The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-09-09
PAY AS YOU 60 HAS MADE
 BRIDGEPORT
B. 3. Lewis, in Wise Discus sion, Shows WiCkedness ot
 $2,4O0,OO0 Bond Issue
Great Financial Interests Want it, But Ordinary Citizen Would be Injured by Enor- nous Debt

Mir. B. B. Lewis. in a eommunica-
 ton to The Farmer presents some in
 teresting views on Mayor Wilson s
 plan for an enormous bond issue, and
 his schemes for municipal aggrandize-
 ment by doubling the police force and
 otherwise increasing the burden which
 taxpayers bear unnecessarily.
 MT Lewis says:
 In the matter of increasing the
 bonded indebtedness of the city of
 Bridgeport by the large sum pro- a1l-it is necessary to sharply discrim- mate between the interest of the aver age resident and that of the large moneyed interests. which. directly The latter simply wants a place to put his heaping up wealth at a good per cent. and free from taxation. The bigger the bond issue the better for him, so long as the security is a1n- pie. To the ordinary resident who has somehow to get his living here and outgo, the problem assumes a diff ferent aspect.
 Mayor wilson's bonding proposition, if carried out, means over one mill tax Suppose he owns. say s5,ooo of taxable property; then he has every year thereafter to cough up an. added $5 bill. even on a 15 mill rate
 If he doesn't own any realty he knows that his share in the added burden will be handed out to hirn all right, in his room rent and living supplies, or in board and lodging, if that is how he is situated. Bridgeport will be, If the measure goes through, a dearer place to live in thereafter. proposed financially is but the enter ing wedge-a start on the financial to- began. The further you go on it the faster and more furious the rate of he 1aTy 3era tenn with it's opening vista of expen- 1iture! l
 What has made Bridgeport as she s today? It is the fairly safe and | sane Pay as you go" methods in the | past. Her Iapses from the straight 1 path, financially, have been compara- If an occasional buncoing by the rail- 'oad octopus
 "Et tu Brute, Wasn't it Mayor Wilson just now posing as the orig le going to cut off these added mills f annual tax and make it an exact 5 mills hereafter? And here he is
 low proposing to nail, in perpetuity, | Iasn't he and his packers just paid 'eter White $25,o0o of the city's money 0 tell us how to economize?
 We rather Opine that there are cores of business men here who, if a1Ied upon, would have been . both filling and able to formulate methods 1 IS several departments, for a. mere raction of the Peter White figure. If course, there is always room for but we might go further nd fare worse than in the path we ave been treading. The $25, 900 step if in the direction of how not to do , doesn't appeal to. most of us.
 This recent importation of experts-t eregrinating doctors of finance-who pr big fee. will formulate methods lvo1ving much larger expense to the L. I7S&I %I7 r sedu1ously avoided-like RusselPs oubling of the police force-these and le big bonding measures, have the lme motive force behind them-that ,ntro1 of the city along with what ley may deem an adequate police { rotection. suffrage by a. more or less rigid lforcement of the personal tax meas -e with it's arrests and jail sentences 1tary withdrawal from the voting st of those unable or unwilling to The cleverness of Wall Street meth t Is is something fairly uncanny at U mes I remember a score or two p
 years ago when the crop of "lambs'' c gave out and stocks were | [ ,wn it was found on indubitable tes- ( Lekingr the Henry George single. tax it ovement, which at that time threat d led to sweep the country, in order. to e augurate a score in realty holdings t hich should bring money into their e ffers Only a year or two ago, just n evious to the former attempt in this is Id other cities. to wipe out district c les and thus throw added burdens t
 a palpabIy unjust taxation large tir ctions of real estate, the apostles of igh Finance were. if you remember, ceedingly active h [ recall, at that time, that Leslie M V law, the ex-U.> S. Treasurer and o