City Council Blocks Charter Reform

The councilmanic machine that has been trying to throttle civil service for the past year to make room for political henchmen in the city departments once more slipped a cog last night. They will not get a chance to wipe out the civil service at the commission. Hogberg deserted the combination at the last minute and Hawthorne was absent, so they lacked two votes of enough to pass the ordinance to amend the charter. Giblett, Creager, Stambaugh, Hawley, Reed and Hogberg voted against the 'spoils system.' Lynn, Turnbull, Brand, Wilkeson, Doud, Chapman, Jamieson, Armstrong and Rankin were for it, but they were not enough. The same crowd that was for throttling civil service also was out against the commission plan of government and laid it on the shelf for a week. The elections committee signed a report to concur in the petitions asking for a special election for a charter revision committee, but Turnbull and Brand led a fight to lay it away for a week. The excuse given was that the council did not know the people wanted an election. Turnbull insisted that it was an expensive thing to call the election and he thought the commission plan would be defeated anyway. He and his followers, however, had squandered nearly $400 on advertising bills in trying to kill the civil service of the charter, the morning paper getting $200 for printing the notice of the proposed charter changes, and another publication got $80 out of it. The people pay the bills.