Voters Snub City Debt Proposal

It is to be regretted that there were but 115 people in the city sufficiently interested in the business affairs of the city to go to the polls and cast their votes one way or the other in Tuesday’s bonding election. It may be that those who didn’t vote think they have enough debts of their own without worrying about the city’s. If they show the same indifference toward their own business as they do toward the city’s, multiplicity of debts is not to be wondered at. On the part of a good many there is a noticeable inclination to assume a 'we-should-worry' attitude, reasoning that, 'It's no funeral of ours. What’s the city council for? If we are in a hole let them pull us out.' Quite true, we have a city council and every member of that council, after thoroughly investigating the financial standing of the city, voiced the opinion that good business demanded that the warrants be retired and bonds issued. They approved the plan and asked the people to give it their endorsement. There were about four-fifths of the voters who were not sufficiently interested to even register and less than half of those who had registered lacked the interest necessary to take them to the polls. Forty per cent of those voting cast their ballots against bonds. This forty per cent voted undoubtedly for safety and economy as they saw it. The only argument this paper has heard advanced against bonds, is that the city has reached its legal limit of warrant indebtedness and the only way to play safe is to keep it that way. We believe that the sixty per cent who cast their ballots for bonds, voted wisely and that the council will be able to give the citizens a more economical administration with the burden of the debt lifted than with the warrants outstanding.