The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-01-27
Shall It Be Home Rule or Charter
 Tinkering at Will?
fContiued from Page 1.)

OOnClued rom HaSe I.)
 For the present but two of these amendments will be considered. They are those in which the Legis- lature is asked to interfere for the regulation of the salaries of firemen and policemen.
 Leaving out the fact that these proposed changes are not 1mprob- ably the result of pique, because the Common Council recently in creased the pay of the firemen, against the expressed wish of the league, what can be gained by es- tablishing the precedent that the Legislature shall fix the pay of the employees of the city, rather than the city iself?
 All modern tendencies in this country and abroad are in the di- rection of Home Rule for cities. The ideal is more, not less, power for the municipality. The tenden- cy is wise. If the 100000 people in Bridgeport do not know how to do their own business. the 900,000 people in the rest of the State are not likely to do it better.
 The proposed firemen's and po- lice pay regulation is bad in prin- ciple because it is an infringe ment of Home Rule. Its adoption would be disastrous to the hope which is at the bottom of the Leagues demands. the desire to have more influence in the govern ment of the city than it now en- joys.
 The League may feel certain that, if it cannot get it's views accepted in the place where it's members live, upon the very spot where it's influence is greatest, 1t will not be long able to do so in the General Assembly, where it will go as a stranger, before Rep- resentatives elected by constitu- ency that has become hostile be- cause of the effort to deny popular rights as represented by the ref erendum.
 These amendments set up an elaborate method of fixing the pay of the f1remen and police, which amounts to nothing, because once the fact is settled that sal- aries are to be made in Hart ford and not in Bridgeport, the large bodies of city employees will no longer seek pay increases at home, of a council responsible to the people, and among their fell low citizens, who know the facts, but will expend their efforts to secure the ear of the Represen- tatives to the General Assembly. Ordinarily it will be enough to secure the attention of the single man upon the Committee on Cities and Boroughs, when, at the mo- ment, as the result perhaps of a secret compact, the increased fig ures may be written in, and a bill with which none is familiar, ex- cepting its creators, will be rush. ed through in the closing hours of the Assembly.
 Is Bridgeport entirely unfamiliar with salaries created after this fashion?
 Let the pay of the men who serve Bridgeport be settled in Bridgeport. This is comformable to wisdom and to the principles of Home Rule.
 The General Assembly has been harsh master to Bridgeport. It has given the streets of the city to monopolies, presenting the fa- vored ones with public values worth millions of dollars. It has left the cities without power to enforce even the most elementary duties which these corporations as- stunned under their charters.
 The city's streets have been clos ed as they run to it's great high way by water, it has been divided by Chinese Wall, and 1t has been mulcted for hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for this monument to it's own shame and humiliation.
 For these reasons and many others it would seem that rudi- mentary common sense points the necessity of more Home Rule in Bridgeport and not less.
 The people look at the record and feel that the time is ripe and