Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1898 — CURRENT COMMENT [ARTICLE]

CURRENT COMMENT

Aldcrmanic Salaries. Chicago aldermen should be willing to pay the public for the privilege of holding their jobs.—Buffalo Express. Prosperity has struck Chicago and wages are going up to beat the band. The Chicago aidermen last night raised their own salaries from $3 a week to $1,500 a year.—Toledo Bee. The modest advance from s3.a week,to $1,500 a year each voted themselves by the Chicago aidermen must not be understood as in the nature of a limit to the aldermanic income—Cincinnati Commer-cial-Tribune. The gang of genteel highwaymen in the Chicago City Council have beaten all records for immaculate gall. It is doubtful, however, if even Chicago public sentiment will countenance such unexampled robbery.—Minneapolis Tribune. The Chicago aidermen have fixed their .salaries at sl,soo—a figure scarcely high enough to insure honest work. It is possible, however, that the very highest pay would not serve to keep born boodlers from boodling.—St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Perhaps its worst feature is that it gives example and encouragement to councilmen in other cities, some of whom would not have thought of such a device for personal emolument, while others would not have been brave enough to adopt it had it not been for the action of their Chicago compeers.—Philadelphia Ledger. Chicago’s aidermen have shown that they possess a proper amount of self-es-teem by raising their salaries from $3 per evening to $1,500 per year, and this, too, without the excuse of domiciliary visits, lately so fashionable in, Cleveland’s councilmanic circles.—Cleveland Plain Dealer. The present Council of Chicago, which is probably as unfit and little trusted as any other body in the country of like nature, has just suspended its own rules to raise the pay of its members 900 per cent. Probably few of the taxpayers of Chicago would object if there were any reason to believe that the change would improve the character of the Council.— Cleveland Leader,