Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-09
JOB MERCHANTS ARE DOOMED
BY MOORE AND THE CHARTER
Vare's City Committee, Citadel Of the
Assessment System, Is lettering
Under Fatal Snub

THERE are few places even in Uis
wicked old world where you have to
pay humping fee in good money for
the privilege of working for a living,
The ever-so-red Bolsheviks seem never to
have thought of scheme so wildly at
variance with ordinary conceptions of
decency. In Mexico they tax a man for
working now and then. But Mexico is
full of revolutions.
Here in Philadelphia the incredible rule
is Systematically applied. 1t has the dig
nifty of an accepted tradition. Every
officeholder under the municipal govern
ment, every one who draws big or little
pay from the city treasury, has been eX-
pected to pay price in the form of as
sessments claimed by the Republican city
committee.
Mayor Smith himself and Sunny Jim
Sheehan have proudly declared a belief
in the principle and their willingness to
pay tribute.
The Mayor and Sunny jim can afford
it. But a question might be raised in the
cases of underpaid policemen who stand
out in the rain or fremen who do the
city's most dangerous work or any of the
employees in minor positions. Even
women who go about on their knees to
scrub the floors have been expected to
give up their mites. Unquestonably
there are little children in the city who
have had to go to school with holes in
their shoes because funds were needed at
Eleventh and Chestnut streets-and they
aren't the children of the jobholders
higher up who insist piously that politi-
cal contributions in the municipal service
represent moral duty of employees to a
benign and all-wise machine.
Where does the money go? Ask the
winds of heaven. They smoke good
cigars at the city committee rooms and
no one ever heard of a ward leader being
in want.
Under the rule of Senator Ware and
some of his predecessors the Republican
city committee was an association of job
merchants. Theirs was a profitable bust
ness. And now it is to be abolished and
outlawed! A basic industry, the very
foundation of political prestige, is to be
wiped out by new Mayor and new
charter. In the storm of whispers that
swept the vicinity of Broad and Chestnut
streets yesterday it was being said that
riot squad would have been necessary
to feel Senator Vare's quickening pulse
when Mr.. Moore administered an unex-
pected and almost brutal snub to the
city committee and in few words eimi-
mated it as factor in municipal affairs.
What did Sheriff Ransley say to Mr..
| Moore when he entreated him over the
| telephone to attend the city committee
meeting? What did Congressman Moore
say to Mr.. Ransley before he made it
| plain that he wanted none of the COM
mittee-neither a part in its affairs nor
the pleasure of its company? No one
| knows. But it is easy to imagine that
| Mr.. Ransey felt the ground tremble and
! saw the consultations of his familiar
universe madly revolve in the wrong
| direction.
The city committee needed the Mayor
| in its business if it was to have had even
| fighting chance to persist in it's pres
| ent form. There is the new charter, of
! course, and the definite penalties which
it provides for any city employe who goes
| in actively for politics. But what is a
! little charter between friends? With
some such query the city committee,
| with Senator Ware at its head, must have
| comforted itself when it sat down at the
meeting which Mr.. Moore refused to at
tend. As matters stand the bonds that
held the Ware organization together are
turned to sand.
A perfectly good committee of astute
gentlemen with old-fashioned minds are
in need of other work to do, and one.
time boss who ruled like a rajah needs 8
flock of astrologers to tell him "whert
he is at" For if Congressman Moore's
statement of yesterday means anything il
means that the city committee is to bt
rent asunder, scattered, razed to the
ground and made over again from better
material.
The technique Of the congressman
attack was almost fawless. Once befor,
in these columns we said something O.
the worth of his acquired skill in part,
maneuvering. That quality was demon
strated, as we predicted it would be
when Mr. Moore withheld his heavies
fire until the last day for nominations ha,
passed, until he was sure that his ney
friends couldn't cut under him. Then h
announced his intention to ignore tn
Ware committee, to abolish all assess
ments, to give city employees Of all grade
! absolute freedom Apm political bosses