Lancaster Daily Intelligencer

The Fire Organization.

The Firemen's Union is not content with the councils' proposed reorganization of the fire department, and neither are we, nor do we know of anyone outside the councils who is satisfied with the result of their deliberations. The firemen object to giving to the city authorities entire control of their volunteer organization, and that is natural enough. Almost anybody would object to be a volunteer under such circumstances. It is not at all the idea of a volunteer organization that it should put itself under the absolute control of an outside body that it does not elect. Volunteers naturally want to choose their own masters. The city wants to administer the fire department; and proposes to men, whom it does not hire and whose time and services are their own, that they shall submit themselves to any disposition the city chooses to make of them. The volunteer firemen say that they will see the city burned first; and perhaps the volunteer firemen are right; which only shows that volunteer firemen are not the kind a city needs that wants to manage its fire department as it thinks it ought to be managed. The city must be content with volunteer management if it wants volunteer firemen; and we consider that in this the Firemen's Union have the logic of the situation.

The councils proposed to cut down the seven fire companies to five; but so long as the companies are volunteers, we do not see any particular advantage in reducing the number of companies if they are good companies of competent firemen. Of course, if they are bad companies, infested with bad men, there would be great advantage in disbanding them; but then let this reason be given for it and the act be based on its true and sufficient grounds. As the Firemen's Union says, a proper system would easily keep companies from going out of their district to a fire unless summoned; and the more the companies, the more advantageously can they be distributed over the city. Of course, the thousand dollars a year that the city proposes to pay each company could be saved to two companies if there were five instead of seven; but that is a small consideration.

The union has appointed a committee to confer with the councils, seeking an agreement. As we look at it, there are but two reasonable courses—either a volunteer department managed by itself or a paid department controlled by the city that pays it.