Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1912-12-14
A City With A General Manager
stanton Virginia Has Made Dollar City Money Go Far as Two Went Before

tendents, and so forth. All these were
Willing TO work for much less than
the maxiflum salary. the figures Ge-
manded .unnin2 from $1,000 10 81
500 a yea1 There was just on, dp2li.
cant who placed his minimum figure
at the councils maximum He was
a outside man, Mr.. Charles L. Ash.
burner, - Richmond. Va. ..a. ~
Sesen years ago there had been q
Iwashout in the business district OF the
city, subterranean creek going on a
rampage and swallowing up a good
section of Stanton real estate. Local
contractors were called to bid upon
the work of repairing the damage and
the lowest figure offered Oh the job
was $4,000 A few councilmen de-
INJURED and called the bids too high.
They We're assured that the work
couldn't be done for less, but one or
them. Mr.. w. r. Sydnor, happened to
be local agent of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Railroad, and Mr. Ashburner
happened to be the c. & O's. engineer
|of maintenance for the Stanton di-
vision. Sydnor sent for Ashburrer
and asked him to calculate what the
washout could be repaired for. the
work being done as cheaply, as il it.
were railroad job. Ashburner cal.
culated and said: =-.E-<@2,Ez
Seven hundred and thirty-seyen
dollars will leave you a little
margin" stt. Tt
The local contractors scoifed, by
the counciimen went to work and had
the work done under their OWE. di-
rection, and the complete bill was
$725 and a few cents. ali fe
The council elected AshburneT
when they. saw his name among the
applicants for the General Manager s
position. ~ i. "A
Beats Opposition zs.= 3sE
Ashburners made success of his.
job from the beginning, in spite of
some opposition. This alone proves
him to be rather extraordinary man,
for the position of General Manager
is one requiring many peculiar Glai:.
fications to fill. Staunton was fortu-
nate in getting at the beginning a
man in whom these qualifications
were combined. Ashburner is forty
two years old, the son of an English
army officer, and was born in India.
He was educated in France and Ger
many, winding up at Heidelberg. He
is civil engineer. His training since
leaving school has been essentially
practical He has been engineer in
charge of a company town in Vir-
ginia, was connected with. the Bureau
of Highways of the United States, he
served in similar capacity, for the
State of Virginia, was in charge of
maintenance work on the c. & 0. r.
R., and did engineering work for the
city of Richmond. He is medium
sized and twitching with the nervous
energy that marks the enthusiast. He
is a practical idealist; no one can
talk with him for five minutes. with
out realizing that his nature would |
throw him body and soul into such
a. work as town management, that his
thoughts would be of the work before
himself A man of Stanton whom !
he had antagonized went up and down
the streets, loudly announcing that he
was going up to- Ashburner's office !
and run him cut of town, Men who |
had worked with the General Man |
ager on the railroad sought out the !
man and said:
You don't know that man. You |
may run him out of town sure enough, !
but he'll be right there in his office !
working away any time you tell him |
you're coming TO do ~"
The man quit talking.
His strongest characteristics prob
ably are his desire for doing job |
right" his enthusiasm, his excessive |
supply of energy, and his inclination
to shake hands with everybody, in
Guiding his avowed enemies. When
lie was given the task of running
Stanton his natural enthusiasm
drove him to a single aim:
ITO make this the finest little city
in America, bar none!"
His Interpretation of the job was:
L am hired by everybody in this
town | am working for everybody
in it, rich and poor, black and white.
Every citizen is a shareholder in this
and every one of them
is entitled to a shareholders full pri-
vileges. AS manager of the affairs
Of their corporation | am responsible
to each and every one of them. My
office is a clearing house for share
holders"
The office was opened April IS,
1908. 1t was not located in the city
hall. but in a two-room suite on the
second floor of a business block in
the heart of the downtown district.
On the door was stenciled
ECnnnrol l'ifI, Of SFlnn-
ton
Those two. rooms soon became the
most popular Offices in town.
Stanton at this time, as we have
seen, was mostly mud town, with
no disCernible prospects of becoming
anything else. City money. under the
Old mismanagement, covered the
floor of the valley: but it Wouldn't
reach up the hills. Ashburner's first
fCODtinrrnd IN noua o.