The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-10-18
MAKING HER
 THE SCAPEGOAT

IlOH st1IGS J4N4SOIA, LAG cAO40OEI and favorite son of Stratford, mother of militant children, pasted soundly the Hon. Frank Conine. and threw him out of the Taft club presidency, in metaphor, of course, thus signify ing lack of confidence in that gentle man.
 Then Mir. Judson. pursuing in his turn an Augean task. said to an as- sembIage of his fellow townsmen, that Judge Charles H. Peck. was not en- titled to the confidence of the splen- did citizenship of Revolutionary town.
 Thereupon MT. Conine rose in his might and made speech and ex- pressed his own lack of confidencetin the preceding speaker.
 So the same. or a similar group of townsmen, triumphantiy choose MT. Peck to be a candidate for the judge ship again. and indicated some views of their own with respect to cond- dence. or lack of 1t.
 No wonder that, in the presence of these sinister signs Of a disappearing innocency, amazed outsiders looked upon Stratford as given over to ha- tred and distrust.
 But before the market for gold bricks is entirely depressed come. cheering signs.
 4 woman, and incidentally a news paper correspondent the first one to wander on to the school committee, a representative of woman suffrage. be- came a partner in the lack of con-. hdence club. grossly shocking Mr. Juduson. and, shall we hope, MT. Co., nine and Judge Peck.
 Lacking confidence in the School Committee, she asked the town to in- vestigate it's expenditures.
 Lacking confidence in the man agement of the Public Library she asserted that favoritism were shown in the distribution of books, and that less courtesy was extended to the, poor who used the institution than to some others.
 Whether these things were true or not, is beside the question. It is to be hoped they were not.
 But the lady who had the shocking bad taste to show lack of confidence was seundIy rebuked in town meeting by the very gentlemen who had most strongly expressed lack of it on other occasions.
 what MT. Judson said he was, and stratford votes faith in him.. what faith can lonely suffragette of re- form be fairly expected to have in any of the departments of the conn munity in which she lives? s Nor was 1t gallant. or quite to the point. to drag into the controversy as to the library, the lady, who is ezn- ployed by the management of the 1i-' brarx, who was in no way attacked, any more than the lady teachers in the schools were attacked by pro- posal to investigate the accounts of the board of education.
 Those accounts are doubtless cor rect. We have faith to believe so. But a better way would have been to. send out an impartial committee to investigate. since public accounts are better if, like Caesars wife, they are entirely beyond suspicion.
 And public investigation would seem to be the better course in such a matter in Stratford. since there have been, from time to time, sub- stantial rumors that an investigation of the use and disposal of public mon ies would not have been entirely without benefit to the citizenship.
 Miss Russell, the Stratford 1ibrar- ian, is undoubtedly an estimable lady She undoubtedly is not in fault in respect of any management or mis- management of the kind that has been alleged.
 The device of dragging her into a town meeting upon tho pretext which has been exhibited. was about as bru- tai and uncalled for as anything that has happened in the vicinity of Bridgeport for a long time.