The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1919-10-11

|
deem it but fair that have a re-
| ioinder in reply to the TRADE of the
Aldermen in The Greenovi!le Sun of
October the 9Th. In the first SEN
tence of the Aldermen's attempt to
answer my article they speak of "the
| garbled statements in the Mayors
letter" In my former letter on the
carnival I did nothing but state the
facts as they occurred, which facts
can eacily be established by the rec
ords and by the testimony CT the Re-
corder and Chief of Police. If | made
any statements which did not accord
with the facts, the Aldermen can
easily prove the falsity of it. Now,
let us examine some of the Alder
mems statements and see whether or
not we can discover any "garbling"
there.
First they say, 'the Mayor has
seen fit to reverse this rule" referr-
ing to their majority rule, "and ar
rogate to himself all power, legisla-
tive, judicial and executive" Let US
Investigate just little and see what
the duties of the Mayor are. Under
Section A of the Charter of the Town
of Greeneville, in defining the duties
of the Mayor, we find these words:
"He shall have general su-
pervision of all officers of the
municipality and see that all laws
and ordinances are enforced"
find under Section 5 an enumera-
tion of the many and varied duties
of the Mayor and Aldermen acting to-
gether as a municipal board, but no.
where do l find the enforcement of
the laws and ordinances enjoined up
on the Aldermen or upon the Mayor
and Aldermen jointly. This is dis
tinctly the prerogative of the Mayor.
Now, when the Aldermen voted to let
the carnival come on the inside they
were exercising their rights, and |
aequiesced, though. not withoutsa Wig
orous protest. This action was taken,
however, with the distinct understand
ing and agreement between the Board
and the carnival management that no
gambling devices of any kind would
be allowed, and the minutes of this
meeting so recorded it. | ask now in
all candor, was | arrogating to my
self "all power" when | attempted to
enforce the law against gambling, or
was just doing what the law enjoin-
ed upon me, and what / had sworn !
would do when | took my oath of Of
fee? The act of the Aldermen in
their endeavor to coerce the Recorder
and the Chief of Police into refusal
to cooperate with me in enforcing
the law was, in fact, an effort to
usurp the authority which the law
had conferred upon me. Now, in all
fairness, who did the garbling in this
instance?
Again, in regard to that attempted
repeal of the anti-gambling ordi-
nance, which was in deed and in truth
a "child of the underworld" for
which they must assume the father.
hood, it is true | was trapped into
saying, 81 waive a regular call of the
meeting" because of a misunder-
standing, and for this reason, one OF
the Aldermen insisted that the meet
ing was a regular one, and said if
continued to refuse to allow the
gambling concessions to run they
meant to repeal the law. l told then
inasmuch as ! had not called the
meeting, it would not be legal re.
peal if they did. Whereupon he re-
piled illegal or not legal" it would
serve their purpose in allowing the
concessions in question to open, anC
the legality of it could be tested ii
the courts later on. 1t now develops
since my first article appeared that
the minutes of the meeting in which
the repeal was passed have been de-
stroyed. ! expected the minutes Of
that meeting to be read and passed
upon at our regular meeting on last
Tuesday night, as were the min.
utes of two or three other meetings
recently held Our Recorded says he
destroyed minutes because he was ask
Y ed to do so by the three Alder
men who were present when the re.
peal was passed. The insistance OF
the Aldermen at first was that the
meeting was legal one. If it were
why destroy the minutes? If it were
or were not legal, what right had
these three Aldermen to separately
and apart, tell the Recorder to de.
stroy these minutes, and what right
did the Recorder have to obey them
If they wanted these minutes ex.
plunged from the record or the repeal
voided, why not take it up in a legal