Omaha daily bee., 1909-11-29
+. FLYNN HAS HIS TROUBLES
Street Commissioner Explains Why
and Wherefore of Mud.
WHY STREETS ARE IN BAD SHAPE
Paving Contractors, Building super
intendents and Irate Citizens
Combine 60 Make Life n Bur
den to City official.

Hardly any use Of having men out on
the streets this sort Of weather" said
Street COMMISSIONS Flynn, sententiously.
We are working the few men we have
day and night, but you can't see that they
are doing anything.
For the benefit Of a good many COM
planning people. let me be specific. The
crossings about Sixteenth and Harvey are
exceedingly muddy and we put the flushers
on to clean them. Within a few minutes
city inspectors of paving jobs and tho
superintendent of the contractors came
running up with waving arms and vocifer-
Gus conversation. The water runs down on
the new work, and we have to stop. The
same is true at Sixteenth and Howard, the
water interfering with work at Seventeenth
street.
Now these locations are the key to the
cleaning situation. No use flushing Four
teenth street and the thoroughfares below
that unless we begin at the high points, be-
cause the water win naturally wash all the
dirt down onto the streets below"
A short time spent in the office Of the
street commissioner Saturday morning
proved that he certainly has things coming
his way.
Not pleasant things, either" says Mr..
Flynn. IF 1 could cut each man Of my
small gang in two or three pieces, sort Of
Frankenstein them, and have Michaelsen,
the electrician, galvanize the divided parts,
perhaps we could satisfy a few people.
Walter RaleiGhs Needed.
The councilmen want cinders, the ladies
in muddy places want a brigade of walter
Raleighs with magic cloaks, the men on
the inundated streets want to kick some
Ill. a. ..,,-- a-1 a. l41lr1ng wuanN
economy, the newspapers want to have
fun with me, and here we are doing pen
ance for a world Of sins that we cannot
by any possibility rectify or properly be
held responsible for. But we come of the
fighting race and will not desert the ship.
l am seriously thinking Of inventing a
shovel that can be pushed down one street,
up another, crossways through an alley,
and softly push its front over the nearest
bank of the Missouri, thus getting rid, at
one fell swoop, or scoop, of all the mud
and muck in the town before breakfast.
Someone ought to write a song about
Mud Is Not the Only Thing There are
washouts on streets that have never been
filled with the material the pyramids are
built of, and If we had the Giants Cause
way at hand we couldn't make some other
places hold dirt. Only the hand OF Provi-
dence would suffice. But were doing the
best we can, and the public would readily
believe this If it knew the intolerable dis
turbance raised at my home morning, noon
and night, as well as all the lovely noises
that are cracking the walls of this office.
One Official, Many
Fair play is all 1 ask. Remember, men,
there is only one street commissioner
against a regiment of kickers with sledge
hammers. The real center of attack should
be on the doors of the legislature, to have
a real charter made and put in operation.
Omaha is no longer a village Of one street,
and there are places where only rebuilding
of streets Will do good. 4 walked more
miles Friday than many people 60 in a
year, for it may be news to some folks to
hear that the head OF this department
hasn't even got a buggy to cover his Job,
or a typewriter to turn away wrath with
the soft word