The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-12-04
DEBATE WON
By LOCAL
TEAM
GIVEN IN FAVOR OF
THE LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL IN
DISCISSION on THE COMMITS
SION FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

AT the Presbyterian church last
night a good sized audience gathered
to witness the debating contest be-
tween the teams of the Wenatchee
and Sprague high schools. This is a
preliminary meeting and the win
ming side will later meet another
team which has bested it's opponent,
and so on until winner for the en-
tire state is declared.
After a pleasing selection by the
high school quartet, the meeting last
evening was called to order by Prin
cipal MCGOWAN of the Wenatchee |
high school. He introduced Superin
tendent Whitford of the Sprague
school. The question was stated:
Resolved, That cities of the north
west of $4,000 inhabitants or over
should adopt the Des Moines COM
mission form of government" An
explanation of what this form of
government consists was read by the |
chairman, in brief that the entire |
law making and executive work of |
the city is vested in the hands of a
mayor and four councilmen at large, |
who are elected by direct vote of the
people under the primary system,
and each councilman represents the
entire city; the ward system being
done away with. Any citizen can file
his candidacy for the primary cleo
tion and the ballot for 4at final cleo
tion is a very simple affair in which
the names of national political par
ties do not appear.
The Wenatchee team was given the
affirmative side of the question to
present and the first speaker was
Henry Hartman. He explained that
in the northwest the only cities to
be affected by the proposed change
would be Portland, Seattle. Spokane
and Tacoma. He pointed out the
| origin of the present ward system
as coming from the antiquated and
| now abandoned English plan 1t is
a system of checks and balances SINH
| lar to the national government. The
! tendency is to provide opportunities
| for corruption while red tape pre-
vents efficiency. The commission
form of government places RESPONSE
bility where it can not be evaied.
The first speaker for the negative
was Mark Brislawn of Sprague. who
also acted as foreman Of his team,
and was a vigorous speaker He
showed that the commission plan
had only been tried in small cities
and had almost invariably proved a
| failure. success only being accom-
plished where, as in Des Moines, at
present aroused interest in giving
the experiment undue advantage. 1t
was claimed that the commission
form is wrong in theory and tenden-
|
that councilmen elected by the whole
people but not responsible to any
particular ward will be strongly
tempted to favor those sections of
the city where personal interest is
centered. Furthermore the central
ization of power will be almost GER
tain. sooner or later, to give iespotic
power into the hands of a few, a
tendency which is radically undemo-
cratic and unamerican
Earl Marr of Wenatchee acted as
foreman of his team and was the
second speaker for the affirmative.
He was very natural, forceful and
clear, and undoubtedly made strong
impression on the judges as he did
on the audience His definition of
democracy is that it was an express
sion of the will AMI welfare of the
people, and on that definition he
based his contention that the pres
ent system is undemocratic and IN
variably a failure in expressing the
will of the people or providing for
their welfare 1t is acknowledged
everywhere as a failure and wide
lspread unrest is calling for a change
of some kind so that the only task
of the affirmative was to prove that
the desired change could be found in
the commission plan.
Miss Mildred Mays spent most OF
her time in calling attention to the
success of modern municipal govern
ment, and called attention to the fact
that its failures were few compared
with the difficulties to be overcome
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