The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1921-04-22

election it has ever held and the
candidates for Aldermen anc
Navor to date, taken all togeth-
er, are anything but an inspiring
lot. considering the fact that
Elizabeth City probably will
spend more money in the next
two years than it has spent in
any previous ten years.
Elizabeth City will, in the next
two years, spend upwards OF
100000 on it's public schools and
S250,O00 or more in acquiring its
own electric light, water and
sewerage properties. With the
installation of sewerage and the
extension of it's water supply
system every street in the city
will be torn up, which will neces-
state the intelligent expenditure
OF many thousands of dollars in
street repairs and improvements
To whom is Elizabeth City going
to entrust this big business? It
is time the voters and tax pay
ers of this city began to give Sc
rious thought to this question,
with the election only a few
weeks off.
With so much money to be handled
under the next administration, the old
line politicians are bestirring themselves
as never before. For the first time in
years old man Mack Sawyer has brought
his old time ally into the open and we
find P. H. Williams himself running for
the Board of Aldermen.
One finds Mr.. Williams, friends and
the Mack Sawyer fraternity generally
most active in condemning the admins
tration which has held Office in Eliza
beth City for the past two years. The
present Mayor and Board of Aldermen
are bitterly condemned and accused of
every 1ncompetency, wherever a group
of Sawyer-Wiliams supporters are
found. ALI this is part of the game to
persuade the thoughtless and Indifferent
voters to call for an entirely new set
of Aldermen. The old line politicians
have filled the field with new material
for the voters to pick from. And when
the voters have picked a lot of this
new material they will wake up some
fine morning to find the town back in
the hands of the Mack Sawyer gang,
just where it was two years ago.
The People Forget.
People forget how things were run
when old man Mack Sawyer and his
henchmen held the reins. They forget
that the very streets of the town were
Uttered with rubbish and the collection
of garbage neglected for weeks at a
time. They forget that Mack Sawyer
administrations wrestled with the water
and sewerage problems in Elizabeth
City for years without ever accomplish
ing single improvement in either. They
forget that for four years the Mack
Sawyer gang let the city markethouse
go to rack and ruin, an investment of
$4,000 eating at the revenues of the
town and yielding not a penny in rent
ais Uder the Mack Sawyer regime the
principal street in one ward in the city
where Mack Sawyer and Louis Ander-
son carried a majority of votes in their
pockets, never had a dollar spent on it
and was impossible for weeks at time
in winter months Such was the condi
Iorl pf fho
Board of Aldermen took hold of it two
years ago.
When the present administration
came into power the old Mack Sawyer
regime had left the city heavily in debt
and had let every item of city property
run down. There had been no street
extensions or improvements under the
Mack Sawyer regime; bridges and cul-
ycrts had gone to pieces; the sanitation
OF the town had been neglected; the
cty's water supply was a stencil in the
nostrils: the city market had gone to |
pieces; the city's street cleaning and
garbage collecting system had gone to |
pot. The city didn't even own a re-
spectacle shovel, broom or bride. |
The public is prone to forget such facts. |
A Board That Did Things.
y sorry mess awaited the new ad- |
ininistration The town was filthy from |
months of neglect. The streets were
IN many instances dangerous to travel, |
10 repairs having been made on many |
streets in eight or ten years. Against |
all these handicaps and with the added i
handicapped of no increase in revenues, |
the new administration set to work and |
mas accomplished more than any other |
administration Elizabeth City ever had. |
Here are some of the things accom-
plisAed:
J. Publication OF the city's water |
supply, accomplished by applying expert |
engineering advice to the problem and
Cooperating with the Elizabeth City |
Water Co. If the present administra-
uon had done nothing else, it should
merit the everlasting gratitude OF the
public for it's successful handling of the
water problem.
= Opening of the city market and
establishing it on self sustaining ba-
SIS The market house had been al