The daily Alaskan., 1912-04-01
TO skAowAy VOTERS.
skagway, April I, 1912


 peopis, this year the municipal cam raign would be permitted to pursue it's way without doing more than simply placing the candidates before the electors on their record and merits, and that nothing would trans pire which would render It necessary for the Citizens Party to rush into print. However, at the public meet ing held by the Taxpayers Party on Saturday night, so many mis-state- ments of facts were made that, if they were allowed to pass unnoticed. the voter who is not aware of the real facts would naturally conclude that the assertions must be true. It SO happens that the Taxpayers Party have a "corner" on the local orator. ical talent, and this is all that pre- vents a public meeting and debate for the purpose of refutation. The orators orated for two hours, and 1t would take the entire issue of the Daily Alaskan to go fully into the matters discussed. It is unfortunate indeed that to refnte many of the statements made by the speakers is impossible within the scope of a communication which must necessar- fly be limited. Suffice 1t to say that the first speaker promised that no persorah- es would be fndulged in, and that later on this assurance was completely disregarded; that abuse, cheap wftticisms, and vam-glorying assertions were largely in evidence; that old, dead municipal issues were resurrected which not only have no bearing on the present situation but were presented in words utterly foreign to the truth; that disgraceful profanity was freely indulged in de- spite the presence of ladies; and, finally, that great stress was laid upon statements to the effect that the members of the Citizens Ticket would like very much "to get their hands on" the present surplus in the town treasmry--a direct slur on honorable, clean men who have no further interest in endeayoring to get the support of the people than to give during the coming year, if elected. competent. businessliie ad- ministration Of public affairs.
 As an example of the ability of the Taxpayers candidates to distort the truth we will take up the matter Of the amount of money spent by the town for street Improvements. Every man who was present at the meet ing will clearly recall the slide which was thrown upon the screen giving what purpOrted to be the amount of money expended upon Skagway's streets since 1909. The statement upon the screen was enlarged upon by the speakers, the idea conveyed being that although the Citizens Party platform advocates the i'm. provement O streets that the amount expended by the Citizens Party when. they were in control was a very paltry sum compared with the vast sums which have been expended by the Taxpayers during the past two years. Here are the figures as stated to the voters at the meeting:
 13O9-1O 29515
 1910-11 1335.57
 1911-12 140286
 An investigation of the Cftys books discloses the following: The item of $295.15 in 19O9-i0 is ap- proximately correct. Incidentally it might be mentioned that the Citi- zens Party took control of the Coun- cil in 1909 with a deficit of S2952.57 handed over to them by the prior Taxpayers Party and it was the an nounced policy to spend as little money as possible n order to cut down the heavy deflcit-for this req son all work on streets was cut down as low as possible in order to effect saving. Now what do we find when we analyze the figure of s1335.57 declared to have been spent by the Taxpayers Party in the year 19I0-11? We find that this Is made of street lighting amounting to sSS1.35, experimental gas lamp sS6.25, and tue balance of s41797 for labor and material on streets. Instead of s13S5.57 We find that the amount shrinks to s417.97, slight dis crepancy of s917.6O. Then we go on to the figure of S1402.S6 for the year 1911-12. Without having time to check the figures for the entire year it is found that in the month of Sept. 1911, the street lighting biH of SS7.50 is included in street impro ye- ments. It is only fair to presume that other bills of this nature are in cluded in the foregoing figures. We thus find errors of over $1000.0O in