WILL SOMEONE ANSWER?

Fireman's Hall, Main Street, Cortland, N. Y.

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, May 15, 1897.

WILL SOME ONE ANSWER

A Series of Questions Propounded by a Citizen of Cortland?

   The following communication which we are requested to publish contains a series of questions regarding the present status of the office of chief of the fire department, the regularly elected chief having resigned on account of removal from town. Our columns are open for an answer from any trustee, fireman or citizen who desires to reply.

   To the Editor of The STANDARD:

   SIR—There being much discussion by various people of our village concerning whether or not we have a chief of our [volunteer] fire department in fact, in order that the same may be positively known it is earnestly requested that you or some one who knows will kindly advise your readers the true status of the matter.

   Title IX, Sec. III, of the village charter says:

   The members of the fire department  shall meet annually on the last Wednesday of December, at some suitable place to be designated, at which meeting the chief engineer or in his absence the first or second engineer shall preside, and shall then and there elect by ballot a chief engineer, one or more assistants, a secretary and treasurer of the fire department, whose election shall be subject to the approval of the board of trustees, and who may be removed by said board for incapacity, neglect of duty, or misconduct. In case the said trustees shall disapprove of such election, they shall order another election at such time and place as they may deem proper.

   An election was duly held in accordance with this provision at which time a chief engineer was elected who was afterward approved by the trustees, and assumed the duties of the position. Soon his resignation was tendered, accepted and the board of engineers at a meeting (without all the representatives being present) saw fit to recommend the present incumbent for the position and thereupon he was approved by the board of trustees.

   Questions:

   a. If such are not the facts, what are the facts in the case?

   b. If such are the facts:

   1. Has Cortland village a chief of the fire department as provided for in the charter?

   2. If not properly elected and approved as provided by the charter, who is responsible in case of misconduct or neglect of duty by the acting chief? The trustees or the corporation?

   3. Can such a chief collect pay [$500/year] for his services? If so, should not the trustees as individuals be compelled to pay the same?

   4. One chief having been approved by the trustees, can the trustees call another election of the fire department without the first assistant being first promoted and being not approved by the trustees?

   5. Is the board of engineers [of] the fire department in the proper construction of the section of the charter above quoted?

   6. If not properly elected, are the acts performed by the board of engineers under his administration valid?

   These questions are not asked through malice, but simply for information and a proper regard for the general welfare of our village, and answers to these questions are desired. CITIZEN.

Pink line shows the railroad track between Cortland and Cincinnatus, N. Y.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

I. H. PALMER SPEAKS ON THE RAILROAD SITUATION.

E. & C. N. Y. R. R. Does Not Ask for the Gift of a Penny, Simply a Business Investment—Local Parties to Raise Ten Per Cent, Foreign Capitalists Ninety

Per Cent—Local Subscriptions Not to be Paid Till the Road is Actually Constructed.

   When I. H. Palmer, attorney for the Erie & Central New York R. R. was asked if he had anything further to say upon the railroad situation he concluded that he had, and authorized the following statement:

   I wonder it did not occur to Mr. Bronson and the Traction company, before its McGrawville branch was constructed, that two railroads to that place would not pay and as the Erie & Central New York R. R. was first in the field, it is remarkable that this suggestion did not have sufficient weight to then prevent the Traction company from building its McGrawville branch. Can it be possible that recent events have shed any new light on this subject? If not, why was it not heard and heeded when the Traction company's McGrawville branch was projected? Mr. Bronson talks strangely for the attorney of that company, under the circumstances at this late day.

   The assertion or rather the assumption that the E. & C. N. Y. Ry. Co. asks the people of this county to give it $25,000, or any other sum, is entirely false and without foundation. People whose property, profits and business interests will be enhanced by the construction and operation of this road are asked to show their confidence in its earning capacity and in the enterprise as an investment, and also as an inducement to capitalists, who have neither property nor business interests to be benefited thereby, to take more than 90 per cent of its bonds and furnish the cash wherewith to build, equip, fence and provide the road with stations and a line of telegraph complete, upon exactly the same terms and for the same consideration, for which the people of Cortland county are requested to advance as a loan less than ten per cent of their cost.

   In short, the E. & C. N. Y. R. R. Co. offers to the people of Cortland county precisely the same security for less than 10 per cent of the money necessary to build and equip its road which it asks them to loan it for that purpose that it offers to non-resident capitalists for more than 90 per cent of the money wherewith to complete it. If those whose property will be increased in value, or whose business will be benefited by the completion of this road decline to loan ten per cent of its cost, how can those who will not be thus benefited be expected to advance over 90 per cent of its cost? Nothing can be plainer than that those who expect to be benefited should show their faith in the road's earning capacity, and their belief and interest in it by subscriptions for its bonds, otherwise how can outsiders be expected to accept them as security for much the greater part of the money without which it can never be built?

   The tardiness with which the people of Cortland county have invested in this loan has already prevented outsiders from advancing their share of the money necessary to complete it. Further delay by the people along the line of this road, to take the small share of the bonds allotted to them, cannot fail to be disastrous to the success of the enterprise. It manifests an absence of public spirit truly lamentable.

   But this is not all. To secure the people of this county against any possible loss by reason of any failure to complete and operate the road, they are not required to part with their money until its completion is an assured fact, while the foreign capitalist is required to advance his proportion of the money—over 90 per cent—at the outset, so that the loss consequent upon a failure to complete the road will fall upon the foreign capitalist and not upon the people of this county, who are asked to subscribe for the bonds of this company.

   It doesn't seem possible that our people can have become so spiritless as to suffer this enterprise to fail for so little necessary aid at this critical period. If they do, and they ever come to understand it all they will have ample reason to despise themselves forever afterward. The enormous sums already spent will not only be a total loss, but the people who suffered it will be irreparably disgraced thereby.

   The money thus far spent, has been expended to construct a road connecting the stations on its line with other places and traffic facilities than those to be found within the county of Cortland. If the Traction company could secure control of it, this purpose would be forever effectually defeated; and this suggests their motive for wanting it. Such a road as this is designed to be, would give us traffic connections with the chief commercial marts of this continent, not a nickel-in-the-slot connection with McGrawville, Cincinnatus and Homer.

Tully Lake Park Hotel.

TULLY LAKE PARK.

Preparations for the Season Completed—A New Proprietor.

   The Tully Lake Park hotel has been leased for a term of years to the well-known hotel proprietor, Mr. William H. Young of the Lincklaen House, Cazenovia, N. Y., who will open the same to the public on June 7. The house will be remodeled and enlarged and everything will be put in first-class condition. The entire park, seventy-two acres, will be beautifully laid out with flower gardens, shrubs and trees, and many improvements and changes will be made. Mr. Young will devote his entire time to Tully Lake Park hotel and its interests, which will be a guarantee that everything relating to the place will be its best.

BREVITIES.

   —Mr. A. D. Randall was last night elected president of the Epworth league of the Homer-ave. M. E. church.

   —New display advertisements to-day are—L. N. Hopkins, Seeds, page 6; Wesson Mfg. Co., Bicycles, page 8.

   —The Alpha C. L. S. C. will meet with Mrs. Graves, 35 Madison-st., Monday evening, May 17, at 7:30 o'clock.

   —In police court this morning two drunks were sentenced to ten days in jail, and one tramp was discharged.

   —Rev. J. A. Robinson officiates at Grace church, Whitney Point, to-morrow and the holy communion will be celebrated.

   —The Shamrocks of Syracuse arrived at 10:17 this morning and are playing the Cortlands at the fair grounds this afternoon.

   —The Corlonor fraternity at the Normal at 8 o'clock to-night at Normal hall will give the three-act comedy "That Oxford Affair."

   —The jury in the case of Card against Munson, which was tried in Justice Dowd's court yesterday, brought in a verdict of no cause of action.

   —About twenty-five members of Vesta lodge, I. O. O. F., left this afternoon for Spafford to confer the three degrees on several candidates in Lake View lodge.

   —If the weather be favorable to-morrow a car will leave the Messenger House for the park at 2 o'clock and every forty minutes thereafter till the close of the afternoon.

   —The Benjamin Sinton place at the corner of Groton-ave. and Monroe Heights was this morning sold by Attorney Edwin Duffey to L. M. Loope for $1,190, subject to encumbrances amounting to $1,825.

   —There were seventy-six excursionists from Ithaca last night including the band who came over on the special train to attend the dance at the rink. That train left for home at about 1:30 o'clock this morning.

ELM STUMP.

   ELM STUMP, May 12.—There is every prospect now of a good crop of hay. Farmers are not doing much this week towards getting in grain, etc., on account of so much rain.

   Mr. and Mrs. Rose Grant and son of Freetown were guests at Mr. Emmett

Lang's last Saturday and Sunday.

   Mrs. George Sherman visited her sister-in-law, Mrs. Manly Price, at Virgil yesterday.

   Mr. Will Graves of Groton was a guest of Mr. Frank Lang last Saturday and Sunday.

   Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Butterfield of Cortland, Mr. and Mrs. Allport of Whitney Point and Mr. David Sweet of Cortland were guests of Mrs. Runyon last Thursday.

   The meeting which was appointed on last Thursday evening at this church by the Salvationists was adjourned indefinitely on account of so much work at Cortland.