Here's to "America’s first commie.. pinko nut-case" who started the first public Fire Department.

[1776Forever]

Conscience of a Progressive
Ernest Partridge

http://gadfly.igc.org/progressive/private.htm

In colonial Philadelphia, firefighters were employed by private insurance companies which, of course, had financial incentives to minimize damage to their clients’ properties. Plaques with the insurance company’s insignia were placed on buildings, so that the fire fighters would know whether or not it was their “business” to put out the fires on the premises. (These plaques are often found today in antique shops). If the “wrong” plaque was on the building, well, that was just tough luck. Of course, with their attention confined to a single building, fire fighters were ill-disposed to prevent a spreading of the fire to adjacent “non-client” structures.

Occasionally, when the building’s insurance affiliation was in some doubt, competing fire companies would fight each other for the privilege of putting out the fire, resulting in more water aimed at fire fighters than at burning buildings.

Eventually, the absurdity and outright danger of this system led one prominent Philadelphia citizen to come up with the idea of a publicly funded and administered fire department.

His name was Benjamin Franklin: America’s first anti-free-enterprise commie pinko nut-case.

Franklin’s subversive left-wing ideas were extended to include libraries, post offices, and public schools, and, if we are to believe some of today’s regressives, it’s been downhill ever since.1

(more at link - take a look)

.................

This is what Union Busting is all about - If you can afford it you deserve it - if you can't - tough you know what!


:headbang:

[Arctic Dave]

1. More about the "good ol days" before public firefighters.

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_Uglies

The Plug Uglies were a street gang (though most often referred to as a political club) that operated in the westside of Baltimore, Maryland from 1854 to 1860. The Plug Uglies coalesced shortly after the creation of the Mount Vernon Hook-and-Ladder Company, a volunteer fire company whose truck house was on Biddle Street, between Pennsylvania Avenue and Ross Street (later Druid Hill). They were originally runners and rowdies affiliated with the Mount Vernon. Plug Ugly captains included John English and James Morgan. Other prominent members were Louis A. Carl, George Coulson, George "Howard" Davis, Henry Clay Gambrill, Alexander Levy, Erasmus "Ras" Levy, James Wardell, and Wesley Woodward. The gang associated with the emerging American Party (the Know Nothings) in Baltimore.

Like similar associations in Baltimore and other United States cities during this period, the Plug Uglies' street influence made them useful to party politicians anxious to control the polls on Election Days. The Plug Uglies were the central figures in the first election riot in Baltimore in October 1855. Together with the Rip Raps, they were also actively involved in deadly rioting at the October 1856 municipal election in Baltimore and in similar violence at the Know-Nothing Riot in Washington in June 1857. At the Washington riot, the National Guard called out to quell the fighting, shot and killed ten citizens. Accounts of the Washington riot appeared in newspapers nationally and gained widespread notoriety for the Plug Uglies.

Besides election-day fighting, the gang was involved in several assassinations and shootings in Baltimore. Most notably, Plug Ugly Henry Gambrill was implicated in the murder of a Baltimore police officer in September 1858. Gambrill's trial, and the subsequent deadly violence relating to it, made the crime one of the most sensational of the era.

The violence of the Plug Uglies and other political clubs had an important impact on Baltimore. It was largely responsible for the creation of modern policing and a paid, professional fire department, as well as court and electoral reforms. These reforms, together with the election of a Reform municipal administration in October 1860 and then the Civil War, led to the breaking up of the Plug Uglies.

[Divine Discontent]

2. yep!

[1776Forever]

3. Hope a lot of people saw this! K

[fascisthunter]

4. kicked

[Dappleganger]

5. We were very lucky to take that tour last spring break in Philly...

we did a horse-drawn carriage tour and the driver did an amazing job with so many little tidbits like that. It's really something when you see the remains of all that he did IRL.

[1776Forever]

6. Great! The Tea Partiers would really hate to admit how Progressives most of the "Founding Fathers"

really were! :toast:

[Jack Rabbit]

7. And he was a libertine

Christine O'Donnell would not have approved of his private life.