The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-02-21
WILSON
 DEMANDS REFERENDUM
Why Not Settle Our Inter nal Affairs at Home In Preference to Hartford? He Asks.

He Asks.
 In his discussion of the charter amendments proposed by the Taxpay. ers' League. at the meeting of the Common Council last night, Lynn W, Wilson said:
 MT. Wilson said: "I am sure that the gentlemen who come here w1tE these amendments are sincere and that they have sincere desire to ever. that MT. Phelan is correct when he says that the object of the league is not to benefit primarily the small taxpayers. l remember that whe1i the league was organized I offered tax equalization plank for that pur- pose. I can remember now that they cried, Put him out
 'eYet. no matter how sincere these gentlemen may be, it appears from the legisIat tion they offer here that they are amateurs in that field. an6- their proposals are a mere hodge which are either freakish. or reaction ary or both. q
 Their proposal to deny the Mayor a second term if he serves success fully a first term is certainly a freak and unknown to the practice of cit
  against wisdom and human experience to suppose that man wil serve you as we'll who knows that he will be discharged at the end of a. certain term. no matter how faithful or eff cient, he may have been.
 Excepting their proposal Tor re- call the evident purpose is to strip the council of power and confer it upon the Board of Apportionment which is an appointive board. They are evil dently trying to re-eStabllsh a two board system which has been tried and abolished pretty nearly every where. The power of the purse should not be given to any appointtve board nor should any appointive board have veto power of the council which is di- rectly responsible. The Board of Ap- portionnlent has but recently put the seal of it's approval upon bond issue of almost a million dollars.
 .sNo bonds should be issued except upon approval by the voters. following action by the Common Council. The approval should be by referendum at the option of the voters. It is a a town meeting have been delegated to an appofntive body. as the Board of Apportionment is. but no such pow CTS have been given. as MT. PhelaD confesses.
 sI beg of this. council that 1t de-
 
 endum be attached to every proposal for bonds.
 'sThis league, though it affects to speak in the name of the people. Ap- pears to desire to remove government as far as possible from the people. Thus. in their amendment providing a recall, they especially exempt the so- called self-perpetuatinE boards. the Park board and the Library board, which continually recreate themselves 1ry1-~ Y I% >f~& &as ,G $I~ Legislature. on it's own account. power to- sell the Library building. the court declaring that the trust may be broken. and power to buy land and build library on the west side of the river. and power to buy land and build a library on the east side of the river entirely without responsibility to the council or to the voters. except per- haps in the case of grave miscon- duct.
 ,"Of the same nature is the plan to ask the General Assembly to fix the than which there could be no more serious violation of home rule. 1t is 8 mistake to entrust the matter of the wages that shall be paid by the servants of Bridgeport to the General Assembly. which has ever been a harsh master to the cities.
 i.How great this danger Is may be seen in the bill Increasing the salar ies of the officials of the city court. whose officers. employed only part of the time and whose private practice is actually increased by the prestige s1. 800 each fin immediate increase. This bill has not come to this council. It went straight to the General As sembly. Wouldn't 1t be much better if it came in here. where it could be talked over for the benefit of the peo- hf 11H0 H that a majority of these gentlemen in this court want their pay increased as much as S1, BOO each. This is for each man more than seven times the in crease that each fireman got. and the whole proposed increase represents for four or five men as much as many fremen got.
 'It is much easier to pull off a sal ary grab in the General Assembly than it is in the Board of Aldermen. as the gentlemen will learn if they should succeed in placing the Legis- the pay of firemen or police.
 ks"They speak glibly of what the peo- pie want. Why then do they not of fer their salary bill here. and let the Aldermen decide if the firemen's pay should be reduced. It is an insult ot the city and to it's people to sug- gest that this task be taken to Hart ford. And the council should demand the right to fix salaries in the city court, because the citizens pay those salaries and not the General Assem- bly,. s s,1
 these salaries thai the bill by which it is intended to grants them repre- sents the smartest political stunt that has been pulled. off in many a day. The price of. reconciliation be- tween two warning. factions of a po- litical party is openly said to be the old jobs for the. old men. and pay increase thrown In,
 Surely in this Is proof sufficient that Bridgeport. should preserve the right of deciding what wages she wifi pay to her own employees.
 eff the pay of one group of emI ployes Is to be graded up $1,500 per man and the pay Of another group Of employees graded down. $10O per man. let 1t be done In. Bridgeport where everybody may. hear: the arguments and know what is done and why it is done. and be in a position to pun ish any who err therein. if any do so.''
 Mr. Wilson concluded by saying that he should oppose each and every amendment proposed unless there should be attached thereto a usua, and workable referendum permitting the submission of all of these charter changes to the voters.