The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-06
Handicapped By Pledges.


 Handicapped By Pledges.
 Knowing the great influence of your valuable paper upon the voters of Jee- ferson county, I want to agree with MT. McGeever that I think you not only do the present board an injustice. but all those who would be elected to sue ceed them, in handicapping them with any such pledges. Why not elect good responsible men to the office and allow them to thoroughly investigate this and all other matters and then act upon their own judgment. If they decide it worth while, or to the interest of tia people, to make the experiment let them to so.
 I woul< suggest also that. a soon as possible, the number of men on the board be reduced from five to three, with the understanding that these three sh ould give their whole time and en- ergies to the work, and that the salary now given to the five be given to the three, and more If necessary, in order to secure good and competent men. My opinion Is that three good men who would give heir entire time to 1t would do the work better than five whose time would be divided with other matters That Is my experience with boards of large corporations, and l experience of boards in handling muni- cipalities. Tn fact. if you will allow me to divert, I think 1t Is matter that is of coequal importance to this great city that there should not be more thar five members of the Board of Aldermen including the Mayor, but those five should be selected with great care, and should be men who are capable and willing to give heir entire time to tine work, and for which they should be well paid, and they will care for and govern your city better than 20 who are giving 99 per cent of their time to other matters.
 Convention of Representative Men.
 It seems to me it would be a very wise plan for The Age-Herald to un- dertake to call a convention of repre- sentative men of Jefferson county and let them select or nominate five mer whom they could recommend as being fully competent to fill the position of County Commissioners. This conver tion might be composed for instance of the Mayor of Birmingham and the may ors of all the incorporated cities in the county; every justice of the peace, each ot whom might be asked to select ono other delegate from his precinct; the boards of directors of the Commercial clubs ana BOHTuS ol lldutr tut uiltt- tors of the Birmingham Motor club and the Driving clubs of the county; the boards of directors of all the banks; the judges of the county, ani any others you might select, and let this convention select five names to be submitted to the primary. There are now fully 75 candidates for the Board of Revenue, and there are doubtless a number of them who are both reliable and capable, from which number a selection could be made. Such con vention would be composed of repre-. sentative men from all over the county A plan similar to this has been adopted in selecting a central committee to nominate commissioners to govern such cities as Dallas, Galveston and Hous ton, Tex.
 Need For Careful investigation.
 As to the condition of the roads in the county I wish to say that while they are undoubtedly bad, and probably worse than they should be. yet there is no way of knowing just what has been done with out you undertake to travel all over the roads of the county to investigate care fully as to the amount of work and ex- pense that has been devoted to each and