The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1943-05-06
BROKE, BROKE, BROKE!

The most accomplished psychologists
can not account for the mental processes
that actuate some men and cause them to
do things that transcend the understanding
of the level-headed man.
In the early days in Key West and up
to 40 years or so ago, good many Key
Westers prided themselves on singing
the city whenever they got chance Time
and again, somebody who supposedly turE-
ed his ankle while crossing a street full OF
ruts, or was supposedly injured in any one
of dozen different ways, proceeded to sue
the city, and almost without exception, the
jury turned in a verdict against the city
Sock the city, was the attitude of /.
good many Key Westers in those days. and
they didn't have sense enough to see that
when they socked the city they were SOCK
ing themselves.
And until today you may hammer
away as hard and as long as you wish, in
pointing out that the city's money is the peo-
pies money, put in the city's treasury by
taxpayers, yet it would surprise you how
many Key Westers there are whose attitude
voices this sentiment, Jaw, what's the diff
ference, it's the city's money!"
As persons attitude on any question
can be determined only on what he has to
say on that question and how he responds
in acting on it, then one is forced to con-
clude that Key Vests city ccuncilmen
cared little and thought less about spend
ing the city's money, the peoples money,
so long as they spent it. The official itch to
spend, as The Citizen has remarked before,
could not be scratched away
In nine months of the present fiscal
year, the revenue collected by the city set
an aIl-time record. The city really should
have been 'in clover" AS one city official
pointed out, had the councilmen operated
within the confines of the budget, the city
today would have bullying balance in the
bank, but, instead, the city is broke!
On whom does the blame devolve for
that condition? On the heads of the city
councilmen themselves. 1t is they who have
the power to decide what may or may not
be spent But what did the councilmen do?
Let us consider only one instance.
When The Citizen protested against the
raising of salaries that had been fixed by
law, the couacilmen, with one or two excep-
lions, connivingly set up relief payments,
and when that move was killed, the coun
cilmen consented, with the exceptions noted,
in having the relief made legal by legis-
lative enactment.
There was money in the treasury, the
peoples money, but those councilmen went
on spending spree, and warning after
warning went unheede6 They continued to
throw the money to the four winds until, as
one city official remarked, They'll stop
now because they have no more money to
throw away"
One wonders if the councilmen spend
their own money with as little concern as
they spent the city's; one wonders if they
ever gave thought, while playing the roles
of spendthrifts, to what the late President
Wilson said, al public dollar is public
trust? If they want to throw away their
own money, that's their own business, but
when they throw away the city's money,
that's the taxpayers business
Broke, broke, broke; Broke, in rec
ord-breaking collection year!