The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-10-30
VOTE ''YES'' ON
 CITY CHARTER,
 URGES F. D. BELL

Frank D. Bell, of Meigs & Co.,,
 speaking today before the Retail
 ooatrd of the Chamber of Com
 merce, urged members to vote
 ''Yes'' at tiIe polls November on
 the question-''SIlian the mayor
 appoint a commission to prepare a charter?'' He declared, "It is
 a pity that with eight milton dol-
 lars provided annually for con-
 duct of the city tine expenditure is
 not handled ill q more business
 like manner. Why is it?" he
 asked, ''tkat for years we have
 been content to simply ask our-
 selves this question and yet have
 done little nothing to inject
 modern business methods into our
 city affairS?"
 ''rrne underlying reason why busi- ness has not entered more into our city organization is quite evident if we stop a moment and see who the owners or stockholders of our city are. The owners and stockholders of our city are ourselves, being the legal voters and we are a large group repre- senting both capital and labor, indus try and trade, in fact every walk Of IIe found in our city. When we, as stockholders try to govern our city, politics immediately comes into play, for politics is nothing but the means and method used by the stockholders to express their aggregate desire, MT. Bell declared.
 
 '"To carry this little further, we see that we cannot possibly avoid having politics in our city government as long as the voters govern the city and we hope they always Will,' MT. Bell continued. Leaders from every walk of life are bound to stand out and group themselves together in or ganizations to carry on our city gov ernment and theae groups of leaders and followers, whether partisan or non-partisan, exist and always will exist as a necessary part of our gov ernment. Here is where politics is with us to stay and no charter revision and no new form of government will ever do away with them
 MT. Bell then pointed out to the board that while politics is necessary, there is no need for it as the rule and guide in the administrative de- partm ents, where the laying of sew CTS, erection of garbage and sewage disposal plants, building and operat- ing municipal garages, collecting of ashes and waste, paving Of streets and doing other work of construction, maintenance and supervision of pub lie property and public welfare. Here, he said, business methods should be injected to replace politics.
 Speaking of the present charter MT. Bell declared it is a patchwork job, mended up from time to time to meet the particular needs of the city" Many of these new features were added, he said, without considering either the charter as a whole or the question of general efficiency in the government" :" He called the charter Ehope1essly confused'' and as mixing the parts of governmental activities which are naturally political and those which consist simply in carrying on work already decided upon.
 In conclusion MT. Bell said: "The men and women who want a revision of the charter and who are asking you to vote Yes on the question November ', think that it is very inn portant that our charter should be studied over again as afwhole and re- drawn to separate the business of our city from it's politics, so that we, the stock ohlders, after we have burned our red fire, done our voting and ex- pressed our will on general questions of policy and after popular decisions have been reached with reference to how much and for what purposes we are willing to spend our money, from then on we can utilize fair amount of modern business method in it's actual expenditures. Why not have these dollars come home to us again this way and still feel that we as citi- zens are having a voice in running a good modern, American business DDS