Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-09-13

for the place. There were other can
didates. put the whole matter up 10
Staples Staples said the young wo-
man he eventually chose was far and
away superior to any of the others
and ] told him to make the appoint
ment accordingly. 1t was all matter
OF merit. The young girl who got the
place had absolutely no political back
ing.
Ever since that day I have been
the subject of attack by Kuhn through
his newspaper and by his business
partner, Harry L. Hershey. Because
considered merit first without re-
gard to politics, when it was the well
fare of our children which was en-
trusted to me, 1 am attacked in this
uncalled for and unscrupulous man
ner.
"Of course the whole list of charges
he makes are lies from beginning to
end. TO the person who cares to in
Vestigate the truth or falsity of this
assertion the records of my office are
open at any time.
"If Kuhn could be truthful he
would come out and say that he is op-
posed to my reelection because I
would not let him dictate the payroll
of my office for his personal or politi-
cal benefit and that he wants me de-
feated in order that he can get some
body at the head of the Fairgrounds
and parks who will be his tool and 10
his bidding. Anybody who knows
Kuhn knows what that would mean"
Hoffcrt Explains Specifications
The parkways specifications which
were made the subject of the attack
on Mr.. Taylor which called forth the
foregoing comment, were drawn by
Assistant Superintendent ]. r. Hoffert,
who to-day made the following state
ment concerning them:
MY attention has been called to an
article in an evening paper concern
ing paragraph in the specifications
foc the parkway road.
''Inasmuch as Mr.. Taylor had moth
ing whatever to do with the writing of
these specifications, that duty being
as usual in such cases entrusted to
the engineer in charge, in this case
myself, I desire in fairness to him, to
make the following statement.
THE specifications in question were
prepared after considerable thought
and solely with the idea of being as
fair as possible to both parties to the
contract. For the past ten or fifteen
years there has been a growing con-
viction among engineers that the old
type of contract was very unfair, and
by placing all the responsibility upon
the contractor simply resulted in much
higher bids to cover uncertainties.
1T is now recognized by the best en-
gineers that the contractor should not
be made to assume responsibility for
the accuracy of estimates and quanti-
ties. These can only be determined
by an engineering corps and the party
asking for bids should assume respon-
sibility for this part of the work.
ITO anyone taking the time to look
at the ground over which the new
parkway road will be built, it will be
very evident that it is impossible to
determine, on preliminary estimates,
closer than within ten per cent of the
actual yardage of the finished work.
This Department therefore is assum-
ing responsibility for the estimates
guaranteed that If the quantities diff
fered by more than ten per cent, the
contractor would pay the city the diff
ference, vice versa, according to
whether the amount were less or more
than the estimate.
THE statement that any contractor
did not know how to bid is maliciously
false. Every contractor desiring to
bid was given an opportunity to walk
over the entire line of the proposed
road with one of our engineers who
explained in full, all details He was
also told that barring unexpected con-
tingencies, which might occur during
the construction of the road, there
would be no change whatever from
the plans and that the quantities as
given we believe were accurate but
that instead of making them assume
entire responsibility for the accuracy
of the estimates, we guaranteed the
accuracy to be within ten per cent.
THE contractors were treated
equally and fairly. 1t seems strange
this supposed snake was discovered
just about election time. Every con-
tractor when asked at the time, said
everything was clear to him. l hate
sophistry and 1 hate a poor loser"