of the best-paved cities in
the United States. The reclamation of
Broad street as highway was another
of his special policies. as was also the
asphalting of small or comparatively
obscure streets in the poor and con-
gested quarters, so that neighborhood
cleanliness and sanitation might be ad-
vanced. But the foremost act of an
administration which was fruitful of
the well-distributed improvement that
counts in detail, was the initiation of
the movement for abolishing the grade
crossings on the main line of the Read
ing railway and the construction Of
the subway on Pennsylvania avenue.
Set a Standard.
"The comparative rapidity with which
Mayor Stuart and the late Edward M.
Paxson as the chief representative of
the Reading, came into an agreement
on a problem which was generally
thought to be entirely beyond tho
reach of immediate solution, has been
in striking contrast with the delay Of
years over the Ninth street crossings.
Stuart managed his end of the case
with admirable patience, tactfulness
and persistence, without fussiness or
the slightest effusion of promises; and
when the undertaking, which began un-
der his administration in cooperation
with the company. was completed,
there were not only no jobs charged
against it, but the expenditure was ac-
tually less than the amount of money
appropriated.
when he went out of the mayoralty
it was with no general lessening of the
personal respect which he had when he
went into it, but which it had been the
lot of most mayors, sometimes unde-
servedly, to lose on making their exit.
| Stuart's experience in that respect,
however, was like this-that there was
disposition all around among thought
full men to put upon his head and not
his heart the responsibility for his er-
rors of commission or of omission and
to greet him as one who had done his
part honestly and with clean hands.
The citizens dinner which was given
to him when he retired to private life
was one of those appreciations which
really mean something. Its guests were
made up of men of all parties and
various representatives of religion like
Archbishop Ryan, Bishop Whitaker and
the present Bishop McVickar; Charles
Emory Smith performed his happiest
offices as an orator, and John Wana-
maker likened the young mayor
| think-for he was then but AZ after his
four-years' term-to a sort of Dick
Wilmington. of Philadelphia
A Tribute to Worth.
GAS a matter of fact, Stuart formed
an ambition for that Office in the days
when it was first occupied by Stokley
and when he himself had not become
a voter, and it is the only office, ex-
cept his seat in councils years ago,
! that he has deliberately and openly
planned to secure. The self-restraint
which he has time and again exhib-
tied in putting away from him the
bats which politicians have cast in
his direction has been marked. Thus
it might have been possible for him
to have made a dash for the COVER
norship while he was mayor, when
various plans to head off Hastings
were on foot and when all the boot
lickers of politics who ever gather
around mayor were urging him to let
his administration be set up in his be-
half. But Stuart, with all his ami
ability, can tell hawk from a hand
saw in politics as quickly as most of
the experts. never lost an hours sleep
over the affair, eventually put his foot