The Key West Citizen

PEOPLE'S FORUM
The Citizen welcomes expression of the views of its readers but the editor reserves the right to delete any items which considered bigots or otherwise unworthy. Writers confine letters to 200 words, and write on one side of the paper only. Signature of the writer must accompany the letter and will be published same unless requested otherwise.

MAYOR CARBONELL REPLIES TO CRITICS
Editor, The Citizen:
As you gave four charter committee candidates a column in The Citizen yesterday to attack me, I feel confident you will give me much less space to reply to them.
Lincoln said that when a politician wishes to hide his motive, he hides it by using big words. The four candidates for the City Commission started off by accusing me of an "unrealistic and befuddled attempt to play politics" in requesting Representative Pat Cannon to try to have rent control discontinued in Key West. Instead of being "unrealistic", my request was exceedingly real, and instead of using "befuddled language", used homespun words, so plain they could have been understood by child in the sixth grade.
The four candidates wrote about "irresponsible individuals who lack respect for facts", and "irresponsible individuals who indulge in loose talk". Now, as I am only an individual, who is the other person, or who are the other persons who make up the individuals? Do they mean Mr. Cannon or the editor of The Citizen who published my telegram to him and his letter to me answering that telegram? Who are they?
It would seem that the four candidates, who seemingly have a passion for facts, would disclose this fact to the people of Key West. They say I was playing politics when I wired Mr. Cannon about rent control, but, of course, again, the four candidates were not playing politics when they spoke of the efforts of the charter committee to try to get money to repair Key West streets. Oh, no they were not playing politics. Only I was playing politics.