Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1910-04-09
Local Comment

| The terrible death Of Miss Ashbrook
at the Third avenue railroad crossing
was merely the fulfllment of the in
evita BILE. The Times Republican and
everybody else who has given the mat
ter a seconds thought has been pre-
dieting that a death of this kind at
! this place would occur and the Won
| der is that it has not occurred oftener.
| 1t is not the only one that will occur
| either. There will be more people
killed at the Third avenue crossing and
| in front of the union station before
this city insists upon a viaduct over its
switch yards Many years ago the
Times Republican backed a citizens
movement for a yiaduct and plans were
finally drawn when Merritt Greene was
on the city council. Even the state
railroad commission lent encoura ge-
ment but the whole thing was held up
in fear of large damages to abutting
property and the viaduct matter now
stands before the commission under
instructions from the present mayor
TO hold action in allegiance. 1t ought to
be revised and started in some prac-
ticable form and it ought to be built
where the traffic needs it.
IL a Nlduucl was Du4il dt / lllIu dN g
nue. another would be necessary at
Center street and it might be far more
practicable to elevate the main line
tracks and remove the switching TO
the east yards Suppose the Marshall
town Club goes in for new union
station for all of the roads with the
Great Western included and suppose
we have the tracks elevated SO as to
provide subway crossing a Fourth and
Third avenues. Center and Third
streets. Then we could demand that
the street car lines extend across the
creek and in ten years there would be
5000 new people living on the high
ground south of the tracks. The taking
OF a census is of peanut size as COM
pared TO movement which will build
up a population TO be counted and
which will save the lives of the people
we have with US and yet, of course,
the taking of the census is worth the
effort it costs.
If Marshalltown could get all of her
people to put into an interurban as
much money as a few of her people
spent for automobiles last year,
and this she could do with a tax aid.
she could build to Grundy Center with
| out a dollar of borrowed money. 1t
will be a long, long time before she
can build with other peoples money.
The question unanswered To-Day is
whether this man Mckinley is bona
! fde purchaser or whether he has been
brought here by Jones & Hovey to
furnish healthy competition for the
mayor, who is trying to bring about
I r
! the rates in the Hull ordinances are
all right, as Mckinley seems to think
/ they are, it might be well to begin
! figuring as to how we could get better
rates under municipal ownership, for
unless we could get better rates that
way. where would be the advantage in
putting UP the purchase price of the
plant? Then again if Mr.. Mckinley
! does return asking a franchise let's re-
member that he thinks s150.0o0 of i'm
! provements a good thing and let's see
that they are cinched in a contract
which has none of these exits which
the utility attorneys usually provide.
| This has been a spring in which the
fellow who promotes street paving has
a hard time showing the necessity for
it. And yet if paving could be had at
an honest price it would be worth the
money.
In the district court this week
the attorney for Mr.. Amlung, suing
the iMeeker Laundry Company, chal-
lenged an employee of the Marshall
town Light. Power and Railway Com
pany as juror because said employe
admitted that the attorney for the de-
Tense was employed by the utility COM
pany for which he worked. The sui:
did not involve the interests of the
| Mar lltown Light, Power and Rail-
way Company whatever, but the juror
was challenged, presumably as likely
to be prejudiced. However the mayor
and some of the city council can See
no danger of prejudice in employing
this gas company's attorney to fight
the gas company.