The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-06-26
Irrelevant Questions

To the Editor of The Age-Herald. | MT. T. c. Mcdonald, unable to an- swer my letter, indirectly undertakes to do so by asking a series of irrelevant ] questions.
 l. Answering his question about MT. A, the city is not trying to build a fine house out of anybody else's money at all. l do not know who elected Mr Mcdonald to the position of watchman. Did the people? If so, when? 2. l do not know any MT. c, who is
 endeavoring to give his children a col lege education or buy an automobile with other peoples money. Certainly the city has not done anything of this kind and is not undertaking to do so. That question is also .irrelevant. 3. If MT. D. wants a fine playhouse or
 auditorium and hasn't the money to pay for it. that is one thing, but if the overwhelming majority of the people of Birmingham as they have twice de- for it, why should MT. Mcdonald be the
 only man in Birmingham willing to stand in the peoples way?
 4. The city is not undertaking to rob the purse of another for the purpose | of building an electric light plant. A ! majority of the people themselves have | voted not once but again and again for l the principle of municipal owner 1 ship. One thousand and eight hundred other cities in the United States now | have municipal ownership of electric ] light plants. The people want this be-
 cause they believe it will pay because I it will give better lighted streets, be-
 cause they believe it will give cheaper
 current to the private consumer. What ~l,+ Ire, Mo- MaTA n H. now, as he generally is. to say that the people cannot rule in their own govern
 ment?
 i I submit that not one of the proposi- tions are analogous-not one is perti- nent to any issue in this case. The peo- | pie have said, because they know it to be true, that their schools are unsafe, | inadequate and dangerous in many l cases. The people have said that they
 want an auditorium. The people have l said that they want cheaper and better ] lights and more lights
 | But even these questions are irrel : ] evant in a large sense. The vital thing | is that the people owe certain obliga | tions which were created for purposes which the people approved. MT. Me Donald would not only rob the people of their victory at the polls but he would force the city to repudiate an 1 honest debt or run five months | school, or else place an uneven and unfair distribution of the burdens upon | the people.
 Does MT. Mcdonald favor free public I education or is he opposed to it? Does he want a tuition fee that will drive thousands of the children of the poor away from school and shut the door of opportunity in their faces or does he want repudiation of an honest debt?
 MT Mcdonald says his principal is "Mr Organic Law of Alabama" I ask him when MT. Organic Law of Ala bama" appointed him as its agent? NJ other citizen of Birmingham in 1G years has made complaint. No law requires him to do so. If he is making this com plaint in his own name and for his own purposes. as he said. then. he must approve and desire the inevitable out come of his case if he is victorious He must know because he is man of intelligence.
 There are but three alternatives open if his suit succeeds: First. repudiation 1; second, five months school or, third, an unfair. unequal and unjust read : justment of the burdens of taxation, falling in every case most heavily upon the poor and those least able 10 bear it. If MT. Mcdonald is satisfied with either alternative. and one or the other is inevitable. then he is welcome to what comfort he can obtain thes efron, Respectfully. J. B. WOOD. Birmingham. June 23. 1916.