The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-03-20
SATURDAY. MARCH 20. 1909.
PEoUIIAR-EvEN GRoTEsoUE


 Before the committee on Cities and Boroughs.s Wednesday. several Bridge porters appeared for and against the pending charter amendment authoriz- Ing the city to acquire the water works without first obtaining permission from tAe suburbs Of Fairfield and Stratford. This amendment had passed the Br1dgsport board of Aldermen by vote Of 1s tos4 but had not. so far as aopears from the record, been, present a for decisive action to any annual or special town meetings of the Fairfield AAd Stratford suburbs-aA ,iuexcusable .ouaission. for it is axioamAtftw in Con neetiout that the greater and the bet tor intelligence of the State Is found in the suburban and rural towns whose residents are therefore much better qualified to judge of the needs of cit fes than are the residents of the latter Fair1isId and Senator Peck with Sher- If stagE of Stratford advise that Bridgeport should not be allowed to swn it's water supply. this city can 3ut confess judgment. for the urban xntelligence ever ranks as inferior to ehe suburban, even though the ques- t1on at issue may affect intimately the interests of all the 100.0 900 population of the city and but partly the interests of . total population of $500 in the two suburbs.
 Not only is the suburban intelligence superior; the average suburban resi- dent, ranks also above the average UT ban resident in virtue Among the latter, there are found occasionally men who are susceptible to the blan- dishments of public utility corpora tions-we could actually name. some in Bridgeport, but refrain but who knows or ever heard of similar instan- ces among the residents of suburban towns? Who would dare, for instance, to charge Speaker Banks with corpo- rate sycophancy? Perish the thought!
 Mayor Lee approved with his sigma ture the action of the board of Alder men in passing the charter amendment in question, and yet reports of the hearing before the committee at Hart ford quote Mayor Lee as appearing against the measure. There is involv- ed here question of confused identity, and he who undertakes to solve it,may bring . dangerous "brain-storm' upon himself. Unquestionably. it was May or Lee who approved the Aldermanic action, and consistency. required that he should support it at Hartford but he-that is, Mayor Lee-did not; on the contrary, he-or was it citizen and not Mayor Lee-ant agonized it. It is from the effort to unravel this "Dr. Jekyll and MT. Hyde'' confusion and to dis tinguish between the two identities that the danger of "brain-Storna'' arises. We confess inability to decide in which capacity Hon. Henry Lee ap- peared at Hartford, whether as Mayor or citizen As to how he may con- scientiously reconcile the conflicting acts of the two identities, is still more difficult problem We pass these questions on to the people of Bridge port, with merely the suggestion that if they find themselves unable to reach satisfactory solutions, the resi- dents of Fairfield and Stratford are, through superior intelligence, able to determine the issues, and abundantly willing to do so.
 Seriously, there are many peculiar aspects of this water works question. Perhaps the major one is that the city of Bridgeport desires to own it's water service and the water company professses a willingness to sell it's prop erty. Ordinarily, with both parties agreed, deal would be consummat- ed But in this case, two parties who may be described only collaterally interested, appear and insist upon ve- toing the deal. They represent a pop u1ation aggregating less than 10 per cent. of Bridgeport's population, and a very considera ble part of their popula- ton is not now, and probably never will be, interested in this question.
 Viewed .'by and large,'' the situation is very peculiar-eyen grotesque in some of it's details.
 AN INFAMOUS, TAX.