Courier Democrat., 1916-08-17
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NEW USE FOR TOWN MARSHAL
Kansas Town Solves Municipal Prob
lem by Means of Advertising.

Kansas own Solves a Municipai Prob
lem by Means of Advertising.
Luray. Kan. has solved the para
mount problem of the country town,
! says the Chicago Tribune. The re-
sourcefulncss Of O. /. Stevenson. city
clerk; members of the city council and
n want ad. did it. Luray wanted q
town marshal. but there was no one
there who would fill the bill, and so
City Clerk Stevenson put an ad. in
Kansas City paper. Forty men an
swered. One Of them. George II. Arm
| strong Of Newton. Kan. was selected
| for the place. He is an experienced
| police officer and is making good not
only by way Of keeping the peace in
tact. but by the satisfactory perform
ance of many other and varied duties
| He virtually is city manager.
The life of city marshal in Luray is
no sinecure. Luray was confronted
with the same difficulty that thrusts
itself into the life of every other coun-
| try town-the enforcement of town
ordinances and finding Il man to per-
| form the many municipal tasks. no
one of which is of sufficient volume
| to require all of his time. but which
in the aggregate make up an impor-
tant and responsible position. The
| former marshal was born on the town
| site and he knew everybody, and er-
erybody knew him. How could he az
| rest anybody for a violation Of the
town ordinances? Why, the idea!
The town never gets particularly
good. nor does it get particularly bad
1t moves along at the same old pace,
| regardless of city ordinances that al
feet the personal atmosphere of the
| old home town. Luray was up against
| that very proposition. Describing It's
solution. 0. l. Stevenson. city clerk,
said:
Here we area small country town
| Of 800 situated in the wheat belt of
| west central Kansas. Luray probably
| is no better nor no worse than the
average country town of it's size with
| the same natural surroundings. OF
course. out here everybody knows ev-
crybody else, and all are ncighbors.
There is almost no social distinc.
ton. But, as is the case in every town
| large or small, there are two clements
One is known as the 'roughnecks' and
| the other usually as the law and order
element.
I'm our little town we have always
had some difficulty in enforcing our or
dinances, owing to the fact that our
marshal has been one of our own
townsmen, and everybody knew him
AS all We're his neighbors. he wouldn't
do anything unless they got pretty bad
| We found that some of the people
would so further in even little things if
| they had no officer except q neighbol
whom they called by his first name be
cause he would be slow in taking any
action against them.
Then we tried getting along withou,
marshal, but that didn't work at all
Finally we thought of advertising fol
man. We put a little want ad. in the
Sunday edition Of the Kansas City
Star, and 1 received forty replies. We
selected Il man who came here person
ally and applied for the position. We
pay him 500 Il month He has had ex
perience in police work and in the Sc
! cret service department of railways.
"His duties are many and varied. We
have Il municipal water system. and he
looks after that and collects the water
rent. He acts as street commissioner
tax collector and peace officer The
job takes up SO much Of his time that
he doesn't have opportunity to pitch
horseshoes or go fishing.
"1n other words, we plan that this
one man shall do about all the actual
work the town requires-exccpt the
team work on the streets. If he is yer.
satile enough to do all these in salts.
factory manner we will have found the
solution to the problem that has trou-
bled the town council'
Efficient Civic Survey.