From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/13/1909, p. 4, c. 1

THREE ALDERMEN’S OPPORTUNITY.

On Monday night next the Weather Bureau matter will come up for reconsideration before a special called meeting of the Board of Aldermen. This meeting will offer a splendid chance for the six Aldermen who have opposed the Chimborazo Park site to line themselves up, one or all, on the side of progressive Richmond and the common good.

The Times-Dispatch realizes that it is not easy for a man to change his position in a matter of this sort. He has spoken his mind, declared his intentions and recorded his vote, and a very natural kind of pride leads him to think that it has become his duty to stand firm. To budge now, he thinks, is to be inconsistent and to show myself a man of unshakable convictions, stout courage, and indifference to popular clamor. Nobody likes to appear as admitting himself to have been in the wrong, nor is this feeling in any way unnatural or discreditable. To make a change in a matter of this sort, about which a great deal of public interest and public feeling has centred, is a hard thing to do. But it is just because it is hard, and because such an act would display a largeness of character and a willingness to sacrifice and a keen sensitiveness to sacrifice and a keen sensitiveness to public obligation that some of these Aldermen may think it to admirably worth doing.

The situation of the three Marshall Ward Aldermen is, as has been frequently noted, complicated. They are understood to feel a dominating sense of obligation to their particular “constituents.” But the three other opposing Aldermen have no such impediments. They are obligated to nothing in the world, except to their sense of what is right. They can vote aye on the United States government’s offer with no remote thought of jeopardy to their seats.

These three Aldermen, then, Mr. Whittet, Mr. Adams and Mr. Donahoe, have an unexampled chance to defer their personal desires to the desires of the almost unanimous city. Their position is well understood, and a graceful withdrawal from it now would bear no distant resemblance to a “backdown.” Believing that it is an unwise policy to place any public building in a park, they have so argued and so voted long after it became evident that they were on the unpopular side. In doing this they have stood up stoutly for their convictions, and have fully discharged their duty to themselves. But now a far higher duty summons them, namely, their duty to the city of Richmond. Circumstances have made it unmistakably plain that the overwhelming majority of citizens desire to see this building rise in Chimborazo Park. It is within the reach of any one of these three men to fulfill this civic desire. In doing so, he would not be surrendering one thing that is worth holding to. He would abandon no principle, be false to no conviction, stultify no record. On the contrary, he would be discharging grave responsibilities as a public officer in the truest, fullest and finest sense.

Such an opportunity to display a wholesome public spirit at a personal sacrifice may not be offered to any of these men again in their lifetimes. It is impossible for us to believe that all of them will let it slip by.

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