New Britain herald., 1914-05-09
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s--@ year will see the ap- pointment of a committee to revise the charter so as to make each de- partment partisan. Mayor Quigley IS being credited with the statement that his desire is to abolish the non-par- tisan commissions. There are many men of good sound Judgment who do not believe in non-part1sansh1p beard, claiming that under such a system there is no responsibility. or course such contention is nonsensi- cal, because the mayor appoints the commissioners and if they do not do their work properly the responsibility
 must rest on him for the reason that he is given power to remove incom- petent officials and if he does not do so then he is to blame and no one else. It is not necessary to have a commission democratic or republican in order to have it efficient. The in- tention in making the boards non- partisan was that the members would give their attention to the city and not to politics and in this way the public would be benefited. Under the partisan system appointments will be made in such a manner as to benefit the party in power regardless of the competency of the individual. It may be remarked that some incompetent appointments are made under the present system. That is undoubtedly true because the city has not pro- gressed far enough along non-partisan lines to eliminate all incompetents but no one can truthfully say that some progress has not been made dur ing the past eight years. People will recall that the old charter contained a provision for instance which said that the appointments to the police force should be divided equally be- tween the two leading political parties, as if politics had anything to do with police efficiency. Nothing could have been more ridiculous than to refuse a supernumerary an appointment be- cause he did not happen to affiliate with the political organization entitled to the place. It took a number of years to see the foolishness of that provision just as it took many years to see the foolishness of some other provisions which have been removed and it will be the biggest mistake the city ever made to go back to the old conditions. Mayor Quigley has pledged himself to give New Britain
 
 that no efficient employe of the city need have any fear of removal, yet the public can see for itself how the latter statement has been observed. No one has any right to think he owns an office, but a city cannot have a business administration unless when ore official is removed another more efficient is put in his place. A private corporation that was run on any other basis would soon have the red flag of the auctioneer outside the door.
 The determination of Mayor Quigley to remove the superintendent of the Town home, although the present occupant of that institution is under contract for another year, move ment which has been emphasized by a demand for his resignation through the board of charities, recalls a former superintendent there. It will be re- membered that the position was once held by Levi Boughton and the late Newton R. Hurlburt was selectman. There had been rumors that MT. Boughton was not giving satisfaction and that in the event of the reelection of MT. TIurlburt he would not be given another term MT. Boughton became a candidate for selectman himself but did not receive any sup port to speak of in the caucus and naturally was not reappointed by MT. Hurlburt In due time MT. Boughton retired and upon casual examina- ton of the record book at the home some time later an entry was discovered on one of the back pages to the effect that Mr.. Bough- ton had been removed because he had sought the nomination for selectman and so closed cam paign incident that at one time was thought might develop into a demo- cratic party dispute. The superin- tendency of the Town home, from the time it was removed from the north end of the town to it's present location, has always had it's unpleasant features. It is disagreeable position, more so during recent years and will continue to be so because the number of insane there is constantly increasing and the work must necessarily be more dis agreeable. Previous to the adminis- tration of Ambrose Beatty as select man and before an addition was first made to the old building, the town house, as it was then called, was a
 
 were small in number and little atten ton was given them. The food was of the poorest kind, consisting mainly of pork, cabbage, potatoes and such other articles as were gathered from what was really poorly cultivated farm. No one paid any attention to the place and the management was allowed to drift along any old way. Mr. Beatty found the place in a wretched condition. He found it necessary to build an addition, which was formally opened with a dinner at which the selectmen and a number of prominent citizens attended and from that time until the present conditions at the home have been improved and it's management more carefully looked after. The general impression is that 1t has been we'll managed by MT. .