The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-03-30

them at this hearing.
 Attorney Marr asked MT. Cullinan if he favored the referendum.
 Always. as matter of principle" :" replied Attorney Cullinan. He added that he believed in this case that the city of Bridgeport itself should be given the charter power to issue bonds up to a certain extent, upon a refer endum of it's voters, without the ne- cessity of appealing to the Legislature for it's permission
 Alderman Horace H. Jackson, who has been called s'tlle father of the new almshouse proDosition', dilated at length upon the necessity of replacing the present "death-trap'' in which the city's wards are housed, by a modern building. The Alderman practically repeated what he had previously said to the committee on this question and with which the readers of this paper are familiar. He said the building which 1t was proposed to erect would with such extensions as could from | time to time be added at slight eX- pense, last for 100 years. He de- | tailed the shocking conditions existing in the present building and with much feeling portrayed the Ordeals to which | inmates are subjected He said that 200 of them are compelled to file in lin eand, with little cup in hand, walk line and, with little cup in hand. walk for their turn to get a drink of water He did not agree with the previous speakers who held that the present
 building could be remodeled so as to meet all purposes for $100,000.
 1 Alderman Hugh Lavery, president of the Common Council, impressed the committee that the bonds for the new East Washington avenue bridge were a necessity. He reminded them that unless the city of Bridgeport replaced the present inadequate structure with more commOdious one which could be done at a cost not to exceed $100,- coo. it would have to immediately as sume a burden of $49, 900 in repairing the present structure, and then it would simply lave a patched-up af- fair He said this bridge question was one that was brought forcibly to the attention of the people of Bridge port by the government engineer, Ma
 jor Harry Taylor, who had communi- cated to the Mayor that unless the city repaired the East Washington avenue structure, the government would shut down on any further ap- propriations for the dredging of the channel in its immediate vicinity.
 "That is the situation, gentlemen" ," he said, ''and after thorough inves- tigation, las Alderman Miller has said, the committee decided that it would be indeed foolish for the city to ex- pend s49,OOO to repair structure that is now much too small to accommo- date its present needs, when it could secure what it must have soon any how,-a modern bridge for s100 OO0.'
 Alderman Guy P Miller of Bridge port, informed the committee that his attitude at this time was the same as when he appeared at the original hear ing. He insisted that each of the bonding projects before the commit tee with the exception of the. school bonds, had been thoroughly gone into by the several committees appointed from among the membership of the Common Council to investigate them. He said that when he first took the matter in hand he was skeptica1 with respect to some Of these measures, and he was frank to sayt that after thorough and impartial investigation in conjunction with his colleagues of the Board of Aldermen. he concluded that Bridgeport had reached that stage where it had to face conditions as they existed and that in order to carry out the improvements which its remark able growth made necessary, bonds - would have to be issued.
 Referring to the Common Council, the complete membership of which had given their approval to these meas ures after each and all of them had been thoroughly threshed out, he said with much significance: eff you gen. tlemen from Bridgeport who are here in opposition to these improvements have no faith in your Common Coun- cil, then it is your duty to ask that it be abolished, for it is somewhat in the nature of joke, to me at least, to expect your Common Council to go into these measures only to have their work rejected in the end. As a bus mess man, and representing large in- terests in Bridgeport, I am heartily in favor of all of the measures pend ing before this committee. I am op- posed to any patchwork being done on our present High School building. We have had enough of patching in Bridgeport l do not consider $3OO,- 900 an expensive outlay for a new High School for the city of Bridge port
 Representative w w Bent of this city. who presented the bonding bill, then offered the committee an amend ment to the referendum clause, pro- viding that the bonding issues should be submitted to the people for their approval or rejection, providing that 15 per cent. of the voters should first sign a petition signifying their desire that this procedure be taken. within % days of the rising Of the General Assembly.
 Attorney Marr thought that this 15 Der cent. requirement. was too severe He said that it ought to be easier than that to secure a referendum in this case. Either the referendum ought to come automatically as mat ter of course, or else a petition signed by 100 taxpayers, representing several million dollars, ought to be suffi- cient.
 MT. Bent said that he would stick to the form of referendum as provided in his amendment.
 Albert E. Lavery informed the com 1nittee that he did not want to have if get the impression that there is no sentiment among the large taxpayers and progressive citizens of Bridgeport favorable to the bonding projects. He Navoq- Buckingham, while these meas ures were pending, consulted with a number of the heaviest taxpayers in Bridgeport, and also personally sought the opinions of many of the leading manufacturers and business men as to the proper policy for the city to pur sue in respect to the bonding proposi- ton.
 He said that in practically every in stance the Mayor was assured that he had the support of the big busi- ness interests of the city in advocat- ing ths issuance of bonds for the car rying out of these necessary and inn peratiVe improvements.
 He was convinced that a great deal of time, thought and intelligent con alteration had been devoted by those who might justly be termed the lead CTS Of progress in Bridgeport to thea proposition now before the committee,