The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1913-03-21
THE CITY CAMPAIGN.


about their affairs with the air of
people who know what they have
been doing and just about what they
are going to do Blackfoot pleads
guilty of being conservative in the
past and of having a tendency to
continue SO. AS result it has never
been troubled with relapse that
follows boom, and has never been
plunged into useless bonding or ex-
pensive litigation that calmer coun-
sci and persistence in things safe
and sane could eliminate. 1t has
never cultivated the germs of dissen-
tion that lead to injunctions born of
spite and revenge, such as have been
filling the records of sister towns
to the sacrifice of material interests,
the Sitting of public spirit and fur
nishing the incubator for Matching
graft that begins in public places and
creeps into the transactions of pri-
vate life until moral stamina becomes
theory land not a practice.
Citizens have sometimes been
more generous than discreet in sub
scribing private money for semi
public purposes, and if the old
school gymnasium stood for time
as a reproach to their generosity or
If the old Armory proved a poor in
vestment of their money and hatch
cry for colds and coughs they have
consoled their wounded feelings with
the thought thai local people or home
industry got the money and that it
was only half lost anyway.
The past week has been period of
considerable reflection on what the
people have ordered and what their
officials have delivered. Our re-
view last week of the two administra-
tons that have made the list of i'm
PAoNOhChIo "hlSL IhO puullC ludOO
meeting gave them a written order
for, and which has been attacked and
condemned by a party platform that
is opposed to whatever is has been
put to the test of reflection by the
people of the town. Their memory
runs back to the days not long past
when the thawing season witnessed
extensive puddles of substantial
depth, confined in the low places of
nearly all the streets, and hemmed
in by bitches and dykes that made it
impossible Of excape by drainage; of
-.pld board walks disconnected at in
tervals and with ups and downs that
made walking by night dangerous;
of alleys that we're not only untidy
as many are now but were lined with
closets that were revolving to sight
and smell and many caving in so they
were as death traps for small child
rem; of streets that were not only
weedgrown as they now are but were
so Uttered with cans, wires, hoops,
bricks, rocks, bones and ash heaps
that moving the weeds was impos-
sible; of privately-owned cemetery
that was a wilderness of weeds and
brush; all of which has been chang
ed for the better under two strong
forces-the city administration and
the awakened good taste and deter
mination of the whole public to have
things different. The greatest task
is done and something has been i'm
planted in the town that will make
further Improvements easier and to
some extent automatic in their perv
formance. That something" we re-
fer to is conviction on the part of
the active, thinking people of the
town that their own premises and the
streets and alleys adjacent to them
must and shall be kept cleaner and
more beautiful than they have been;
that a dirty, untidy street in front
of home is greater blight to that
family than 1t is to the rest of the
town; that having it kept clean and
sanitary is greater advantage to
them than it is to the town.
Experience proves that where
the individual takes narrow selfish
view Of these things and waits for the
municipality to do what is partly his
own duty, it is generally left undone
and public spirit sinks instead OF
rising The day is passing when a
family will neglect to keep their prer1
Uses in go condition because the
neighbors neglect theirs. or because
the town fails or hasn't the money tc
clean the streets in front of theil
home. The day is passing when the
individual wants to put all the doubt
full burdens upon the city as II hs
were not a part Of It and where hi
IA hurt more than anybody else BY