The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1916-09-07
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1915
The Health Board Protests.

Il6 66dlGu 6UdLu L AObOnpo'
The executive officers of the Keno
sha Board of Health have taken excep-
lions to certain statements made IN
these columns in regard to the uncov-
cred garbage wagons. This is not IN
the nature of an apology to the board,
but it is possible that some statements
made in defense of the failure OF the
board or some one else to cover up the
garbage wagons are worthy of consid-
Grafton These officials claim that
under existing ordinances of the city
the Health Department can not force
garbage collectors to get rid OF their
leaky wagons with open tops. If this
is the fact, it is high time that the
Health Board was given this very pow
err. Certainly the state law gives
health departments some powers to
abate nuisances of this kind and it is
possible that a critical study of the
state law might reveal such to be the
case. If the Health Board has no pow
er the city council should waste no
time giving it to it and giving it in a
manner that would make possible the
immediate enforcement. The garbage
wagon should be as much liable to city
control as the jitney bus or the auto
mobile. We force automobile drivers
to carry certain lights to prevents &C
cidents; we force them to run at q
certain rate of speed for the same
purpose. If city can do this it GER
tainly can force a garbage wagon to
have some sort of an arrangement to
keep in the stencil of its load of filth.
The health commissioner declares that
he has taken this matter up with the
garbage men and that they declare that
they will not purchase new wagons and
that if the city insists on such a rule
that they will give up the business and
leave Kenosha garbage to rot in the
cans and become menace to the health
of the community. Evidently these
garbage men have seen the effect of
putting a gum to the temple of law
makers down in Washington. They
evidently believe that if small bunch
of employees can force President and
Congress than it should be easy for a
quarter dozen garbage collectors to
force the hand of Common Coun-
Gil in Kenosha.
If the people Of the city are to
choose between the streets being filled
with the nauseating smell of the gar
bage carts or going into the municipal
collection of garbage, then the sooner
the council declares for municipal col
lection the better. The threat Of the
garbage men to quit should have marry
a terror in it. 1t should be welcomed
as one way of getting action from the
council on the garbage collection ques-
tion AS we have said before, there
has been excellent reasons in the past
for the delay of the council in adopting
the garbage collection plan, but there
need be no farther delay The survey
of the city has been made hy experts
and the members of the council now
know just about what it is going to
cost to collect garbage and collect it in
a manner that will not make the col
lection obnoxious to the people. If
small band of garbage collectors want
to set themselves up against the people
and insist that they will continue to
operate wagons, which are stencil
in the nostrils of decency, surely the
council can be whipped into line to put
these fellows out Of business by pro-
viding for the city taking over a de-
cidedly important portion of the bat
tle for sanitation in the city.
The time is opportune to start the
garbage committee to work again. If
the city must be Inconvenience or run
out of its buildings by the stencil
Of these wagons, lot of people would
prefer to be Inconvenience.
The collection of garbage in the city
must be more or less profitable. Men
who have been in the business have
continued in it for years and more OF
them have been found seeking the
bankrupt courts. If these men sue
coed they should be ready to meet the
demands of the people. If they insist
on conducting their business so that it
is nuisance to a lot of the people
then the city should start right in now
to regulate it, even though the regula-
ton forces the city to enter the field
of garbage collection.
The Health Board should at once be
given every possible power for regula-
ton by resolution of the council pend
ing the passage Of an ordinance and
the city attorney and the police de-
partment should be instructed to give
what aid it can to the Health Depart
ment In the abatement of nuisance.