Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-09-01
Baking COMPANIES
SEVERELY SCORED
Held Up Matters With an Elev-
enth-Hour ParIey Over
Conditions.

Taking, a firm stand against what
the ter..aci the d. ..ineering tactics
81 some of the volunteer fire com
nanies. and vigorously opposing any
az rnpts at coercion. City Council. al
another lengthy conference with rer-
resentatives of the volunteers las;
night. virtually compelled the holdou'
companies TO sign the temporary con-
tr. for three months service offered
them az Monday nights meeting. Al
of the eleven companies. with the ex-
ception of the Water Witch, attached
their signatures and the latter was
given until noon today to sign
This result was not obtained. how
ever. until after the Councilmen ha1
severely censured five of the volunteer
companies, charging that they mac
tried to make monkeys out OF tnt
Cuuncilmcn, that they were most un'
grateful, and sunpatriotic and that
their conduct in the present crisis
was ahomniable. 1t was made cledi
to an Of the firemen that in the eve !
II did not sign they would be cur
OF from all further consideration oy
the city and that eventually they
would be left with their houses, en-
rines and equipment on their hands
for the city was in nowise oblSateo
TO take over their property IN con-
nection with the establishment OF a
raid department. This threat 10 re-
ftsse 10 take their houses and equip
nept appeared TO be more potent than
any arguments the Councilmen had
haen able to use up TO that time and
IA was not long thereafter when the
contracts began piling up on the desk
81 Clerk simmons with the signatures
81 the fire company presidents at
tached 20 each. 7.
Water Witch offers Amended Contract
Representatives of the Water Witch
co. appeared at the office OF Homer
G simmons, clerk OF Council, shorty
before noon today and presented a
signed contract which, however. was
not the contract submitted 10 the
eornpany by Council. some alterations
having been made by the company
Written in by hand. as a part of the
contract. was the statement that any
existing rights under the contract ot
sale between the parties herein stated
win not be affected by the execution
Of this contract"
Someone representing the Water
witch Co. had taken the liberty OF
inserting this statement into the body
of the contract and thereby invalid-
afcd IL, at least so far as Mr.. sim
mons was concerned. for he refused TO
execute il. He said lie could not do
SO without the specific direction of
Council. because the contract was not
the one offered by the city. The pur-
pose of the insertion was not stated
and was not clear TO the city off,
ciais who knew of I.
This serves to complicate matters
~,ill more. for u o'clock noon today
had been the time limit set by Coun-
eli last night for filing the contracts.
II they had not been in by that hour
the FIRE alarms were to be removed
from the houses of those that had
not signed. Just what will be done
IN this new development has not been
determined.
Mayor Harvey late this morning
attached his signature to the contracts
of the ten companies that had signed
up TO last night. These contracts
will be sent out TO the respective
companies at once.
Continued on page 2.