Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-06-13
GOES ON WARPATH
OVER A HIGHWAY.
Mrs. Gordon Wants County Com
missioners' Books Audited BY
Public Accountant.
WRITES COMMISSIONERS.
Owner OF Contee'S Wharf Prop
erty Charges Political Favor
itism In Expenditures.

Mrs. Alexander Gordon wants to
have the whole system of bookkeeping
i'm the office of the Anne Arundel
County Commissioners opened up 10y
an expert accountant, that the method
in the expenditure of the road taxes
may be elucidated. The row between
the Commissioners started over the
lady's effort to have improvements to
a road in the neighborhood of the farm
she comparatively recently bought
near Contee's Wharf, in the First Dis
trict. A county road is in the neigh
borhood of her place but Mrs. Gordon
says for the greater part of the year il
is utterly impossible, despite the fact
that she has spent a great deal of
money on it herself, trying to get il
in some kind of repair, She declares
the County Commissioners have not
spent a dollar on the road in the two
years she has owned the farm, and
even now refuse to lend her their ma
chinery to make improvements on il,
although the machinery is idle and she
is willing to hire men to do the work.
Mrs. Gordon has even gone to the
NAOubtC Vi bObNihS a bONNlhh Nh-
gineer to prepare plans for improving
the road, and says she has been prom
ised Stag from the Sparrows Point
plant to be used for paving, but with
all this accomplished, she says, the
Commissioners still refuse TO give her
any help or encouragement, and only
smile pityingly when she appears be-
fore them to insist that something be
done.
The road which she says is so badly
out of repair is only three miles long
and has a dozen or more farms abut-
ting it, but her neighbors seem as in
different to its condition as the County
Commissioners, she says.
Having exhausted every means of
getting something done and her pa
thence as well, Mrs. Gordon now pro-
poses to dig into the very heart of
Anne Arundel's political system and
find out what is rotten in Denmark"
To that end she mailed to the Com
missioners yesterday the following let
ter:
County Commissioners of Anne
Arundel County:
Gentlemen-I would like to
know how the road tax of Anne
Arundel County has been and is
being expended. Being a large
taxpayer in your county | am, of
course, deeply interested.
Would you allow an expert ac-
countant, to be employed and com
pensated by me, TO have access To
your books and accounts for this
purpose?
MRS. ALEXANDER GORDON, JR.,
Baltimore, Md, June II.
Mrs. Gordon said she had employed
lawyer to handle the matter and in
tended to have an expert accountant
go over the county's books and show
just how that road funds have been
handled. In support of her claim that
the funds are expended for political
purposes, she cited a contract which
she said the Commissioners had re-
Gently given to Senator Frank NJ.
Duvall to build a road one and eight
tenths miles long between the Annapo-
lis Boulevard and st. Margarets. She
said this road is mostly for the benefit
of Senator Duvalls property and that
the contract for building it, including
bridge over Mill Greek, was awarded
him for $4,000 and that his was the
only bid. Mrs. Gordon says she can
cite a number of other cases where
road funds have been spent purely for
the purpose of pleasing some local
politician without any regard for the
public needs, and it is this condition
which she says she is setting out to
expose.