1915-02-18uu

Relations between newspaper reporters and people at Hamilton City Hall often are tenuous at best. Occasionally, City of Hamilton politicians decide that the intrusion of the public, via the newspaper reporters and their investigations, was not welcome.

Such was the case as reported in the Hamilton Spectator of February 17, 1915:

“The official censor at the city hall has been busy during the past few days, and especially among the heads of the works department.

“Under ordinary circumstances, the works department is a central source of legitimate news, and except on rare occasions is tendered with every courtesy.

“For the last few days, however, the works department officials have been mum. ‘Nothing doing’ has been the slogan of the works department for several days, and this morning, when the reporters called, one of the officials even went so far as to forget to even say that much. He turned his back on the reporters and remained standing at the window, gazing at the sky until the reporters finally left the office.

“It was learned later that orders have been given not to hand out any information to the reporters and one official was told that he was spending altogether too much of his time talking to newspaper men, and would be expected to cut it out in future.”¹

^{1 “}Officials Mum : Are Under Orders Not to Converse With Newspapermen”

Hamilton Spectator. February 17, 1915.

In the next day’s newspaper, it became clear why the gag order had been issued, and that the order was not being followed.

In an attempt to fulfill an election promise, Mayor Walters, in conjunction with members of the Board of Control, was slashing department budgets severely:

“The decision of the controllers to cut down the office staffs in four of the busiest civic departments has caused consternation among officials.

“ ‘I don’t know how we can get along with less employees in our department than we now have,’ said one official this morning. ‘To make matters worse the new board of control insists on heads of departments being present at almost every one of the daily meetings. This occupies so much time that regular work in the department gets far behind. Instead of cutting staffs, they should be increased. If this silly idea of dragging heads of departments before the board daily continues, office staffs will have to be increased or important business affairs will suffer. In some of the departments, heads of departments are actually cutting out their noon hour in order to catch up with work, and it is not unusual for clerks to work at nights.’

“ ‘I have four clerks in my department, and I need every one of them,’ said E. A. Dempster, city accountant, this morning.

“In the treasury department, there are five assistants, and W. R. Leckie, treasurer, said he could use additional help to good advantage.

“In the works department and city engineer’ department, where staff reductions have been ordered, the heads of those departments say it will be next to impossible to comply with the order.

“ ‘I have eight men and require every one of them,’ said Archie Kappele, secretary of the works department.

“ ‘My department is already cut as fine as is consistent with good business,’ declared City Engineer Macallum. “I have eight men and if this number is reduced, the department will suffer.’ ”¹

    ¹“Howl Against Board’s Order :Officials Declare City’s Business Will Suffer.”

           Hamilton Spectator. February 18, 1915

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