The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-10-05
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Criticism of Officials
To the Editor of The Age Herald:

To the Edft0r or Lne Se-fieFdlu, l wish to express my appreciation Of your editorial several days ago regard ing MT. Jerry Gwin. I am not known to Mr. Gwn or to any member of the board of revenue, but do ride great deal on the county roads and fully ap- preciate your remarks regarding same. Within theVpast few weeks l have had occasion ito make auto trips to Gadsden twice. Rome. Ga. and Tuscaloosa and several other places and no signs gre needed to tell me when l reach the Jef- ferson county line. The roads that have been built in this county during the past three or four years are much bet ter in every way than the old roads; better graded, better curves and will last much longer.
 That mistakes have been made by the board and by the county engineer dur ing the past few strenuous years is most natural, and no one will deny that our own government has made many great mistakes, costing millions of dol- lars. during that time. Also every man who operates business has made eN- pensive mistakes since 1914, we have all tried to get something done without regard to cost, which has tended to make us all very extravagant in our ideas.
 The public should withhold condemna- ton of any man until he has had full opportunity to state his side Of the case It is such common thing to hear every man who holds public office condemned that we pay very little attention to it and expect it as part of our regular business have heard the City Com mission cursed great deal lately, but mostly by people who talk without think ing X man from Pittsburg was telling me how rotten this city is run, and l asked him if he knew that Birmingham has almost twice the area of Pittsburg, about one-fourth of the population anu had probably one-fiftieth of Pittsburg wealth. He hadn't thought of it, but he said that the city was not kept up as we'll now as it was five years ago, and I told him I thought the city s in come had increased very llttle in that time and it costs great' deal more to keep the. city up now than it did then. Then I asked him if it does not cost more to keep up and keep clean the real streets in downtown Birmingham than the little alleys they call streets in downtown Pittsburg, where man can. not rVIn his auto between a street car and the curb but has to park 1t on the fourth or fifth story of building about half mile from his office, where 1t re- quires half an hour to get his car out 1T he needs it quick.
 Frankly, as I know absolutely noth- ing about operating the city or county I do not believe I could run their at- fairs as well as the the present heads, and until I believe I could do it better shall refuse to curse all the pubic officials.
 hitching post never makes ms. take; but as our officials are not hitch. ing posts we should not expect perfec- tion from them.
 I think our City Commission has made three mistakes in judgment. none or which is serious. They stopped dancing at East Lake and forced all the young people to go to West Ladke or Edge wood They stopped Sunday moving pic lures and closed the tire repair shops. never dance, hardly ever go to pie ture show and can fix a puncture with out much trouble so it does not affect me personally But I visit many cities in the course of year and I see all these things going on without seeming to ruin the morals of the people.
 If the county board had to make mis- take and build road in Tuscaloosa county, they made the luckiest kind of mistake in building the road to the Warrior river, where a fellow might catch few fish
 It causes great deal of pain to any official and to his whole family to be publicly condemned and, for this reason, we should be very sure that our crit icsms are based upon facts before we pass them around so freely. Yours very truly, E. J. LEE hISI. Birmin gham, october 3, 1920.
 Answers Mississippi Man
 To the Editor of The Age-Herald; As