Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-03-15
MR.. SMITHS BAD RECORD

A I
T him IMPOSSIBLE as interiml
" mayor or any other kind of al
mayor. If the council should shirk itsl
duty and should attempt to thwart the
will of the people and obey the man.
date of the machine by appointing to
the mayoralty this Mr.. Smith the
councilmen will be guilty of something
equivalent to selling out the city to
the Southern Pacific. Smiths career as
member of the rottenest council with
which Los Angeles was ever cursed was
one of fragrant subservience to the same
interests which would now take ad-
vantage of the crisis in the city's af-
fairs and would bring about conditions
which would tie UP the great projects
necessary for the expansion and the
progress of Los Angeles. Litigation,
confusion, trouble, loss of time, injury
to consolidation are all among the pos
sibilities which might follow the sue
cess of the machine plot to interfere
with the recall election by appointing
Smith to ell the vacancy in the Office
of mayor.
1t would be as reasonable and right
to make Ed Kern mayor as to foist
Mr.. Smith on the city in this capacity.
If the council should yield to the
Southern Pacific machine suggestion
that a record for trouble making and
for disloyalty to the city would be bet
ter than a record for patriotism, coun-
cilmen may rest assured the people will
resent this attempt of the council to
usurp the powers of the people and to
help the machine to make the recall
ineffective.
| Mr.. Smiths history is not such as to
warrant the people in regarding him
as a fit and proper chief executive for
Los Angeles. His record on "the rot
tenest council shows he was not free
from the machine faint which charac-
terized that council. When a council
man this choice of the rs. p. push" for
mayor was a willing and reliable
worker for the rs. P. machine"
Mr.. Smith was a member of the
council that made a present to the
Southern Pacific of property on Fifth
street, the value of which may be de-
| termined by the fact that adjoining
property on either side was valued at
$1,000 a front foot.
George A. Smith was the champion
of the Southern Pacific in the council
when property owners protested against
granting the Jackson street spur fran
chise to the railroad company. He
cheekily told protesting property own
ers they didn't know what was good
for them" The franchise then was
voted by Mr.. Smith and the rest OF the
unfaithful to the public. but faithful
to the Southern Pacific.
In the face of a forty feet to one foot
protest against the Tennessee alley
franchise Councilman Smith and his
colleagues voted it to the Southern Pa
cific.
Mr.. Smith aided and abetted the
irregular action of the council in re-
furnishing the council chamber at an
expense of over $4,000 without calling
for bids, although the charter requires
that all work necessitating an expendi-
ture of over $500 must be advertised.
This was the council (Mr. Smith be-
ing a member thereof which refused to
abolish the unnecessary and expensive
office of gas-meter Inspector; which
built the city's white elephant" small
pox hospital; which overpaid outfall
sewer construction contractors $1S2,0O0;
which built an incinerator costing more
than twice as much as a similar in
Generator built in another and more
prudently managed city; which bought
for $S1, 300 the voting machines that
never have voted; which for the
privilege of changing the line of the
outfall sewer through the Inglewood
Land company's land, paid the COM
pany three times more than was neces-
sary; which denied the request of
labor union bricklayers to be allowed
to inspect the outfall sewer for bad
brick work, with the sequel that the
city, to use a vigorous colloquialism,
has been STUNG to the extent of
nearly $500,00 Mr.. Smith was a kind
friend to the Southern Pacific company
and a lavish, free-handed spender OF
the peoples money.
In fact, this gentleman whom the
Southern Pacific machine, with the
assistance of the council, intends to
place in the office of mayor in order
that the people if possible may either
be cheated out of their opportunity to
elect a free and Independent mayor or
involved in embarrassing and injurious
litigation, from first to last in all his
transactions relating to public affairs
mas shown a consistent and persistent
desire to act in conformity with the cele-
brated Vanderbiltian sentiment, "The
public be damned" And that is the
man the conspirators propose to ring
in" on the people for mayor. But the
people won't permit the outrage.
The people demand that the council
choose Mr. Alexander to fill Harper's
unexpired them.
The people demand that the election
be held.
| The people demand that the enemies
of consolidation be put TO confusion