Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter XXIII Local Government 1910
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com September 20, 2007, 12:02 pm

Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois

CHAPTER XXIII

THE TOWN GOVERNMENT OF TWO YEARS AND THE CITY GOVERNMENT OF FIFTY-THREE
YEARS-THE SEVENTEEN MAYORS

ALTHOUGH generally spoken of as a city, Cairo never became a city until the
passage of the act of February 11, 1857. An attempt was made in 1852 to
incorporate the town or village as a city, but the Trustees, having the bill in
charge, desired to include in it a clause requiring the first board of aldermen
to be chosen by the legislature and to hold their positions for five years. The
member of the legislature who presented and urged the bill, C. G. Simons, of
Jonesboro, admitted that this requirement was a very unusual one, but he said it
was regarded as a necessary protection to foreign real estate owners. This
reference could only have been to the Trustees or to those whom they
represented. The bill failed of passage. Andrew J. Kuykendall, then in the
senate from Vienna, seems to have been the chief opponent of the bill. He
subsequently became our member of Congress. He seems to have been interested in
Cairo; for on the first sale of city lots by the Trustees, namely, the 23rd day
of December, 1853, he bought lots one and two, in block fifty-one, in the city.
He paid $500.00 for the lots. The Alexander Club now owns these lots.

   On that somewhat celebrated day, seven years and a half after the Trustees
acquired their title, June 13, 1846, from the Cairo City and Canal Company, they
began their first sale of real estate to the people. Is it any wonder that the
people lost patience and that the editor, Add. H. Sanders, took himself and his
newspaper, "The Cairo Delta," to another part of the country? But the
circumstances must always be considered. The Trustees had indeed undertaken a
seven-year task.

   CAIRO UNDER THE TOWN GOVERNMENT.—Under the Holbrook administration, from 1836
to 1846, the people had no kind of civil local government except such as came
from the county and state. There may have been some kind of township, school or
road district government, but we have not come upon anything of the kind. The
county records may, however, show something of that description. How the people
managed to get along from 1846 to 1855, it is not very material now to inquire.
They did not seem to have needed or wanted anything besides what the county and
state could afford them until 1855; for in that year, at an election held in the
railroad station house, it was decided that they would establish a town
government, and on the 8th day of March they held an election for town trustees.
The law then applicable to such matters provided for a vote viva voce at the
polls; and at the election, 135 voters went to the polls and openly announced
their respective preferences or votes. There were five Trustees to be elected,
and each voter was required to give the names of the five persons he desired to
become Trustees. The persons chosen were S. S. Taylor, Bryan Shannessy, Peter
Stapleton, Louis W. Young and M. B. Harrell. Only two of the voters declined to
vote for Col. Taylor. They were I. Lynch and E. Babbs.

   It is altogether probable Col. Taylor was strongly in favor of this movement
for a local government for the town. At all events, a majority of the Trustees
were favorable to his policies or that of the Trustees.

   The next year, however, the election held March 10, 1856, resulted in a
choice of men, a majority of whom were not kindly disposed toward the management
of the Trustees. The men chosen Trustees at this election were Thomas Wilson,
Samuel Staats Taylor, Cullen D. Finch, Moses B. Harrell and Charles Thrupp.

   We have been unable to find the records or papers of the town Trustees for
either of the years of 1855 or 1856, except the poll book of the election just
mentioned, and possibly one or two other papers which were of little or no
interest. These records should have passed to the city government, which began
in March, 1857; but the present city clerk, Mr. Robert A. Hatcher, has told me
that he had made a careful search for the same but found none.

   The most important matter with which the town Trustees, of both years, seem
to have had to deal was the wharf and wharfage question. We have presented this
matter somewhat fully under that heading and need not refer further to it here.

   It seems highly probable that the town government scheme was taken up by the
Trustees upon their failure to procure the incorporation of the city of Cairo
and the Cairo City Property or the Cairo City Property trust; and the experience
of the Trustees under the second year of the town government, when Thomas Wilson
was president of the board, was so unsatisfactory that they were led to seek an
incorporation of the city in the usual way, and hence the act of February 11,
1857, was passed, the city's first charter.

   The city made its start under this act by holding an election March 10, 1857,
the Poll book of which is found elsewhere. With this poll book, the reader, if
acquainted in Cairo, can see who of the voters of 1857 are still with us.

   This act remained in force ten years, or until it was superseded by the act
of February 18, 1867, drawn by David J. Baker. An important amendment was made
to it February 10, 1869, by which the city was provided with two legislative
bodies instead of the one only. The new or upper body was called the select
council, and the lower the board of aldermen. This amendment of twenty-eight
sections was prepared by Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny, Judge William J. Allen, and
Mr. Louis Houck, under the general supervision of Col. Taylor, who always took
the greatest interest in all legislative matters relating in anywise to the
city. Mr. Houck was then Judge O'Melveny's partner. The need of this amendment
arose out of the setting aside by the supreme court of the city's method of
making assessments for street filling and other local improvements. (The City of
Chicago vs. Lamed, 34 Ill., 203.) Very little, however, if anything at all, was
done under this amendment; for within a year or two, the legislature adopted an
entirely new method for making assessments for local improvements. It was
article nine, of the act of April 10, 1872, for the incorporation of cities and
villages. The city adopted the article before it became incorporated under the
act, which was January 7, 1873. It may be here remarked that neither of the
charters of 1857 or 1867 or the amendment of 1869, required the mayor or
aldermen to be citizens or electors of the state. A property qualification only
was required. This general act of April 10, 1872, has been adopted by almost all
of the cities of the state, and the same, amended from time to time, has been
found very satisfactory indeed. The city is still incorporated under that act.

   Under the first and second city charters, the mayor was elected annually, and
Col. Taylor, the first mayor, succeeded himself five several times, beginning
with the election in March, 1857, and ending with the election in March, 1862.
H. Watson Webb was chosen mayor in March, 1863, without opposition. At the
election in March, 1864, Col. Taylor again became a candidate for the office,
but was defeated by David J. Baker. This contest is said to have been a very
unusual one and the result very unexpected to Col. Taylor's friends. Baker,
however, was a very popular man with the Democrats as well as with Republicans.
Moreover, from the earliest time in the city's history to the present time,
politics have never played any very important part. It may also be stated that
the people probably thought that Col. Taylor had been quite sufficiently honored
by his prior six elections.

   At the risk of taking too much space, I give here the number of votes Col.
Taylor and his competitors received at each of the elections of 1857 to 1864,
and the names and lengths of terms of all subsequent mayors.

1857—Samuel S. Taylor, 211; W. J. Stephens, 159.
1858—Samuel S. Taylor, 382; Barney Mooney, 10.
1859—Samuel S. Taylor, 290; John Howley, 200.
i860—Samuel S. Taylor, 299; Jno. W. Trover, 230.
1861—Samuel S. Taylor, 361; W. R. Burke, 319.
1862—H. Watson Webb, 345; no opposition.
1863—Samuel S. Taylor, 389; Thomas Wilson, 298.
1864—Samuel S. Taylor, 354; David J. Baker, 380.
Thomas Wilson, mayor from February, 1865, to February, 1867.
John W. Trover, mayor from February, 1867, to February, 1868.
Alexander G. Holden, mayor from February, 1868, to February, 1869.
Jno. H. Oberly, mayor from February, 1869, to February, 1870.
Thomas Wilson, mayor from February, 1870, to February, 1871.
John M. Lansden, mayor from February,  1871, to April, 1873.
John Wood, mayor from April, 1873, to April, 1875.
Henry Winter, mayor from April, 1875, to April, 1879.
N. B. Thistlewood, mayor from April, 1879, to April, 1883.
Thomas W. Halliday, mayor from April, 1883, to September, 1892.
Chas. O. Patier, mayor from September, 1892, to April, 1895.
Corodon R. Woodward, mayor from April, 1895, to April, 1897.
N. B. Thistlewood, mayor from April, 1897, to April, 1901.
Marion C. Wright, mayor from April, 1901, to April, 1903.
Claude Winter, mayor from April, 1903, to April, 1905.
George Parsons, mayor from April, 1905, to present time.

   The city has, therefore, had seventeen several mayors during a period of
fifty-three years, beginning with Col. Taylor's election in March, 1857, and
ending with the election of George Parsons in April, 1909. Thistlewood,
Woodward, Parsons, and the writer are now living. Of Col. Taylor I have
elsewhere given a somewhat lengthy biographical sketch.

   H. Watson Webb was city attorney two or three times after serving one term as
mayor. He lived many years in the city. He was a son of Col. Henry L. Webb, a
very prominent man in his day, and was born at Trinity, the now almost forgotten
town on the Ohio just south of the mouth of Cache River. The Webbs were of the
celebrated family of Webbs in New York, one of whom was James Webb, for years
prominent in New York politics. Mr. Webb left Cairo many years ago and went to
San Francisco and there remained some considerable time. Subsequently he removed
to Portland, Oregon, and there died a few years ago. In both cities, as here, he
practiced his profession of the law.

  David J. Baker succeeded Mr. Webb and was mayor from 1864 to 1865. He was
liked by every one, just as he seemed to like every one else, such was his good
nature. He was a good lawyer and an able judge. He served on the circuit and
appellate court benches many years, and one full term of nine years on the bench
of the supreme court of the state. If any trait of his character seemed in
anywise to be above or superior to his intellectual abilities as a lawyer and a
judge, it was shown in his great desire to get at the truth and the right of
matters and to decide fairly and justly. He was not a brilliant man as the
phrase goes. He was something more and better than that. While he enjoyed
eloquent speech and fine writing, he liked best those simpler methods of speech
by which truth is brought to light and error disclosed. Somewhat like Judge John
H. Mulkey, whom he succeeded on the supreme court bench, he was distrustful of
first impressions, and always waited until his mind had obtained a full view of
the whole matter in hand before he proceeded to pronounce judgment. His opinions
while supreme judge extend through forty-two volumes of reports.

   Thomas Wilson succeeded Judge Baker and was mayor from 1865 to 1867 and from
1870 to 1871. He was a large, fine looking man. In natural abilities and force
of character, he was not behind any one of those seventeen. He was as strong
mentally as he was large and strong physically. Had he been favored with the
advantages of a thorough educational training, and had sought wider fields of
activity, he would have stood in the very front rank in the political world, if
not also in the business world. I am not speaking of him when I say some men
like a little education, a little better than much. Much is dangerous and should
be avoided. We hear this quite too often. A little learning with them is not a
dangerous thing. The danger is in much. They reverse Pope, and say that the
danger is in drinking deep of the Pierian spring. This view that one may know
too much, may be too well informed, may have his mind broadened and strengthened
too much, may be too much of a man mentally, sets a premium on ignorance and
would level to the ground well nigh every high institution of learning in the
country. I would say, "Do not be afraid of getting too much education. It is
like the fresh air; one cannot get too much of it." Wilson was fairly well
educated; but had he gotten anywhere, or by any means, a good college education
or its equivalent, he could have stood before kings. It would have developed all
of his splendid natural faculties. It would have given him confidence, without
which men never can do their best. It would have lifted him higher in his own
good and sound judgment, and have equipped him well for successful work with
great men almost anywhere. He never came to a full knowledge of the extent and
character of his natural endowments. It may have been best. It is sometimes.
Feeling strongly what one might be, yet never being it, can never be a happy
thought.

   John W. Trover succeeded Wilson and was mayor from 1867 to 1868. He formerly
lived in the central part of the state, perhaps in Cass County, the county from
which Robert W. Miller came. He was president of the First National Bank of
Cairo. He was a Republican in politics and was successful in his race for mayor
against Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny, who ran as a Democrat. Judge O'Melveny judged
the Cairo democracy by the Marion County democracy. Up there they always voted
the ticket, and he supposed the same was the rule down in Alexander. But he had
been here but a short time and did not know the habits of the people in their
local elections. Trover was one of the boys, and the boys and Trover won. Judge
O'Melveny's defeat wounded him severely. He had not sought the office and did
not want it at all; but a number of his Democratic friends said he must make the
race and he did, with the result stated. He removed to Los Angeles in November,
1869; and after I had been elected city attorney in February, 1870, he wrote me
and said he could not see how I could get the consent of my mind to trust my
chances for an office to such unreliable voters as we had here in Cairo. At that
election in 1870, Fountain E. Albright was the candidate against me. It was
known that very soon the colored people of the city were to have the right to
vote, and on the day of the election Fountain went about telling his friends
that they must come out and vote, for this election, he said, was to be the last
white man's election we would have. Since that time, about thirty-eight years
ago, we have not indeed had a white man's election—an election at which only
white men could vote. I must not omit to say that Judge O'Melveny was a splendid
man, an able lawyer, and an able circuit judge, and one would have to go very
far and inquire very diligently to find a man of superior character or more
exemplary personal conduct.

   Alexander G. Holden succeeded Trover, and was mayor from 1868 to 1869. Like
Judge O'Melveny, Doctor Holden did not want the office; but his friends insisted
that there was nothing that could possibly be said against him and that he must
make the race. He yielded. His friends judged rightly, and he was elected. He
gave all the time he could to the discharge of his official duties. He was
careful and painstaking and ventured little without first getting the best
advice obtainable.

   John H. Oberly succeeded Dr. Holden, and was mayor from 1869 to 1871. He came
to Cairo from Memphis soon after the war began. It seems that his views
concerning secession and the war were not favorable to his longer remaining
there. He became identified with the "Cairo Democrat" soon after leaving
Memphis. In 1868 he started the "Cairo Bulletin"; and after editing and
publishing that paper a number of years, he removed to Bloomington and there
engaged in editing the "Bloomington Bulletin." He was also a member of the
legislature from this county in the years 1872-1874; and in the years 1877-1881
he was a member of the Board of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners. Still
later, he became commissioner under President Cleveland, of the Indian schools.
He was a man of versatile talents. He had been an editor almost all his life. He
wrote well, few editors better. He was much given to severity of criticism, so
much so that his friends did not always escape. It seemed sometimes to be a mere
matter of exercising his pen. Even Secretary Vilas came in for a share, and he
was so affected by it that President Cleveland said there was no use appointing
Oberly to another office while Vilas was in the senate. He had gone there soon
after he left the cabinet. This trait of Oberly's character was much in his way
to the success he should have won; for he was indeed a man of brilliant
endowments. Nature had not stopped short of making him a genius. He was of a
happy and genial temperament and exceedingly interesting in conversation. He
made a good mayor, but complaints wTere made that he was too strongly inclined
toward Col. Taylor and the Trustees of the Cairo City Property. Let me add that
Mrs. Oberly was equally talented. The whole family, indeed, was one of unusual
intelligence.

   John M. Lansden succeeded Oberly, and was mayor two terms, that is, from
February, 1871, to April, 1873. By the city's changing its incorporation, under
the act of 1867, to incorporation under the general act of 1872, his second term
of office was extended two months, that is, from February to April, 1873.

   Col. John Wood succeeded Lansden, and was mayor from 1873 to 1875, one term.
He had been in the war, and came to Cairo a short time before its close. He was
a contractor for some years before he went into the milling and wholesale
grocery business. He was a member of the city council two or three or more terms
before he became mayor. He was regarded as one of the most independent and
outspoken councilmen and mayors the city ever had. The most serious objection
any one ever heard made to him as a man, councilman or mayor, was that he was so
hard to move from any position he had taken. He was a Scotchman. His term of
office was so satisfactory to the people that had there been a higher position
for bestowment on any one, he would have received it.

   Henry Winter succeeded Wood, and was mayor from 1877 to 1881, two terms. He,
was an Englishman, and came to Cairo in 1856. He carried on many branches of
business; was highly public spirited; was the father and promoter of the whole
business of fire protection; was kind and charitable in every way and manner,
and took great interest in all public matters. He had not much use for strict
laws in infringement of personal liberty in this democratic country of ours. He
was an anti-Taylor man, and yet thought a great deal of Col. Taylor and Taylor
of him. He was tenacious enough, and had run for mayor two or three times before
his election in 1877. He had a strong personal following, more than any of the
others ever had. He was mayor in the epidemic of the yellow fever in 1878, and
had the mayor been any one else, there is no telling how the city or the people
thereof would have fared.

   N. B. Thistlewood, our present congressman, succeeded Winter and was mayor
from 1881 to 1885, and again, from 1897 to 190i, four terms. He had not been
here a great many years when he was first elected, but he took such great
interest in the public matters of the city and of the people that they felt they
could not do better than to intrust him with the chief charge of its affairs.
What he undertook he always did well. He was never satisfied with half-way or
half-done work. He soon became a Cairo man and has always been that. He looked
upon the town as so situated that the rules applicable to most places not larger
could not be closely applied to it. As to city government, he has always thought
that strict laws of a sumptuary nature often defeated themselves. Had he chosen
the Latin with which to express his idea about the matter, he would have said
medio tutissimus ibis, that is to say, the middle course is the safest. Of all
who have come here in these many years, few, if any of us, could name a more
desirable or public-spirited citizen. I have before referred to Mayor
Thistlewood when speaking of the flood of 1882.

   Thomas W. Halliday succeeded Thistlewood at the expiration of his second
term, and was mayor from April, 1883, to August, 1892, almost nine and one-half
years. He was chosen mayor five successive times, one less than his
father-in-law, Col. Samuel Staats Taylor, whose terms, however, were only one
year each. On two or three occasions, Halliday had no opposition. He died in
August, 1892. Had he lived there is no telling how long he would have been
continued in the office. Frequent elections to office generally indicate the
high regard of the people. His must be attributed largely to the easy and
friendly terms he always succeeded in maintaining with almost every member of
his various city councils. He knew and fully realized that without the hearty
co-operation of the members of the legislative body of the city, he himself
could not do> much. Hence, his constant endeavor was to obtain and keep the
friendly feeling of the city's ward representatives. And it therefore followed,
very naturally, that these ward representatives were generally for him when the
mayor's election came on. He was very successful in making it appear that almost
everything that came up and went through, was really the measure of some one of
the councilmen. He kept himself somewhat in the background, but not so much so
as to be quite out of sight of a clear-visioned man.

   Halliday took great pleasure in being mayor, although it added largely to his
other rather hard work. He laudibly liked to have the good will and approval of
the people of the city. I cannot enumerate the measures he started and carried
through for the material improvement of the city. I can only say that he was a
strong friend of public improvements, and that too, when our laws were in a poor
shape to facilitate public work. Tom was a Halliday man and a Taylor man, of
course. To outsiders, this may not mean much, but to Cairo people it is a little
volume. Tom steered his official craft around among the breakers and reefs with
a success that surprised both sides, and thereby largely obtained their favor.
It was administrative ability of the highly useful variety, which is the only
kind really ever needed. He was a member of the lower house of our legislature
in 1879; and the writer has often heard members from the upper part of the state
speak in the highest terms of his services in that body.

   Charles O. Patier was selected by the city council to fill out the unexpired
portion of the term of Halliday, that is, from August, 1892, to April, 1893,
when he became a candidate for election to that office. He was successful, and
gave the city his very best services. Although disagreeing with his immediate
predecessor in many things, he nevertheless admired him, and more especially his
successful management of city council work. Halliday had become so familiar with
city matters that many of the aldermen looked to him for guidance, if I may be
permitted to use such a word. Patier liked Halliday and yet he did not, very
much as Captain Halliday liked David T. Linegar and Linegar him, and yet they
did not. Patier diligently sought information; that is but saying he wanted to
be right. He thought the town was too low and that if it needed anything at all
that thing was earth filling; and he accordingly decided to try his mayor's hand
on the important matter of filling the low lots with earth under the Linegar
bill, of which we have before spoken. He knew that Linegar had worked hard to
draw up a good and sound bill, and thought it should at least be given a fair
trial. This he started out to do, as we have already set forth in Chapter IX;
but he was succeeded in office by one of our citizens, who was lukewarm about
the matter, although quite active about many other things; and so the work
Patier started was dropped; and shortly afterwards Capt. Halliday gave the act
itself its death-blow up at Springfield, that is to say, he procured its repeal
by the legislature. I need not repeat it here, but concerning Patier it may be
well and truly said that he undertook to do one of the very best things that was
ever undertaken in Cairo, and that he failed was not his fault; it was the
city's misfortune. Charlie justly prided himself on his military record, which
extended through the war. I might say the same as to his being one of the 306
delegates who voted in the Chicago convention for a third nomination of General
Grant for President.

   Corodon R. Woodward succeeded Patier, and was mayor from 1895 to 1897. He had
resided in Cairo a long time, but had never cared much for office. His business
had grown under his careful and wise management and to such proportions that he
felt he could safely undertake the duties of the mayor's office. He ran and was
elected, to the surprise of some and to the joy of others; for many persons
thought that a new man in a place new to him might bring about a change,
productive of good to the city. He took hold of city affairs in his own way,
that is, very much as though no one had ever been mayor before. He did not care
to be bound by what is called precedents or old methods. In a word or two, every
one expected that he would turn over a new leaf of some kind. I cannot stop to
enter into details, but will speak of one change he made, a change back to a
former state of things in the city.

   In 1865 and 1866, the city expended very many thousand dollars at the
intersection of Ohio and Tenth Streets for pumps to lift the seepage water over
the levee and back into the river, but after a few years of use and owing to the
great expense of operation and maintenance, they were abandoned and the valuable
machinery and implements sold. The writer well remembers hearing Capt. Halliday
say at the time that the city would some time regret the destruction or
abandonment of its pumping plant. Woodward returned to the work of pumping our
seepage water into the river, but with new and far better pumping machinery, and
the success of the work was such that one had but to go up to the intersection
of those streets to see a great stream of water five or more feet wide and one
or more deep, plunging over the levee and back into the river, whence it had
stealthily come. It was a kind of revelation; and although Woodward himself has
gone away, yet the system will no doubt be maintained until we have banished the
seepage water by filling up the places which it annually invades. Before passing
on to another mayor, let me say that the pump has now been running ten years,
when needed, and no one now doubts its efficiency. It is no doubt a patented
machine, but with us it ought to be called Woodward's pump.

   Capt. Thistlewood succeeded Woodward, and was again mayor, and from 1897 to
1901, as above stated. He thus held and filled out four full terms of two years
each. I need not repeat here what I have before said of him. By his frequent
elections one would suppose, and no doubt very properly, that the only condition
to his election to the chief office of the city was his allowance of his name to
be used as a candidate.

  Marion C. Wright succeeded Capt. Thistlewood, and was mayor from 1901 to 1903.
He had long been a resident of Cairo and a very busy man. For much of his life,
he had charge of important branches of Capt. Halliday's extensive business
enterprises, and no one supposed that he had any kind of a taste or turn for
public office. He, however, took the office and held it but one term, declining
to be persuaded into standing for the place again. He had found the duties of
the office so out of keeping with everything with which he ever had anything to
do in a business way, that he wanted no more of office-holding. Before the close
of the term of his office, he undertook a reform movement in the city, and
cleared out, at least for the time being, a certain central location in the
city. His motives were challenged and said to be bad, just as would have been
the case of any one else who had undertaken to do and had done what he did. I am
not able to speak of Wright's motive, but whatever it was, the thing done was
little, if any, short of the very best thing ever done in the city, in a moral
sense. When a good thing is done, it is generally a poor and silly thing to say
the motive was bad. A blind man, whose sight had been given back to him, once
said in substance, that he did not know who he was who healed him nor what his
motive was, but one thing he knew and that was, whereas, he was once blind, he
now could see. I need not speak of the undoing of what Wright did, with his good
or bad motive, whichever it was, nor of the majority by which the undoing was
ordered. The straight-forward and honest thing for his critics to say was that
what Wright did was wrong and should be undone, and the former condition
re-established, just as it was. It wras not a question of motives at all.

  Claude Winter succeeded Wright, and was mayor from 1903 to 1905. He was Cairo
born and has been an industrious and hard working boy and young man, always
cheerful, friendly and accommodating. He made friends easily and retained them
quite as well and probably better than most persons. His father had been mayor,
and a more or less prominent man in Cairo for very many years; and Claude was
justly ambitious to reach the mayor's office. He was full of energy, and pushed
everything he took hold of, and became very successful in business, and very
naturally with this success came the desire to obtain some formal recognition of
himself and his faithful attention to his duties as a citizen and as a business
man of the city. It was to be supposed that his views of city government would
not differ widely from those of his father, whose views concerning the same, as
we have before stated, were of a very liberal character. Claude's administration
of the office accorded fully with the views of his supporters and tended
strongly to show the kind of a city government he thought the people of Cairo
wanted. I must not omit to say that Claude Winter did everything he possibly
could to start and carry on public improvements. Just as soon as the legislature
provided for the making of public improvements without petitions of property
holders, he took hold of the matter and was getting very much of the preliminary
work done for a large number of the streets in the upper part of the city, when
the supreme court held the law unconstitutional, and thus put an end to the
improvement work going on under him.

   George Parsons succeeded Claude Winter as mayor in April, 1905. He was
re-elected in April, 1907, and again in April, 1909, and is now entering upon
the sixth year of his terms of service. It is said by many persons that his
pledges of reform secured him his first election. Some persons do not like the
word reform. The expressions, reform movement, reform party, platform of reform,
sound badly in their ears. They say the word repels people. The reason for this,
if there is any, is that so many reform movements turn out to be no reforms at
all. The word is a good one and does not deserve to be thus thrown into the
scrap heap of desuetude. People who are scared off from any good movement
because of the words by which it is described might as well be openly against
it. And yet, I suppose, there is something in a name. It ought to be a
reasonable something, however.

   The writer does not recall the fact that Mayor Parsons was elected as a
reform mayor. If he was, the reform never came. Matters concerning which the
word reform is generally used went on in the city the same as before; nor has
there been up to this time any change worth mentioning. The fact is, there has
never been much of a change in the general character of the city's police
administration. At times it has been better and at times worse, but its general
tenor has never been of a high grade. The people, or a great many of them, have
wanted a rather free and easy administration of police matters, a kind of
administration that is likely to become entirely too free and easy, even for the
advocates of the free and easy policy. A sound head and a strong hand are needed
to administer city affairs where the police policy is of the free and easy
order. To see just where liberty ends and license begins requires
discrimination. Some see the boundary line and some do not; but whether seen or
not, the line is quite too often disregarded and passed over with impunity.
Mayor Parsons and his chiefs of police have said they were giving the people of
the city the kind of police government they wanted, and that they were serving
the people, or a large majority of them, very acceptably. It has not been a
question of what was really best for the people generally or what was lawful
under the city laws or whether the laws of the city should be enforced, but what
did the people or a majority of them want. This, however, has left them pretty
much the sole judges of what the people wanted. They have failed to remember
that what the people wanted, or are supposed to want, is found in the laws of
the city and state. Outside of these, it is difficult, if not impossible, to
ascertain what the people want. They, the mayor and the police, have not wanted
a wide open town but one that was somewhat open. The door somewhat open, or the
lid somewhat lifted is the proper figurative expression. But as above remarked,
to open the door just enough and keep it from being pushed wide open requires
sound judgment, great strength and inflexible purpose. These are qualifications
not often found in combination.

   I have said this much about our present city administration now in its sixth
year, because so much has been said about it during the past year or two, and
because, too, I have desired to express my own views of such matters without any
regard to particular persons. It would be quite unjust for me to close this
short notice of Mayor Parsons without presenting some other features of his
administration besides the important one above given. In every city, in every
community, the moral and the material must go along side by side. The importance
of each requires both to be kept ever in mind. In every city there should be
good schools and other institutions of learning, good churches, good societies
and other means and sources of culture and entertainment, the least of drinking
or drunkenness, of gambling and of other evils, and on the other hand, plenty of
good water, good lighting, good streets, good street cars, and other like
improvements. These all seem to be the needs of satisfactory city life. In
Cairo, our greatest and longest existing material want has been good streets,
the very first distinguishing features of the city after the houses are built.
The streets, more than almost anything else, speak for or against the city.
Mayor Parsons fully realized this and at once entered upon a policy of street
improvement. To judge somewhat of the work done we have but to look at Ohio
Street, Twenty-Eighth Street, Sycamore Street, Washington Avenue, Poplar Street,
Thirty-Fourth Street, Elm Street, Second Street, Walnut Street and Twenty-First
Street, all now paved, and it is believed in the most substantial and permanent
manner. Then, too, we have had the very large sewer on Commercial Avenue from
Second to Thirty-Eighth Street and the outlet sewer on Tenth Street to the river
and the various lateral sewers connecting with the main sewer on said avenue.
Other works and improvements of an important nature I .need not enumerate here;
but it is well worthy of mention that what he has done has resulted in
establishing a most satisfactory spirit of public improvement in the people of
the city, and now with the important works already projected and under way, we
may be well assured that this important matter of city improvements will go on
to completion, when, for the great change made in the appearance of the city, it
will scarcely be recognized as the place it was five or six years ago. It will,
perhaps, add something to what I have already endeavored to express by saying
that the expenditures for lasting and permanent improvements made during the
last five years exceeds very considerably all of the expenditures that were made
in the city for like improvements during the preceding forty-five or fifty
years, or since the city's organization in 1857.

   While the chief credit for all this very desirable work must be set down to
Mayor Parsons, yet it must not be forgotten that he has been highly seconded by
the Board of Local Improvements, the city council and their legal adviser, Mr.
Angus Leek, to whose skillful and painstaking attention large credit is due. Nor
does it detract from the work of any of these gentlemen to say that much also is
due to the spirit and wishes of the people of the city, who so far and during
the entire time have in every way encouraged the carrying on of the good work.

   Then, too, Mayor Parsons has added about thirty-five thousand dollars to the
city's annual revenues by obtaining an increase of the saloon license fee from
five hundred to one thousand dollars. I cannot admit that this was a bad thing
to do, considering the strongly expressed desire of the people to have saloons
and not prohibition in the city. If we are to have them at all, the higher the
license the better, even if raising it to the maximum should reduce the number
of saloons to the minimum. Many persons think that every community should have
its proper complement of saloons and that without them men cannot secure
happiness or even contentment. I cannot agree with this view; but I am but one
of many thousand, and cannot complain if other persons differ with me and are in
the majority.

   Although I have extended this notice of Mayor Parsons' administration further
than I had intended, I may be permitted to say that while he has done so much,
as I have above set forth, the inquiry very naturally arises, could he not have
done it all and at the same time not have incurred the somewhat severe criticism
which has been made upon his more recent management of city affairs?

   Of the 135 voters at the election for town trustees March 8, 1855, mentioned
on page 177, I know of none now living. Of the 391 voters who voted at the first
city election March 7, 1857, I know certainly of but six who are now living, or
living here: Thomas Meehan, James Quinn, Captain William M. Williams, John
Sullivan, Jacob Lehning, and Charles W. Henderson. These 391 names are found on
pages 273 and 274.



Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

A HISTORY OF THE CITY OF CAIRO ILLINOIS
BY
JOHN M. LANSDEN
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
CHICAGO
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
1910

COPYRIGHTED, 1910
BY JOHN M. LANSDEN

The Lakeside Press
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/alexander/history/1910/ahistory/chapterx137gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/

File size: 39.7 Kb