Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-01-16
CITY HALL BOLSHEVISM
FIGHTS A NEW CHARTER

| Vi III L HALL DotIDI1E v lCD
FIGHTS A NEW CHARTER
The Ware Machine Is Revealing symptoms Of
the Dull Unreason That Always Pre-.
cedes Deserved Chastisement by
the Public
TT IS plain that the Brothers Ware and
their trained Councilmen have quite
forgotten the roaring day in 1905, when
crowds marched to City Hall and sat in
both chambers with ropes in their hands
and clipped in to buy tar and feathers.
| The gas-lcase extension project was
| voted down though the ways had been
creased for it. A system of betrayal and
| debasement even more constituencies and
more fragrant than that which flowered
in the 1905 jobbcry is eliminating in
open warfare against the plan for new
city charter. The first big attack has
been rehearsed for today's meeting of
Council
The chaste spirits comprising the Ware
machine are prepared to appear in solid
formation as defenders of the city's
welfare-as guardians of it's integrity!
Uncle Dave Lane is the stage manager
of the odd melodrama. And we used to
think that Uncle Dave had cunning!
No outcome of the political confusion
in Philadelphia could be happier for the
city at large than the sort of campaign
that is being organized against the
charter-revison scheme. The Ware
machine is in sort of delirium. 1t is
running wild. A fetid system of organ
lied anarchy is cntrenched at City Hall.
The sooner that system is compelled to
drag itself out into the light the sooner
it will be fully understood by an easy
going public. And the sooner its motives
can be understood.
Mayor Smith and Director Wilson and
the Wares themselves are doing service
to the city by making their organization
appear daily more detestable. And we
are approaching just that much more
swiftly to the smash that always follows
the overcontidence of beggar on horse
back.
LET u.s." say Uncle Dave and Brother
Ed and Brother Bill in effect, "have all
the city one happy Frog Hollow! Do
not put profane hands on established
institutions! Things are good enough as
they are"
Things are good enough-behnd the
bar5ed wire of the City Hall machine.
But the champions of political prostitu-
ton in Councils haven't been trained to
complain of any actual fault with the
plans for a new city charter. Who, in
these days of practical politics, considers
the utility or decency of anything? The
war is to be waged upon grounds of
patriotism and civic pride!
Scouts for Uncle Dave and Brother
Bill turned up the shocking information
that some of the gentlemen engaged in
the plans for charter revision do not
reside in Philadelphia, but in the sub
urbs. Brother Ed amblcs in from his
feudal castle at Amber to cry out in
righteous Indignation against the pre-
sumption here indicated He will not, of
course, suggest that his criticism is
aimed al men whose enterprise and
industry have been adequate to sustain
such prestige as the city is able to
achieve against all the handcaps of
rotten political administration. When
advice is needed to keep the municipal
affairs out of the hands of suburbanites,
John R. X, Scott may easily be sum-
moned from Bala-or is it Cynwyd?
Mayor Smith, refreshed by the vernal
peace of his Glensde home, writes
ungrammatical TRADES to Secretary
Daniels assuring the world that Phila-
1elpha is clean.
But the residence of these gentlemen
is different. Whereas the charter commit
tee suburbanites vote where they live in
the suburbs, Brother Ed and His Honor
and Mr. Scott do not. They keep voting
addresses" in the wards where they first
rose to political power, but which are no
longer good enough for them really to
live in That is the difference.
The plight Of the Mayor and of the
whole Ware machine is perfectly obvious.
| 1t has had plenty Of rope and it is making
the traditional use of it. A sane and
presumably normal-minded population is
asked to believe that servile vote,
bought and paid for, is more desirable
than the system provided for in every
ordinance of free government; that the
taxpayers should applaud and support a
state of affairs under which their money
is used to corrupt the affairs of the
municipality; that we have reached the
ideal state of city government when
money is taken out of the treasury and