Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-08-17
CITY SHOULD PAY WEEKLY
Chief Snagg May Give Favorable Re-
 pot on ,FiIenen's Petition.

Will the petition of the firemen for weekly pay. submitted to the depart ment of safety at the last meeting and referred to Chief Engineer Snagg for an opinion. be granted? is ques- tion which all employees of the city government as well as the firemen hope to see acted upon favorably. It is understood that all the fremen signed 1t except Chief Snagg and Deputy William .Dodds, but 1t seems that they were not asked to append their names to 1t and were not con- suited regarding the wisdom of such course. Nobody knows what sort of a report Chief Snagg will make on the matter, but 1t wouldn't surprise anybody if he would give hearty Endorsement, for the chief knows, or ought to if he doesn't, that under ex- ist!ng conditions 1t is quite an in convenience to family to have to get along without ready money for two weeks and it frequently happens that employees of the city government don't get pay for three weeks. This isn't right and steps should be taken to remedy 1t as soon as possible, even though in so doing it should entail little additional labor on the heads of the departments and others.
 The only drawback, if such 1t might rightfully be termed, to the granting of the petition as presented is that it would be rather strange way of doing business to pay the firemen once a week and let all the other employees, including the police men, street, sewer and water em- plOyes continue Tn the usual way. To be sure, the heads of the departments and other salaried officials who have big wages and as the saying goes are well fixed, might prefer, so far as they are personally concerned, to let things remain as they are, but even so it should be remembered that these are in the minority and just what they do think about 1t should not have a great deal of weight in deter mining the fate of the petition. Three weeks is too long for a man who works on the streets to wait for his wages, whether he happens to be married or single. It is difficult for a man to get three weeks board credit now and man with a family Is seriously handicapped who has to take book and go to a store and have everything he gets marked down on 1t. To be sure, he is fortu- nate to be able to get things that way, but there is no reason in the world why he should be obliged to do this while the city of Waterbury owes him enough to enable his wife to do shopping for cash. There is no denying the fact that prudent woman can do better with the ready money than she can by getting ev- eryth!ng she wants on credit. Be- sides that she doesn't have to knuckle down to any particular dealers schedule of prices. but can step right out and buy where she gets the best treatment and the most for her money. It would be useless to specu- late as to what the outcome of this agitation will be. but 1t Is quite like ly that in case it should be decided to pay weekly everybody on the city payroll will be in on it. The thing Is by no means new. It has been tried before. but nothing came of 1t, al. though the only reason given as to why 1t wasn't desirable was on ac- count of the extra labor it would en- tail on the comptroller and others. To many this does not appear a very good reason for holding back so much money that has been earned and which Is badly needed by those to whom 1t belongs and who can i'll af- ford to wait. All the factories pay by the week and when you consider that some of them have over 5000 hands on their payrolls and the work l Is done without trouble. it would 1 seem that the city should grumble about paying its few employees once in every seven days.