The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-28
Ky RALPH R. SILVER

will mean more to him than it will near i to member of the city government oi some public official whom perhaps hs knows only by name and with whom ht 1 may imagine he has no common interest or welfare.
 This is the man for whom it is time to take it upon himself to ascertain some bond issue facts.
 Cold Blooded Proposition
 Tho bond issue is a cold-blooded propo- sition. Unlike other elections, their is no personality entering into it. There Is not-or rather should not be-any friend to help CT any enemy to hinder It is a cold. commercial, dollars and cents issue. It has not the popular ap- peal of an election contest between rival candidates.
 But there cannot be a doubt that the bond Issue election April F is fraught with more importance to the people oi Birmingham than any municipal election in years.
 Opponents to the bond issue acclaim that the deficit of, the city treasury does not call for bond issue of $1,250,o coo They charge that expenditures have been ''trumped i'm by the administration In order to make it appear that s1,25O, 900 is needed now.
 In this connection 1t Is interesting to mote that in September. 1sls IS months ago. President George Ward of the city commission issued a statement in which he fcretold exactly that the deficit at this time would be about s1,250,000.
 In September, 1913, the deficit was sl,- oO0,000 and in September. 1914, it reached s1, SIS, ,000.
 In The Age-Herald of November 16, 1913, MT. Ward set out then existing deficit, showing that there was net deficit for each years operation of the government of a little over s300,000.
 OnaApril 12 1915, the commission will have been fin office four years and two days, and with a deficity of s300,000 per year Qt has averaged little more) the total deficit can easily be seen to pc s1,2O0,000
 Rebated Assessments
 As a matter of fact, the s1, ,250.000 bond issue will not cover the total deficit. For there are such items as delinquent as- easements and rebated assessments on street Improvements made by the subur- ban towns before they came into Greater Birmingham which can only be estimated. The rebafed assessments, however, are known to exceed over $30o,000
 That is not money the city has ex- pended but money 1t never received, which. in the end, is the same thing.
 There is no dispute about the equity of the rebates. City officials and the prop erty owners In the suburbs have long ago agreed that the rebates were neces- sary as a matter of business, but that does not eliminate the fact that over s3OO,- 600 on the books of the city, and which was raid out by the city for the im- provements were never paid into the city treasury by the property owners who received the Improvements
 To ascertain facts regarding the rev. enues and expenditures of the city gov i, ering reriods of a year. Revenues and expenditures for a month, or a week or day or six months can be taken and made to mean dozen different things.
 Some years a heavy expenditure is made in one of the early months, others in one of the months in the last half of the year. The revenues of the city, derived from taxes and license, usually come in the first couple of months of the year. Interest on borrowed monies falls due at different times.
 Nothing can be shown that Is of any use by comparing these figures for any period less than a year. Some opponents of the bond issue take the "s1o00 per day deficit" parable and proceed to show that the deficit does not total the s1,250o0O asked for by the bond issue. Others take the monthly statements.
 But the only way to secure the neces- sary degree of accuracy is to use the figures for year periods of time and then it can easily be seen where the S1,250,- 0o0 deficit comes from.
 Opponents of the commission form of government and therefore of the bond is- sue are fond of eschewing over the tid- Dir eptited, "the previous bond issue.'' which the commissioners faithfully promised us would be the last"
 It would have been the last if there had been the necessary reformation of the tax laws and revenue system of the city. But that bond issue was to wipe out the then existing deficit found by the commission when it took office four years ago None cf 1t was to be or has been used for the expenditures of the four years the commission has administered the affairs of the city.
 In those four years. for reasons well known to every citizen, the commission was compelled to pile up the yearly de- ficit of over $300000.
 There is TO need of recounting here why. By this time all know of the struggle to operate full grown metro- politan city on the income of a country town: of the demands (and just de- mands) of l citizenship with a pure Havana appetite on a city government with stogie'' income.
 As has before been stated, payday has come.