The Pensacola journal., 1913-02-22


hicle Of nearly all the crooks in and
out Of office, he claimed.
Birmingham had a great experience
and the securing of commission gov
ernment there came about through the
desire of a telephone company to raise
| its rates, he said. The aldermen, fif-
teen in number. they couldn't twist
about their fingers, it seems, so they
started in to get commission govern
ment. He told how they succeeded
| and soon after got the grip on the
people which they wanted. He was
irapturously cheered when he held that
UP as warning against commission
government.
Then, as a delegate to a Colorado
city. sent there to invite a body OF
men to hold big insurance mems
convention in New Orleans, he went
right to work to investigate the COM
mission form of government. Alas. it
was just as all the rest; q big corpor-
alton that couldn't get what it wanted
from the aldermen had f1imhammed
the people into adopting centralized
municipal government.
Having heard so much about the
success of commission government N
Des Moines. he went there and sHSAt
three or four days. And again, ssAs
and alack- aday, all the newspapers
and magazines which have been hold
ing up Des Moines as an example of
commission government are wrong;
Des Moines ks governed by a pack OF
grating cSSdks who are in the game
for Just what they can get out of It
and all the honest people, in their pro-
found ignorance, can't see that the
city is going to the bow-wows.
As expressed by Mr.. Craft himself,
his philosophising upon the situation
has led him into the belief that it is
the man who works in Office for
nothing who renders the best service
to the municipality.
sEMMES ARGUES.
Sitting well in the front and before
the railing was Mr.. Semmes. He In
terrupted Mr.. Craft once. apologizing
later with the explanation he could
not keep still any longer. He took oc-
casion in making that explanation to
put few questions to Mr.. Craft.
! He asked Mr.. Craft why it was, II
conditions are so bad in Mobile. that
the people reelected Pat Lyons a
| reported to have been spent to defeat
him.
He also asked Mr.. Craft If certain
things accomplished by the Mobile
commission, according to a report
which he has and which he says
shows they were done, were not for
gotten by him.
Mr.. Craft did not make any direct
reply to either and began to talk
again of the days when he was in the
council and chairman of the finance
committee.
I'm talking about the commission"
said Mr.. Semmes, and asking you
about them, not about any more of
your work as an alderman or chair
man of the finance committee"
Mr.. Craft then wanted to offer five
hundred dollars that he was correct in
the statements he had made. then he
J wanted to bet hundred. the winner
to give his winnings to an orphan
asylum.
81 haven't got a hundred dollars and
wouldn't know where to find it now,"
answered Mr.. Semmes, that's where
you make your mistake. Mobile had
an orphan asylum and all those things
when the commission went in and we
have never been able to get them
here. You come here at haIf-past six
| A1 bho SNSA44hSs 1ltO du duIO~
mobile and go to the hotel, see some
paving you never saw before and get
up and tell the people Of Pensacola
they are progressing, when you cont
known what Pensacola lacks. We
have progressed, but there are some
things we need at the same time"
Mr.. JONES SPEAKS.
City Attorney Jones. author of the
Jones charter, defended his charter in
a half-hour speech in which he as
sailed the policy OF the newspapers
; and said that they are wrong.
Il only regret" he said, that my
; name and personality should be
! brought prominently forward. I am of
a retiring disposition and fight quiet
ly, though shoulder to shoulder with
you, for the good of the people Of PEN
sacola."
He then said that he had decided
: that it was his duty to warn against
/ the Semmes committee charter be-
! cause "in that instrument turks dan