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THE CITIZEN'S LIBRARY 
 
 The American City: a Problem 
 in Democracy 
 
 BY 
 
 DELOS F. WILCOX, Ph.D. 
 
 XrfD gork 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 
 1904 
 
 All right* retfrred 
 
^S' 
 
 ivl"3m: 
 
 Copyright, 1904, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up, elcctrotyped, and published May, 1904. 
 
 Norto0oli 33reg8 
 
 J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Several years ago, in my little book on " The Study 
 of City Government," I outlined what seemed to me the 
 principal governmental problems of the city, grouped 
 under "functions," "control," and "organization." In 
 that book I attempted merely to point the way to the 
 study of problems which I believed to be of command- 
 ing interest. Since that time, 1897, an immense body 
 of literature dealing with those problems has come into 
 existence. The nature of the present volume is such 
 that I have not considered it necessary to prepare an 
 elaborate bibliography of this literature. My concern 
 here is not to present an exhaustive array of facts and 
 theories, but to discuss what seem to me to be the 
 fundamental principles of the American city problem, 
 and point out, if possible, its real relations to the great 
 problem of human freedom as it is being worked out 
 in American political institutions. All those readers 
 who are unfamiliar with the existing literature on 
 municipal subjects can find guidance for further read- 
 ing in Dr. Robert C. Brooks's " A Bibliography of 
 Municipal Problems and City Conditions," published 
 as the March, 1901, issue of Municipal Affairs. In- 
 deed, Municipal Affairs itself is a storehouse of litera- 
 ture on these subjects, and the volumes of this magazine 
 
vi AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 covering the period from 1897 to 1902 are of extraordi- 
 nary value to the student of city problems. Another 
 exceptionally valuable collection of reports and discus- 
 sions of municipal questions is found in " Proceedings 
 of the National Municipal League," 1894 to 1903. For 
 those interested in municipal problems from the stand- 
 point of practical administration, the Municipal Journal 
 and Engineer will be found a useful magazine. 
 
 I am particularly indebted to Dr. Milo Roy Maltbie, 
 of New York, for generous aid in the collection of 
 materials used in this book, and for the careful perusal 
 and criticism of the manuscript. 
 
 D. F. W. 
 
 Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
 April 21, 1904. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Democracy and City Life in America . , i 
 
 II. The Street 28 
 
 III. The Control of PublTc Utilities ... 52 
 
 IV. Civic Education, or the Duty to the Future . 91 
 V. The Control of Leisure 121 
 
 VI. Municipal Insurance 174 
 
 VII. Civic Cooperation 200 
 
 VIII. Local Centres of Civic Life .... 229 
 
 IX. Popular Responsibility 244 
 
 X. Official Responsibility 276 
 
 XL Local Responsibility, or Municipal Home Rule 313 
 
 XII. Municipal Revenues . . . . . -341 
 
 XIII. Municipal Debt 386 
 
 XIV. A Program of Civic Effort 402 
 
 Index 
 
 417 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY: A PROBLEM 
 IN DEMOCRACY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 Three hundred years ago the United States 
 was a wilderness of forest, mountain, and untilled 
 prairie. The first European settlers who came to 
 the New World were actuated by various motives ; 
 but those who settled on the eastern coast of what 
 is now the United States were not, for the most 
 part, adventurers. Three or four noble motives 
 stand out as characteristic of that early immigra- 
 tion. These motives were : — 
 
 Firsts the desire for religious liberty ; 
 
 Second, the desire for political freedom ; 
 
 Third, the desire for opportunity to make an 
 honest living, that is to say, for a share in nature's 
 bounty; and. 
 
 Fourth, the desire to conquer a new continent 
 for Christianity and civilization. 
 
 Along with such motives as these went the cour- 
 iage to face the wilderness and endure the dangers 
 and privations attendant upon pioneer life in a 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 remote quarter of the world. The settlement of 
 America was indeed a war in the wilds, a series 
 of bloody and hard-fought battles with want, with 
 disease, with cunning and fierce savages. _It wa s 
 thejiesire for freedom that gave our f athers_the 
 cour age to conq uer. Freedom is the normal aspi- 
 ration of man, and the record of human progress 
 is the record of the achievements of those who are 
 striving to be free. 
 
 After a century and a half of struggle and 
 growth, the settlements of Englishmen along our 
 Atlantic coast united to form the American nation. 
 In the Declaration of Independence, the federal 
 and state constitutions, and the ordinance gov- 
 erning the Northwest Territory, the fundamental 
 principles of American democracy were established. 
 /These are, in brief, four : — 
 
 First, that every man should stand on his own 
 merits, and not be dependent for political rights 
 or privileges on the rank or merit of his father or 
 any one else ; 
 
 Second, that every normal man should have the 
 right to participate in government ; 
 
 Third, that all men should have equal opportu- 
 nities to attain to positions of power and influence 
 in political society ; and, 
 
 Fouj^th, that every child should have a chance to 
 get an education. 
 
 To be sure, these principles were not perfectly 
 worked out or universally applied at first, but, in 
 a broad sense, they form the foundation of Ameri- 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 can political institutions. Freedom is the purpose 
 of our national life. 
 
 It is no wonder, then, that America has for 
 more than a century stood for something definite 
 and noble among the nations, and that the dreamers 
 of every land have looked to us for the realiza- 
 tion of TITeir ideals. We have ourselves all along 
 acknowledged our peculiar destiny and have gloried 
 in it. We have welcomed the children of the 
 world who have fled to us to escape from oppres- 
 sion and find freedom, but have nevertheless feared 
 that these same multitudes, untrained for democ- 
 racy, attaining freedom too easily by our gift, would 
 prove dangerous to our institutions and imperil 
 our national destiny. 
 
 The real character of our national mission is in- 
 consistent with mere self-seeking. Freedom, de- 
 mocracy, equality of rights, all speak of brotherhood 
 and cooperation and prophesy that human nature, 
 so cruel and selfish in its ancient and primitive 
 manifestations, is being changed to something be- 
 nevolent and social. Indeed, the progress of civil- 
 ization and the constantly increasing dependence 
 of man upon his . f ellQW-S ^or th ^^^iecessities and 
 comforts of physical and inteljectual .lif e Jbiao^ 
 out-of-da.te and impossible the ultra-selfish attri- 
 butes of human nature which are often described 
 as unchangeable. If America fails in her splendid 
 mission, it will be because she lets herself lapse 
 into a mere giant nation striving for mastery. The 
 supreme issue before America to-day is the per- 
 
 3 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 fection of democracy and the holding fast by that 
 means to our national ideals and the leadership of 
 the world in the struggle for human freedom. 
 
 The conditions of life in the United States a hun- 
 dred years ago were favorable to the success of 
 the political experiment instituted by our fathers. 
 Practically the whole nation was of one blood and 
 one language, with common traditions and politi- 
 cal ideals welded into unity by the stern experi- 
 ences of colonial life. Then, too, there stretched 
 out before the new nation looking off to the west 
 an almost boundless continent, with unlimited re- 
 sources, only waiting to respond to the call of civili- 
 zation. The poorest man in those days, if he had 
 energy, could reach out his strong right arm and 
 appropriate to his own uses a sufficient part of the 
 bounty of nature. In those days, too, cities were 
 almost unknown. In the year 1800 there was no 
 city in the United States with a population of 
 70,000, and only about 4 per cent of the total 
 population lived in cities of 8000 or more. 
 
 The great progress that America has made in 
 population, industry, and arts since the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century has not been altogether 
 favorable to our political experiment. Two or 
 three things seem to be essential to the success of 
 democracy. In the first place, the great body of 
 the people must be intelligent and have a large 
 social capacity, which means that they must be 
 able to see beyond their own garden fences and 
 be able to cooperate witb other men of considerably 
 
 4 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 different habits and ideals. Then there must be 
 a strong interest in jnral institnti«^Tis in that part 
 of poHtical life which affects men daily in and near 
 their homes.^ And, finally, the conditions of life 
 must be such that men can give a consid erab le 
 am ount of time and ^thouj^ht^to-those politicaLin- 
 terests in regard to which they can personally 
 make their wills felt. 
 
 The expansion of American life, through its en- 
 couragement of immigration, has had a marked in- 
 fluence upon the character of the American people. 
 For the_Uni ted States immigration has ^ Qn__the |j 
 whole, tendedjtQ_jQwet-fcbe-average of intelligence _,' 
 and particularly to diminish the social capacity of \ 
 the communities. Paris, the great cosmopolitan i] 
 city of western Europe, has only about one-twelfth 
 of its population foreign, and London less than 
 one-thirtieth, while of American cities, New York 
 has more than four-fifths, of foreign parentage, 
 Chicago and San Francisco about four-fifths, and 
 the twenty largest cities of Massachusetts, the 
 commonwealth in which America takes most pride, 
 about two-thirds. Some of our great agricultural 
 commonwealths, even, are almost as much foreign 
 as American, so far as numbers count in their cit- 
 izenship. Minnesota and North Dakota both have 
 a majority of males of voting age foreign born. 
 
 I Perhaps the most serious feature of this condition 
 is that the oM_Ameiican stock fails to multiply a^^ I > 
 rapidly as the newer and less politically experienced >^C. 
 race stocks do. In short, America's condition i^ j\ 
 
 5 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 analogous to that of a club originally composed of 
 a more or less select class brought together by a 
 common experience and a common intelligence for 
 the furtherance of certain great ends, but later 
 well-nigh swamped by the influx of strangers with 
 little notion of the original purposes of the club 
 and meagre training for membership in it. 
 I The second great requisite for the success of 
 democracy, namely, a strong practical interest in 
 flocal institutions, has also suffered a good deal from 
 Ithe industrial expansion of the last century. It is 
 -'of the nature of political government to be founded 
 upon place, and man in local relations is most 
 subject to political control. Country, nation, and 
 state are, in a somewhat loose way, interchangeable 
 terms. Men must have a footing somewhere. 
 They cannot get off the earth, and it is in this 
 primitive relation to land and locality that citizen- 
 ship largely consists. But the development of 
 railways, steamships, telegraphs, telephones, and 
 other means of travel and communication has 
 given men a certain apparent, though partly su- 
 perficial, independence of locality. Men must still 
 have places, but in the great cities they are piled 
 up, one on top of another; or they have two 
 places, one for business and one for home. In the 
 latter case, political boundary lines are practically 
 powerless, and men readily abandon their citizen- 
 ship in ward, city, or even commonwealth at the 
 dictaJi0Bro£_non-political .interests. Furthermore, 
 the growing habit of travel, and especially of a 
 
 6 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 change of residence during the heat of summer or 
 the cold of winter, tends to detach men from local 
 interests and render them unable to perform po- 
 litical functions. This fluidity of movement is 
 marked among the well-to-do and the intelligent,. 
 so that the normal influence of these classes upon 
 local political action is still further curtailed. They 
 are enabled to escape from unwholesome local con- 
 ditions which it is the business of political cooper- 
 ation to remove or ameliorate. 
 
 Socjetyis being reorganized ^ccor^in^^tg Jii-.. 
 terests^r ather than accoFHmg to place,_and the 
 pripjnples of this reorganization run CQuntej_to. 
 political forms and habits. If this movement is 
 to go on indefinitely, and distance be annihilated 
 and space ignored, political government will have 
 to develop a new mode of control, functional 
 rather than local. But there are many reasons 
 to believe that our boasted independence of space 
 will, in the long run, prove a costly luxury, and 
 that sooner or later society will settle down again 
 to a more steadfast life in which local interests 
 will again assume large importance. We may 
 expect, in the nature of the case, a partial return 
 to the condition under which democracy thrives. 
 Nevertheless, the world can never again be the 
 same as it was before steam and electricity were 
 engaged in the service of man, and one of the 
 hardest problems for democracy to face is the 
 necessary readjustment of political habits to fit 
 the new conditions. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 By far the most serious contribution of the 
 nineteenth century to the difficulties of democracy 
 has been, however, the appropriation of the na- 
 tion's resources by individuals and that wonderful 
 expansion of human interests which have put men 
 under the high pressure of to-day, so that they 
 have little time to give to practical political efforts. 
 In cities the gossip of the world comes buzzing in 
 our ears twice a day at least, and perhaps through 
 a score of channels. The greater a man's income, 
 the needier he is, because he generally wants to 
 live beyond it ; the faster we can travel, the more 
 time it takes, for we go far and often ; the shorter 
 the hours of labor, the busier we get, for leisure 
 breeds opportunity for action. 
 
 Certainly another century cannot carry on the 
 movement of the last with accelerating speed, 
 without actually consuming the best of the race. 
 Let us hope that men will gradually be brought 
 to a saner and steadier life by the relentless re- 
 sistance involved in the cost of progress. Even 
 this hope offers but a grim satisfaction, for the 
 discipline will of necessity be severe. The most 
 tragic element in the political thought of our time 
 is, perhaps, the conflict between the realization 
 of democracy both as a means to and by means 
 of a higher citizenship, animated by less selfish 
 motives, and gifted with a new sense of social 
 obligation and social privilege, on the one hand ; 
 and the spirit of strife that becomes more fierce 
 as the field of competition broadens, and the life 
 
 8 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 of the world is fused, on the other. The theory 
 of democracy makes optimists of us, but practical 
 observation of the movements of our time often 
 tends to pessimism. We can be saved by democ- 
 racy if we will — but will we? That is the big 
 question of to-day. Its answer depends on whether 
 or not enough people can be found who will offer 
 an intelligent resistance to the extreme tendencies 
 of the age, and definitely confine themselves to 
 a normal life. 
 
 All the forces here described as affecting the 
 conditions of life in a way unfavorable to democ- 
 racy culuiinate in cities« The city is, indeed, the 
 visible symbol of the annihilation of distance, and 
 the multiplication of interests. 
 
 And yet, on the other hand, the city emphasizes 
 locality and gives opportunity for cooperation. The 
 city is the point where the resistance of space to 
 men's efforts is focussed, and, consequently, local 
 interests become enormously increased. The op- 
 portunities, too, for formulating the popular will 
 are greatly enhanced in cities by proximity of 
 residence. People can gather in, mass meetings 
 on a few hours' notice, public opinion can find 
 immediate expression in the press, the citizen can 
 bring personal pressure to bear upon "the official 
 without delay. The danger is that democracy 
 will be paralyzed by its opportunities. True local 
 interests, though of such transcendent importance 
 to the community, tend to go by default so far 
 as the individual is concerned. The home and 
 
 9 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the neighborhood, the natural primary units of 
 local organization, are weakened, and in many 
 cases nearly destroyed. Home life is little more 
 than a name where a hundred people, often of 
 different nationalities, live in a single tenement 
 house ; and what is left of the neighborhood 
 where there is a density of five hundred to the 
 acre ? Among the business and professional 
 classes, a man's friends and intimate associates 
 may be scattered over the whole city, while he 
 scarcely knows his next door neighbor's name. 
 It is among working people and the poor that 
 local interests retain their importance to the indi- 
 vidual, and partly for this reason democracy 
 appeals most directly and most safely to the 
 masses. 
 
 One of the most serious developments of modern 
 life, from the standpoint of democracy, has been 
 the organization of industry on so large a scale 
 that, in cities, only an insignificant proportion of 
 the people are working for themselves. Under 
 the wage and salary system men sell their working 
 time and do as they are told by their employers. 
 This tends to make machines of men, to diminish 
 their ethical responsibility, to set up a fixed and 
 artificial reward for labor without reference to its 
 real social value. A man is paid as much for 
 doing useless or positively destructive work as 
 for useful and productive labor. Perhaps, through 
 the organization of industry, the real waste and 
 destruction are greatly diminished, but at any rate 
 
 lO 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 personal responsibility for snaking one's work so- 
 cially useful is nearly lost. This would be certainly 
 fatal to democracy and the future development 
 of the race if there were no compensations, — for 
 what kind of a citizen-sovereign can a man be who, 
 in his work, by which he maintains life and sup- 
 ports a family, becomes a mere machine and does 
 what he is told, asking no questions and incurring 
 no risks ? The compensation lies in the fact that 
 the organization of industry by the division of 
 labor necessitates corporate action on the part of 
 the employers. The corporation is merely a form 
 of cooperation and mgans injhe long run a devel- 
 opment of social capacity and ethical responsibility 
 in groups. Along with this development of co- 
 operative methods among men of wealth and em- 
 ployers have come both opportunity and necessity 
 for the development of cooperation among wage- 
 earners. And so by dint of working together in 
 industrial pursuits men may acquire a greater 
 capacity for political cooperation. The shortening 
 of the working hours at least offers more oppor- 
 tunity for the development of other than mere 
 bread-winning interests. It is doubtful whether 
 these advantages fully compensate for the loss 
 involved in the diminution of economic indepen- 
 dence^ but at any rate democracy must find some 
 way to adjust itself to the changed conditions. 
 
 . This problem of employer and employed is 
 rendered more difficult by the fact that the indus- 
 trial world is divided into two hostile camps of 
 
 II 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 organized, cooperating forces, and, as complete 
 political democracy would open the way for the 
 absolute victory of one industrial party by means 
 of the machinery of government, it becomes a 
 matter of grave importance to organized capital to 
 hinder the political organization of the people 
 along democratic lines. And so we have the 
 spectacle of a free people hemmed in on every 
 hand and checked at every step by barriers erected 
 at the instance of property. Political machines, 
 so called, and bosses are supported by contributions 
 from organized capital, senates and councils are 
 bought, newspapers are subsidized, and many 
 stumbling blocks are put in the way of a free for- 
 mation of public opinion and a free expression of the 
 public will. The political and industrial worlds are 
 so intertwined that their problems must be solved 
 together or at least in close relation to each other. 
 Here also the city holds the centre of the stage. 
 
 The founders of the American government were 
 not wholly confident of the ultimate wisdom and 
 reliability of the people, and it is certain that the 
 doubts and hesitation of those revered statesmen 
 would have been transformed into utter dismay if 
 the vistas of the future could have opened and re- 
 vealed the teeming cities of our time, rich and 
 splendid as Babylon, but filled with a motley citi- 
 zenship recruited from all the nations of the world. 
 What would Washington have thought as he took 
 the oath of office as first President of the United 
 States, could he have known that in the early years 
 
 12 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 of the twentieth century, on the island of Man- 
 hattan and around it, the second city of the world 
 would deliberately vote in support of the theory 
 that government is for the benefit of those who 
 govern ? Even Jefferson, the spokesman and 
 almost the author of American democracy, must 
 have lost his faith could he have foreseen the cities 
 of New England swarming as they now are with 
 untrained alien races, and Philadelphia, FrankHn's 
 city and the city of the" Declaration, stolidly sub- 
 mitting to the band of pirates who have cast its 
 municipal institutions into the quicksands of cor- 
 ruption. 
 
 It is fitting that in the study of city conditions 
 and municipal government in the United States we 
 should strive to comprehend the relation existing 
 between democracy and this marvellous phenom- 
 enon, the city, looming so large upon our horizon 
 and dominating more and more our whole political, 
 industrial, and social life. Democracy has not been 
 fully tested, and its record of achievement is such 
 that we, of modern days, believe its ultimate failure 
 would mean the failure of progress itself. To us 
 the right of every man to count for what he is 
 really worth has come to be an essential part of the 
 justification of life. We look upon the egregious 
 blunders of our cities and listen to Mr. Bryce's oft- 
 repeated dictum about the *' one conspicuous fail- 
 ure " among our institutions, and still maintain that 
 what we need is not less democracy but more. 
 
 We see that the experiment of democracy must 
 13 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 , be begun over again under the changed conditions 
 "p^ of industrial and social life, and that in the new 
 experiment cities must take the lead. That thus 
 far democracy has failed to justify itself in the 
 cities of America is commonly believed. Yet cities 
 are in the nature of the case the richest field for 
 democracy, and in them the principle of political 
 cooperation may be carried furthest. . If the people 
 prove themselves worthy of political power, mu- 
 nicipal institutions will surely lead the van in the 
 political progress of the world. 
 
 Not only is the city involved most deeply in the 
 great political experiment of the present and the 
 future, but it is the dominating element in that 
 experiment. The United States, along with the 
 other nations of the western world, is rapidly 
 coming to be a nation of cities, and even while the 
 majority of the American people remain rural, so 
 far as residence is concerned, the influence of the 
 cities upon the national life is quite out of propor- 
 tion to their population. For the city is the dis- 
 tributing centre of intelligence as well as of goods. 
 < The city stands for organization. It is the centre 
 * of the complex web of national life. To it all 
 roads lead, and more and more it deals with 
 countrymen as individuals. The introduction into 
 the post-office of rural free delivery, the develop- 
 ment of systems of trolley lines focussing in the 
 cities, the expansion of the mail order business, 
 the concentration of the publishing interests, — all 
 these are putting the city into direct and dominat- 
 
 14 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 ing relations with country people, and making the 
 country essentially suburban. This form of urban 
 imperialism follows^the adage of war, " Divide and 
 conquer." The city becomes dominant in essen- 
 tially the same way as a great employer of labor- 
 who deals with his men individually. 
 
 Besides all this, the city attracts to itself as the 
 visible centre of wealth and power the leaders in 
 every department of life. By the splendor of its 
 luxuries, made possible by cooperation on so large 
 a scale, it attracts to itself imaginative youth. 
 It is true, of course, that during this age of rapidly 
 growing cities, it is people of rural origin who 
 build up the town and control its activities, and in 
 this sense the country rules the city. But in city 
 life there is one all-dominating condition that trans- 
 forms men as if by magic. This condition is s carcity 
 of room, which gives rise in an old city to a deacT 
 congestion and in a new city to a fierce jostle. 
 The newcomers are one by one absorbed and trans- 
 formed into city men. While there is little diffi- 
 culty in making city men out of countrymen, it 
 seems well-nigh impossible to reverse the process. 
 Working men in cities become used to working 
 under orders, and in a measure lose the faculty of 
 self-direction and adaptation to the conditions of 
 agricultural work. But, even more important than 
 this, they and their families form the city habit 
 and find themselves quite lost if thrust upon 
 their own resources in the country, where there is 
 no music of the pavement and no jostling of the 
 
 15 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 crowd. On the other hand, those who get their 
 living by their wits and go well dressed, soon lose 
 the capacity for the work of the hands by which 
 countrymen live. Two difficulties lie in the way 
 of their ever going back to the country to earn 
 their liveHhood. They are physically incapaci- 
 tated, and their wants have been so much devel- 
 oped that they could not be satisfied by the earnings 
 of hand labor. City people in countless numbers, 
 doubtless, envy countrymen their imaginary lot, 
 and are greatly delighted of a summer, if their 
 finances will permit, to visit the country and even 
 play at farming, but they do not know how to 
 work there and do not care to learn. Perhaps the 
 extreme apparent inability of city people to be re- 
 transformed into country folk is partly due to the 
 direction of the current which sets so strongly 
 toward the city in this age. But there are many 
 reasons to believe that cities consume and will 
 continue to consume the population that pours into 
 them from every direction.^ 
 
 Two noteworthy books dealing with the prob- 
 
 1 Some of the striking characteristics of metropolitan life are 
 described with force, insight, and wit by Dr. J. H. Girdner in his 
 little book entitled New Yorkitis, He says, page i8, " It is no 
 exaggeration to say that New York is a huge mill, into the hopper 
 of which is annually thrown raw material in the form of brain, 
 brawn, money, and character drawn from the outside world, and 
 the ground-out product of this mill is the metropolis, with all that 
 the term means; and if the supply of raw material were discon- 
 tinued, the mill would in time cease to turn out the finished 
 product." 
 
 i6 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 lems of the city appeared from the American press 
 four or five years ago. One is The Twentieth 
 Century City, by Josiah Strong. Mr. Strong shows 
 a keen appreciation of the fundamentally ethical 
 nature of the question. With great clearness he 
 sets forth the industrial and social causes that 
 have given us the city problem. In his view the 
 same forces that have already driven more than 
 one-third of the people of the United States into 
 cities will continue to operate until within a score 
 of years the cities will have absorbed more than -. 
 one-half of our entire , population, an d u Itimately 
 we shall come to be " a nation of cities." In his 
 view ma,terialism dominates American life^ and^ 
 shows itself strongest in the centres of .ciyjUzatiom 
 ^d wealth . Indeed, the material progress of our 
 cities has entirely outstripped their moral and in- 
 tellectual progress, so that the larger the city the 
 more menacing are the conditions of its munici- 
 pal life. It seems, therefore, that the city itself 
 and the nation at large have been tending rapidly 
 toward a condition in which, with the city dominat- 
 ing the nation and the grossest forms of materialism 
 dominating the city, free institutions must perish 
 and democracy prove an abject failure in America. 
 But Mr. Strong paints this picture as a warning 
 to the American people, and points out a remedy 
 by which this national disaster can be averted. 
 The proposed remedy is no other than the develop- 
 ment of a new patriotism through the quickening 
 of the sociaj^conscience and the practical applica- 
 c 17 
 
THE AMERICAN <:iTY 
 
 tion of the teachings of Christ. The law of service, 
 the law of sacrifice, and the law of love must 
 transform men and give them new social ideals. 
 The other book referred to is The Growth of 
 Cities, by Mr. Adna F. Weber. Mr. Weber's 
 book is an exhaustive study of the statistics of 
 city growth, and reveals a remarkable world-wide 
 tendency toward concentration under the stimulus 
 of the new industrial conditions of the nineteenth 
 century. It appears that the larger the city the 
 more rapidly it grows, and Mr. Weber agrees with 
 Mr. Strong in expecting that this tendency of 
 population to mass itself in cities will continue until 
 two-thirds of our population is distinctly urban. 
 Taking the view that the world-wide movement 
 toward the city is a permanent one, Mr. Weber 
 examines with some care the damaging charges 
 that have so often been made against the general 
 social effects of city life. One by one, he takes 
 up our supposed causes for alarm, and looks at 
 them from the standpoint of the unworried philos- 
 opher. One by one, as he touches them with the 
 wand of statistics, all the moral and social diffi- 
 culties attendant upon our transformation into a 
 nation of cities disappear. On the whole, in his 
 opinion, the inevitable prospect is to be welcomed 
 rather than viewed with alarm, and none of the 
 leading indictments brought against city life are 
 substantiated by statistical records.^ 
 
 1 See Mr. Weber's chapter on " The Physical and Moral Health 
 of City and Country," pp. 368-409. 
 
 18 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 These two views of municipal imperialism are 
 extremely interesting and suggestive. It seems 
 probable that neither author has measured the 
 increasing force of the resistance which_tliejnioye- 
 ment toward concentration j nust^ inevitably meet. 
 The earth levies a tax upon a city/ and the larger 
 the city the higher the tax. The cost of trans- 
 portation and standing-room will at a certain point 
 more than balance the economies of concentration, 
 and then city growth must at least be less rapid 
 than it has been during recent times. Conse- 
 quently, there is considerable reason for thinking 
 that the large cities will not soon, if ever, contain 
 an actual majority of our population. So perhaps 
 it is possible for us to discount, to a certain extent, 
 the desperate straits that Mr. Strong sees us in 
 with only twenty years in which to save ourselves 
 from hopeless national ruin by the transformation 
 of a criminally selfish citizenship into one that 
 obeys the laws of Christ, and also possible for us, 
 without discarding our philosophic faith in the ulti- 
 mate salvation of society, to discount to a certain 
 extent the equanimity with which Mr. Weber views 
 the conditions of city life. Nevertheless, we must 
 admit that for practical purposes Mr. Strong is 
 fundamentally right. Even if the cities do not 
 contain an actual majority of the population, their 
 influence upon social ideals is likely to become 
 more and more powerful and far-reaching, and 
 the city presents for itself and for the nation a 
 problem, the only adequate solution of which must 
 
 19 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 be found in a combined civic intelligence and civic 
 conscience so far removed from the spirit now 
 dominating municipal politics that it may be said 
 to involve a radical change in human nature or in 
 the conditions under which human nature finds 
 expression. For one who has felt the thrilling 
 torture of a transformation from rural or village 
 Ufe to the life of a metropolis like New York 
 or Chicago, it would require more figures than 
 Mr. Weber has marshalled to prove that the city 
 is all right. Yet T/ie Growth of Cities is an emi- 
 nently sane book which, in Emerson's phrase, says 
 to the prophet of evil and the overweening re- 
 former, ** Why so hot, my little sir } " 
 
 It has been one of the loudest complaints of 
 municipal reformers that the welfare of the city 
 has been and still is prostituted to the interests 
 of national political parties. Through this subordi- 
 nation and neglect of distinctly city politics, mu- 
 nicipal problems have been accumulating on our 
 hands until their number is legion and their mass 
 mountainous. In recent years they have begun to 
 compel more than local attention, and there are 
 not wanting indications that the time may come 
 when, instead of being prostituted to national party 
 interests, municipal issues will take their turn at 
 domination and themselves determine the lines 
 along which national political struggles will be 
 fought. In that case we should have the city 
 problem, rather than the city population, dominat- 
 ing the politics of the country. 
 
 20 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 There are many reasons why the city problem is 
 assuming national proportions. Several of these 
 h^:^" already been indicatecJT First, democracy, 
 the tool with which we are cultivating human 
 nature in America, has been badly damaged by its 
 contact with city conditions. We must attend to 
 our tool, repair it, and perfect it, or find ourselves 
 suddenly set back into political barbarism doing 
 hand-labor only. Secondly, the city, as the centre 
 of civihzation and the distributing centre of the 
 nation's intelligence, tends to impose its ethical 
 and social ideals upon the whole people irrespec- 
 tive of residence. Thirdly, as the accumulation of 
 enormous wealth in the hands of one man without 
 a corresponding responsibility for its use with 
 reference to social welfare, is a positive menace to 
 the general well-being, so the concentration of 
 wealth in a single city, without a clear recognition 
 on its part of its duty to the state, becomes danger- 
 ous to the public weal. It is the tendency of a 
 great accumulation of wealth to levy tribute upon 
 industry, and, through its dominating power, to re- 
 duce poor men and men of moderate means to a 
 condition of economic dependence. So the growth 
 of cities, with their enormous and disproportionate 
 wealth, unless their public policy subserves the in- 
 terest of the state at large, will in the long run 
 destroy the independence of agriculture, and make 
 the life of the tiller of the soil even more hopeless 
 than that of the city workingman. This prodigy 
 of which we boast, our civilization, reaches out to 
 
 21 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the remotest townships, and levies tribute upon the 
 backwoodsman even. 
 
 Under our present system of government, in 
 most of the states of the Union, the legislatures, 
 composed largely of rural representatives, have the 
 responsibility for organizing the political mechan- 
 ism through which the cities are governed. It 
 needs close attention to the municipal problem to 
 show the countryman this, even, that the safest 
 way to protect his own interests from the evils of 
 domination by bad cities, is to throw these cities 
 upon their own political responsibility, perfect 
 democracy in them, and make himself effective 
 allies of the masses of the city people, who suffer 
 as he does from the imperiaHsm of concentrated 
 wealth. The city problem is a national problem, 
 and there is no excuse for indifference in regard to 
 it on the part of any citizen. In its broadest terms, 
 it presents the simple questions : Shall the city be 
 permitted to destroy democracy and thereby under- 
 mine our national institutions .'' Shall the city be 
 permitted to absorb the brains and wealth of the 
 nation and consume them wastefully } 
 
 We must not, however, overemphasize the 
 national aspect of the case, or what may be called 
 the external problem of the city ; for, in accordance 
 with the genius of our institutions, the city must 
 face and solve its own problem for its own sake 
 and for the nation's sake. What, then, is the city 
 problem from the standpoint of the city itself? 
 What must the citizen of the city set out to do ? 
 
 22 ^ 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 Or, in other words, what is the function of mu- 
 nicipal government, the institution through which 
 the citizens of a city combine to carry out their 
 ideas of what their city should be made to be ? 
 
 Walt Whitman, who, more than any other 
 American writer, stands for boundless faith in the 
 masses of men under democratic institutions, and 
 whose ideals of life are coming to have a deeper 
 and deeper influence among his countrymen, saw 
 with the instinct of genius the main outlines of the 
 city problem. Away back in September, 1870, he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " After an absence, I am now again in New 
 York City and Brooklyn, on a few weeks' vacation. 
 The splendor, picturesqueness, and oceanic ampli- 
 tude and rush of these great cities, the unsurpassed 
 situation, rivers and bay, sparkling sea tides, costly 
 and lofty new buildings, fa(^ades of marble and 
 iron, of original grandeur and elegance of design, 
 with the masses of gay color, the preponderance of 
 white and blue, the flags flying, the endless ships, 
 the tumultuous streets, Broadway, the heavy, low, 
 musical roar, hardly ever intermitted, even at 
 night, the jobbers' houses, the rich shops, the 
 wharves, the great Central Park, and the Brooklyn 
 Park of hills, the assemblages of the citizens in 
 their groups, conversations, trades, evening amuse- 
 ments, or along the by quarters, — these, I say, and 
 the Jike of these, completely^satisf y my senses of 
 power, fulness, motion, etc., and give me, through 
 ~^such senses and appetites, and through my aesthetic 
 
 23 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 conscience, a continued exaltation and absolute 
 fulfilment. . . . 
 
 "But, sternly discarding, shutting our eyes to 
 the glow and grandeur of the general superficial 
 effect, coming down to what is of the only real im- 
 portance, personalities, and examining minutely, we 
 question, we ask, are there, indeed, men here worthy 
 the name ? Are there athletes ? Are there perfect 
 women to match the generous material luxuriance ? 
 Is there a pervading atmosphere of beautiful man- 
 ners? Are there crops of fine youths and majestic 
 old persons ? Are there arts worthy freedom and 
 a rich people? Is there a great moral and religious 
 civilization — the only justification of a great mate- 
 rial one ? Confess that to severe eyes, using the 
 moral microscope upon humanity, a sort of dry 
 and flat Sahara appears, these cities crowded with 
 petty grotesques, malformations, phantoms, playing 
 meaningless antics. Confess that everywhere, in 
 shop, street, church, theatre, bar room, official chair, 
 are pervading flippancy and vulgarity, low cunning, 
 infidelity — everywhere the youth puny, impudent, 
 foppish, prematurely ripe — everywhere an abnor- 
 mal libidinousness, unhealthy forms, male, female, 
 painted, padded, dyed, chignon'd, muddy complex- 
 ions, bad blood, the capacity for good motherhood 
 deceasing or deceas'd, shallow notions of beauty, 
 with a range of manners, or rather lack of manners, 
 (considering the advantages enjoy'd,) probably the 
 meanest to be seen in the world." ^ 
 
 1 Walt Whitman, Prose Worksy p. 21 1. 
 24 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 The problem is still the same, as a recent writer 
 in one of the metropolitan dailies has indicated. 
 " Some time ago," he writes, " a Western friend 
 said to me : * Your New York will soon be a 
 place of hotel^ j]ieLati:aSv.stQ3:Qa^.,ba.DkSy. ..pakaes, / 
 railroad stations, museums^jSllUEches^enemen^ 
 f iats'," ctubsT gambling^ hous£ S.^-aiid worgg.-- It i s 
 magnificent, but hideous.' Nowhere in this com- 
 pretlensiv(!i lllit 0(icurs the word ' homes.' And the 
 lack of homes is the first penalty that New York 
 is paying for its greatness." ^ 
 
 In these contrasts we get a view of the peril of 
 city life in America. What civic spirit there has 
 been heretofore has, for the most part, conceived of 
 the city problem after this simple fashion : " What 
 can we do to induce more factories to locate here, 
 and bring more people to buy our goods and our 
 city lots .'' " Number of residents and volume of 
 business have been considered the criteria of mu- 
 nicipal success, and the enterprising and " public- 
 spirited " ^citizen Jias seldom apj)lied his brain_or 
 put his hand^ m unicipal affairs save with this 
 idea in mind. But with tfie^TityTKrown upoii'lt's 
 own resources, and given full power and responsi- 
 bility for the solution of its own problems under a 
 democratic form of government, this conception of 
 the ideal of civic progress will inevitably undergo 
 a radical change ; for the great masses of people 
 in all of our great cities are beginning to cry 
 
 1 Frank Tucker in the New York Herald, February i6, 1902. 
 25 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 out for conditions of life that will make freedom 
 possible. 
 
 Occasionally we hear a voice raised in behalf of a 
 higher ideal for cities than that they should be a 
 dumping-ground for people and riches. "The 
 ideal city," said Benjamin Harrison, " must be a 
 city where people diligently mind their own busi- 
 ness, and the public business, and do both with a 
 decent regard to the judgment and the rights of 
 other men ; a city where there is no boss rule in 
 anything; where all men are not brought to the 
 measure of one man's mind, or to the heel of one 
 man's will; a city where citizens are true and 
 brave and generous, and who care for their own ; 
 a city having a community spirit but not the com- 
 munistic spirit, where capital is respected, but has 
 no temples ; a city whose people live in homes 
 where there is room for a morning-glory or a sweet 
 pea ; where fresh air is not delivered in pint cups ; 
 where the children can every day feel the spring of 
 nature's green carpet; where people are not so 
 numerous as to suggest that decimation might pro- 
 mote general welfare ; where brains and manners, 
 and not bank-ratings, give standing to men ; where 
 there is neither flaunting wealth nor envious 
 poverty ; where Hfe is comfortable and toil honor- 
 able ; where municipal reformers are not hysterical, 
 but have the habit of keeping cool ; where the broad 
 judgment of a capital, and not the narrowness of a 
 province, prevails ; where the commerce in goods is 
 great, but not greater than the exchanges of thought 
 
 26 
 
DEMOCRACY AND CITY LIFE IN AMERICA 
 
 and neighborly kindness. We have not realized 
 all these things. We count not ourselves to have 
 attained, but we follow after." ^ 
 
 There ar e numerous c onditions naturally arising \ 
 from the crowding of men in cities wEicH^tenH* to n 
 ljny[ i |; jii^man f^pportuHitles jof seu-de vciopment. \\ 
 It is the purpose of democracy to make tree men ^ 
 in the fullest sense of the word. It is the problem 
 of the American city, by means of democracy, to 
 assess equitably the tax that 'nature levies for the 
 benefits of city life upon those benefits, to the end 
 that the city may fulfil its mission as the centre of 
 a robust, clean, beautiful civilization, into which 
 the nation's life may pour without danger of cor- 
 ruption. In its more immediate and practical 
 aspect, the problem of the American city is to 
 make itself a place fit for men, women, and children 
 to live in. It is my purpose in the succeeding 
 chapters of this book to present to the reader the 
 various phases of this great American city problem 
 as it is working itself out in the varied functions of 
 city government, in the political organization of 
 municipal democracy, and in the relations which 
 bind the city to the state at large. 
 
 1 Quoted in California Municipalities, April, 1 901, p. 85. 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER 11 
 
 THE STREET 
 
 The problems of the street are the first, the 
 last, and the greatest of the material problems of 
 the city. It is the street that makes the city pos- 
 sible to begin with, that permits the city's growth I 
 year by year, and that finally must cheek the in-' 
 crease of population and business by sheer inabil- 
 ity to provide opportunity for movement. In the 
 street we have the first and the best example of 
 the purposes of city government. Here, by the 
 cooperation of the whole community, a free way 
 is provided, an ''open road," a channel for traffic 
 and transportation for the use of all alike. It is 
 seldom realized how large a share of municipal 
 activity is carried on in the street. Besides the 
 work of making and improving the street itself, 
 besides the work attendant upon the service of 
 public utilities upon, over, and under the street, 
 we must remember that the police department 
 is mainly a street department, and that the fire 
 department is absolutely dependent upon the 
 street for its efficiency. The street is the sym- 
 bol of the free city wherein all cooperate to se- 
 cure opportunity for all. Democracy as a means 
 to liberty and as a method of law finds its expres- 
 
 28 
 
THE strep:t 
 
 sion in the street. It is no wonder that the cur- 
 tailment of the people's rights in the street through 
 the grant of special privileges to individuals and 
 corporations is widely regarded as a menace to 
 "popular institutions and a step toward the over- 
 throw of the principles of free government. The 
 control of the streets means the control of the city. 
 
 The general plan of the streets of a city is im- i 
 portant because it is the basis for the organization 
 of the city's transportation systems. The width 
 of the streets is even more important. The main 
 difficulty in respect to both these matters Hes in 
 our inability to foresee and make provision for the 
 future. 
 
 The lower part of Manhattan Island is the busi- 
 ness centre of a metropolitan community of nearly 
 five million people. And yet if skyscrapers were 
 built everywhere that buildings now stand in the 
 district below Fourteenth Street, office room could 
 be provided for four or five times the amount of 
 business now conducted there. New York streets, 
 so aptly called "city canons," simply could not 
 accommodate the traffic that would be involved in 
 this multiplication of business. Yet New York, 
 after years of congestion, with its army of busi- 
 ness men and clerks strugghng daily under almost 
 inhuman conditions to get to work in the morning 
 and to get home again at night, is at last building 
 a subway at enormous expense, expecting relief. 
 It is like sweeping back the ocean with the kitchen 
 broom. The subway will be crowded almost in- 
 
 29 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 stantly, and New York will scarcely be better off 
 with it than she was ten years ago without it. It 
 has even been suggested that the metropolis be 
 provided with streets of several stories, — tunnels 
 underneath for rapid transit, sub-tunnels for rail- 
 road traffic, truckways on the surface for ordinary 
 vehicles and trolley cars, elevated roadways for 
 passenger cars as at present, and footways on the 
 first terrace of buildings. Unless some unlooked- 
 for turn in human affairs should come soon, New 
 York will go on building bridges and digging tun- 
 nels at enormous cost, charged up to a future 
 likely to be even more overburdened than the 
 present. The facilities for transportation will be 
 constantly crowded by the demands of travel and 
 traffic, and no matter if the city makes an ant-hill 
 of itself, that will bring no real relief from the ex- 
 isting conditions. Population and business have 
 got a long start of the city's plan, and the unequal 
 race will continue till the sheer expensiveness of 
 the necessary readjustments impoverishes even 
 New York, although she levies tribute on the 
 industries of the whole Republic. 
 
 Probably few of our cities will have attained the 
 magnitude of New York in another century. Still, 
 we have sixty-two cities as large as New York was 
 a hundred years ago, and if we are to accept the 
 prognostications of the publicists, what may we 
 not expect by the year 2000 ? Certainly not the 
 millennium, unless great preparations for it are 
 begun at once. The case of New York simply 
 
 30" 
 
THE STREET ^ 
 
 illustrates in a somewhat exaggerated way the fate 
 of big cities that are not prepared f or their own 
 growth. When once the wealth created by^ the 
 urban development in its earlier years has been 
 appropriated to private purses, and the community 
 left in arrears so far as its necessary physical im- 
 provements are concerned, the struggle becomes 
 almost hopeless. Urban needs can hardly be sat- 
 isfied after that without practical confiscation, and 
 the jostle and hustle of city business will go on at 
 accelerating speed until life becomes what it is in 
 New York to-day, — by turns a nightmare and a 
 voluptuous dream. 
 
 In practice the American people have not real- 
 ized sufficiently the socialjinpoitance of ^he street. 
 In many states, when the country was new, private 
 road companies were organized to construct roads 
 and keep them in repair, and many toll-gates are 
 ^11 standingj^ ^ften in the vicin ity of large cities, 
 to testify to the persistence of private rights where . ^ 
 the power to levy tribute upon traffic has once been 
 given. The toll roads are being gradually brought "" 
 under public control, and doubtless in time all roads 
 will become free. There is, however, a curious and 
 striking ,ilIustratiojti_o f the possibilitie s of tb^ p"- . 
 vate c ontrol of streets in the city of Baltimore. j| 
 ■TlTefea number of roads leading out of the city 
 are actually owned by the street-railway company 
 that has its car lines in them. The public, using 
 these streets for ordinary purposes, are exercising 
 the privileges of a franchise in the company^s 
 ^ 31 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 streets, and have to pay toll even within the cor- 
 porate limits of the city. 
 
 This case, though not very important in itself, 
 makes a vivid impression upon the imagination. 
 Americans have come to regard the pubHc high- 
 ways as public property, and municipal ownership 
 of streets is so much a matter of course that it is 
 ordinarily unnoticed. It is a part of the fully- 
 accepted American theory that streets should be 
 laid out, improved, and kept in repair at public ex- 
 pense and by public authority. Street improve- 
 ments, however, especially opening, grading, and 
 first paving, are usually paid for, not wholly by the 
 city at large, but mainly by the property adjoining 
 or adjacent to the street, and such improvements 
 are usually^undertaken upon the initiative of ad- 
 joining property holders/though the city council 
 generally has the ultimate authority to order the 
 improvement even against the protest of those who 
 are to pay for it. The control of the streets, so far 
 as the construction of the road-bed for general 
 travel and traffic is concerned, is a clearly recog- 
 nized monopoly conducted by the local authorities 
 in the interest of the community. 
 
 The growth of cities and the progress of me- 
 chanical arts have brought about improved methods 
 of transportation, and have given rise to new and 
 peculiar uses of the street. When the railway be- 
 comes as absolutely essential in the common, every- 
 day life of the people as the wagon road is, — and 
 that day seems to be at hand, for city people at any 
 
THE STREET 
 
 rate, — it may come to be considered as anomalous 
 to have privately owned railways as it is now to 
 have private roads. In the case of the street rail- 1 \ 'Iv 
 ways, however, where the companies make use of \ 
 the ordinary streets, acquiring certain rights of^"^ 
 way and modifying the road-bed to meet their 
 needs, even though general traffic is considerably 
 inconvenienced thereby, the anomaly of private 
 ownership will perhaps sooner become apparent. 
 Monopolies and special privileges controlled by 
 ^private persons for selfish eiiH^ wher^- they.. iu- .,;.«, 
 volve the power to tax the common necessities of \ 
 life, are, of course, inimical to democracy, both in jp* 
 ^theory and in practice. A street-car strike in a | ] 
 /great city brings to light the enormous power 
 involved in the control of city car lines. In pro- 
 ^portion to the usefulness of a thing is its power 
 ►ver us, and the street railway system in its com- 
 ►aratively short life has so fashioned the growth of 
 four cities and so changed the habits of their citi- 
 |zens that a tie-up of the lines means a very serious 
 paralysis of city Hfe. In a city Uke New York a 
 complete stoppage of the cars and ferries for a 
 week would have unthinkable consequences. Pri- 
 vate ownership of the facilities for transportation 
 can be tolerated under such circumstances only 
 when ownership is so far subordinated to public 
 control as to be in fact conditional. Strictly 
 speaking, under the conditions of life in a great 
 city, private ownership of transportation facilities is 
 impossible. These facihties are so public in their 
 ^ 33 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 very nature that law itself cannot successfully con- 
 travene this fact and make them private. In a 
 great city the transportation system has to be 
 nearly as constant and certain in its operation as 
 the law of gravity. 
 
 The control of transportation facilities in their 
 development is scarcely less important than in their 
 use. Here we encounter, to be sure, two radically 
 different views of social progress. On the one 
 hand are the people who say that cities are not 
 made, but grow ; that private effort follows in some 
 mysterious way the natural law of social develop- 
 ment, while public or community effort stumbles 
 along mechanically, runs counter to nature, and 
 destroys what it strives to develop. This view is 
 responsible for the " let alone " theory in general 
 politics. On the other hand, we find a large class 
 of people who believe in conscious community 
 effort, asserting that community effort is just as 
 "natural" as private effort, and in many cases 
 more so. Men of this class hold that common 
 sense and foresight can be applied to public affairs 
 with just as good results as to private affairs. Evi- 
 dently, from the political or governmental stand- 
 point, this view is exclusive. The other involves a 
 contradiction of the very existence of governmental 
 organization ; it is anarchistic. From the socialistiei 
 or cooperative standpoint, the development of fa-i 
 cilities for transportation should be governed con-\ 
 sciously for the furtherance of certain apcial ends j 
 or the avoidance of certain social evils. , . . - 
 
 34 "^ ^-w 
 
THE STREET 
 
 The city of New York may again be brought 
 up as an example of what the development of the 
 transportation system, guided by priYat_e_ forci 
 thought, wiir~accornplisTi. The topographical 
 gifuation and the conditions favored the growth 
 of a great city. This prospect was recognized 
 long ago. In fact, at the beginning^f the last 
 century, when New York had less than one huri- 
 dfe^'^'tlibusand inhabitants, a local newspaper 
 figured out with tolerable accuracy the present 
 population of the American metropolis.^ Manhat- 
 tan Island, superbly situated for the site of a 
 healthful and beautiful city, if developed along 
 rational lines, is nevertheless so narrow and sepa- 
 rated from Long Island on the one side and New 
 Jersey on the other by such wide expanses of 
 water, that crowding was to have been expected 
 there with the growth of a great city, unless ex- 
 traordinary measures were adopted to control the 
 distribution of population. Perhaps we should 
 not blame the citizens of New York of the early 
 part of the nineteenth century for their lack of 
 foresight in municipal matters, for at that time 
 the modern era of city-building was hardly begun, 
 and mistakes that would be inexcusable in the 
 light of the experience of the past century could 
 have been avoided at that period only by extraor- 
 dinary wisdom and civic patriotism. This fact 
 does not diminish, but rather increases, the re- 
 sponsibility of the present generation to awake 
 
 1 The New York Daily Advertiser ^ April, 1806. 
 
 35 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 to a higher civic consciousness, and to a deter- 
 mined municipal program to protect the future 
 against the ravages of the present. 
 
 The city of New York, by its early charters, was 
 granted the municipal ownership of the ferries, 
 markets, lands under water for four hundred feet 
 about the island, and all unappropriated lands on 
 the island to low-water mark. The revenues from 
 these municipal properties usually paid the ex- 
 penses of the government in the early days, but 
 gradually the city fell into the policy of selling 
 its lands to meet extraordinary demands upon its 
 treasury, and this policy was not reversed until 
 practically the whole of Manhattan Island, an 
 almost priceless heritage from the fathers, had 
 become the property of individuals, and the enor- 
 mous wealth created by the growth of the city was 
 not available for the public improvements pecul- 
 iarly necessary in New York to prevent intolerable 
 congestion. 1 
 
 As long ago as 1864 the tenement population of 
 New York was reckoned at 486,000, and the 
 Council of Hygiene, in a report to the Citizens' 
 Association on the sanitary condition of the city, 
 said : *' It is true that the tenement-houses of 
 New York are rapidly becoming the nests of fever 
 and infection and the poisoned abodes of physical 
 decay. It is true that in the tenement-house dis- 
 tricts a worse than Spartan fate awaits all children, 
 
 1 See Mr. E. Dana Durand's The Finances of New York City, 
 pp. 18, 19, 226, 227. 
 
 36 
 
THE STREET 
 
 and that cholera infantum, convulsions, scrofula, 
 and marasmus hover with ghoul-like fiendishness 
 about the dismal and crowded tenant-houses of 
 the great mass of infantile lives within the city. 
 It is true that we find the great body of the former 
 middle class of society rapidly becoming absorbed 
 into and allied with the poor tenant-house class, 
 and experiencing the lamentable evils that sur- 
 round such homes as theirs ; it is true that the 
 tenant-houses of the city as a whole, as well as 
 of particular districts, are becoming rapidly and 
 perilously aggregated ; and it is Hkewise true that 
 moral, social, and political evils are fearfully 
 augmenting and ominously threatening in our city, 
 in consequence of all these unfortunate physical 
 conditions. But is it not reasonable and true that 
 inasmuch as the causes of all these evils have been 
 and are mainly physical, — or at least always aUied 
 with material agencies which are under human 
 control, — in the same degree, and conversely and 
 by redeeming conditions mainly of a physical na- 
 ture, the evils we now deprecate, and the impend- 
 ing perils we now fear, may be and should speedily 
 be averted and effectually prevented } " ^ 
 
 In 1868, according to the report of the Board of 
 Health, there were 18,582 tenement-houses in the 
 city, while the 4120 dwellings of the seventeenth 
 ward sheltered 95,091 people or 23 persons to a 
 house, and in the fourth ward the population was 
 
 1 Council of Hygiene's Report on Sanitary Condition of New 
 York, p. Ixxiii. 
 
 37 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 crowded in at the rate of 290,000 to the square 
 mile. A few years later Mr. Charles Loring Brace, 
 writing of the dangerous social effects of crowd- 
 ing, recommended a better system of transportation 
 as the most promising means for improving con- 
 ditions. *' The great remedies," said he, " are to 
 be looked for in broad general provisions for dis- 
 tributing population. Thus far the means of 
 communication between business New York and 
 the suburbs have been singularly defective. An 
 underground railway with cheap workmen's trains, 
 or elevated railways with similar conveniences, con- 
 necting Westchester County and the lower part 
 of the city, or suburbs laid out in New Jersey or 
 on Long Island expressly for working people, 
 with cheap connections with New York and 
 Brooklyn, would soon make a vast difference with 
 the concentration of population in our lower 
 wards." 1 The underground railway recommended 
 is just now being built at enormous expense under 
 municipal control. 
 
 For several decades the elevated roads have 
 borne their millions of passengers up and down the 
 city, making three or four of the great north and 
 south thoroughfares hideous with darkness, noise, 
 and obstruction. Few experiences can be more 
 suggestive of the worst evils of crowding in great 
 cities than to ride on the New York elevated 
 trains and look into the countless windows where 
 homes are deprived of even that modicum of pri- 
 
 1 The Dangerous Classes of New York, pp. 58, 59. 
 
 38 
 
THE STREET 
 
 vacy which results from living in upper stories, and 
 where the deafening roar of the trains a few feet 
 away is almost continuous. For the development 
 of a system of street railways, the city from time 
 to time granted franchises which are now worth, 
 subject to the conditions imposed by the grants, in 
 the neighborhood of, perhaps, $250,000,000.1 The 
 story of these grants is the all too common story of 
 municipal short-sightedness and official corruption. 
 There is, indeed, no fact more potent to make the 
 blood boil in the veins of a free citizen of a free 
 country than this, — namely, that the Broadway 
 franchise, granted by boodlers some of whom were 
 
 1 This estimate is a mere rough approximation. As shown later, 
 in Chapter XI, the value of all New York City's street-railway fran- 
 chises, including those of the elevated roads, would be about 
 ^240,000,000 if figured on the same proportion of franchise value to 
 total value as indicated by Mr. Maltbie's analysis of Chicago street- 
 railway statistics. We should remember, however, that in New 
 York there are many perpetual franchises in a city where population 
 is extremely dense, while in Chicago many of the franchises soon 
 expire. This would tend to greatly increase the proportionate 
 value of the franchises in New York. As a matter of fact, the 
 Reform Club Committee on City Affairs, basing its judgment on 
 figures furnished it from what it considers a reliable source, esti- 
 mates the value of the franchises of the surface lines alone in old 
 New York at ^175,000,000. If the franchise values of the sur- 
 face lines in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, and 
 of the elevated roads, bore the same relation to the total amount 
 of their capitalization, as the franchise value of the lines included 
 in the committee's estimates, we should have a total of about 
 $370,000,000 of franchise values for all the surface and elevated roads 
 of New York City. See Municipal Affairs, Vol. VI, No. i, pp. 68-86, 
 Vol. V, No. 3, pp. 439-594, and Street and Electric Railways, Bul- 
 letin No. 3, United States Census Office, pp. 55, 56. 
 
 39 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 afterwards convicted of receiving great bribes for 
 their votes, nevertheless remained a valid grant, 
 and the people had no remedy. The development 
 of the transportation system of New York under 
 influences such as these could not have been ex- 
 pected to serve any social purposes in so far as 
 they might oppose or transcend the private in- 
 terests in control. At the rush hours, when the 
 great mass of clerks and business men have to go 
 down town to their business or back to their 
 homes, riding in a New York elevated train is 
 much like joining in a foot-ball rush. The cars 
 seat forty-eight people each, but are often so 
 crowded that more people are standing than sit- 
 ting. Men and women are packed in, in uncom- 
 fortable positions, with wretched air to breathe, 
 and the common courtesies of civilized travel 
 made impossible. Similar conditions haunt much 
 of the travel on the surface cars, and the New 
 York end of the old Brooklyn Bridge is the scene 
 of a daily mob. The conditions of street-car travel 
 in Brooklyn are so bad that a recent grand jury 
 declared them intolerable, denounced the private 
 management, and prescribed municipal operation 
 as the only guarantee that the transportation 
 system of the great metropolis would be con- 
 ducted in a manner to subserve necessary social 
 ends. 
 
 We need not blame the private companies in 
 control of the streets of New York more than 
 other men engaged in strictly self-seeking enter- 
 
 40 
 
THE STREET 
 
 prises, but it is certain that the transportation 
 system has lagged behijad-the-'growth of the city, 
 'li!Ta"i!aT1ii^"veFBeei^ haihng distance of the 
 
 stage of development where it could really relieve 
 the congestion of Manhattan Island. Says the 
 Tenement House Commission of 1900: ''With all 
 the remedial legislation and regulation which has 
 been put into operation since the enactment of 
 the iirst tenement-house law in 1867, the pres- 
 ent type of tenement, occupying 75 per cent 
 of a twenty-five-foot lot, with four families on a 
 floor, gives to its occupants less Hght and less ven- 
 tilation, less fire protection and less comfortable 
 surroundings, than the average tenement of fifty 
 years ago, which was lower in height, occupied 
 less lot space, and sheltered fewer people." ^ More 
 than three-fourths of all the people of old New 
 York live in tenement and apartment houses. 
 The city has reached a point where even the re- 
 formers despair of better transportation as a 
 remedy. In answer to the question whether rapid 
 transit and tunnels and bridges across the East 
 River would solve the problem, the commission 
 says : " A family which now pays from $12 to $18 
 a month for its apartment in a tenement-house 
 must be able to pay at least $20 a month for a 
 separate house in the suburbs, a reason sufficient 
 in itself to keep it in the tenement. Other in- 
 fluences — famiharity with tenement life, which, 
 however distasteful to previous generations, has 
 
 1 Unpublished Report, p. 5. 
 41 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 now perforce grown into habit, the natural incli- 
 nation of our large foreign population to group 
 itself in neighborhoods on national lines, and 
 I other causes equally potent — all tend in the same 
 
 I direction." ^ 
 4 
 
 Going on to speak of " the tall tenement-house 
 
 accommodating as many as lOO to 150 persons 
 in one building, extending up six or seven stories 
 in the air, with dark, unventilated rooms," the 
 commission says that this type, so common in 
 New York, is practically unknown abroad. The 
 tenement-house problem is more acute in New 
 York than anywhere else in the civilized world. 
 "The effect upon the population of the form 
 of congregated living found in our tenement- 
 houses," continues the report, " is to be seen not 
 only in its results upon the health of the people 
 but upon their moral and social conditions as 
 well. The public mind just now is especially 
 aroused over the manifestations of one special form 
 of vice in tenement districts. It is not to be won- 
 dered that vice in various forms should manifest 
 itself in the tenements ; the wonder is that there is 
 not more vice in such districts. The tenement 
 districts in New York are places in which thousands 
 of people are living in the smallest space in which 
 it is possible for human beings to exist — crowded 
 together in dark, ill-ventilated rooms, in many of 
 which the sunlight never enters, and in the most 
 of which fresh air is unknown. They are centres 
 
 1 Unpublished Report, p. 7. 
 42 
 
THE STREET 
 
 of disease, poverty, vice, and crime, where it is 
 a marvel not that some children grow up to be 
 thieves, drunkards, and prostitutes, but that so 
 many should ever grow up to be decent and self- 
 respecting. All the conditions which surround 
 childhood, youth, and womanhood in New York's 
 crowded tenement quarters make for unrighteous- 
 ness. They also make for disease. There is hardly 
 a tenement-house in >yhich there has not been at 
 least one case of pulmonary tuberculosis within the 
 last five years, and in some houses there has been 
 as great a number as twenty-two different cases of 
 this terrible disease. From the tenement there 
 comes a stream of sick, helpless people to our hos- 
 pitals and dispensaries, few of whom are able to 
 afford the luxury of a private physician, and some 
 houses are in such bad sanitary condition that few 
 people can be seriously ill in them and get well ; 
 from them also comes a host of paupers and charity 
 seekers. The most terrible of all the features of 
 tenement-house life in New York, however, is the 
 indiscriminate herding of all kinds of people in 
 close contact, — the fact that, mingled with the 
 drunken, the dissolute, the improvident, the dis- 
 eased, dwell the great mass of the respectable 
 workingmen of the city with their families." ^ 
 
 Conditions in New York are undoubtedly extreme, 
 but still typical of the tendencies of unregulated 
 municipal development. The New York Commis- 
 sion ^fQund by careful inquiry that the tenement- 
 
 1 Unpublished Report, pp. 12, 13. 
 43 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 house problem is also present in Boston, Jersey 
 City, Cincinnati, and Hartford.^ Surely there can 
 be no excuse for a city like Hartford to permit 
 itself to be afflicted with such a problem. Trans- 
 portation can surely provide an adequate remedy 
 in a city of less than one hundred thousand people. 
 To any city the avoidance of the congestion of 
 population in tenement-houses is so transcendently 
 important that the city cannot afford to stop shor^t 
 of the most heroic measures necessary to make the 
 transportation system do its utmost to subserve the 
 large civic interests.^ 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to point out the 
 commanding importance of full municipal control 
 
 1 According to this New York Commission, Chicago, Buffalo, 
 Pittsburg, and Kansas City, while having few tenement-houses 
 like those in New York, have serious housing problems arising 
 from unsanitary dwellings. 
 
 2 The housing problem has attracted a great deal of attention in 
 London in recent years. Two or three years ago, at a special con- 
 ference to consider this problem, Mr. Charles Booth read a paper on 
 Improved Means of Loco??ioHon as a First Step towards the Cure 
 of the Housing Difficulties of London. Speaking in favor of 
 municipal enterprise, he said : " The choice lies, in effect, between 
 working a monopoly or granting one for some one else to work, who 
 is, in the present case, likely to be less enterprising than a public 
 authority ; less capable of looking at the whole service in a broad 
 spirit ; and is therefore less fitted for our purpose. . . . The rea- 
 sons in favor of a unified scheme are obvious, and show in the 
 clearest way the advantage of public over private enterprise in 
 this matter for the attainment of the end we have in view. Private 
 enterprise will seize on the most profitable routes and reject all 
 others. Public enterprise will look to the profit on one part of 
 the system to help those not less necessary parts (from a public 
 
 44 
 
THE STREET 
 
 over the water-supply of any large city. But all 
 large cities were once small, and it is while a city 
 is small that its poHcy in regard to public utiHties, 
 especially the water-supply, is usually determined. 
 Once a franchise is granted, it is difficult and ex- 
 pensive for the municipality to get control. For 
 example, the city of Los Angeles, California, in- 
 herited from the old Spanish pueblo municipal 
 rights in the water of the river, which is the most 
 available source of supply for the city. In 1868 
 the city turned over its embryo waterworks to a 
 private company, and cr.tered into a thirty-year 
 contract with it for the supply of water to the 
 citizens. When this contract expired a few years 
 ago, the city wished to regain control of its water- 
 supply, but it was successful only after a prolonged 
 struggle. Says the municipal Board of Water 
 Commissioners in its first annual report : " It is 
 not necessary, nor is it fitting, that this report 
 should attempt to deal with the merits of the 
 controversy between the water company and the 
 city which arose upon the expiration of the term of 
 the contract and was carried on for over three 
 years, in many actions, in all the courts having 
 jurisdiction, and involving many difficult questions 
 of law and equity. The controversy has been 
 terminated by the taking over of the works by 
 
 point of view) of which the working is less, or perhaps not at all, 
 profitable. To allow private companies to acquire all the main 
 routes would be apt to block the way to all further action, and en- 
 danger the indirect results at which we aim." 
 
 45 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the city at the agreed price of ^2,000,000, and the 
 settlement was overwhelmingly approved by the 
 citizens, as shown by their vote of over five to one 
 authorizing the issue of the water bonds. It is 
 well, however, to seriously consider and take to 
 heart the unmistakable lesson taught by the whole 
 history of this transaction, beginning with the 
 execution of the contract in 1868 and ending with 
 the payment of the price for the works in 1901 ; 
 and that lesson is the unwisdom and the danger of 
 yielding up for any consideration or to any person 
 the municipal control of the waters which the city 
 owns and has always owned. It is not the eco- 
 nomic theory of municipal ownership and adminis- 
 tration of public utilities which concerns us ; we 
 are confronted with a condition and not a theory. 
 The city owns its water and our experience should 
 convince us of this generation of the far-sighted 
 wisdom of our Spanish and Mexican predecessors 
 in holding on to their rights in the waters of the 
 river of Los Angeles with a grip of iron." ^ 
 
 At first thought the importance of public con- 
 trol over the distribution of gas would seem to 
 be less absolute than in the case of water and 
 transportation. Still, it is generally recognized 
 that cheap gas for heat, light, and cooking is a 
 matter of great moment to the masses of people 
 living in large cities. One of the strongest rea- 
 sons that Dr. Shaw finds for commending the 
 
 ^ Annual Report of the Board of Water Commissioners of the 
 Domestic Waterworks System of Los Angeles, California, 1902, p. 4. 
 
 46 
 
THE STREET 
 
 municipal distribution of gas in Glasgow is this 
 very fact of the beneficent effects of cheap light 
 and fuel from the standpoint of the general wel- 
 fare.^ 
 
 A recent writer in the Municipal Journal and 
 Engineer'^ has called attention to a condition of 
 affairs that affords a still more imperative reason 
 for municipal control. " There are few American 
 communities," says this writer, '' in which the facts 
 of gas leakage and distribution, if known and com- 
 prehended, would not create a popular panic. I 
 will give the facts for one American city. The 
 loss in distribution was about 1 1 per cent ; in 
 round figures, three thousand millions of cubic 
 feet. At 60 cents per 1000, this is $1,800,000 
 per annum which the consumer must pay. This 
 gas is known as water-gas. Most of the leakage 
 is under measurably or absolutely impervious pave- 
 ments. It cannot work its way up through the 
 soil and escape, but most of it in one way or 
 another gets into houses." The writer goes on 
 to explain that pavements are destroyed by this 
 escaped gas, the olefiants attacking and decom- 
 posing the binder of asphalt. The fire hazard 
 from gas leakage is immense. The New York 
 City bureau of buildings, in recent investigations, 
 have usually found from 0.2 or 0.3 per cent to 
 5 per cent of gas in the air of theatres, music halls, 
 and other places of public assembly, even dur- 
 
 ^ Albert Shaw, Municipal Government in Great Britain, pp. 
 18-21. 2 September issue, 1902, Mr. James C. Bayles. 
 
 47 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 ing the summer with the maximum of ventilation. 
 In commenting on the hygienic aspects of the 
 case, this writer quotes the expert opinion of a 
 New York specialist. " The principal cause," 
 says he, " of the anaemia and lowered vitality 
 which sooner or later appears in all city workers 
 is the illuminating gas with which the atmosphere 
 is heavily charged. When inhaled in large quan- 
 tity, carbon monoxide causes a profound anaemia, 
 often fatal. When the air contains but a small 
 percentage, a less pronounced anaemia gradually 
 but surely appears. Doubtless this will be recog- 
 nized eventually as the cause of the readiness with 
 which the city dweller contracts grippe, tubercu- 
 losis, pneumonia, and many other diseases." Dr. 
 Shaw states that in Glasgow, under private owner- 
 ship, gas leakage amounted to 20 per cent, while 
 under municipal control it has been reduced to 
 half that.i 
 
 The desirability of public control over electric 
 lighting and telephone services, apart from the 
 question of special privileges in the streets, arises 
 mainly from the importance of the cheapest pos- 
 sible service to the citizens. Electricity is con- 
 sidered the ideal form of light. It should certainly 
 be used in all public buildings, and the extent of 
 its use for this purpose and in lighting the streets 
 may often justify a municipal plant even though 
 the city does not go into the commercial lighting 
 business. So far as the telephone is concerned, it 
 
 1 op. cit., p. 119. 
 
 48 
 
THE STREET 
 
 is still a rather expensiYe_luxurj for many who 
 uselt, but the organization of business and social 
 life is adjusting itself so largely with reference to 
 this instrument of communication that in the long 
 run the people who cannot afford telephones in 
 their homes will be seriously handicapped in their 
 relations with society. In this, as in many other 
 things, the development of modern conveniences 
 tends to increase the advantages of the business 
 and professional classes of the community. It 
 is important, therefore, from the standpoint of 
 democracy that the modern means of communi- 
 cation should be accessible to as large a number 
 of citizens as possible. 
 
 In the preceding pages I have attempted to 
 indicate the paramount interest of the city in the 
 right development of the ordinary so-called mu- 
 nicipal utilities. Perhaps an equal interest on the 
 part of the public in other services, such as, for 
 example, the fuel and food supplies, could be 
 shown. There is, however, one important fact 
 that distinguishes what are commonly called local 
 public utilities from other social services. This 
 fact is the necessity for the use of the streets in 
 peculiar and practically exclusive ways by street 
 railways, water, gas, and electric works, and tele- 
 phone systems. A franchise is a special privilege 
 and involves the right to place in, under, or over 
 the street certain fixtures by means of which a 
 business can be carried on. The streets being 
 limited in width and tending to become crowded 
 E 49 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 ,1 in use in large cities, a street franchise naturally 
 \<^ gravitates toward monopoly. This is particularly 
 \ true in regard to street railways where the neces- 
 sary fixtures are placed in the road-bed itself, and 
 one double line of tracks occupies so large a share 
 of the street surface that in ordinary cases com- 
 peting lines in the same street are not to be per- 
 mitted by the public. The case is not quite so 
 clear where the fixtures are pipes or conduits 
 underground or wires overhead. But the expen- 
 siveness of competition, where a complete dupli- 
 cation of the distributing system is involved, as 
 well as the reluctance of the city to permit fre- 
 quent tearing up of the road-bed, or the multipli- 
 cation of wires overhead, operates in practice to 
 produce monopoly in most cases. Out of y8 cities 
 having a population of more than 50,000 each in 
 1900, only 15, or 19 per cent, have more than one 
 gas company.^ The existence of a monopoly, man- 
 aged by a private individual or corporation, renders 
 the public control of any common service in the 
 interests of the community at large extremely diffi- 
 cult. So far as special privileges in the street are 
 concerned, competition would only aggravate the 
 difficulty and make municipal control more need- 
 ful, if that were possible. In any case the streets 
 of a city are such an essential asset of its free 
 citizens that it is questionable whether a municipal 
 corporation should ever grant the right to any 
 
 1 These figures were compiled from the Municipal Year Book, 
 1902. 
 
 50 
 
THE STREET 
 
 private parties to place fixtures in the highways. 
 At least, any such rights, if granted, should be 
 strictly limited in their term and the manner of 
 their exercise, and should be revocable whenever 
 the public interest demands. A condition of 
 affairs where a private company can fight the 
 city on a claim of rights in the street in perpe- 
 tuity, or for a term of years, on the strength of 
 some doubtful or implied grant, is well-nigh intoler- 
 able. Furthermore, practically all those services 
 which require special privileges in the streets are 
 of such general importance as to demand that 
 their performance be very nearly at cost. Cheap 
 water, light, and transportation have come to be 
 almost as essential a condition of life in cities as 
 free highways. This brings us to the practical 
 question of municipal franchises and the control 
 of municipal monopolies in American cities. 
 
 51 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 According to the Annual Report of the United 
 States Department of Labor for 1899, there were 
 at that time 3326 water plants, 965 gas-plants, 
 and 3032 electric-light plants in this country. Of 
 the waterworks, 1787, or 53.7 per cent; of the 
 gas-works, 14, or 1.5 per cent; of the electric- 
 light works, 460, or 15.2 per cent, were owned by 
 the municipalities. These municipal plants repre- 
 sented 67.5 per cent, 0.6 per cent, and 4.6 per cent 
 of the estimated total investment in waterworks, 
 gas-works, and electric-light works respectively. 
 These figures indicate that municipal ownership of 
 waterworks is relatively more common in the large 
 cities than in the small ones, while the reverse is 
 true with regard to electric-light works. This ob- 
 servation is confirmed by the Statistics of Cities 
 for 1902 contained in Bulletin No. 42 of the De- 
 partment of Labor. It appears that of 38 cities 
 with a population of more than 100,000, all but 
 8 own the waterworks ; and of the 40 cities hav- 
 ing between 50,000 and 100,000 population, there 
 are only 11 supplied with water by private com- 
 panies. The principal cities without municipal 
 waterworks are San Francisco, Indianapolis, 
 
 52 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 New Haven, Paterson, St. Joseph, Omaha, and 
 Scranton. • Louisville has control of the company 
 which furnishes water to the city. Jersey City 
 owns the distributing system only. Denver owns 
 the system, but has leased it to a private company. 
 
 There are 4 cities out of 135 with over 30,000 
 population that own gas-plants. These are Phila- 
 delphia, Richmond, Duluth, and Wheeling. Phila- 
 delphia has leased its plant. Louisville owns a 
 large part of the stock of the local gas company. 
 In this same class of cities there are thirteen own- 
 ing electric-hght works, chief among them being 
 Chicago, Detroit, Allegheny, Columbus, St. Joseph, 
 and Grand Rapids, Michigan. It should be noted, 
 however, that of the 50 largest municipal electric- 
 light plants reported by the Department of Labor 
 in 1899 only 20 were used for commercial lighting. 
 I know of no instance in the United States where 
 a city or town owns a street-railway or a telephone 
 system, with the exception of the Boston and New 
 York subways, and the Brooklyn Bridge railway 
 formerly operated under the joint auspices of New 
 York City and Brooklyn.^ 
 
 At the other extreme is the sewerage system, 
 which is almost universally owned by the city, there 
 being only 47 private sewerage systems out of 1096 
 reported in the American Municipal Year Book for 
 1902. Nevertheless, New Orleans, until now the 
 
 1 Grand Junction, Colorado, a town of 3500 population, owned 
 for a year or two about a mile of horse railway, but the enterprise 
 has been abandoned and the track taken up. 
 
 53 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 most conspicuous American example of a sewerless 
 city, twice granted a sewer franchise to private 
 |)arties, though to no purpose in the end.^ Sew- 
 erage being principally a sanitary measure, there 
 is as a rule no charge made for the service, except 
 that original construction expenses are often as- 
 sessed upon benefited property. The natural re- 
 sult of these conditions is that sewerage lies almost 
 outside the pale of municipal monopolies, and 
 ordinarily offers little inducement for the invest- 
 ment of private capital. 
 
 The facts here summarized show pretty clearly 
 the past American theory with reference to mu- 
 nicipal monopolies. The supply of water is quite 
 generally assumed to be a natural municipal func- 
 tion, although in cities where the works are owned 
 by private companies a movement toward munici- 
 palization is met by the same objections that are 
 raised against the municipal ownership of street 
 railways or lighting plants. Thus in California, 
 where only 1 3 cities out of 34 having a population 
 of more than 3000 each have municipal water- 
 works,^ the recent struggle for municipal ownership 
 in the largest cities has met with determined oppo- 
 sition. Private ownership of gas-works has been 
 the almost universal practice in American cities, 
 but the growth of sentiment in favor of municipal 
 ownership of such utilities is clearly shown in the 
 
 1 See an article by W. T. Crotts in ihe Journal of the Association 
 of Engineering Societies, November, 1901. 
 
 2 See American Municipal Year Book, pp. 300-307. 
 
 54 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 larger percentage of electric-light plants owned 
 by the city, electricity having come into common 
 use for street and house lighting much later than 
 gas. The fact remains, however, that most of the 
 municipal monopolies in the cities of the United 
 States are privately owned and operated under 
 franchises, or special privileges in the street, 
 granted by the public authorities. Only a com- 
 paratively few of the large cities have the right, 
 under their charters, to acquire or construct 
 street railways, lighting plants, and telephone sys- 
 tems. The most marked exceptions to this rule 
 are San Francisco, Denver, and Portland, Oregon, 
 which have been given practically complete author- 
 ity in this matter by recent legislation, and Chicago, 
 which has been a;uthorized to undertake the street- 
 railway business by a recent act of the Illinois 
 legislature. 
 
 Franchises in the streets are usually granted by 
 the city council under express authority of the 
 state legislature contained in the city charter, or in 
 general or special acts governing the various kinds 
 of franchises. This general rule is subject to 
 numerous exceptions however. The state legisla- 
 ture may, in the absence of constitutional prohibi- 
 tions, grant local franchises directly, and this 
 power has sometimes been used. Unless forbid- 
 den by the constitution, the state legislature may 
 also give public-service corporations of a certain 
 class the right to use any or all of the public high- 
 ways of the state or the streets of all cities in the 
 
 55 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 state, under such limitations as to state or local 
 control as the legislature sees fit to impose. This 
 general authority, when exercised, sometimes leads 
 to confusion as regards the rights of local authori- 
 ties. For example, in Michigan, telephone com- 
 panies are authorized by general law to construct 
 and maintain their lines "al(fng, over, across, or 
 under any public places, streets, and highways," 
 provided that their lines do not ** injuriously inter- 
 fere with other public uses of the said places, 
 streets, and highways."^ At the same time the 
 municipal authorities have, as a rule, sufficient 
 control over the streets so that it is practically 
 necessary for a telephone company to secure a 
 franchise from any city in which it wishes to 
 operate. Gas and electric companies are author- 
 ized by the laws of Michigan to use the streets of 
 any of the municipalities of the state, but their 
 ** pipes or conductors shall be laid with the consent 
 of the municipal authorities of such cities, town- 
 ships, or villages through which the same are laid, 
 under such reasonable regulations as they may 
 prescribe."^ Under this provision Hghting com- 
 panies do, as a matter of fact, secure franchise 
 ordinances from cities, but there is some doubt as 
 to whether a city could absolutely refuse to let its 
 streets be used by a Hghting company. One of 
 the annoying franchise problems of Grand Rapids 
 arises from the fact that a decrepit private water 
 
 1 See Compiled Laws of i8g7, Sec. 6691. 
 '^Jbid., Sec. 7123. 
 
 56 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 company operates under a special charter obtained 
 from the legislature a great many years ago,^ and 
 keeps up a feeble competition under its perpetual 
 franchise, with the city waterworks system, in the 
 hope that the city may in time be induced to buy 
 out its little rival at a substantial profit to the 
 present owners. Michigan is, however, far behind 
 the most advanced thought and constitutional prac- 
 tice of the states in the matter of franchises. 
 
 Many commonwealth constitutions specifically 
 forbid the legislature's granting any special or 
 exclusive privilege by special act, or authorizing 
 the use of the streets by any public service cor- 
 poration without the consent of the local authori- 
 ties. A good example of this latter prohibition is 
 found in the constitution of South CaroUna, adopted 
 in 1895. Section 4 of Article VIII provides 
 that " no law shall be passed by the General As- 
 sembly granting the right to construct and operate 
 a street or other railway, telegraph, telephone, or 
 electric plant, or to erect water or gas works for 
 public uses, or to lay mains for any purpose, without 
 first obtaining the consent of the local authorities 
 in control of the streets and public places proposed 
 to be occupied for any such or like purposes." A 
 provision like this, but applying to street railways 
 only, is found in many state constitutions, particu- 
 
 ^This charter was obtained in 1849, the year before the present 
 constitution was adopted, and, although containing a reservation to 
 the legislature of the right to repeal or amend, has been long con- 
 sidered a perpetual franchise. 
 
 57 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 larly in the South and West. A curious reversal 
 of the general tendency of constitutional limitations 
 along this line is found in a Rhode Island constitu- 
 tional amendment, adopted in 1892, which provides 
 that no corporation shall be created with the power 
 to acquire franchises in the streets and highways 
 of towns and cities except by special act of the 
 general assembly. 
 
 The two states in which the constitutions take 
 the most advanced ground in regard to the control 
 of franchise grants are Virginia and Colorado. 
 The former in its new constitution, adopted in 
 1902, provides that "no street railway, gas, water, 
 steam or electric heating, electric light or power, 
 cold storage, compressed air, viaduct, conduit, tele- 
 phone, or bridge company, nor any corporation, 
 association, person or partnership, engaged in these 
 or like enterprises " shall be permitted to use the 
 streets without the consent of the municipal au- 
 thorities, and such consent shall not be granted ex- 
 cept by absolute three-fourths vote of the members 
 of the city council. No franchise shall be granted 
 for a longer period than thirty years, and the 
 municipality, before granting it, must receive bids 
 for it in a manner to be prescribed by statute. 
 Any franchise may provide that the city shall come 
 into possession of the works at the expiration of 
 the grant, and operate them, if authorized by law. 
 Every franchise must make adequate provision " to 
 secure efficiency of public service at reasonable 
 rates and the maintenance of the property in good 
 
 58 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 order throughout the term of the grant." The 
 general assembly is authorized to put further re- 
 strictions upon the grant of franchises.^ A Colo- 
 rado constitutional amendment, also ratified in 
 1902, provides that under the new "home rule" 
 city charters, no franchises relating to the use of 
 any street, alley, or public place shall be granted 
 except upon vote of the qualified tax-paying 
 electors.^ 
 
 The method of granting franchises by popular 
 vote only, or by popular vote if asked for by a 
 certain percentage of the electors, is growing in 
 favor, and bids fair to be the one established 
 method of procedure in many states and cities in 
 the near future. A movement is on foot in some 
 cities to secure the adoption of a rule of procedure 
 by the city council which would require every 
 franchise ordinance, after passing its third reading 
 and before its final passage, to lie on the table for 
 thirty days ; and, if within that time a petition 
 signed by a certain number of members of the 
 council, or a certain percentage of the voters of 
 the city is presented asking that the ordinance be 
 submitted to popular vote, then the franchise to 
 be so submitted. As recently adopted in Detroit, 
 this rule required a petition signed by eight alder- 
 men or by 5 per cent of the qualified voters as 
 shown by the last preceding registration. The 
 old way of legislation, by ordinance passed by a 
 majority vote of the city council, acting without 
 
 1 Constitution, Sees. 124, 125. ^ /^/^.^ Art. XX, Sees. 4, 6. 
 59 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 any particular limitation upon their power or pro- 
 cedure, is fast giving place to more careful 
 methods such as are indicated by the provisions 
 I have cited. 
 
 Even more important, if that is possible, than 
 the authority and method of the grant, is its dura- 
 tion. We have been waking up of late years to 
 the absolute iniquity of giving away, or seUing, 
 for that matter, the rights of posterity in the 
 streets. It is coming to be recognized as an out- 
 rage upon future generations, something that 
 would be branded as a crime by them if they 
 could speak for themselves, to bind over in per- 
 petuity to private control the open streets, the 
 unique symbols of the city's freedom. The old 
 policy, most forcibly illustrated in the franchise 
 history of New York City, is absolutely conscience- 
 less. It is a part of the general craze for the ex- 
 ploitation and appropriation to private use of the 
 great natural resources of a new country. At the 
 present time, no one would dare seriously to pro- 
 pose the grant of a perpetual franchise unless he 
 included in it a provision for periodical revalua- 
 tion, and continued payments to the city, or peri- 
 odical readjustment of prices and continual 
 improvement of service. The plan with these 
 modifications has some good points, but the fatal 
 objection to it is that it seeks to commit a city for 
 all time to come against municipal ownership and 
 operation or any other change which the future 
 may show to be wise. Municipal ownership is 
 
 60 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 certainly a question that we ought to leave 
 coming generations free to settle as they see fit, 
 even if we cannot trust ourselves to settle it. 
 
 In Massachusetts, franchises are indeterminate 
 and revocable at any time at the will of the public 
 authorities. Such a system has much in its favor, 
 and the people of Massachusetts have shown con- 
 clusively that such franchises are safe enough for 
 the companies working under them.^ In most 
 states, however, the constitution, the statutes, or 
 custom now requires that franchise grants shall be 
 for a definite period of years, usually not exceed- 
 ing fifty, thirty, twenty-five, or twenty-one. The 
 Virginia constitution limits them to thirty years. 
 The charter of Greater New York limits future 
 grants to twenty-five years, though the new sub- 
 way is to be leased for half a century. Twenty- 
 one years is the limit of time proposed by the 
 National Municipal League, and laws permitting 
 fifty-year grants in Ohio and Illinois have been re- 
 pealed in recent years in response to tremendous 
 popular indignation. In some cases grants have 
 been extended or renewed long before their expi- 
 ration. This practice often leads to protracted 
 and expensive litigation. The Chicago street- 
 railway companies claim for a part of their lines 
 
 ^ See Report of the Street Railway Commission to City Council of 
 Chicago, December, 1900, pp. 24-26, and also Report of the Special 
 Committee appointed to investigate the Relations between Cities and 
 Towns and Street Raihvay Companies in Massachusetts, 1896, pp. 
 
 61 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 a ninety-nine year extension by legislative act in 
 1865. The Indianapolis company a few years ago 
 succeeded in establishing the legality of an amend- 
 ing ordinance passed in 1880, changing the term 
 of a franchise granted in 1864 from thirty to 
 thirty-seven years. 
 
 A table of forty-three street-railway companies 
 in thirty-four cities of the United States, sub- 
 mitted by the Indianapolis company to a special 
 committee of the Commercial Club of that city in 
 1899, showed about one-third of the franchises to 
 be perpetual.^ Rochester saved itself from the 
 disgrace of granting a perpetual franchise by 
 limiting the grant to the period of 999 years. In 
 one or two other cities a ninety-nine-year franchise 
 is claimed. There are iifty-year franchises in 
 about one-fifth of the cities. In the rest the terms 
 are generally shorter, and often different in the 
 same city. In Michigan the constitution limits 
 the life of corporations to thirty years, and, follow- 
 ing this indication of state policy, the principal 
 municipal franchise grants have been made for 
 that period. In 1887, however, a gas franchise, 
 without time limit, was granted by the city of 
 Jackson, and it is at least questionable whether 
 cities throughout the state could not grant perpet- 
 ual franchises unless forbidden by their charters.^ 
 
 One of the worst blunders committed by 
 
 1 See Report of Commercial Club Special Committee on Indian- 
 apolis Street Railway Franchise, p. 26. 
 
 2 Franchises granted to corporations would naturally expire 
 
 62 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 American cities has been the grant of different 
 franchises from time to time, which expire at dif- 
 ferent periods, and which are, nevertheless, so 
 intimately connected that they cannot be operated 
 separately except at a great disadvantage. This 
 mistake has been committed in Cleveland^ and 
 Chicago, among other cities, and has furnished one 
 of the knottiest problems of municipal control 
 during recent years when these cities have been 
 struggling for a satisfactory solution of the street- 
 railway franchise question. Every clause that 
 tends to make a franchise ordinance or law 
 cloudy or contradictory seems to work out in favor 
 of the private corporation, for it opens the way to 
 lawsuits in which corporation attorneys show off 
 to great advantage as against their comparatively 
 low-salaried antagonists who look after the munici- 
 pal interests. 
 
 The tendency of the time is to make franchise 
 grants shorter and to make all subsidiary grants 
 expire with the principal franchise. This public 
 poHcy will in the long run prevail, in the absence of 
 municipal operation, unless it is found that in- 
 determinate grants keep the companies under 
 better control. 
 
 The operation of a public utility franchise 
 touches the interests of the people so intimately 
 
 with the life of the corporations, but, if granted to individuals, 
 might perhaps be handed down in perpetuity. 
 
 1 See "The Street Railroad Problem in Cleveland," by W. R. 
 Hopkins, published in Economic Studies, 1896. 
 
 ^2. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 and in so many ways, that only the most reckless 
 of councils grant franchises without imposing terms 
 and conditions upon the grantees. The first neces- 
 sary condition is that the grantee shall not infringe 
 upon the rights of the general public to the free 
 use of the streets any more than is necessary for 
 the successful conduct of his business. To this 
 end provision is usually made for the exercise of 
 some sort of control on the part of the municipal 
 authorities as to what streets may be used and in 
 what manner the necessary fixtures shall be in- 
 stalled. With street railways, which naturally are 
 laid on a comparatively small number of streets, 
 the franchise ordinance usually maps out the 
 routes, and the grant is vaUd only for the routes so 
 described. But with other public utilities which 
 need to have access to all the buildings in the 
 city, the ordinary franchise is a grant for the use 
 of all streets, subject to a Umited control by the 
 authorities prior to the actual installation of the 
 fixtures in new places. The franchise often re- 
 quires the grantees to obey all street ordinances. 
 This reservation gives the city the right to regulate 
 the height and location of poles and the stringing 
 of wires. It is generally competent for the author- 
 ities of at least the larger cities to require that all 
 wires be put underground. 
 
 A second condition generally imposed in con- 
 nection with a franchise grant is that the grantee 
 shall, after opening the pavement to lay tracks, 
 pipes, or conduits, restore the street to as good a 
 
 64 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 condition as it was in before being torn open. The 
 impossibility of enforcing this condition absolutely 
 has led to considerable agitation in the great cities 
 in favor of underground tunnels in which all pipes, 
 wires, and conduits should be placed. The city of 
 New York, in getting authority to construct its 
 subway, forgot to ask for power to build such a 
 tunnel gallery in connection with it. This blunder 
 has since been partially corrected. In all cases the 
 authorities should have strict supervision over the 
 opening of pavements by the operators of street 
 franchises. 
 
 A third condition, more important though per- 
 haps not more necessary than the preceding ones, 
 is the fixing of a maximum rate or price for the 
 service rendered. This is most common in the 
 case of street railways, though a maximum is often 
 fixed in telephone and lighting franchises. In 
 California, where private ownership has until 
 lately been the rule even in the case of water- 
 works, it is an express policy laid down in the 
 constitution that the municipal governments shall 
 have the right to regulate the charges of water 
 and lighting companies. The attempt to exercise 
 this right by the Board of Supervisors of San 
 Francisco has been the occasion of much dissen- 
 sion, and has not brought altogether satisfactory 
 results. In connection with a maximum fare 
 requirement, other conditions in regard to service 
 are often imposed in the case of street railways. 
 There is a strong sentiment everywhere in favor of 
 
 65 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 universal transfers, so that a person can ride from 
 any one place in a city to any other for a single 
 fare. This is a very difficult proposition in cities 
 where there are two or more companies, and, in 
 any case, the system, unless carefully guarded, 
 lends itself to abuses. The average citizen has 
 even less scruples about cheating a street-railway 
 company than he has about imposing a short day 
 or a high price upon his municipality. This fact 
 has undoubtedly had a good deal to do with the 
 stiff opposition that the companies have usually 
 put up against the demand for free universal 
 transfers. Street cars are commonly required to 
 be run on a certain schedule by the terms of the 
 franchise, and other conditions calculated to insure 
 good service are sometimes imposed. 
 
 It is easy to see that, with rates fixed low enough, 
 and stringent enough other conditions imposed upon 
 the franchise-holder, the franchise itself would have 
 no monetary value. If the control exercised over 
 the conduct of an ordinary business by competition 
 is replaced in the case of street monopolies by an 
 equally efficient control by municipal authority, the 
 monopoly value of the franchise is not forthcom- 
 ing. And, too, when cities are young and public 
 utilities, the need of which is sorely felt, are still 
 in the experimental stage commercially, citizens 
 are inclined to favor making any concessions and 
 granting any privileges that will bring about the 
 desired improvements and bring them quickly. 
 Under such conditions the first franchises in most 
 
 66 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 American cities were given away. After a time 
 private promoters began to see that a franchise 
 had monetary value, especially if it was for a 
 long term of years in a growing city, and subject 
 to conditions that would make the utility self-sup- 
 porting at the start. When common councils got 
 hold of this idea, the era opened in which pro- 
 moters found it more convenient to pay a part 
 of the value of a franchise to the aldermen as 
 individuals than to pay the whole of it into the 
 city treasury. After the people at large woke up 
 to the fact that f ranch' ^s granted on desirable 
 conditions are valuable, a third era began to dawn, 
 the era of agitation for the sale of franchises, so 
 that the people as a whole should get some return 
 for the rights which they grant. 
 
 There are four ways in which public compensa- 
 tion may be received for a franchise : first, in 
 kind ; second, in service ; third, in a lump cash 
 payment; fourth, in an annual rental, a tax upon 
 receipts, or a car-license fee. Compensation of 
 the first kind was often exacted even in the early 
 days of franchise grants. A company might be 
 required to furnish water for fire protection or 
 street sprinkling, either free or at reduced rates ; 
 or to furnish light for streets and public buildings 
 at minimum prices ; or to furnish transportation 
 for policemen ; or to install a certain number of 
 free telephones in the pubHc buildings. Another 
 method of compensation extremely common in 
 the case of street railways is the paving of the 
 
 67 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 street or a part of it at the expense of the fran- 
 chise-holder. This requirement has amounted to 
 several millions of dollars in Philadelphia and 
 Baltimore, and even in a city like Grand Rapids, 
 of scarcely 100,000 population, the street-railway 
 company has been assessed for paving within 
 the last dozen years about ^150,000. The diffi- 
 culty experienced by municipal authorities and the 
 people at large in estimating the value of a fran- 
 chise has suggested to many the idea that the 
 fetich of the market — competition — should be 
 invoked, and the franchise, subject to conditions 
 imposed by the ordinance, be sold to the highest 
 bidder. The American people have not been at 
 all slow about exploiting the natural resources of 
 their country for the benefit of the present genera- 
 tion and to the prospective impoverishment of the 
 future. Following this same instinct there has 
 been in many quarters a strong movement for the 
 sale of franchises for a lump sum, so that the bur- 
 dens of the tax-payers of to-day might be lessened 
 by a levy upon the resources of to-morrow. The 
 movement has not, however, attained any alarming 
 proportions as yet in a practical way, as witness 
 the notorious Philadelphia incident where the 
 authorities chose to give franchises to a pet cor- 
 poration rather than receive for the city the sum 
 of ;^2, 500,000, offered by a responsible citizen.^ 
 
 1 See in Municipal Affairs, Vol. V, No. 2, pp. 419-426, an arti- 
 cle by Clinton Rogers Woodruff on " Recent Legislation in Penn- 
 sylvania and Philadelphia." 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 And, indeed, much can be said in favor of offer- 
 ing franchises to the highest bidder wherever 
 conditions still render competition in bidding prac- 
 ticable, but compensation should not be given at 
 once in a lump sum, but rather by an annual pay- 
 ment during the life of a franchise. This is the 
 last and most approved method of securing to the 
 city the value of the rights it bestows. As already 
 suggested, prices may be so limited and such con- 
 ditions of service imposed as to take away all value 
 from a franchise, reserving the benefits of it to the 
 consumers of the utility ; but if the city at large 
 is to receive any compensation at all, it ought to 
 be in shape of an annual license tax, a rental, or a 
 percentage of gross receipts. Ideally, of course, 
 the city should receive from year to year all sur- 
 plus over and above a fair return on the capital 
 actually invested, but such an arrangement takes 
 away the incentive for the franchise-holder to con- 
 duct his business economically, without substitut- 
 ing what might well be the equally powerful motive 
 which urges a responsible public official to conduct 
 the city's business with an eye single to the inter- 
 ests of the city. 
 
 The possession and use of franchise privileges 
 in the streets, subject to greater or less control 
 by the municipal authorities, has been attended in 
 America by certain great evils. The most de- 
 structive of these is the corruption of the public 
 officials of cities and the legislatures of states. It 
 is not always easy to trace the origin of corrupt 
 
 69 
 
 ■i 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 habits. Corruption grows under favoring condi- 
 tions. The seed is everywhere present in human 
 nature, and there are no conditions more favor- 
 able to its growth than those which have often 
 existed in our large cities. With the spirit of 
 business prevalent, each man hustling to accu- 
 mulate money and get on in the worlds there has 
 been almost no public conscience, no alert civic 
 inteUigence, no reaHzation of municipal unity and 
 duty to the future. Under such conditions men 
 animated by selfish motives have sought special 
 privileges from the cities. With valuable rights to 
 be granted, and with no expectation on the part of 
 the public that the city would receive cash for the 
 grant of a franchise, the beginning of corrupt 
 practices was like putting two and two together. 
 After corruption had once begun, whoever may 
 have started it, both the corporations and the pub- 
 lic officials have been guilty of carrying it on for 
 their own advantage, each blaming the other. 
 One of the most discouraging factors in the public 
 life of America to-day is the legislator and the 
 alderman who seek their positions in order to make 
 personal profit by blackmailing. No one knows 
 exactly how numerous such men are, but at certain 
 times and in certain places there is reason to be- 
 lieve that they are numerous. I suppose the most 
 shameful revelation of corrupt franchise-grabbing 
 made in this country was made very recently in 
 St. Louis, where dealing in franchises had come 
 to be recognized as a full-fledged private busi- 
 
 70 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 ness.^ The corruption attendant upon franchise 
 grants has been too flagrant and too well known 
 to need detailed description here. 
 
 It should be noted, however, that the out-and- 
 out bribery of aldermen by means of money is by 
 no means the most common form of corruption in 
 these matters. Often election expenses are paid 
 by the corporation, or perhaps its own employees 
 are elected, or free passes on the street cars are 
 given, or business is turned toward the friendly 
 officials. The most effective weapon, however, in 
 the hands of the corporation, is often the power of 
 specious argument advanced by skilful attorneys 
 and based upon facts of which the public is igno- 
 
 1 In St. Louis a combine was formed in each of the houses of 
 the city legislature, and " a scale of prices was fixed upon fran- 
 chises of all kinds, from a railroad switch or an excavation in the 
 streets to traction and lighting contracts of enormous value." The 
 boodlers took the following oath : — 
 
 " I do solemnly swear before the Almighty God that in associat- 
 ing myself, and in becoming a member of this combine, I will vote 
 and act with the combine whenever and wherever I may be so 
 ordered to do ; 
 
 " And I further solemnly swear that I will not at any place or 
 time reveal the fact that there is a combine, and that I will not 
 communicate to any person or persons anything that may take 
 place at any meeting of the combine ; 
 
 " And I do solemnly agree that, in case I should reveal the fact 
 that any person in this combine has received money, I hereby 
 permit and authorize other members of this combine to take the 
 forfeit of my life in such manner as they may deem proper, and 
 that my throat may be cut, my tongue torn out, and my body cast 
 into the Mississippi River. 
 
 " And all of this I do solemnly swear, so help me God." 
 
 71 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 rant. The corporation, if it is already occupying 
 a franchise, knows what the facts of the business 
 are, while the people's representatives are in the 
 dark. One of the most lamentable modes of 
 corruption is believed to have been practised in 
 Cleveland during recent years. In Ohio cities a 
 street-railway franchise cannot be granted until 
 the grantee has secured the consent of a majority 
 of the abutting property owners along the pro- 
 posed route. Not long ago, when a competing 
 franchise was to be granted in Cleveland, it was 
 openly charged that the existing companies bribed 
 property holders to withdraw or withhold their con- 
 sents to the construction of a new line. 
 
 The second great evil in the management of 
 privately owned public utilities in the United 
 States has been inadequacy of service. It is often 
 claimed that in comparison with European cities 
 American towns have much to be thankful for in 
 this regard. But whatever may be the compara- 
 tive excellence of the service here and abroad, it 
 is certain that in many American cities at many 
 times the service has been poor. The way cars 
 are crowded at the rush hours is outrageous, and 
 should not be tolerated wherever the natural con- 
 ditions will permit alleviation of the difficulty. In 
 every case where the conditions of the franchise 
 or the negligence of the city authorities permit 
 the company to make a saving at the expense of 
 the public without appreciably diminishing traffic, 
 there is a tendency on the part of the company to 
 
 72 
 
UNIVERSITY ) 
 
 THE CONTRO^^liSJ^f^IC UTILITIES 
 
 do so. Private and selfish interests control often 
 to the exasperation and useless annoyance of the 
 patrons of the street cars. In the same way the 
 private ownership of waterworks seems ill suited 
 to a ready vigilance over the purity of the supply. 
 The public often suffers also from impure gas and 
 gas leakage. It is not to be denied that the oper- 
 ation of these services by the city often leaves 
 much to be desired. Nevertheless, inadequate 
 service, wherever it occurs under private owner- 
 ship, is an evil to be charged up against the 
 management. Such a gross wrong as the supply 
 of impure water for domestic use in a great city is 
 intolerable under conditions where the people 
 themselves are not to blame for it. If a city, 
 owning waterworks, continues to supply itself 
 with deadly drink, that may be considered one of 
 the privileges which it is practically necessary to 
 grant democracy. In other words, murder is 
 worse than suicide. 
 
 Another evil of private ownership has been the 
 inadequate compensation of the public for the 
 franchises. Of late years many cities have waked 
 up to find their streets mortgaged, perhaps for all 
 time to come, and their general taxes so high as to 
 be almost unbearable. In the meantime the com- 
 panies that secured the franchises for next to 
 nothing have been developing their business and 
 nursing the value of their special privileges until 
 in the open market they are worth millions of 
 dollars. It is quite inexcusable that a city should 
 
 73 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 be tax-ridden, as many of our cities are, while private 
 corporations are enjoying special privileges in the 
 streets by which they are enabled to mulct the users 
 of public utilities for the realization of exorbi- 
 tant profits on the capital invested. We need not 
 contend that the city should relieve its general tax 
 rolls by drawing profits from public utilities, but it 
 is clearly an outrage that citizens already groaning 
 under tax burdens should be compelled to pay 
 out-of-date prices for public utility services. The 
 time was when a straight five-cent street-car fare or 
 dollar gas was reasonable, but conditions have so 
 changed, both through the increased density of 
 population and through the cheapening of produc- 
 tion, that such prices are in many cities exorbitant 
 and outrageous. The Grand Rapids Railway 
 Company, for example, while groaning under the 
 weight of its taxation, has stock and bonds 
 whose combined market value is about ^5,000,000, 
 at least ^3,000,000 of which must represent 
 franchise value and the hope of better things to 
 come. It ought to be clear by this time in the 
 history of municipal affairs that a street franchise 
 belongs to the city, and should be granted either 
 on such conditions that it will have no market 
 value or on condition that the city receive dollar 
 for dollar of its market value. 
 
 This brings us to the fourth great evil of our 
 present system, — namely, overcapitalization and 
 stock jobbery. Referring to Grand Rapids' ex- 
 perience again, we see the case of a new gas 
 
 74 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 company which a few years ago bought out the 
 old company for $600,000, and immediately issued 
 bonds for double that sum and stock for an even 
 ;^ 1, 000,000. It is the same story everywhere. 
 Franchises are capitalized at an enormous value, 
 and the future is mortgaged for perhaps a gen- 
 eration, apparently for the sole purpose of deceiv- 
 ing the public and enriching the promoters by 
 means of stock-juggling. The importance of this 
 evil can hardly be overestimated, for in these days 
 of complex industrial life stocks and bonds furnish 
 the only available means for the investment of the 
 savings of a large proportion of the people who 
 own little. Watering stock is an indirect way of 
 stealing. By means of this process, immense 
 blocks of securities are manufactured ** out of 
 whole cloth" for the promoters. These securities 
 are then commonly worked off upon the public, 
 and the franchise values pocketed by the promot- 
 ers in the form of cash or other securities. As a 
 result of this process the capitalization of public 
 utilities is kept sufficiently large so that the divi- 
 dend rate does not appear to be unreasonable, and 
 any attempt on the part of the public to resume 
 the franchises, to improve the service, or to reduce 
 prices, is met by the cry of "vested interests." It 
 is shown that widows and orphans have in good 
 faith invested in the stocks and bonds and are 
 receiving only a fair return from their money. 
 Consequently any movement to " squeeze the 
 water " out of the capitalization of public utilities 
 
 75 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 is branded as confiscation. The manipulation of 
 stocks and bonds, so that by means of rings within 
 rings a few persons who have made a small per- 
 centage of the bona fide investment in an enter- 
 prise are able to control it for their own benefit, is 
 in the nature of things a crime against civilization, 
 intolerable to a free people, and wholly inconsistent 
 with the industrial health of the community.^ 
 
 For these great evils, which have become appar- 
 ent to all thoughtful citizens, several remedies in 
 the way of public control have been suggested. 
 It is generally agreed that unless a more effective 
 control can be exercised by cities over the grantees 
 of franchises in the future than has been exercised 
 in the past, the logic of events will force municipal 
 ownership and operation of public utilities. One 
 of the most popular remedies now advocated for the 
 evils hitherto attendant upon franchise grants is the 
 referendum, either optional or obligatory. Those 
 who favor this remedy claim that it would do 
 away at a single stroke with practically all the cor- 
 ruption now attendant upon the business of grant- 
 ing franchises, and would insure a better protection 
 of municipal rights. On the other hand, it is 
 urged that a franchise ordinance is a technical 
 business contract, of which the people at large can 
 have no adequate knowledge and upon which they 
 are incompetent to pass. Without denying all 
 
 lA terrific arraignment of public service corporation finance is 
 given in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1901, by Mr. R. R. Bow- 
 ker under the caption, "The Piracy of PubUc Franchises." 
 
 76 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 force to this latter argument, may we not contend 
 that the optional referendum would at least effectu- 
 ally prevent aldermanic collusion with franchise- 
 grabbers, as the chance of a suspicious grant being 
 approved by the people would be shght ? If fran- 
 chises must be granted for a definite term of years, 
 the optional referendum, by which, upon petition 
 of 5 or 10 per cent of the electors within a cer- 
 tain time after its passage, a franchise ordinance 
 would be submitted to popular vote, would seem 
 to be a safeguard of great value. The people can 
 easily inform themselves upon the general prin- 
 ciples of a franchise satisfactory to them ; and it 
 is the people who should be satisfied in this matter, 
 as their rights in the streets are paramount. 
 
 The National Municipal League has advocated, 
 as remedies for the evils here under discussion, 
 the limit of franchise grants to a period not greater 
 than twenty-one years, with provision for the pay- 
 ment of a percentage of gross receipts by the 
 grantee into the city treasury. ^ The League 
 " Program " suggests safeguarding the city's in- 
 terests in real estate and franchises, by requiring 
 as a condition of their alienation a four-fifths vote 
 of the council with the approval of the mayor. 
 Furthermore, it suggests a policy by which the 
 city could take over the property of the grantee 
 at the expiration of the franchise. Still another 
 safeguard of the greatest importance is advocated, 
 
 ^ A Municipal Program^ published by the Macmillan Company, 
 New York. 
 
 77 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 namely, publicity of the accounts of the franchise- 
 operator. Publicity of the accounts of privately 
 owned utilities is one of the conditions most needed 
 to make public control intelligent and adequate, 
 and to render the inauguration of municipal owner- 
 ship safe. The city is always at a disadvantage 
 in dealing with a public-service corporation whose 
 accounts are private, and, whatever other restric- 
 tions may be placed around the grant of franchises, 
 a strict and detailed publicity of accounts is a 
 necessary part of any rational scheme of pubHc 
 control. 
 
 Mr. George C. Sikes, of Chicago, has recently 
 laid emphasis, in a clear-cut magazine article, on 
 the claims of the indeterminate or terminable fran- 
 chise as a means to adequate public control.^ 
 This is the policy followed by Congress for the 
 city of Washington, and recently incorporated in 
 legislation for Porto Rico and the Philippine 
 Islands. It is also the Massachusetts poHcy, as I 
 have already stated. Its great advantage is that 
 it does not surrender any portion of the govern- 
 mental power to private parties, but maintains con- 
 tinuous public control over the streets. This 
 proposition is perfectly simple. It only requires 
 that every franchise should contain a clause re- 
 serving to the public authorities the right to amend 
 or repeal the ordinance at any time. Such an 
 ordinance would not impose a hardship upon any 
 
 ^ See "The Question of Franchises," in the Atlantic Monthly, 
 March, 1903, pp. 408-415. 
 
 78 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 person or company, provided that the city would 
 agree to take over the plant at an appraised valua- 
 tion in case of repeal. The franchise-operator is 
 simply brought under continuous governmental con- 
 trol, and the obnoxious system, by which the city 
 contracts away a part of its governmental authority, 
 is brought to an end. At the same time, where the 
 franchise has any value, the indeterminate grant 
 leaves the door open for a corrupt city council to 
 blackmail the operating company by constantly 
 harassing it and threatening to cancel its privi- 
 leges. 
 
 Another means of control sometimes suggested 
 is the reserved right to regulate rates, or to have 
 the terms of the grant readjusted at the end of a 
 short period. With an alert public sentiment and 
 a high class of public officials, these remedies may 
 be effective to a considerable extent. 
 
 Competition as a regulator of public utility ser- 
 vice has not yet been abandoned altogether in the 
 people's dreams. It is coming to be generally 
 recognized, however, that in the nature of the 
 case public utilities tend toward monopoly, and 
 that competition is short-lived, wasteful, and in the 
 end burdensome to the consumers who are called 
 upon to pay interest on double capitalization and 
 maintenance of a double plant. Competition in 
 the street-railway business naturally takes the 
 form of parallel lines in different streets, while in 
 the case of gas, electric lighting, and water, it takes 
 the form of parallel pipes and wires in the same 
 
 79 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 streets. The latter is, of course, less excusable 
 than the former, but in either case consolidation 
 and monopoly are not long delayed. The theory 
 of competition is, however, sometimes applied with 
 more reason in another way. The franchise or- 
 dinance is fixed requiring the performance of cer- 
 tain conditions, and the rendering of service within 
 a certain maximum price, and then offered to the 
 bidder who will pay the largest lump sum or the 
 largest percentage of gross receipts into the city 
 treasury ; or the compensation to the city may be 
 fixed, and the franchise sold to the bidder offering 
 the best terms in the matter of rates to consumers. 
 When a new and independent franchise for a whole 
 city is to be granted, there would be little diffi- 
 culty in securing bona fide competition as to terms. 
 But few cities now have important general fran- 
 chises to grant, and the companies already on the 
 ground have a great advantage in bidding for ex- 
 tensions or in competing with a new company 
 trying to operate a duplicate franchise. But 
 neither this nor any other of the remedies thus 
 far discussed can prove satisfactory without pub- 
 licity of accounts. 
 
 A further suggestion of a policy short of com- 
 plete municipal ownership is often made. This 
 is that the city should own the street-railway tracks, 
 the electric wires and conduits, and the water and 
 gas pipes, leasing them to private parties for actual 
 use. The waterworks of Denver are owned by the 
 city, but leased to a private company. Bayonne, 
 
 80 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 New Jersey, owns the distributing system only. 
 The gas-plant of Philadelphia is owned by the 
 city, and leased to a private company. Toledo 
 owns a distributing system of gas-pipes which has 
 been leased since the failure of the natural gas 
 supply. 
 
 In the Denver and Philadelphia cases, we have 
 complete municipal ownership, something more 
 than is usually meant by the suggestion of the 
 municipal ownership of street-railway tracks. 
 In that case the power-houses, cars, and every- 
 thing but the fixtures in the street itself would be 
 privately owned. It is urged that a street-rail- 
 way track is in reality a special form of pavement, 
 and should be a part of the municipally constructed 
 and municipally owned road-bed.^ So far as theory 
 is appUcable to a question of this kind, the point 
 seems well taken, and can be made to cover the 
 case of water and gas mains, and electric light and 
 power wires and conduits, though with somewhat 
 diminished force. This semi-ownership of public 
 utilities would undoubtedly be more easily effective 
 than most or all other methods of control. Carry- 
 ing this suggestion a little farther, we should have 
 complete municipal ownership under private opera- 
 tion, a system that is advocated with much greater 
 force in the case of street railways than in that 
 of other local utilities. This system will be ap- 
 
 1 This is the view taken by the Massachusetts Special Committee, 
 whose valuable report on street railways has been referred to in a 
 note on p. 6 1 anie. 
 
 G 8l 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 plied to the New York subway when it is com- 
 pleted, as it is already in the case of the Boston 
 subway. 
 
 We come now to the simple and direct remedy 
 advocated by many thoughtful and many thought- 
 less men for the evils attendant upon our present 
 • franchise system. This remedy is municipal owner- 
 ship and operation of all local public utilities. All 
 methods of control seem difficult and complex com- 
 pared with public ownership and operation. Yet 
 alert civic intelligence and rugged official integrity 
 would wonderfully simplify the problems of con- 
 trol, while the absence of these conditions won- 
 derfully complicates the simple remedy of public 
 ownership. The chief arguments in favor of 
 municipal ownership and operation are, first, that 
 the protection of the public interests is impracti- 
 cable in any other way ; and, second, that it is the 
 logical and proper thing for the whole people to 
 operate the monopolies which the conditions of 
 their life create. The arguments against this pol- 
 icy are, first, that the prevalence of the spoils 
 system and the inefficiency of city administration 
 would render the operation of these public utilities 
 more burdensome and corrupting than it is in pri- 
 vate hands ; and, second, that it is clearly outside 
 the scope of government to engage in such lines 
 of business. The second argument in either case, 
 though in a sense fundamental, must, nevertheless, 
 yield to the first in practical importance. 
 
 Let us consider the main argument for municipal 
 82 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 ownership. Dr. Shaw tells us that in Germany this 
 question is settled in each particular case on its 
 merit as a business proposition pure and simple.^ 
 While an approach to the German and English 
 attitude toward these problems is eminently desir- 
 able, we must remember that, after all, the franchise 
 question transcends for us the mere problems of 
 business expediency, and touches to the quick the 
 processes of democracy upon which the future of 
 our cities and their citizenship depends. Ameri- 
 can cities have equal manhood suffrage, and 
 though we often hear complaints about the float- 
 ing vote and the non-taxpaying electors, our sys- 
 tem is deeply grounded in the theory that "a 
 man's a man," and his personal right to life and 
 free development is superior to the rights of 
 vested property. Consequently with us the fran- 
 chise question is political, in the true sense of that 
 word. It has to do with the general welfare of 
 citizens, and if a franchise is to be operated by the 
 city itself, it must be conducted on broad general 
 lines, not always consistent with close business pol- 
 icy. Public ownership and operation would retain 
 for the city a system of free streets over which 
 the community as a whole would have unrestricted 
 authority, and which would be devoted to common 
 use without the intervention of special privileges. 
 Public ownership would be a tribute to the co- 
 operative nature of cities. Indeed, city spells 
 cooperation, and even under private management a 
 
 ^ Municipal Government in Continental Europe, pp. 323-328. 
 
 83 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 public utility is only a great cooperative enterprise, 
 rendered necessary by the inevitable conditions of 
 city life. Many believe that this cooperative na- 
 ture of the city should be recognized directly 
 through the municipaUzation of public utilities ; 
 and their argument has great force. It is a part 
 of the broad democratic argument for municipali- 
 zation that the extension of the public utility sys- 
 tems would be made promptly to anticipate the 
 demands of citizens and give the city a symmetri- 
 cal and healthy development. It is believed that, 
 following the example of the United States Post 
 Office Department, cities would try to equalize 
 conditions and make the more profitable parts 
 of a street-railway or gas system support the 
 less profitable. One of the benefits that ought 
 certainly to accrue from municipal ownership 
 would be more stable capitalization. With the 
 necessary publicity of accounts, municipal bonds, 
 issued on account of public utility enterprises, 
 would afford an opportunity for much safer in- 
 vestments on the part of the public than public 
 utility stocks and bonds now do. This is no mean 
 advantage. Finally, cities would be rid of the ex- 
 pensive legal squabbles in which they now have 
 to engage with franchise-holders, and the forms of 
 corruption now well known would be inapplicable 
 to the new conditions. One important practical 
 argument in favor of public ownership is the low 
 rate of interest at which cities can borrow. This 
 would tend to make public ownership more eco- 
 
 84 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 nomical than private, though we must not forget 
 that by public ownership the city would lose the 
 privilege of taxing both the property and the 
 franchise. 
 
 As against municipal ownership the most tell- 
 ing arguments are made with reference to the 
 status of the civil service. It is said that under 
 a political machine, where positions are given out 
 as rewards for party or personal service, a pub- 
 licly owned utility, especially a street-car system, 
 would fall a victim to all sorts of inefficiency and 
 extravagance. It is believed that this danger can 
 be averted by the development of the merit sys- 
 tem in municipal administration, and, naturally, 
 civil service reform is practically always a coor- 
 dinate plank in the platform of the municipal 
 ownership advocates. The people of San Fran- 
 cisco, in adopting their new charter a few years 
 ago, declared for the public ownership of all street 
 utilities, and then proceeded to establish the merit 
 system in preparation for future acquisition of 
 them. Just how effective the merit system admin- 
 istered by its enemiQs could be kept is a matter of 
 grave doubt, but it introduces an important condi- 
 tion in favor of good citizenship. Nothing can 
 ever take the place of an alert public conscience, 
 and the one thing most worth striving for is the 
 organization of government in such a way that the 
 public conscience can make itself felt most directly 
 and effectively. Under private ownership public 
 utilities are a corrupting force in politics, and con- 
 
 8s 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 versely are corrupted by politics. Tammany Hall 
 has been able at certain times to dictate appoint- 
 ments in the street-railway service of New York 
 City. 
 
 It is also objected to municipal ownership that 
 the public would be less enterprising in adopting 
 the latest improvements than a private company 
 is, thus keeping the system out of date and incon- 
 veniencing the users of the utiHty. It may be 
 said in reply that much of the enterprise dis- 
 played by private companies in adopting the latest 
 thing before it is fully tested turns up later in the 
 form of overcapitalization to haunt the unlucky 
 user, from whose pocket comes the money for 
 operating expenses, interest charges, and dividends. 
 There is no reason for believing that the city would 
 be less enterprising in matters for the advantage 
 of the public than the private company is. 
 
 One danger lies in the undoubted tendency to 
 low rates under municipal ownership. It is not 
 consistent, I believe, with justice and the general 
 welfare that public utilities should be made to con- 
 tribute to the support of the general government 
 more than the property would fairly yield in taxes 
 if subject to taxation. A greater contribution in- 
 volves an unjust consumption tax. Public utility 
 services should be furnished approximately at cost. 
 But there is serious danger of a tendency to force 
 rates below cost, so that a public utility will become 
 a burden upon the tax rolls rather than a relief to 
 them. There is, indeed, some argument in favor 
 
 S6 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 of free water and gas, but under present conditions 
 it is safe, as a general policy, to adopt the rule that 
 every public utility should be self-sustaining. The 
 groans of the direct taxpayers would have in all 
 but a few cities great influence in checking the 
 downward pressure of rates for public utility ser- 
 vices, and consequently this evil might be alto- 
 gether imaginary'. 
 
 The most serious objection to municipal owner- 
 ship in the near future, aside from that based on 
 the condition of the civil service, is that the com- 
 panies have oiu- cities by the throat and can, 
 in many cases, make municipalization appallingly 
 expensive. When Detroit proposed to take over 
 her street-railway system in 1899, ^^^ price tenta- 
 tively agreed upon was about $17,000,000, more 
 than half of which represented franchise value. 
 The plan failed by reason of a decision of the 
 Michigan Supreme Court holding the act, under 
 the provisions of which Detroit was negotiating 
 the purchase, unconstitutional.^ There is no easy 
 general answer to this objection to municipalization 
 on the score of expensiveness. Cities whose fran- 
 chises are soon to expire by definite and unmistak- 
 able termination, and cities whose franchises may 
 be resumed at any time, are not seriously affected 
 by it. Other cities can only bide their time, rigidly 
 guarding their interests in future franchise grants, 
 and meantime using all their reserved or implied 
 governmental powers to thwart overcapitalization 
 
 1 Attorney Ge rural vs. Pin^ee, I20 Mich. 550. 
 
 87 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 plans and regain by taxation and regulation as 
 large a share of the value of the franchises as 
 possible. In every case where a company is known 
 to have secured its rights by bribery or other im- 
 proper influences, no matter how long ago, a city 
 should not hesitate to use its powers to the utmost 
 to recover for the public the advantages that have 
 been bartered away in the past. Private property 
 rights in the public streets ought not to become 
 sacred by mere lapse of time. The essential rights 
 of a free people are too nearly involved for that. 
 
 A correct franchise policy, consistent with de- 
 mocracy, and practicable under existing conditions, 
 would involve the following points : — 
 
 1. Insist that every public utility now owned 
 and operated by a city should be conducted on 
 clear-cut principles, and should render an unmis- 
 takable public account of itself. 
 
 2. Compel all public utility operators dependent 
 upon special privileges in the streets, to make fre- 
 quent detailed reports of their financial affairs to 
 the city authorities. 
 
 3. Secure by legislation, or by constitutional 
 amendment, if necessary, the right to the city to 
 own and operate all public utilities, and to acquire 
 existing utilities by purchase or condemnation 
 proceedings. 
 
 4. Tax franchises to the limit of their value and 
 make use of all the legitimate powers of govern- 
 ment to prevent and correct overcapitalization. 
 
 5. Make all new franchises terminable at any 
 
 88 
 
THE CONTROL OF PUBLIC UTILITIES 
 
 time, reserving the right of the city to purchase the 
 plant and general outfit at an appraised valuation. 
 
 6. Give the electors the right to control the 
 grant of franchises by direct vote by means of the 
 optional referendum. 
 
 7. Adopt the policy that whether under private 
 control or under public management a franchise 
 should be so conditioned as to have no monetary 
 value ; that is to say, keep prices down to the cost 
 of service, and destroy by public control the advan- 
 tages of monopoly. 
 
 8. Undertake public ownership and operation 
 whenever, after full discussion, the people of a 
 city deliberately favor that policy.^ 
 
 I have indicated in the preceding chapter that the 
 open street is the most significant symbol of a free 
 city, and that those who control the street control 
 the city. The desideratum of municipal well-be- 
 ing, as far as this great question is concerned, is for 
 the city to regain speedily and forever maintain its 
 governmental control over all its streets. Munici- 
 pal ownership is, in theory, the simple solution. 
 Yet in practice the whole problem is complicated 
 by the insufficiency of public intelligence and the 
 inertness of the civic conscience. Freedom is the 
 
 ^ Probably the most comprehensive and valuable discussion of 
 the problems of municipal ownership and operation of franchises 
 to be found anywhere in American print is contained in Municipal 
 Affairs, Vol. VI, No. 4. This issue is filled with the papers and 
 addresses presented at a national convention on Municipal Owner- 
 ship and Public Franchises held under the auspices of the New York 
 Reform Club Committee on City Affairs, February 25-27, 1903. 
 
 89 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 purport of democracy. "A great city is that 
 which has the greatest men and women." Men 
 cannot be made free by ordinance. Municipal 
 ownership will not, in itself, guarantee to the people 
 the free possession of the streets. After the gov- 
 ernment regains control of the streets, the people 
 must maintain control of the government. The 
 problems of the street, like all other problems of 
 democracy, resolve themselves in the last analysis 
 into the problem of citizenship. 
 
 90 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CIVIC EDUCATION OR THE DUTY TO THE FUTURE 
 
 It may seem a far cry from public utilities to 
 civic education. But we saw, at the close of the 
 last chapter, how the questions of municipal con- 
 trol, ownership, and operation of franchises resolve 
 themselves quickly into questions of human nature 
 under city conditions. Now human nature, though 
 having certain comparatively uniform substrata, is 
 for practical purposes a variable factor. It is 
 clearly changed by conditions of life and by educa- 
 tion. In cities human nature comes to the parting 
 of the ways ; allowed to drift along the lines of 
 least resistance, it develops intense selfishness, 
 disregard of others' rights, forgetfulness of the 
 future, and those other characteristics of degenera- 
 tion found in highly civilized society; but, properly 
 trained, human nature in cities develops a wider 
 social consciousness, a heartier spirit of coopera- 
 tion, a more refined appreciation of the arts of life, 
 a keener sense of responsibility to the future, and 
 all those other characteristics of progress that are 
 the hope of evolution and the justification of social 
 effort. It is the character of civic education that 
 will determine in the long run whether or not de- 
 mocracy can succeed in cities. And so it is fitting 
 
 91 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 that after our brief consideration of the problems 
 of the street, which are the fundamental material 
 problems of the city, we should at once pass to the 
 problems of civic education which are the funda- 
 mental social problems of the city. 
 
 In this chapter, therefore, I wish to discuss the 
 problems of civic education, with the idea con- 
 stantly in mind that the city's children are the 
 citizens of to-morrow, who, no matter how grave 
 the problems with which we now grapple may be, 
 are likely to have still graver ones to solve. 
 
 There are four principal factors in civic educa- 
 tion. These are : — 
 
 1. The common heritage of civic conditions, civic 
 habits, and civic ideals. 
 
 2. The home. 
 
 3. The school. 
 
 4. The direct participation of the children in 
 civic functions. 
 
 It is one of the paradoxes of reform that no ab- 
 solute social salvation can be brought about unless 
 the children can be reached, while the only possible 
 way to reach the children is through the grown 
 people. So, while we depend ultimately on civic 
 education to give us citizens who will reform our 
 government, we must confess that government as 
 it exists is one of the most powerful factors in the 
 process of education to which we appeal. For ex- 
 ample, in this matter of public utilities, which we 
 have just been discussing, there is nothing else 
 that so hinders the education of the civic intelli- 
 
 92 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 gence and the civic conscience of the future along 
 these lines as the bad example of continued corrup- 
 tion, extravagance, and selfishness of public officials 
 and the operators of franchises. In New York un- 
 der Tammany the government has often been a 
 school of false civic ideals, corruption, vice, and 
 crime. The same is true in many cases elsewhere. 
 On the other hand, under a normal city govern- 
 ment, and especially under a progressive one, the 
 administration becomes a great factor in the culti- 
 vation of better citizenship through the example of 
 order, efficient service, generous purposes, and care- 
 ful expenditures, and also through active leadership 
 in the campaign for health, cleanliness, civic beauty, 
 and municipal progress. Even more powerful in 
 their influence upon the next generation are the 
 established conditions, habits, and traditions of the 
 various departments of government. The most 
 neglected of all duties has been the duty of the 
 present to the future. 
 
 The creation of enormous debts ; the encum- 
 bering of the streets which are common prop- 
 erty, not of the citizens of this generation alone, 
 but of all generations, by the grant of long-term 
 or perpetual franchises ; the construction of un- 
 sanitary public buildings ; the laying of leaky water 
 mains; the pollution of the water-supply with 
 sewage; the formation of the habit of black- 
 mail in the police force or of " grafting " in the 
 city council ; the laying of inferior pavements, — 
 all these things, and many more, are a heritage of 
 
 93 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 tradition that is handed down in this city or in that 
 from year to year and from decade to decade as a 
 sort of surety entered into by the present, guar- 
 anteeing that the future of the city administration 
 shall be weak, inefficient, and corrupt. Fortunately, 
 the influence of good habits and a worthy example 
 is also powerful. Colonel Waring was strong 
 enough to break away from Tammany traditions 
 in the cleaning of New York's streets, and to 
 establish new traditions which have been of untold 
 educational value to his successors. So it is with 
 every wise and honest administrator. 
 
 The home is the second great factor in civic 
 education. Under normal conditions it is the 
 universal policy of free governments to leave the 
 establishment and control of the home to private 
 citizens. The home is the free man's citadel. 
 Only in case of a gross abuse of domestic privi- 
 leges does the government step in to protect or 
 punish its individual citizens. But in great cities 
 the artificial conditions of life have tended to de- 
 stroy the homes of the poor altogether, by crowd- 
 ing, unsanitary conditions, or immoral surroundings. 
 Many cities have been compelled to take up the 
 housing problem, and go far beyond the ordinary 
 scope of governmental functions to protect them- 
 selves. This compulsion has been exerted chiefly 
 by the necessity of the home as an instrument of 
 civic education. It is our theory that babies will be 
 born and their health and morals fairly well cared 
 for in the average family where the physical sur- 
 
 94 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 roundings make health and morality possible. 
 But the product of the tenement-house, the sweat- 
 shop, and the slum has proven itself such a dan- 
 gerous factor in our citizenship, that we have been 
 compelled to take hold of these inferior homes 
 with the strong arm of the law and insist on their 
 betterment. 
 
 I have already said something of the history of 
 the tenement-house problem in New York in con- 
 nection with the discussion of transportation 
 facilities in a preceding chapter.^ The relation of 
 transportation to housing is one of the things that 
 gives a great city Hke New York or London its 
 supreme interest in the street-railway system. In 
 a somewhat less degree good housing is dependent 
 upon cheap water and light furnished by the 
 public, and good plumbing and ventilation guar- 
 anteed by the civic authorities. 
 
 New York has finally found its tenement-house 
 problem so important that the city has established 
 a separate administrative department to inspect 
 tenements and enforce the laws governing their 
 construction and management. New York has 
 condemned and torn down some old tenements that 
 were unfit for human habitation, and has cleared 
 out whole blocks in a number of places for the 
 construction of parks, but no American city has 
 gone so far as to copy the British cities in estabhsh- 
 ing municipal model tenement-houses. Thus far 
 our cities have for the most part confined their 
 
 1 Ante, pp. 35-44. 
 
 95 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 official effort, first, to the control of the construction 
 of these buildings to the end that every apartment 
 should be safe from fire, well lighted and ventilated, 
 and fitted up with sufficient plumbing to make it 
 habitable, and second, to the enforcement of certain 
 sanitary rules in the use of tenement-houses. 
 
 New York is far in the lead of other American 
 cities so far as official effort to improve housing 
 conditions is concerned. This is because conges- 
 tion in New York is extreme. In New York over 
 two million people, according to the estimate of the 
 last Tenement House Commission, have so little 
 control over the sanitary and other essential con- 
 ditions of their home life that they are dependent 
 upon the city for special protection from the 
 ignorance and greed of their landlords and fellow- 
 citizens in the mere matter of housing. In other 
 American cities the proportion of separate homes 
 is much greater, and in many, such as Detroit, 
 Cleveland, and Minneapolis, there is no general 
 housing problem of sufficient importance to de- 
 mand direct municipal interference. Of course, in 
 every city the authorities often interfere to abate 
 unsanitary conditions when they become a menace 
 to the general health. 
 
 The tendency is to postpone action too long. 
 Every city of considerable size ought to pay some 
 attention to housing by controlling public utilities, 
 improving domestic sanitation, and providing open 
 spaces, to the end that the conditions favoring 
 separate homes with abundant room and plenty 
 
 96 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 of light and air shall be maintained. This is an 
 altogether necessary function of city government, 
 and is a part of the program of civic education. 
 The home cannot start the young citizens right 
 without this fundamental guarantee. The housing 
 problem, while it has an important sanitary aspect 
 in connection with the protection of adult life from 
 disease, is primarily a problem of guaranteeing 
 homes in which children may be safely born and 
 nurtured. In a broad sense the provision of good 
 homes is as clearly a problem of civic education as 
 is the provision of schoolhouses. In fact the homes 
 are the first schoolhouses of the city's children. 
 
 But the main instrument of civic education, the 
 institution to which all American cities look for 
 the training of their future citizens and for the 
 fusing of conflicting race habits and race interests 
 into a common Americanism, is the public school. 
 We must, therefore, consider at some length the 
 nature of this institution and its particular relations 
 to civic life. 
 
 It is beginning to be understood in the educa- 
 tional world that all school training must adapt 
 itself to the background of life which the children 
 live, and too slowly we are coming to see the sig- 
 nificance of the marvellous change in that back- 
 ground of life which has come over the modern 
 world through the instrumentality of what is called 
 industrial progress. The city has a peculiar edu- 
 cational problem, and the difficulty of this problem 
 increases with the size and age of cities. Probably 
 H 97 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the majority of men and women in the big cities of 
 the United States are still country born or village 
 born. For this reason they are slow to realize the 
 purport of the educational progress of the day. 
 " Were not the old methods good enough for us ? " 
 they ask, and forget that their children, born and 
 bred in the midst of city conditions, have a very 
 different and often a very precarious foundation 
 for an education. 
 
 Professor John Dewey has described this change 
 of conditions so interestingly that I can do no bet- 
 ter than to quote his words. He calls attention to 
 the characteristics of the household and neighbor- 
 hood system as it existed prior to the industrial 
 revolution of quite recent times. " The entire in- 
 dustrial process," he says, '' stood revealed, from 
 the production on the farm of the raw materials, 
 till the finished article was actually put in use. 
 Not only this, but practically every member of the 
 household had his own share in the work. The 
 children, as they gained in strength and capacity, 
 were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the 
 several processes. It was a matter of immediate 
 and personal concern, even to the point of actual 
 participation. We cannot overlook the factors of 
 discipline and of character-building involved in this ; 
 training in habits of order and of industry, and in 
 the idea of responsibility, of obligation to do some- 
 thing, to produce something, in the world. . . . 
 Again we cannot overlook the importance for educa- 
 tional purposes of the close and intimate acquaint- 
 
 98 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 ance got with nature at first hand, with real things 
 and materials, with the actual processes of their ma- 
 nipulation, and the knowledge of their social neces- 
 sities and uses. In all this there was continual 
 training of observation, of ingenuity, constructive 
 imagination, of logical thought and of the sense of 
 reality acquired through first-hand contact with 
 actualities. The educative forces of the domestic 
 spinning and weaving, of the saw-mill, the grist- 
 mill, the cooper shop, and the blacksmith forge 
 were continuously operative. No number of object 
 lessons, got up as object lessons for the sake of 
 giving information, can afford even the shadow of 
 a substitute for acquaintance with the plants and 
 animals of the farm and garden, acquired through 
 actual living among them and caring for them. 
 No training of sense-organs in school, introduced 
 for the sake of training, can begin to compete with 
 the alertness and fulness of sense Hfe that comes 
 through daily intimacy and interest in familiar 
 occupations. Verbal memory can be trained in 
 committing tasks, a certain discipline of the reason- 
 ing powers can be acquired through lessons in 
 science and mathematics ; but, after all, this is 
 somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the 
 training of attention and of judgment that is re- 
 quired in having to do things with a real motive 
 behind and a real outcome ahead." ^ 
 
 In other words, the city educator awakes some 
 fine morning to find the foundation of training 
 
 ^ The School and Society, pp. 23-25. 
 99 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 missing in his pupils; they have no "vital experi- 
 ence." They are unreal children. They have 
 been nursed in the lap of urban idleness till they 
 are little better than house-pets, — or perhaps they 
 have been cast off from the flywheel of the great, 
 merciless machine of industrial life, and stand 
 bruised, and pinched, and scared in the neglected 
 corners of the community's workshop. In either 
 case they are sorry materials for the school. The 
 city that follows the line of least resistance in its 
 development soon becomes an unfit place for the 
 birth and rearing of children. It is only by a 
 costly and stubborn resistance to the stifling ten- 
 dencies of city life that children can be made ready 
 for education. The superstructure of modern 
 education can be safely built on the foundations of 
 city child life only by arduous and patient prepara- 
 tion of the substructure. That portion of New 
 York City which is built on Manhattan Island has 
 for the most part a foundation of rock, so that the 
 problem of constructing the enormous modern 
 office buildings is there almost wholly a problem of 
 superstructure. In Chicago, on the other hand, it 
 is only with infinite labor that a safe foundation 
 can be prepared for a skyscraper. Piles must be 
 driven deep into the unresisting soil and elaborate 
 artificial foundations constructed, and even then 
 a fear is sometimes expressed that the towering 
 superstructure will some day collapse by reason of 
 the shifting of its underpinning. Similar is the 
 problem of the education of city children. Yet we 
 
 lOO 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 must not exaggerate. It is true that these extreme 
 conditions exist principally in the largest cities, 
 and are more acute among the rich than among 
 the poor, the very poorest being excepted. The 
 main contention here is that these conditions are 
 the natural outcome of unregulated city growth. 
 The child is a problem that the city cannot safely 
 ignore. The city must find room in its program 
 of production for the process of reproduction. 
 
 The conditions of life in cities are reacting upon 
 the school itself. The kindergarten, which, within 
 the past decade or two, has established itself as an 
 integral part of the city school system, though 
 based on a general theory of education, is in effect 
 an effort to supply very young children with that 
 background of experience which is the best foun- 
 dation of education, and which is often lamentably 
 lacking in city children, and to develop the coop- 
 erative spirit which alone can soften the asperities 
 of civilization, usher in the new human nature, and 
 make a nation's cities the crowning glory of its 
 development. Already the conviction is growing 
 that the teacher who receives the children first 
 from their several homes, so widely different in 
 their ideals, their conditions, and their attitudes 
 toward society, and who gives these untrained 
 embryo citizens their first lessons in social coop- 
 eration on a large scale and first brings them under 
 the law of the state, should be a teacher with 
 special gifts and extraordinary training. The 
 kindergarten stands for the introduction of child 
 
 lOI 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 life into the fairy-land of nature and human his- 
 tory, for the introduction of this eager, expanding 
 intelligence of the child to an ideal system of social 
 life, a sort of Utopian existence which we all be- 
 lieve to be possible on condition that our fellows 
 are willing to join with us in obedience to the 
 higher law. A clean, well-lighted schoolroom, with 
 plants and pictures and materials for work and 
 play, under the guidance of a teacher whose busi- 
 ness it is to be always kind and to organize the 
 little society according to the law of love, is a place 
 of delight and freedom, a real heaven to countless 
 children emerging from babyhood, who need, above 
 all things, to be better prepared for citizenship and 
 civic cooperation than their fathers and mothers 
 were before them. 
 
 The introduction of manual training into the 
 public schools, which has only just begun, is 
 another and even more marked indication of the 
 reaction of city conditions upon the school itself. 
 In manual training we have a definite, conscious 
 effort to supply in the schools those elements of 
 education which, in country and village, boys and 
 girls ordinarily get in a more or less imperfect way 
 at home and in their neighborhood associations. 
 Girls are taught cooking and sewing, because, in 
 cities, they do not generally learn these things at 
 home. For the same reason boys are taught to 
 drive nails, to carve, to draw, to make things. 
 This kind of work adds zest to the school, gives 
 the children useful power, and supplies that funda- 
 
 I02 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 mental training in the use of the hand and eye 
 which plays an essential part in the education of 
 men and women. Indeed, manual training aims 
 to do more than replace the lost experiences of 
 country life. It aims to give the children the 
 benefit of skilled instruction, so that they shall be 
 better prepared for the work of the world than 
 if they were self-educated or trained by their 
 parents only. There has been a tendency to 
 introduce manual training in high schools first, 
 on the theory that the well-grown boys and girls 
 should have some practical preparation for adult 
 life upon which they are about to enter. The 
 significance of manual training as a fundamental 
 part of the whole process of education is beginning 
 to be dimly recognized. Of course, if the training 
 of the hand and the participation in useful, pro- 
 ductive enterprises form the best basis for the 
 training of the mind, city schools will have to put 
 manual training into all the grades from the first up. 
 It seems reasonable to believe that the time and 
 effort required for this will be more than saved in 
 the keener interest and the quickened intelHgence 
 of pupils. 
 
 One of the principal functions of the kinder- 
 garten is to furnish the children that background 
 of contact with nature which the country child gets 
 in its play and its explorations of its widening 
 world. Manual training goes a step farther, and 
 supplies for city children that discipline in the 
 doing of useful things which forms the link between 
 
 103 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the play-world of childhood and the work-world 
 of manhood and womanhood ; and in proportion 
 as this transition is intelligently made, the play- 
 instinct of the child flows forward into the work- 
 manship of the adult and transforms the drudgery 
 of life into willing or even enthusiastic participa- 
 tion in the work of the world. "The world in 
 which most of us live is a world in which every 
 one has a calling and occupation, something to do. 
 Some are managers and others are subordinates. 
 But the great thing for one as for the other is that 
 each shall have had the education which enables 
 him to see within his daily work all there is in it 
 of large and human significance." ^ This certainly 
 cannot be accomplished by introducing the training 
 of the hand as an appendix to the training of the 
 mind. That is a reversal of the laws of education, 
 and can only result in the waste of years of educa- 
 tional effort and the definite dismissal of the play- 
 spirit from the activities of adult life. 
 
 The manual training department carries on for 
 the most part only one side of the special work 
 undertaken by the kindergarten. The other side, 
 the training in citizenship, in free social organiza- 
 tion, in democracy, is sadly neglected by the aver- 
 age public school. Even so far as the curriculum 
 goes, the public school is inexcusably deficient in 
 matters relating directly to civic life. Civics, like 
 manual training, is not taken up before the upper 
 
 1 Professor John Dewey, op. cit., p. 38. 
 104 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 grades or the high school is reached. So far as 
 the spirit of the schools is concerned and the prac- 
 tical ideals lived out by them, it is safe to say that 
 the average school is not altogether conducive to 
 the development of self-control and social coopera- 
 tion. The teacher is a despot, though perhaps a 
 kindly one ; discipline is of the military order, 
 though less severe ; and the motives to which 
 appeal is made are often the motives of selfish 
 rivalry. The pupil who gives or receives help at 
 a task is a cheat, and the one who communi- 
 cates with another in school time is an offender. 
 It is not to be expected that an ideal of social 
 democracy will be soon realized in which the spirit 
 of rivalry will be eliminated. But democracy is 
 possible only through cooperation and mutual help, 
 and it seems foolish and dangerous to emphasize 
 that competitive spirit by which one's gain is con- 
 sidered another's loss. The difference between the 
 competitive ideal of success and the democratic ideal 
 has been admirably expressed by Dr. Howerth of 
 Chicago in one of his university extension lectures 
 by a contrast between the desire " to get on in the 
 world " and the desire " to get the world on." 
 There is not the shadow of a doubt that the real 
 success of the race involves the cultivation of the 
 latter ideal rather than the former, and there is no 
 place where the future speaks so forcefully as in 
 the school. The school ought therefore to set 
 before itself, as working ideals, the realization 
 of which will measure its success as an educa- 
 105 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 tional force, — first, self-government, and second, 
 social cooperation. 
 
 The idea of self-government in the schools has 
 been prominently advocated in recent years by 
 Mr. Wilson L. Gill> of the Patriotic League, who 
 sees in the organization of school cities a most 
 effective means for teaching by precept and prac- 
 tice the civic duties for which so few citizens are 
 prepared when they graduate from the school. 
 Mr. Gill would have the pupils of a city school 
 organized on the plan of the city government, 
 with a mayor and council, city courts, a police 
 force, a health of^cer, and all the other necessary 
 city officials. So organized, the children would 
 establish their own rules and practically take 
 charge of the discipline of the school. This plan 
 has been tried in some schools with success, and 
 has been commended by no less an authority on 
 municipal government than Dr. Albert Shaw, in 
 an article in his own magazine, the American 
 Monthly Review of Reviews} 
 
 The greatest obstacle in the way of the success 
 of this plan is ignorant teachers. Very few public 
 school teachers are sufficiently intelligent in practi- 
 cal civic organization to be able to inaugurate the 
 self-government system. Perhaps this may be 
 partly due to the fact that most teachers are 
 women and have no voice in political affairs in 
 most of the states. But the main reason is that an 
 imperfect idea of school government prevails, and 
 
 1 In issue for December, 1899. 
 106 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 for the average teacher it is easier to govern a 
 school than to show the school how to govern 
 itself. Here, as everywhere, the crying need is for 
 better teachers, not necessarily for teachers with 
 more learning or greater preparation, but for 
 teachers more closely in touch with practical life, 
 and with a clearer view of the function of the 
 school in the improvement of human nature and 
 the realization of higher ideals in the activities of 
 the world. 
 
 The public school is, in idea, the chief instru- 
 ment of American democracy. In it the children 
 of different social classes and of many races are 
 brought to a common level and fused into a com- 
 munity of American citizens. It is often stated 
 that the child repeats in his development the 
 various stages of race history. Certain it is that 
 men are not born free, that races and nations attain 
 freedom only after long-continued struggles with 
 themselves. Freedom, the Hfe of democracy, can- 
 not be given out of hand. And so, while self- 
 government is the end toward which education 
 must lead, the teacher should not forget to keep a 
 protectorate over his newly enfranchised pupils. 
 The children must learn by experiment " that self- 
 government brings out the true character of a 
 person ; that it teaches the real meaning of liberty 
 and develops self-control, uprightness, and a sense 
 of honor." 
 
 Largely as the result of the changed industrial 
 conditions already referred to, the city school is 
 
 107 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 coming to supersede the home in many of the 
 educational functions. Many teachers lament the 
 increasing dependence of the child upon the school, 
 but this is probably a natural and inevitable conse- 
 quence of the conditions of city life which make 
 the children, in the nature of the case, to a greater 
 and greater extent, wards of the community. The 
 city becomes one great household, in which the 
 general conditions tend to override the particular 
 conditions of individual homes. This is especially 
 true in America on account of the vast population 
 of foreigners found in all large American cities. 
 Foreign-born parents, unaccustomed to American 
 ideas and American institutions, remain to a great 
 extent an alien element in a city's life, until, by a 
 reversal of the natural order, they are led by their 
 children into American ways and instructed by 
 them in American ideals. This work of assimila- 
 tion falls almost entirely upon the school in the 
 first instance, and in this way its burden and re- 
 sponsibility are doubled. The school, in this case, 
 does not carry on the work already begun by the 
 homes, but rather sets about to overcome home in- 
 fluences and react upon and change the home 
 itself. This fact alone magnifies the public school 
 in the American city until it becomes our chief 
 institution, the mainstay of our national life, the 
 David that must slay the Goliath of ignorance, race 
 prejudice, and social anarchy. It is noticeable that 
 the American-born children of foreign-born parents 
 are the most lawless class in our population, 
 
 io8 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 Doubtless this is the result of the conditions just 
 described by which these children are largely freed 
 from the conservative influences of their homes, 
 and made the teachers of their parents. It is 
 much more important, therefore, that the school 
 should exert a powerful and altogether good influ- 
 ence over this transition generation. Obligation 
 follows opportunity, and in this case the public 
 school is in duty bound to raise its ideals and step 
 boldly into the field of ethical and civic instruction, 
 — for in a free country ethical ideals are the bone 
 and sinew of citizenship. 
 
 The school curriculum should give a more im- 
 portant place to the study of municipal sociology. 
 The city is the great household of which the school 
 is the nursery. An exceedingly interesting " out- 
 line for social and historical study " in the Chicago 
 schools has come into my hands.^ The general 
 aim for both history and civics, as described in this 
 outline, is to help the child realize the outline course 
 of human development .from the hunter stage to 
 the complex industrial civilization of to-day, and to 
 see that this country of ours has been developed 
 from a barbaric wilderness to its present condition 
 by dint of hard work and continual struggle, and 
 that we have our part to play in the strenuous life 
 of the nation just as our fathers and mothers had 
 theirs. The method of instruction is suggested by 
 the statement that " human history is man in pro- 
 
 1 The outline referred to was prepared by Mr. H. W. Thurston, 
 of the Chicago Normal School. 
 
 109 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 cess of becoming other than he was, man thinking 
 and doing things," and " the child is also a thinker 
 and doer." Special suggestions are made for 
 studies in civics in the several grades. For the 
 first grade certain picturesque figures and incidents 
 of civic life are chosen for study — the lamplighter, 
 the garbage man, the postman, the street-sprinkler, 
 the policeman, the contagious-disease card, the 
 park, and so on. The study of the fire depart- 
 ment of Chicago and its history, and of the water 
 department, including the way the water is pumped 
 and distributed, and the history of the water tunnels, 
 the drainage, building regulations, the school play- 
 grounds, baths, and libraries, are among the topics 
 suggested for study in the higher grades. The 
 mere perusal of this tentative outline for study 
 shows one how simple and how fascinating civics, 
 properly taught, would prove, even to young 
 children, and it is only in some such way as this 
 that the school can prepare a generation of citi- 
 zens who love their city and understand it. 
 
 It is clear that from the purely civic standpoint 
 the greatest educational problem is to prepare such 
 conditions of child life that the physical and mental 
 foundations for education may be successfully laid. 
 Many persons who see clearly the painful futility 
 of the efforts made to destroy vice and crime by 
 punishing individuals after they become vicious or 
 criminal are earnest advocates of small parks and 
 children's playgrounds as the most effective check 
 upon the growth of social disorder. The move- 
 no 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 ment for the establishment of parks and play- 
 grounds for children has made rapid strides in 
 American cities during the last few years. Out of 
 439 cities, having a population of more than 10,000, 
 there were reported to the Municipal Year Book^ 
 at the beginning of 1902, as many as yZ that had 
 children's playgrounds, and the movement has 
 been spreading since that time. The distribution 
 of the cities having playgrounds, according to 
 sections of the country, was as follows : — 
 
 SECTION 
 
 NUMBER OF CITIES 
 WITH 10,000 POPU- 
 LATION NOT HAV- 
 ING PLAYGROUNDS 
 
 NUMBER OF 
 CITIES WITH 
 
 10,000 POPULA- 
 TION HAVING 
 
 PLAYGROUNDS 
 
 New England .... 
 New York, New Jersey, 
 
 and Pennsylvania . . 
 Southern States . . . 
 North Central States to 
 
 the Rocky Mountains . 
 Mountain and Pacific 
 
 Coast States .... 
 
 56 
 
 88 
 75 
 
 118 
 
 24 
 
 26 
 
 18 
 8 
 
 24 
 
 2 
 
 Whole United States . . 
 
 361 
 
 78 
 
 This table shows that New England is true to 
 its traditions, and leads in this phase of educational 
 work as well as in other things. The most dis- 
 couraging feature of the case is that only 10 of the 
 38 cities having 100,000 population reported 
 playgrounds. The main difficulty lies in the 
 
 III 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 fact that abundant artificial provision for chil- 
 dren's recreation and physical culture is very 
 expensive in a large city. The need increases at 
 an accelerating rate, and while the laggard tax- 
 payers are putting off improvements till they be- 
 come more urgent and more expensive, the public 
 coffers are drained more and more deeply for the 
 maintenance of the largely ineffective and often 
 corrupting machinery of the police department. 
 There is absolutely nothing in the general condi- 
 tion of pubUc sentiment or the general status of 
 public works in American cities to give a crumb of 
 comfort to any citizen who is not himself doing his 
 very best to bring about better civic conditions. 
 The playground movement offers encouragement 
 for those who are looking for ways to accomplish 
 something on behalf of the public. It is an oppor- 
 tunity for effective civic effort. 
 
 The idea of the municipal playground is to get 
 children off the streets, to direct their play along 
 the most approved physical-culture lines, and to 
 develop their capacities through orderly and ani- 
 mated group activities. The playground is almost 
 an out-of-door gymnasium. It is often, if not gen- 
 erally, situated in the neighborhood of a school 
 building, often upon the school grounds. It is not 
 a ready-made solution for all the problems of city 
 child life, for it necessitates an increased amount 
 of control and direction, which in themselves tend 
 to decrease its popularity and make its success 
 more difficult. Supervision tends to rob play of 
 
 112 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 many of its charms, and to diminish the effective 
 disciphne of juvenile initiative and enterprise. 
 The out-of-door gymnasium is somewhat artificial, 
 and the apparatus needs constant changing in 
 order not to pall upon the children who have been 
 used to the life of the street and the vacant lot. 
 
 The justification of the playground in closely 
 built cities is easy, however. It requires no argu- 
 ment to show that in such cities the public authori- 
 ties should provide clear spaces in which child life 
 may find expression in the open air without the 
 dangers of the street. This, however, is merely a 
 sanitary problem, one of the functions of city gov- 
 ernment that must be classed as protective along 
 with the police and fire protection. The justifica- 
 tion of the playground in cities where there are 
 plenty of parks and vacant lots is another and 
 perhaps even more important matter for our con- 
 sideration. One of the conditions of life in cities 
 is the necessity for more detailed social regulation 
 and more extensive cooperation. It is a part of 
 the city's educational problem to prepare the chil- 
 dren in all possible ways for urban life. This is 
 more or less artificial, and necessitates a gradual 
 change in human nature. When this change is 
 left to neglected conditions, to the natural stress 
 and strain of an intensifying city civilization, it is 
 likely to show itself along with decreased vitality 
 and to represent degeneration rather than develop- 
 ment. It is the function of the municipal play- 
 ground to extend the influence of the conscious 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 educational forces beyond the schoolroom into the 
 very heart of the child's life and help him adapt 
 himself to city conditions without loss of physical 
 vigor or mental stamina. The municipal playground 
 will not run itself. It demands as high a degree 
 of educational power in its control as the school- 
 room, and points to an expansion of educational 
 ideals and educational functions that will tend to 
 revivify the Hellenic conception of civilized life. 
 Without something of this sort, civilization, under 
 the tense conditions of modern industrial progress, 
 would become mere race debauchery. 
 
 Along with the playground movement goes the 
 establishment of vacation schools. In a city where 
 children are kept out of factory work by law, and 
 where there are no gardens or workshops at home 
 to employ their energies, a three months' vacation 
 in the summer means three months' training in the 
 vices of the street, — idleness, impudence, and 
 destructiveness. Where children can be sent to 
 the country to work on farms during the summer, 
 they are most fortunate, provided only that they 
 are put under suitable control and have suitable 
 associations. These conditions are seldom fulfilled 
 save in the case of children who have relatives 
 living in the country. The great mass of those 
 who would be most benefited by farm life during 
 the summer months cannot be properly placed, 
 and they must fall back, a few of them upon the 
 idleness of the watering places, but the large ma- 
 jority upon the restless, aimless life of the city 
 114 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 street. For this reason vacation schools are 
 proving to be a necessity in large cities, and hap- 
 pily they are being devoted almost exclusively to 
 kindergarten and manual-training work. 
 
 The vacation school opens the door for progress 
 in educational methods. With its greater freedom 
 through its alliance with the playground, it is in a 
 position to become the experimental section of the 
 school system. There is reason to believe with 
 Superintendent Preston W. Search, that every 
 city school ought to be a juvenile agricultural col- 
 lege, surrounded with gardens and playgrounds, 
 where the city child could get in an effective 
 way the responsible contact with nature and the 
 soil which seems to be the natural and necessary 
 thing for all children. ^ School gardens have 
 already been established in connection with some 
 city schools and the planting of shrubbery begun. 
 Without the vacation school all these movements 
 must partially fail, because the summer months are 
 the time for gardening, the care of shrubs, and the 
 exploitation of nature.^ 
 
 The vacation school offers the opportunity for 
 effective instruction in physiology and training 
 in hygiene. School baths have been estabhshed 
 in New York and some smaller cities, and are 
 
 1 An Ideal School, pp. 74-103. 
 
 2 For a most interesting account of recent experiments in New 
 York City looking toward the larger usefulness of the schools as 
 social centres, see " The City for the Children," by Mr. G. V^. Whar- 
 ton, in The Outlook for September 6, 1902. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 proving to be a source of great pleasure to the 
 children and of great benefit to the schools. 
 There are always in many of the schools some 
 children who come from careless or poverty-stricken 
 homes, and who need first of all to be made clean. 
 A bath quickens their wits, gives them self-respect, 
 and reacts favorably upon their home conditions. 
 The city cannot do less for its children than to 
 enforce cleanliness in the school, and the enforce- 
 ment often consists merely in furnishing the 
 opportunity. 
 
 Related to the vacation school and the play- 
 ground are the swimming pool, the gymnasium, 
 and the athletic field. Boston enjoys the enviable 
 distinction of standing at the forefront of American 
 cities in providing these means for the physical 
 culture of the next generation of citizens. In a 
 recent annual report, the Boston public baths com- 
 mission calls attention to an interesting aspect of 
 the educational work of the gymnasia. These in- 
 stitutions, the commission says, "accomplish the 
 training of young men who are ambitious to enter 
 the city's service as policemen and firemen. The 
 city gymnasia have been the means of raising by 
 ten or fifteen points the standard for appointment 
 to positions in these departments." 
 
 More important than any other single result, 
 and perhaps more important than all other results 
 combined, of the greater freedom in educational 
 
 '^ Annual Report of the Department of Baths for the Year i goo ^ 
 p. 5- 
 
 ii6 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 methods involved in the various movements we 
 have referred to, would be the general introduction 
 into the school of instruction in the physiology and 
 hygiene of sex. Ignorance in this direction is the 
 cause of an incalculable amount of misery and vice, 
 while the unfortunate traditional silence of parents 
 only emphasizes the necessity of instruction by the 
 school. Here the school has the greatest of its 
 opportunities to strike at the octopus of vice and 
 physical degeneration, and prepare a body of citi- 
 zens who will greatly surpass the present genera- 
 tion in physical health and moral self-control. 
 This opportunity is being generally neglected, 
 practically all of the standard text-books on physi- 
 ology ignoring the existence of the reproductive 
 system in the human organism. The study of 
 biology in high schools furnishes an easy oppor- 
 tunity for introducing this subject into the curricu- 
 lum. This has been done to my knowledge in 
 Marshalltown, lowa.^ The public gymnasia and 
 bathing establishments offer an equally good op- 
 portunity, which ought to be generally utilized. 
 Parents' meetings in connection with kindergartens, 
 vacation schools, and other progressive modes of 
 education, also offer the opportunity for bring- 
 ing the home and the school into closer touch, and 
 for getting a better understanding and more intel- 
 ligent cooperation between parents and teachers in 
 these most vital parts of the education of children. 
 
 1 This instruction at Marshalltown was introduced by Miss Mary 
 P. Blount, formerly teacher of biology in that city. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 All the agencies of civic education just de- 
 scribed — the playground, the bath, the swimming 
 pool, the gymnasium, the athletic field — are 
 proper adjuncts of the public school. It now 
 remains for us to discuss briefly the fourth factor 
 in civic education, which, it must be confessed, has 
 thus far played little part, but which has in it 
 almost infinite possibilities of usefulness. I refer 
 to the organization of children's leagues to partici- 
 pate directly in the functions of city government. 
 Perhaps the most noteworthy experience along 
 this line was that of Colonel Waring in the street- 
 cleaning department of New York City. He or- 
 ganized juvenile street-cleaning leagues and found 
 that the children of the tenements responded with 
 wonderful enthusiasm to his appeal to their civic 
 pride. The "Civic Pledge," which was learned 
 and repeated by each member of these children's 
 organizations, was in these words : — 
 
 ** We, who are soon to be citizens of Neiv York^ the 
 largest city on the American continent, desire to 
 have her possess a name which is above reproach. 
 And we therefore agree to keep from littering her 
 streets and as far as possible to prevent others from, 
 doing the same, in order that our city may be as 
 clean as she is great, and as pure as she is free} 
 
 The American League for Civic Improvement 
 has for some years been carrying on a campaign 
 
 1 See Colonel George E. Waring's Street Cleaning and its Ef- 
 fects, p. 183. 
 
 118 
 
CIVIC EDUCATION 
 
 for the beautification of cities through the cleaning 
 up of back yards and vacant lots, and the general 
 planting of shrubbery in neglected places. In the 
 city of Cleveland this work has been carried on 
 principally through the children, who quickly 
 became enthusiastic when they were shown how 
 to join hands with nature in banishing the ugliness 
 incidental to man's careless industry. In Grand 
 Rapids recently a school ground was improved by 
 the children themselves, and the privilege of digging 
 in the dirt proved a great incentive to study when 
 held out as a reward for lessons learned. Spring- 
 field, Massachusetts, has a city forester who has 
 had as many as four thousand children organized 
 to help in protecting the trees of the city from 
 insect enemies. 
 
 This field of education is capable of indefinite 
 development. The city children who roam the 
 streets or grow up sickly and pallid from confine- 
 ment indoors might just as well be helping at the 
 municipal housekeeping, and they would prove as 
 useful in this work as country children are in help- 
 ing about their homes. By this means, too, the 
 city child may be given the vital experience he so 
 much needs, and be trained in cooperation and 
 awakened to civic interests and community pride. 
 The child could easily be made useful as a policeman^ 
 a health inspector, a street cleaner and sprinkler, 
 and a city gardener. In a large city the coop- 
 eration of the children with the police departmentj 
 if the latter were in good faith devoted to catching 
 
 119 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 criminals and suppressing disorder, would greatly 
 reduce the expense of the department. 
 
 Superintendent Search advocates building every 
 city schoolhouse in the midst of a large park or 
 garden, in which the pupils may receive the same 
 advantages of intimate and responsible contact 
 with nature which are open to country children. 
 When confronted with the question of expense, he 
 asks : " Why does the wage-earner toil day after 
 day, and the capitalist store up his money, if it is 
 not to confer wealth upon the children .'* And what 
 wealth is there that can for a moment be compared 
 with glorious health, and the developing power 
 which comes from a well-trained mind.'"'^ These 
 words express the ideal attitude of the city toward 
 its children. It may be that with kindergartens 
 and manual training, with instruction in civics and 
 training in self-government, with regulated play- 
 grounds and active cooperation in the municipal 
 housekeeping, city children will enjoy advantages 
 more than enough to compensate them for their 
 lack of the freedom and spontaneity of country life ; 
 but if civic education is neglected, the population of 
 a great city must degenerate physically, mentally, 
 and socially. The realization of freedom through 
 democracy depends upon costly effort, but the end 
 is worth the means, and there is no field of mu- 
 nicipal improvement so promising as this — the 
 cultivation of citizens. 
 
 1 Att Ideal School^ p. 103. 
 
 120 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 While it is true that civic education is primarily 
 the work of educating citizens for the next genera- 
 tion, there is a sense in which all the people are 
 the city's children. It is one of the extraordinary 
 results of city life that the steadiness of mature 
 life and the placidity of old age play a compara- 
 tively unimportant part in urban society. Cities 
 are gay. Pleasure is their watchword. And so 
 it happens that in cities the functions of the gov- 
 ernment reach out beyond the training of the 
 youth and include to a considerable extent the 
 care of the morals and amusements of adults as 
 well. This work is accomplished primarily 
 through the direct or indirect control of leisure. 
 
 The difference between virtue and vice as char- 
 acteristic of a community, which means the dif- 
 ference between the success and the failure of de- 
 mocracy, lies principally in the use that the people 
 make of their leisure. ( Work, even under disagree- 
 able conditions, causes few moral wrecks. It is 
 pleasure-seeking run amuck that threatens the 
 integrity of a race or the permanence of free insti- 
 tutions. I The changes that are being wrought in 
 modern life emphasize more and more the impor- 
 
 121 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 tance of the right use of leisure, for with the 
 shortening of the hours of industry, the minute 
 division of labor, and the transformation of work- 
 men into machine-tenders, the real significance of 
 work in the formation of character and the devel- 
 opment of citizenship is becoming less. When 
 men work for themselves, having control of their 
 own plans and activities, exercising judgment, and 
 wrestling with nature or society in the effort to 
 produce some useful commodity or render some 
 useful service, they can better afford to work long 
 hours, for in their work itself they are practising 
 the art of life. Such are the natural citizens of 
 democracy. But when industry becomes so or- 
 ganized and so centrally controlled that most men 
 no longer work for themselves but sell their time to 
 another, often to some huge, incorporeal, distant, 
 controlling power, and become mere cogs in the great 
 and swiftly moving mechanism of a modern factory, 
 or business office, or department store, then the cul- 
 ture of life must be almost altogether undertaken 
 in leisure hours. This is rendered more difficult 
 by the tension of the work hours, which, though 
 short, are Hkely to unnerve men and unfit them 
 for serious attention to self-improvement at other 
 times. High-pressure work during short hours is 
 a natural preparation for dissipation during long 
 hours of leisure. 
 
 The best solvent for this high tension of the 
 vggr k life is a pleasant home with children init^ 
 Anything that goes to make the homes of working- 
 
 122 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 men fewer, less attractive, and less fit for children 
 to live in, encourages all forms of vice and mili- 
 tates a^iainstjii&fia&lu{i.jaJldji^^ The ten- 
 dency of congested city life is to banish nature and 
 children. Thus the problem of city government is 
 intensified, and licentiousness, gambling, and in- 
 temperance, the trio of deadliest foes to the physi- 
 cal, moral, and intellectual life of a people, are 
 encouraged. Some would lay less emphasis on the 
 home and more on cultured associations outside 
 of it, but it seems to me that home responsibili- 
 ties are an important factor in healthful relaxation 
 from the strain of work. 
 
 Herein lies, perhaps, the deepest tragedy of civ- 
 ilization, namely, that cities under the conditions of 
 modem industry tend to be unfit places for the birth 
 and rearing of children, while the leisure of city 
 life, the increased need for recreation, the narrow- 
 ing down of the opportunities for healthy physical 
 activity, the intimate association of men and women 
 outside the home and the exploitation of the charms 
 of sex, tend to stimulate that passion the satisfac- 
 tion of which normally results in bringing children 
 into the world. The actual consequence of these 
 conflicting tendencies is about equally disastrous 
 at the two ends of the social ladder. In the slums 
 and among the poor we have swarms of children, 
 pinched and dwarfed by conditions of existence 
 that make home life a sort of nightmare ; among 
 the well-to-do we have homes choking with artifi- 
 cial luxury and deprived of the comforts natural to 
 
 123 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 child life ; while all through the social scale the 
 multitudes of homeless men and women who fall 
 a prey to vice and are dedicated to race degen- 
 eration m.ultiply. Between stimulated passion and 
 increased poverty as its upper and nether mill- 
 stones, civilization grinds many human lives to 
 dust. " Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to- 
 morrow we die," is in every age the motto of the 
 homeless 6r childless man who feels no responsi- 
 bility to the future, a responsibility that is the 
 essence of citizenship. 
 
 Some of the conditions leading to immorality 
 are bound up with the housing problem. Thirty 
 years ago Mr. Charles Loring Brace described evil 
 conditions of life in the tenement-houses of New 
 York City. These conditions have since borne an 
 abundant harvest of vice. Said he : " If a female 
 'Child be born and brought up in a room of one of 
 these tenement-houses, she loses very early the 
 modesty which is the great shield of purity. Per- 
 sonal delicacy becomes almost unknown to her. 
 Living, sleeping, and doing her work in the same 
 apartment with men and boys of various ages, it is 
 well-nigh impossible for her to retain any feminine 
 reserve, and she passes almost unconsciously the 
 line of purity at a very early age." ^ 
 
 In 1902, in its report on The Social Evil^ the 
 Committee of Fifteen, constituted in the fall of 
 1900 for the purpose of looking into the terrible 
 conditions known to be prevalent in New York 
 
 1 op. cit., p. 55. 
 124 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 City, and for the further purpose of reaching some 
 definite conclusion based on the experience of the 
 world as to the right attitude of municipal authori- 
 ties toward vice, suggested some of the causes that 
 aggravate, under city conditions, the other half 
 of the problem of vice, namely, mascuHne profli- 
 gacy. " A great part of the population of a modern 
 city," says the committee, " consists of young 
 men who have drifted thither from the country and 
 small towns, attracted by the greater opportunities 
 of rising_i]i„saGial life -and by the greater degree 
 of comfort that the city offers. As a rule, the 
 income that a young man earns, while sufficient to 
 secure a fair degree of comfort for himself, does 
 not suffice for founding a family. As his income 
 increases, his standard of personal comfort rises ; 
 accordingly, he postpones marriage until a date in 
 the indefinite future, or abandons expectation of 
 it altogether. His interests centre almost wholly 
 in himself. He is responsible to no one but him- 
 self. ^The pleasures that he may obtai n from day 
 to day become the chief ~end ot his Jife.'^ A popu- 
 lar pTiilosophy of hedonism furnishes him with 
 a theoretical justification for the inclinations that 
 are developed by the circumstances in which he is 
 placed. It is not unnatural, then, that the strong- 
 est native impulse of man should find expression 
 in the only way open to it — i ndulgence in vic e. 
 
 " At the same time that personal scruples with 
 regard to continency dissolve in the crucible of 
 city life, the main external check upon a man's 
 
 125 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 conduct, the opinion of his neighbors, which has 
 such a powerful influence in the country or small 
 town, tends to disappear. In a great city one has 
 no neighbors. No man knows the doings of even 
 his close friends ; few men care what the secret 
 life of their friends may be. Thus, with his moral 
 sensibilities blunted, the young man is left free to 
 follow his own inclinations. The greater the city, 
 as a rule, the more pronounced in this respect is 
 its demoralizing influence, and our cities are grow- 
 ing steadily greater, and are in an even greater de- 
 gree setting the moral tone for the country as a 
 .whole. The problem of masculine vice, it will be 
 seen, is an integral part of that infinitely complex 
 problem, the * Social Question.' "^ 
 
 The prevalence of prostitution growing out of 
 these conditions is one of the serious menaces to 
 democracy and the future of our great cities. 
 Vice, though especially encouraged by metropoli- 
 tan conditions, is nevertheless the bane of all 
 cities of whatever size. Undoubtedly the pecul- 
 iarly mixed character of the population aggravates 
 many political evils in our cities ; but sexual vice 
 seems to flourish with little reference to this fact, 
 except in so far as evil political conditions react 
 upon and stimulate it. It is a matter of common 
 belief that in every city of any considerable size 
 prostitution flourishes as a more or less " necessary 
 evil," in natural alliance with the law-defying ele- 
 ments of the community. Everywhere the city 
 
 ^ TAe Social Evily pp. 8, 9. 
 126 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 authorities are brought face to face with the prob- 
 lem of the suppression or control of vice. 
 
 Prostitution is a social vice that strikes at the 
 very root of good citizenship, and operates always 
 and everywhere against the reahzation of democ- 
 racy. It is a great physical evil, conducive to 
 loathsome diseases which are of a highly conta- 
 gious nature, and afflict not only those who indulge 
 in vice, but oftentimes unoffending wives and 
 helpless babies also. But the social effects of 
 prostitution are even worse than the physical, for 
 this vice represents a phase of human slavery as 
 degrading and offensive to the spirit of freedom 
 as that form of slavery which has been abolished 
 in America at the cost of rivers of blood. The 
 sale of the use of one's body to another in the sex 
 relationship is so gross an offence against humanity, 
 representing as it does the betrayal of the human 
 race, the degradation and degeneracy of civiliza- 
 tion, that no right-minded and clear-seeing citizen 
 of the world can contemplate it without horror. 
 
 It is not, however, in a general and theoretical 
 way alone that prostitution is a deadly political 
 evil. Religion and ethics unite in condemning it 
 as a crime, and in this country the better sense of 
 the community instinctively strikes against it as 
 a foe to free institutions. As a result of these 
 conditions, practically everywhere the law brands 
 it, and prescribes repression as the only remedy. 
 Nevertheless, the inherent difficulty in the enforce- 
 ment of this policy, and the actual condition of 
 
 127 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 public sentiment as a whole, have rendered efforts 
 on the part of municipal authorities to eradicate 
 vice spasmodic and uncertain. The practical 
 policy of the twenty principal cities of the United 
 States was investigated a year or two ago by the 
 Chicago Bureau of Statistics.^ In response to the 
 question, "Are inmates or keepers of houses of 
 ill fame fined at regular intervals .'* " the authori- 
 ties of thirteen cities replied, " No " ; of one, re- 
 plied, " Prosecuted wherever found " ; of one, 
 ** Unmolested except for cause " ; of one, " Only 
 when disorderly"; of one, "Only on complaint"; 
 of one, "Only when disorderly, ^20"; of one, 
 "Yes, once a year, according to the amount of 
 business"; of one, "Yes, $100 per month"; and 
 of one, "Yes, every two months, ;^icx)." In an- 
 swer to the question, " Are prostitutes confined to 
 certain sections of the city.?" the authorities of 
 seven cities said, "No"; of nine, "Yes"; of the 
 remaining four, " As far as practicable," " Partly," 
 " Mostly so," and "As far as possible." 
 
 Cincinnati occupies a peculiar position in regard 
 to the problem of vice in this respect, namely, that 
 a policy of the examination and practical licensing 
 of prostitutes has been adopted and publicly pro- 
 claimed.2 This policy has been worked out by 
 
 1 Cify of Chicago Statistics, Vol. I, No. 2, May, 1901. 
 
 2 See Bulletin of the League of American Municipalities, Novem- 
 ber, 1903, pp. 68-77. The article here published is an address on 
 " Municipal Restriction of the Social Evil," delivered by Mayor 
 Julius Fleischmann, of Cincinnati, at the Baltimore Convention of 
 
 128 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 the health and police departments, and is frankly 
 admitted to be outside of and contrary to the spirit 
 of the law. It could not be carried out at all with- 
 out the active cooperation of the police. The plan 
 is to make weekly examinations of all prostitutes, 
 and send those who are diseased to the hospital 
 until cured. When new votaries of vice are found 
 plying their trade, they are sent to the hospital for 
 examination. All women having certificates of 
 health and who submit to the regulations of the 
 municipal authorities are unmolested, whether liv- 
 ing in houses of prostitution or in private apart- 
 ments, so long as there is no open breach of the 
 peace. Every keeper of a house of prostitution 
 has to report to the police the arrival of new in- 
 mates and, in case any woman in her establishment 
 is found diseased, the keeper is required to pay 
 the hospital expenses. Music is allowed in the 
 houses until midnight, and no attempt is made to 
 stop liquor selling there, though an effort has been 
 made to collect the liquor tax from the illegal traf- 
 fic. Of 500 women under the control of the health 
 and police departments, of whom 440 are inmates 
 of resorts, on the average 12 are sent to the 
 hospital every week. This indicates that on the 
 
 the League of American Municipalities in October, 1903. Mr. 
 Fleischmann's paper called out considerable discussion at the con- 
 vention, the delegates from Toledo striking at the root of the error 
 in so-called municipal regulation by suggesting that, in justice, not 
 alone the prostitutes should be examined and given certificates of 
 health, but their patrons also. 
 
 K 129 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 average all the women have to be cured of conta- 
 gious disease about once every ten months. 
 
 The Cincinnati authorities cannot claim any 
 very striking results favorable to this policy, and 
 they frankly admit that to be worked at all the 
 plan has to be carried out in a subterranean fash- 
 ion in violation of the law. Police authorities 
 generally are not averse to some such plan. By 
 it they have complete control of the disorderly 
 women, who are confessed violators of the law, and 
 so live in terror of the police. This plan, at its 
 best, proclaims the suppression of the social evil 
 impossible, and sanctions the law against prostitu- 
 tion on the ground that it gives the police authori- 
 ties a weapon by which they can enforce sanitary 
 regulations and prevent robbery and murder, crimes 
 which frequently associate themselves with this 
 vice. This plan is openly proclaimed in Cincin- 
 nati. In other cities, doubtless, somewhat similar 
 policies prevail in practice. Everywhere the law 
 is, in a great measure, ignored. 
 
 Out of this situation there has grown one of the 
 worst municipal evils of the time. The better 
 sense of the community, realizing that prostitution 
 is in fact a crime against democracy, insists that 
 repression shall be prescribed by law, while controll- 
 ing public sentiment, yielding to the supposed weak- 
 nesses of human nature, confused in its attitude 
 toward personal liberty, and often influenced by 
 greed of gain, demands the so-called " lax enforce- 
 ment " of the laws against vice. Like the ostrich that 
 
 130 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 hides its head in the sand to get out of sight, the 
 American city passes ordinances against vice to 
 prove itself respectable. The practical result of this 
 double-mindedness in public sentiment has been 
 the prevalence of a species of hypocrisy tending 
 to undermine the foundations of municipal honor 
 and transform the police authorities into allies of 
 vice and crime. This state of affairs is well illus- 
 trated by the recent experience of Minneapolis. 
 It had been the custom in that city to hale the 
 keepers of disorderly houses into court every 
 month and impose a fine of ;?ioo each. In St. 
 Paul the fine was levied every two months only. 
 In both cases the fine was in reality a license fee. 
 When the recent notorious Ames administration 
 entered into criminal alliances in every direction to 
 loot the Minneapolis public, the official bandits, 
 coveting the income that the city derived from 
 disorderly houses, raised the cry that a fine of $ioo 
 per month was too much. St. Paul levied once in 
 two months. So the Minneapolis officials arranged 
 that the city should receive the license fee of vice 
 every second month while they levied blackmail 
 for their private gain in the alternate months. 
 The system of mtmicipal blackmail by which the 
 city licensed the violation of the law stood ready as 
 an object-lesson to the greedy officials. All that 
 was required was to divert the license fees of crime 
 from the public coffers to private purses. 
 
 The corrupt relations of the police with vice in 
 New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia have been 
 
 131 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 notorious, while in other cities conditions favorable 
 to police corruption commonly flourish. The evil 
 result of these conditions can hardly be overesti- 
 mated. Says Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr., late 
 chairman of the Committee of Fifteen of New 
 York: 
 
 " How to prevent personal liberty from degen- 
 erating into unbridled license is a. problem which 
 is ever present alike in city, town and country ; 
 but it is in the great city that it presents itself in 
 the most difficult form, since the social environ- 
 ment of a city is least favorable to the moral de- 
 velopment of the individual. In the attempt to 
 solve this problem, all the organized forces of 
 education, moral, religious, intellectual, on the one 
 hand, are directed towards training the individual 
 to a wiser use of his liberty ; while on the other, 
 certain branches of the city government are charged 
 with the function of restraining the imperfectly de- 
 veloped individual from a misuse of his liberty 
 which may be detrimental to the mass of his fel- 
 low-citizens. There is, however, in our great cities 
 a tendency, resulting from many causes, but pri- 
 marily from the indifference of the educated classes 
 to their civic responsibilities, towards a state of af- 
 fairs wherein the very governmental agencies 
 which were designed to restrain the individual 
 / within proper bounds foster and encourage the 
 evil use of his liberty for the sake of gain. . . . 
 Under the abnormal conditions which are created 
 by the protection of vice by the authorities, the 
 132 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 great moral, religious and educational forces are 
 almost helpless." ^ 
 
 An evil that strikes with such force at the physi- 
 cal, moral, and political foundations of municipal 
 democracy deserves the frank and earnest consid- 
 eration of every one interested in civic betterment. 
 If there are special causes in the conditions of city 
 life which conduce to the increase of vice, the city 
 cannot afford to neglect any reasonable means that 
 can be devised for changing these conditions for 
 the better. It is commonly believed that the pres- 
 ence in a community of a large proportion of un- 
 married young men tends to increase prostitution. 
 That this proportion is greater in large cities than 
 in rural districts has already been suggested. A 
 computation based on the federal census of 1900 
 shows that of all male residents of New York City, 
 twenty-one years of age and over, 6^ per cent are 
 or have been married, while in New York state 
 outside of cities of 50,000 population the percent- 
 age is 73.2 Comparative statistics for several cities 
 and states are shown in the following table : — 
 
 ^ See the lYorth American Reviezv, Vol. 173, December, 1901, 
 p. 845, for an article on " Publicity as a Means of Social Reform." 
 
 2 In making these computations I have compared the total num- 
 ber of married men and widowers with the total number of males 
 over twenty-one years old. 
 
 nz 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 PROPORTION OF ADULT MALES IN CERTAIN 
 CITIES AND STATES WHO ARE, OR HAVE 
 BEEN, MARRIED 
 
 IN THE GREAT CITIES 
 
 IN THE STATES OUTSIDE OF 
 CITIES OF 50,000 POPULATION 
 
 New York 
 Chicago . 
 Philadelphia 
 Boston . . 
 Baltimore . 
 Washington 
 St. Louis . 
 New Orleans 
 Cleveland . 
 Cincinnati 
 St. Paul . 
 Minneapolis 
 San Francisco 
 
 per 
 cent 
 
 67 
 67 
 
 67 
 62 
 70 
 64 
 65 
 
 68 
 
 r^ 
 
 67 J 
 
 58 
 65 
 
 55 
 
 New York . . 
 Illinois . . . 
 Pennsylvania . 
 Massachusetts 
 
 Maryland . . 
 
 Missouri . . 
 Louisiana . . 
 
 Ohio. . . . 
 
 Minnesota . . 
 California . . 
 
 per 
 cent 
 
 73 
 
 72 
 
 71 
 72 
 
 76 
 78 
 
 75 
 
 66 
 
 57 
 
 If the same marriage rate prevailed in the cities 
 as in country districts of the same state, New York 
 City would have 60,000 more married men ; Phila- 
 delphia, 23,000 more ; Chicago, 25,000 more; Bos- 
 ton, 16,000 more; St. Louis, 19,000 more; New 
 Orleans, 7500 more; and Cincinnati, 7000 more. 
 
 It is significant also that the cities where tene- 
 ment-houses are common show a considerably lower 
 percentage of married men. The New York Ten- 
 ement House Commission of 1900 found that out- 
 side of New York City the four cities most afflicted 
 134 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 with the tenement-house problem were Boston, 
 Cincinnati, Jersey City, and Hartford. The follow- 
 ing table tells the tale : — 
 
 PROPORTION OF MARRIED MEN IN TENEMENT- 
 HOUSE CITIES AND OTHER NEAR-BY CITIES 
 COMPARED 
 
 IN TENEMENT-HOUSE CITIES 
 
 IN OTHER CITIES 
 
 Boston 
 
 per 
 cent 
 62 
 
 Providence .... 
 
 per 
 cent 
 
 68 
 
 Hartford .... 
 
 62 
 
 New Haven 
 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 Jersey City . . . 
 
 69 
 
 Newark . 
 r Cleveland 
 
 
 
 
 72 
 71 
 
 Cincinnati . . . 
 
 67 
 
 j Detroit . 
 [ Baltimore . 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 New York . . . 
 
 67 
 
 Buffalo . 
 
 
 
 
 71 
 
 Another significant fact is that many capital 
 cities show a low percentage of married men. 
 Albany has 66 per cent ; Columbus, 66 per cent ; 
 St. Paul, 58 per cent; Washington, 64 per cent. 
 This is doubtless due, to a considerable extent, to 
 the presence of large numbers of young men in 
 the employ of the government. 
 
 Some cities of moderate size, on the other hand, 
 show a large percentage of married men. Grand 
 Rapids, which is a city of homes, shows "j^ per 
 cent; Fall River, 74 per cent; New Bedford, ^6 
 per cent ; Toledo, 74 per cent. 
 
 The 160 cities having a population of upwards 
 
 135 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of 25,000 each show 6j per cent of the males of 
 voting age married or having been married, while 
 for the United States outside of these cities the 
 percentage is 74. This means that if the same 
 proportion of city men married as of country men, 
 there would be in the 160 largest cities of the United 
 States 400,000 more married men than there are. In 
 these same cities there are 7,992,974 persons under 
 the age of twenty-one years, or almost exactly two 
 for every man who is or has been married. Out- 
 side of these cities the average number of children 
 for every such man is two and one-half. This 
 means that if families were as large in the cities 
 as they are in the country, there would be about 
 2,000,000 more children in the cities than there 
 now are, and if both the marriage rate were as 
 high and the size of families as large in the cities 
 as outside, there would be 3,000,000 more children 
 in the cities which now have a combined popula- 
 tion of 19,718,312. This is in spite of the well- 
 known fact that the foreign quarters and the slum 
 districts of our cities swarm with children, while 
 many of our rural districts have become suffi- 
 ciently modernized to show a low birth-rate and 
 a decreasing population. 
 
 Statistics are often misleading, unless the facts 
 they represent are explained in detail in the light 
 of varying conditions. Nevertheless, the figures 
 I have presented seem to give strong confirmation 
 to the general observation of two facts, namely, 
 that city men tend to postpone or forego marriage, 
 
 136 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 and that children in city families are fewer than 
 in families elsewhere. The bearing of these two 
 facts on the problem of vice in cities as affecting 
 the destiny of democracy is not remote. So far 
 as these facts go to show a check upon reproduc- 
 tion consistent with health and virtue and repre- 
 senting greater care for the future and more 
 rational prudence in the most intimate and vital 
 relations of life, the friend of democracy has rea- 
 son to rejoice and hope. But unfortunately com- 
 mon observation and facts which have not been 
 reduced to statistical form point to the conclusion 
 that this extra 400,000 unmarried men and this 
 deficiency of 3,000,000 children in our cities do 
 not, in general, prove less indulgence of the de- 
 sires and passions of men and greater self-control, 
 but rather the perversion of natural tendencies 
 into the channels of vice. The known prevalence 
 of prostitution is one evidence of this. Another 
 proof, not less convincing, is the known preva- 
 lence of unnatural practices within the marriage 
 relation, which have for their purpose the limita- 
 tion of offspring without any curtailment of indi- 
 vidual pleasures, and which have for their effect 
 the ruin of the health of many women, the destruc- 
 tion of their capacity for normal motherhood, and 
 the enthronement in their homes of the spirit of 
 near-sighted selfishness that is most inimical to 
 the growth of fellowship and mutual helpfulness 
 upon which the success of democracy in cities 
 more and more depends. 
 
 137 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 It is perhaps natural that in cities marriage 
 should be somewhat delayed, on account of the 
 greater expense of living and the larger capital 
 required to found a comfortable home. At any 
 rate, it is both natural and right that the number 
 of children in city homes should be reasonably 
 limited ; for under existing conditions, while a 
 child in the country may become practically self- 
 supporting at ten years of age or younger, a city 
 child must ordinarily be an increasing burden 
 upon the family until he is about grown to man- 
 hood. The trouble is that the limitation usually 
 is found at the wrong end of the social scale, that 
 is, among the well-to-do. The indoor life of city 
 women, especially of those who do not work with 
 their hands, makes childbirth much more danger- 
 ous for them and decreases their chances of healthy 
 motherhood. The congestion of city life and its re- 
 moteness from nature, as we have already noticed, 
 are difficulties of prime magnitude in the way of 
 the rearing of children. All along the line the 
 obstacles to healthy reproduction in cities multi- 
 ply, while the temptations to vice also multiply. 
 
 Undoubtedly one of the most powerful temp- 
 tations to vice of all kinds is the medical adver- 
 tisements that throng the columns of most daily 
 newspapers, promising to every one immunity from 
 the penalties of sin. If a man is an epicure, dys- 
 pepsia tablets will silence his recalcitrant stomach. 
 If a woman is a bond slave in marriage, a medi- 
 cine is offered that will give her nerve-force 
 
 138 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 enough to withstand the effects of excess. If a 
 man has contracted a loathsome disease, he is 
 offered a painless, shameless, and almost price- 
 less remedy. If a woman does not want to bear 
 children, she has only to consult the columns of 
 the newspaper or the druggist's show-window to 
 find a variety of regulators and devices that prom- 
 ise her absolute guarantee against pregnancy, with- 
 out danger to herself. All or most of these 
 advertisements are published in direct violation 
 of law; yet public sentiment is supine, and prac- 
 tically no effort is made to punish the offenders. 
 The newspapers are financially interested, and vice 
 is strong. Yet here we have thrust before young 
 and old, apparently with public approval, positive, 
 manifold, and continuous assertions that the mean- 
 ing of civilization, science, and progress is freedom 
 to violate the laws of nature and not suffer for it. 
 This is, I doubt not, a powerful incentive to vice. 
 It is only one manifestation of the poison of luxury 
 which has, since the dawn of history, undermined 
 the life of cities. 
 
 The grossly unequal distribution of wealth in 
 great cities brings the irresponsibility of riches in 
 contact with the dependence of poverty. The 
 idea is abroad that a man has a right to self-in- 
 dulgence if he can and will pay for it in money. 
 This false and undemocratic sentiment is a prolific 
 cause of vice in cities. The economic dependence 
 of woman is emphasized by low wages and high 
 living expenses, and in numberless cases she is 
 
 139 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 practically forced to accept a ruthless marriage 
 or a more ruthless harlotry. 
 
 Here are the various conditions that give its 
 setting to the fundamental tragedy of civic life, 
 which can be ultimately solved only by virtue of 
 a higher type of human nature, less in bondage 
 to the senses, more self-controlled, far-seeing, and 
 obedient to the true ideals of freedom, and above 
 all, imbued with the spirit of the social ethics that 
 translates wealth and power into duty rather than 
 privilege. Perhaps in individual cases this better 
 type might be developed through moral hardships 
 and resistance to unfavorable conditions. But for 
 people generally salvation depends upon an im- 
 proved environment. The city must, therefore, be 
 up and doing to so modify the conditions of life 
 within its limits as to encourage virtue and dis- 
 courage vice. 
 
 The conclusions of the Committee of Fifteen 
 are along this line. "The Social Evil," says the 
 committee, " is assuming alarming dimensions. 
 What is needed at this time is a definite policy 
 with regard to it ; a policy that shall not attempt 
 the impossible, that shall not be based on the de- 
 lusive hope of radically altering in a single gen- 
 eration the evil propensities of the human heart, 
 or of repressing vice by mere restrictive legislation, 
 but which, none the less, shall ever recognize as 
 an ultimate end the moral redemption of the human 
 race from this degrading evil, and shall initiate no 
 measure and advise no step not conducive to that 
 
 140 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 end ; a policy that shall be practical with respect 
 to the immediate future, and shall at the same 
 time be in harmony with the ideals which are 
 cherished by the best men and women in this 
 community. 
 
 " As an outline of such a policy, we submit the 
 following : — 
 
 " First, strenuous efforts to prevent in the tene- 
 ment-houses the overcrowding which is the prolific 
 source of sexual immorality. The attempts to pro- 
 vide better housing for the poor, praiseworthy and 
 deserving of recognition as they are, have as yet 
 produced but a feeble impression upon existing con- 
 ditions, and are but the bare beginnings of a work 
 which should be enlarged and continued with un- 
 flagging vigor and devotion. If we wish to abate 
 the social evil, we must attack it at its source. 
 
 " Secondly, the furnishing by public provision 
 or private munificence, of purer and more elevat- 
 ing forms of amusement to supplant the attrac- 
 tions of the low dance-halls, theatres, and other 
 similar places of entertainment that only serve to 
 stimulate sensuality and to debase the taste. The 
 pleasures of the people need to be looked after far 
 more earnestly than has been the case hitherto. 
 If we would banish the kind of amusements that 
 degrade, we must offer to the public in this large 
 cosmopolitan city, where the appetite for pleasure 
 is keen, some sort of suitable alternatives. 
 
 ** Thirdly, whatever can be done to improve the 
 material conditions of the wage-earning class, and 
 
 141 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 especially of young wage-earning women, will be 
 directly in line with the purpose which is here kept 
 in view. It is a sad and humiliating admission to 
 make, at the opening of the twentieth century, in 
 one of the greatest centres of civiHzation in the 
 world, that, in numerous instances, it is not pas- 
 sion or corrupt inclination, but the force of actual 
 physical want, that impels young women along the 
 road to ruin." ^ 
 
 " What, then, is to be the status of prostitution 
 in the city of New York ? In the first place, it 
 must be driven out of tenement and apartment 
 houses; the evil must be rigidly excluded from 
 the homes of the poor. Secondly, it must not be 
 segregated in separate quarters of the city, for the 
 reason that such quarters tend to become nests of 
 crime and veritable plague spots, and for the further 
 reason that segregation does not segregate just as 
 it has been shown that regulation does not regulate. 
 Thirdly, all public, obtrusive manifestations of pros- 
 titution shall be sternly suppressed." ^ 
 
 "The better housing for the poor, purer forms 
 of amusement, the raising of the conditions of 
 labor, especially of female labor, better moral edu- 
 cation, minors more and more withdrawn from the 
 clutches of vice by means of reformatories, the 
 spread of contagion checked by more adequate 
 hospital accommodations, the evil itself unceasingly 
 condemned by public opinion as a sin against 
 
 1 The Social Evil, pp. 172-174. 
 
 2 Ibid.i pp. 178, 179. 
 
 142 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 morality, and punished as a crime with stringent 
 penalties whenever it takes the form of a public 
 nuisance, — these are the methods of dealing with 
 it upon which members of the committee have 
 united and from which they hope for the abate- 
 ment of some of the worst of its consequences at 
 present, and for the slow and gradual restriction 
 of its scope in the future." ^ 
 
 The committee, in its studies and its recom- 
 mendations, did not touch upon vice within the 
 marriage relation. This may have been due to 
 acquiescence in the world-wide notion that the 
 ethics of marriage, if there be any such, is a 
 purely individual affair, not amenable to legal 
 regulations, and almost outside the pale of moral 
 suasion and social education. The frequency of 
 divorce in recent years and the community's recog- 
 nized interest in all the children prove this notion 
 to be erroneous, and it needs very Uttle acumen to 
 see that prostitution is encouraged and the struggle 
 against it rendered nerveless by the spread of the 
 peculiarly human and civilized idea of marriage, 
 according to which physical love is divorced from 
 its normal consequence, reproduction. So far, 
 then, as the remedy for prostitution lies in educa- 
 tion, it will be necessary to attack the evil frankly 
 at its root and struggle for an indefinitely higher 
 and more social ideal of marriage than the com- 
 mon one. And so far as the remedy for prostitu- 
 tion consists in repressive measures, the public 
 
 1 The Social Evil, p. i8o. 
 
/ 
 
 THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 authorities must not grant any indulgence to the 
 shameless advertisements of the vices of marriage. 
 
 Gambling in its various forms is a vice hardly 
 less destructive to citizenship and fraught with 
 danger to the future of great cities than the 
 social evil. Gambling, whether carried on in a 
 saloon, at a church, at a fair, in a gambling- 
 house, in a bucket-shop, at a race, a foot-ball 
 game, or an election, or in the columns of a news- 
 paper, arises from the excitation of the play spirit 
 coupled with the fundamental dishonesty involved 
 in the desire to get something for nothing, to get 
 control of the fruits of other men's labor, or to 
 monopolize opportunities without performing any 
 service in return. Gambling always results in a 
 net loss to the community. It produces nothing, 
 while the time and energy devoted to it are a clear 
 waste. It represents the competitive spirit so far 
 degenerated as to make the cooperation and fellow- 
 ship essential to municipal democracy impossible. 
 The " gambling hell," so called, is the legitimate, 
 though disinherited, offspring of the church raffle, 
 the social game of chance, the election bet, and 
 speculation in stocks. The gambling spirit is 
 rampant in American cities at the present time, 
 and constitutes a formidable menace to good gov- 
 ernment. Repression as a sole remedy is a failure 
 in respect to this as in respect to other vices. The 
 real remedy must include a far-reaching program 
 of education and civic betterment. 
 
 This truth is apparent upon consideration of the 
 144 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 principal causes that work together to make gam- 
 bling a peculiarly city vice. In the first place 
 city people have more leisure for play than country 
 folks, while thej02£ortunii^_i^r_out-of-door sports 
 is less. THe'result is that parlor games" furnish a" 
 very large proportion of city recreation. The 
 prevalence of cards and other games in which 
 chance is an important factor is well known. 
 These games are excellent time killers. They are 
 ready-to-hand devices for spurring on the lagging 
 hours. They are a cheap means of entertainment. 
 The anxious host is relieved of "the intolerable 
 toil of thought " necessitated by personal hospitality 
 and real social intercourse. In these games people 
 gamble for pleasure. The psychological effect is 
 far-reaching, especially with the young. Games 
 of chance^e ven when h r^r'^'S^^y p^Ryf dj^j^yfilciXlJ"'^^ 
 habits;] of^mirfrii ^'^^^ ^^ '^^^icluiu ^^ counter to the 
 deman ds of democra cy. The first of these habits 
 is~"that of depending upon luck for success. To 
 draw "a good hand" from the shuffle in the 
 parlor games teaches a boy that success in life 
 depends on his getting an unusual opportunity or 
 an exceptional position in the industrial struggle. 
 In other words ''luck" and **puH" rather than 
 "industry" and "merit" come to be the watch- 
 words of success. So much may be said for the 
 chance element in these games. So far as they are 
 games of skill, they develop a habit of mind which 
 prepares a man to keep his own counsel and quickly 
 and ruthlessly take advantage of any negligence 
 L 145 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 or mistake on the part of his opponent. That is 
 to say, the mental skill arid acuteness developed 
 by these games is competitive in the strict sense. 
 It is not skill in producing things or performing 
 service, but in taking advantage of one's neighbors 
 and reaping where one has not sown. These 
 habits of mind are out of date in a modern city. 
 From an evolutionary standpoint they represent 
 surviving characteristics of past cycles and are 
 directly responsible for the gilded failures that 
 strew the path of human civilization in its slow and 
 painful progress toward the type of human nature 
 which democracy assumes in part and in part 
 creates. 
 
 Another and perhaps more important cause for 
 the prevalence of the gambling spirit in cities is 
 the transformation in the industrial system by 
 which the upper classes of city men have been 
 removed from contact with the tangible processes 
 of production, and by which most city men have 
 been largely relieved of direct responsibility for the 
 usefulness of their labor. The industrial process 
 has become so complex that one can hardly tell 
 whether he is a producer or a parasite. This con- 
 fusion removes the moral check from the competi- 
 tive process, and the man who does not work with 
 his hands is prone to measure his succqss ji^^^^J^ 
 the amount of his income. He is not sure but that he 
 may be performing a social service even when he 
 appears to be getting something for nothing. 
 Along with this uncertainty and moral trusting-to- 
 146 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 luck has gone concentration of the control of 
 capital, so that the city man who saves money 
 must generally intrust its investment to some other 
 person or corporation over whom he has only a 
 feeble control. The ownership of capital is in this 
 way largely divorced from responsibility for its use. 
 The farmer living on his own land can invest his 
 savings almost without limit in the improvement 
 of his farm, either by adding to his own comforts 
 and luxuries or by making his land more produc- 
 tive. The city man when he has once provided 
 himself with a comfortable home must generally 
 put his surplus money in a bank or invest it in 
 stocks or bonds. Here the great gamblers get in 
 their work. The mass of stocks and many of the 
 bonds put upon the general market are subject in 
 a greater or less degree to speculative fluctuations. 
 The promise of large profits induces the public ti> 
 invest, and the uncertainty of all business over 
 which one has no direct control makes investors 
 take chances. A gain incites the desire for further 
 gain. A loss increases the need to make abnormal 
 gains in the future. Thus speculation multiplies 
 in cities because the city man is largely cut off 
 from responsibility for the usefulness of his own 
 work and the right employment of the capital 
 accumulated by saving. 
 
 These results follow when games of chance are 
 played without cheating and speculation carried 
 on without fraud. When cheating and fraud enter 
 in, as they often do, the evil results are greater. 
 
 147 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 District Attorney Jerome, of New York, in his 
 raids upon well-known gambling-houses of that 
 city, seems to have established the fact that " hon- 
 est " gambling does not exist to any considerable 
 extent. Honest gambling, like honor among 
 thieves, has a precarious foundation. There is 
 a fatal discrepancy in the idea, for to win, either by 
 chance or by skill, the earnings of another is fim- 
 damentally dishonest. As a practical problem in 
 municipal government, the suppression of gam- 
 bling is beset by difficulties similar to those in the 
 case of prostitution. A repressive legal policy is 
 insisted upon by the better sense of the community 
 which recognizes gambling as incompatible with 
 good citizenship, while pubHc sentiment is not con- 
 sistently favorable to a strict enforcement of the 
 law. These conditions lead to hypocrisy and 
 police corruption similar to that already described 
 in the discussion of the social evil. 
 
 The laws and ordinances in regard to these two 
 vices ought to be so changed as to become reason- 
 ably enforceable. The public manifestation of 
 these vices ought to be rigidly repressed as a 
 crime, while their private practice should be dis- 
 couraged by educational means, but not interfered 
 with by the police except on the initiative of those 
 directly concerned. The most important work of 
 the municipality in the discouragement of prosti- 
 tution and gambling will be done in making pro- 
 vision for healthy out-of-door recreation and in 
 cultivating civic spirit by means of better education, 
 148 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 more attention to municipal art, and more extensive 
 rendering of common services. The expansion of 
 municipal functions to include the ownership of all 
 public utilities, as well as the indefinite improve- 
 ment of municipal facilities for education, health, 
 and pleasure, would furnish the citizen the oppor- 
 tunity for safely investing his surplus earnings in 
 the taxes and bonds of the great cooperative insti- 
 tution whose accounts are all public and for whose 
 policies all the citizens are responsible. This 
 policy would strike at the root of the gambling 
 evil by exploiting the spirit of cooperation and by 
 bringing the citizens back to direct responsibility 
 for the use of their invested capital. 
 
 Intemperance, the close ally of the other vices 
 under discussion, completes the trio of vultures 
 that are ceaselessly preying upon the vitals of 
 municipal democracy. There is no defence for 
 drunkenness, and in so far as the saloon breeds or 
 tolerates this vice, it is a positive menace to social 
 order, an institution that defies law, creates anarchy, 
 and destroys reason. This fact makes the Ameri- 
 can public always regard the saloon with sus- 
 picion. It is looked upon by a strong element in 
 the community as a natural outlaw to be destroyed 
 wherever possible, and rigidly controlled elsewhere. 
 This attitude of the pubHc mind has undoubtedly 
 reacted upon the business itself, and made it less 
 respectable and more prone to consider itself the 
 enemy of law and order, privileged to evade or 
 break through all rules and regulations, depend- 
 
 149 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 ing upon unscrupulous alliances for immunity from 
 punishment. The saloon is one of the most pow- 
 erful institutions in the American city, and, prac- 
 tically everywhere, is more or less mixed up with 
 city politics, so that one of the most vexing prob- 
 lems of municipal government in this country is 
 the control of the saloon business. 
 
 The strength of the saloon depends, primarily, 
 of course, upon the popular demand for intoxicat- 
 ing liquors. But there are many other contribu- 
 tory elements of strength that are often extremely 
 embarrassing to the temperance reformer. The 
 saloon performs an immense service as a social 
 centre. This is especially true in crowded cities 
 where the homes of the working people are unat- 
 tractive, and where the proportion of unmarried 
 men is great. The more leisure a man has whose 
 family is living in a New York tenement, the worse 
 off he is, unless he is so exceptional a man as to care 
 to spend his time in crowded reading rooms where 
 the atmosphere is often hot and vile. The dis- 
 advantage of leisure arises from the fact that the 
 man is in the way at home, and there is nothing 
 for him to do except to help keep house. It is very 
 natural that the corner saloon, which is kept bright 
 and cheerful, with music oftentimes, and always 
 furnishing a place for meeting with their fellows, 
 equipped with comfortable seats, facilities for 
 games, and toilet conveniences, should attract 
 men and command their leisure. The saloon is 
 often called " the poor man's club." This service 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 which the saloon performs as a neighborhood 
 centre for comfortable intercourse is undoubtedly 
 one chief source of its strength, and will enable 
 it to withstand the attacks of its enemies until 
 some other means are devised to take its place.^ 
 
 A second source of strength is in the fact that 
 every saloon is a public station where a man or 
 boy may have toilet conveniences at all hours of 
 the day and evening. To the shame of American 
 cities it must be said that they have almost every- 
 where left the provision for the common decencies 
 and conveniences of life to private enterprise, and 
 the saloon has not been slow to take advantage of 
 this omission. Toilet conveniences more or less 
 free to the public are provided in depots, hotels, 
 department stores, office buildings, etc., but the 
 saloon is the well-nigh omnipresent convenience 
 station where public use is encouraged. So the 
 policeman can threaten a seven-year-old boy with 
 arrest because of indecent exposure on the streets 
 of New York, when there are a dozen saloons 
 within a block where the child might have gone 
 to relieve his necessity. The policeman himself, 
 whose duty it is to enforce the law, is forbidden to 
 enter a saloon during his hours of service except 
 on official business, and yet necessity often com- 
 pels him to break this rule. The same is true of 
 other public employees, such as the uniformed 
 
 1 For an extensive discussion of the " Saloon as a Social Centre," 
 see Substitutes for the Saloon, Chapter I, by Raymond Calkins, an 
 expert employed by the Committee of Fifty. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 street-cleaners and letter-carriers. Boston and 
 New York have made partial provision for the 
 public convenience in the down-town districts. 
 San Francisco has a well-equipped public comfort 
 station, and Grand Rapids has appropriated funds 
 for the construction of one in the near future. 
 But almost everywhere no such conveniences out- 
 side of the parks and the city buildings are 
 furnished by the municipal authorities. The per- 
 formance of this simple municipal function gives to 
 the saloon a certain dignity and the strength that 
 always comes from usefulness. 
 
 The saloon also performs service as a place 
 of slaking legitimate thirst. Many American cities 
 are supplied with water which does not command 
 the confidence of the people. New York, to be 
 sure, is provided with exceptionally pure water 
 from the mountains. But Chicago takes its water 
 from Lake Michigan into which, until recently, 
 its sewage has been discharged. The result is 
 that in Chicago, even yet, beer is sometimes con- 
 sidered a safer beverage than city water. The 
 same is true of many cities whose water-supply is 
 taken from rivers which are polluted with sewage. 
 Even if water is not dangerously polluted, the 
 average man prefers not to drink or bathe in mud, 
 and many city water-supplies become unpopular, 
 because at times of high water, or perhaps at all 
 times, they are roily. It is certainly not conducive 
 to full confidence in the waters of the Potomac for 
 drinking purposes to have the experience of a 
 
 152 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 mud bath in a Washington bath-tub. Everywhere 
 that the water-supply is not pure and clean, this 
 very fact strengthens the saloon, and puts many 
 citizens under obligation to it who might otherwise 
 never cross its threshold. This result may be 
 reached even where the water-supply is good, 
 simply by the failure of the city to establish a 
 sufficient number of public drinking fountains. 
 Indeed, it seems true that the most appropriate and 
 effective first step of civic authorities in the direc- 
 tion of temperance would be to provide an abundant 
 supply of pure and attractive water, with numerous 
 drinking fountains, so that the thirsty citizen or 
 stranger can satisfy his need at any time of day or 
 night in any part of the city. 
 
 In these several ways the real service now 
 performed by the saloon takes the edge off the 
 opposition manifested by those citizens who are 
 the natural enemies of intemperance. But the 
 saloon receives shelter from the public wrath and 
 is protected in its resistance to the law by reason 
 of other complicating conditions. One of the 
 most serious of these is the admixture in the same 
 community of large bodies of citizens of different 
 race and different social habits. This is the 
 pecuHar problem of the American city, and it is in 
 this respect without doubt that the presence of 
 foreigners is most embarrassing to our city govern- 
 ment. The conflict between the "American Sab- 
 bath " and the " Continental Sunday " rages about 
 the saloon, especially in New York City. By 
 
 153 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 state law in New York all saloons are required to 
 be closed between midnight Saturday and five 
 o'clock Monday morning, as well as between one 
 o'clock and five o'clock in the morning throughout 
 the week. Sunday closing is extremely offensive 
 to a large part of the German population of the 
 great cities, because Sunday is the day for respect- 
 able beer drinking in the pleasure gardens of the 
 Fatherland. To shut up drinking places on 
 Sunday seems to these adopted citizens of Amer- 
 ica a gross violation of personal liberty, and en- 
 tirely contrary to the expectations of refugees in a 
 free country. It is useless to enlarge upon these 
 well-known conditions of conflicting public senti- 
 ment in most of our principal cities. Milwaukee, 
 St. Louis, San Francisco, and some other cities 
 apparently do not attempt to compel Sunday clos- 
 ing, and thus they avoid the difficulty by yielding 
 to the European standard.^ 
 
 The idea of Sunday closing originates in hos- 
 tility to the saloon as an institution. The Ameri- 
 can people do not believe that men should spend 
 their leisure, especially their rest days, in the 
 saloon ; they think of it as a natural centre of 
 dissipation, disorder, and vice. Undoubtedly this 
 view, coupled with a policy of regulation by license 
 fee and police surveillance, gives the saloon 
 question its disturbing importance among our 
 municipal problems. 
 
 Out of the conflicting tendencies of pubHc opin- 
 
 1 City of Chicago Statistics, Vol. I, No. 2, May, 1901. 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 ion in this matter have grown some of our worst 
 political evils. The saloon is put upon the de- 
 fensive, and all too often driven to ally itself with 
 vice and crime and protect itself by bribery of 
 public officials. The horrors of police corruption 
 are largely attributable to this state of affairs, for 
 prostitution and gambling would find it much 
 more difficult to protect themselves if it were 
 not for their alliance with the saloon business, 
 which is backed up by immense vested interests 
 and considerable popular sympathy. The dis- 
 orderly house, the gambling-den, and the saloon 
 have all sought immunity from punishment for 
 violation of law. One crime naturally leads to 
 another, and the corruption of public officials 
 follows close upon the heels of the violation of 
 law by powerful interests. It is the same story 
 that has been so often told of the franchise-grab- 
 bers. At first they corrupt the aldermen and the 
 legislators, and then these latter begin to prey 
 upon them. The result is criminal collusion 
 between the chosen representatives of the people 
 and the powers that prey upon the people. And 
 it is in this weakness of the representative system 
 as we have it in America that our danger lies. 
 With gold holding altogether too high a place in 
 popular estimation, many elected representatives, 
 even though with good intentions at first, yield to 
 the pressure that is focussed upon them. This con- 
 dition points to the necessity of strengthening 
 our system of government by making it more demo- 
 
 155 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 cratic and keeping public affairs more closely under 
 popular control. 
 
 The problem of prostitution, gambling, and in- 
 temperance is essentially a problem of the control 
 of leisure. A policy of repression alone will inevi- 
 tably fail. Education of the hand, the cultiva- 
 tion of better social ideals, the improvement of the 
 conditions of home life, the provision of public op- 
 portunities for healthful recreation, a pure water- 
 supply, and, above all, the development of the 
 cooperative spirit and the awakening of the civic 
 conscience, are remedies that the American city 
 cannot neglect if it hopes to save itself and de- 
 mocracy from a repetition of the failures of history. 
 Vice is the chief enemy of democracy. Leisure 
 is the opportunity of vice, as well as of culture 
 and civic cooperation. 
 
 To speak of the "control of leisure" may ap- 
 pear to many suggestive of tyranny and out of 
 harmony with the theory of democracy, — for does 
 not democracy mean the guarantee to the individ- 
 ual of the right to control his own leisure as he 
 sees fit ? Here is the crux of the problem of vice. 
 Here lies the struggle between the two ideas of 
 freedom which, in their extremes, are interpreted 
 as license and duty respectively. Democracy, as 
 conceived in this book, lays emphasis on the latter. 
 Freedom, to us, is the condition in which a man 
 finds himself when he obeys the fundamental laws 
 of life. Vice means anarchy or a jumble of petty 
 despotisms. Drunkenness, gambling, and prosti- 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 tution have no standing in court because they are 
 in themselves incompatible with freedom and self- 
 control, and it is a part of the doctrine of democ- 
 racy that no man has the right to sell himself into 
 bondage. To say that he is free to enslave him- 
 self would be a contradiction in terms. All re- 
 pressive measures applied by the state or the 
 municipality to personal habits, not involving direct 
 and tangible injury to others, rest on this theory of 
 freedom. While it is true, as has been pointed 
 out, that a repressive policy alone applied to vice 
 is doomed to failure, still we must not go to the 
 other extreme. There is ample theoretical justi- 
 fication for the suppression of vice, but experience 
 has shown that public authorities cannot success- 
 fully regulate personal conduct except within cer- 
 tain rather narrow limitations. Unquestionably 
 the police can clear the bill-boards of the flaming 
 representations of crime and indecency. Surely 
 men who are found drunk in public places can be 
 locked up. Gambling-houses, publicly known, 
 can be closed. Criminal advertisements can be 
 kept out of the newspapers. Public disorder can 
 be sternly repressed, and vice punished when it 
 involves the injury of innocent persons against 
 their will, provided they stand ready to invoke 
 public protection. Statutes attaching human pen- 
 alties to violations of natural laws are not incon- 
 sistent with democracy. The inconsistency lies 
 in that class of puritanic legislation which attempts 
 to regulate men's conduct in accordance with some 
 157 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 particular religious tenet or philosophical dogma 
 which the people themselves do not support with 
 practical unanimity. 
 
 As life becomes more complex through the 
 growth of cities and the coordination of work and 
 intellectual activity, the legitimate sphere of social 
 control is extended. Under democracy, this con- 
 trol of the individual, if supported in good faith by 
 public opinion, is not a tyranny, but social self- 
 control. The government is not an entity set off 
 against the people with power to oppress them, 
 but rather the organized expression of the popular 
 will. Laws are self-imposed rules of life. From 
 this point of view restrictive measures in regard to 
 vice are not only permissible but essential to de- 
 mocracy. While advocating a change in the laws 
 where experience and common sense show them 
 to be generally unenforceable, I do not acknowl- 
 edge the right of vice to exist and prey upon so- 
 ciety. I merely advocate the use of other and 
 more effective weapons of warfare upon the 
 enemies of democracy than are found in laws not 
 supported by public opinion, and above all the 
 calling-off of the mock battle that is the outgrowth 
 of municipal hypocrisy and the cause of the carni- 
 val of police corruption and political blackmail 
 which has brought disgrace upon democracy in the 
 great American cities. 
 
 The first and most essential part of the positive 
 municipal program for the discouragement of 
 vice and the direction of the uses of the people's 
 
 158 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 leisure into channels consistent with and conducive 
 to the welfare of democracy is the establishment of 
 public parks, commons, playgrounds, athletic fields, 
 breathing-spaces, recreation piers, etc., where the 
 people of a city may come in contact with nature 
 and enjoy sunshine and fresh air under conditions 
 favorable to physical and moral health. Crimes are 
 not usually planned in the open air, and vice gen- 
 erally avoids the sunlight. There is probably no 
 more striking illustration in the world of the pecul- 
 iar function of the city park as an antidote to vice 
 and crime than Mulberry Bend Park in New York 
 City. Where this little park now nestles in the 
 heart of the metropolis, thronged on a summer 
 day, especially on an evening or a Sunday, with 
 weary tenement dwellers glad to escape from their 
 dismal homes, there was formerly a block of build- 
 ings notorious as a haunt of vice and a harbor of 
 crime. One of New York's hell holes has been 
 transformed into one of her beauty-spots by the 
 letting-in of the sunshine. A visit to the recrea- 
 tion piers of New York, or to the Central Park, or 
 to any of the accessible municipal parks of America 
 on a summer evening or Sunday afternoon is 
 enough to convince any thoughtful citizen of the 
 prime necessity of municipal provision of oppor- 
 tunities for recreation in the open air during leisure 
 hours. 
 
 American cities have taken a good deal of pride 
 in the development of parks, but in many cases 
 civic effort has been poured out upon one or two 
 
 159 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 large parks, too far from the heart of the city to 
 be easily accessible except on Sundays and holi- 
 days.^ The great cities, especially, are much in 
 need of more small parks and breathing-places. 
 The total area of public parks in the 38 cities hav- 
 ing a population of more than icx),ooo each by the 
 census of 1900 is reported by the United States 
 Department of Labor as about 51,000 acres, which 
 amounts to one twenty-third part of the land area 
 of these cities, or about one acre of parks to 
 every 275 inhabitants. In New York City as a 
 whole there is one acre of park to every 500 inhab- 
 itants, but on Manhattan Island there is hardly 
 one acre to 1 300 people. The parks of New York 
 City represent one thirty-first part of its land area, 
 and yet if the park area were as densely populated 
 as some considerable sections of Manhattan Island, 
 the whole population of the city could be accom- 
 modated on the land now devoted to parks. This 
 goes to show, not the great extent of the parks, 
 but the extraordinary congestion of population in 
 some parts of the city and the consequent extraor- 
 dinary need for more breathing-places in these 
 quarters. Old New York averages over twenty 
 persons and nearly five families to the dwelling. 
 
 1 " Chicago has a system of parks of which it may be justly 
 proud, but from the point of view of resorts for laboring people, 
 Chicago has no parks. The parks are so distant from the homes 
 of the masses as to be practically inaccessible. The park system is 
 designed for the rich, while it taxes the poor, and reminds one that 
 * to him that hath shall be given.' " — Raymond Calkins in Substi- 
 tutes for the Saloon^ p. 196. 
 
 160 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 The need is not so pressing in the smaller cities, 
 but the tendency is to neglect to reserve space for 
 parks near the centre of cities, with the result that 
 when the need is felt the land has become so valu- 
 able as to deter the pubHc authorities from pur- 
 chasing it. Little Mulberry Bend Park cost New 
 York City about ^1,500,000. 
 
 The street-railway park plays an important role 
 in the pleasure seeking of many American cities. 
 This is quite a different institution from the mu- 
 nicipal park. It seeks to attract the people by 
 means of theatrical shows, dances, boat-rides, and 
 nondescript performances after the Coney Island 
 pattern. The street-railway park has for its pur- 
 pose the encouragement of travel, and is often 
 located beyond the city limits and consequently 
 outside the control of the municipal police. The 
 difference between a city park developed at public 
 expense as a popular recreation ground and a street- 
 railway resort is well illustrated in Grand Rapids 
 by John Ball Park and " Reed's Lake." John Ball 
 Park is a beautiful piece of wooded hill land at the 
 western extremity of the city. The front of this 
 park has been fitted up by the municipal authorities 
 with a simple pavilion where a band furnishes 
 music on Sunday afternoons, with greenhouses and 
 flower gardens, small ponds and streams of run- 
 ning water, beautiful lawns and walks, and cages 
 for the animals, while the greater part of the land 
 lying upon the hills remains nearly in its natural 
 condition and is admirably adapted to picnicking 
 M 161 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 and rambling. "Reed's Lake," at the other ex- 
 tremity of the city and just outside its Umits, is 
 fitted up with an open theatre where vaudeville 
 performances are kept up throughout the summer, 
 and the ** cave of the winds," the *' house of trou- 
 ble," and other "midway" institutions appeal to 
 the pleasure seekers. Some of the vaudeville is 
 demoralizing and most of it is cheap. The whole 
 tone of the place is suggestive of greed catering to 
 folly. The street railway does not get the people 
 away from the artificial life of the city or from the 
 influence of mercenary motives. " Reed's Lake " 
 is more animated and less satisfying than John 
 Ball Park. It is nearer to vice. The same com- 
 parison lies between these two as between Coney 
 Island and Central Park in New York.^ 
 
 ^ " Most cities have adjacent picnic grounds and suburban 
 resorts, and excursions and picnics are a great resource as a means 
 of outdoor amusement for the people, but too often these places are 
 left in the hands of persons who destroy their usefulness. The 
 municipality should take this matter in hand and see to it that the 
 park commission owns or controls the resorts of the city's people. 
 A striking comparison existed between Revere Beach, north of 
 Boston, which some time ago became a public reservation under 
 the charge of the Metropolitan Park Commission, and Nantasket 
 Beach, on the south side of Boston, which until recently was under 
 private control. At the former order reigned, and the vices were 
 partly banished, partly repressed. At the latter the vices were 
 obvious and uncontrolled. Now, by the order of state legislation, 
 Nantasket Beach is public domain. Merely from the landscape 
 point of view, it is the finer of the two, and it will, no doubt, soon 
 become the beneficent place which the other has long been. 
 The Revere Beach Reservation, with its beach, shelters, band 
 concerts, merry-go-rounds, and restaurants, attracts large numbers. 
 162 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 The indifferent or partly vicious tendencies of 
 these popular resorts not under municipal control 
 suggest educational possibilities of a high order to 
 be realized from municipal bathing beaches, swim- 
 ming-pools, theatres, and concert halls. The park 
 in its natural beauty furnishes a welcome oppor- 
 tunity for relaxation. But there is a widespread 
 demand for more active recreation, and by satisfy- 
 ing it the city can effect the control of the people's 
 leisure for noble ends, rather than let them drift 
 into folly and vice at the invitation of private 
 greed. 
 
 Public baths are being established in many 
 American cities, some for summer bathing only, 
 in rivers, lakes, or ocean, and some in substantial 
 buildings for use the year around. Bathing in 
 river or pond is one of the best sports of young 
 men and boys in the country. As cities grow up, 
 ordinances are passed forbidding nude bathing 
 within the city limits, and sewage and refuse are 
 discharged into the natural bathing waters, so that 
 they become unfit for use even where public de- 
 cency would not be offended. It is no more than 
 right that a city, under these conditions, should 
 estabhsh bathing beaches, bath-houses, and swim- 
 ming-pools to take the place of nature's provisions. 
 
 These average twelve thousand or fifteen thousand on week days, 
 and five or six times as many on fair Sundays. A corps of over a 
 dozen park commission pohce efficiently manages this crowd. 
 Only thirty-three arrests were made in 1897." — Raymond Calkins, 
 op. cit.f pp. 2QO, 201. 
 
 163 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 The need of public bath-houses in all cities of any 
 considerable size is apparent. A careful estimate 
 made in 1902 showed that in Grand Rapids only 
 about 20 per cent of the residences had bath 
 rooms fitted up with bath-tubs and water connec- 
 tions, and in the slum districts of New York, Balti- 
 more, and Chicago, the Department of Labor found 
 only 2 or 3 per cent of the houses with baths 
 in 1894. But even if every house had a bath room, 
 there would still remain the need of public swim- 
 ming-pools for recreation. Boston's indoor bath- 
 houses furnish 600,000 baths a year, while the 
 municipal bathing beaches receive upwards of 
 2,000,000 visits during the summer months. This 
 makes an average of about five baths a year under 
 municipal auspices for every person living in the 
 city. No other large American city is so well fur- 
 nished with public baths, but New York, Albany, 
 Buffalo, Baltimore, Louisville, Chicago, and Mil- 
 waukee all have all-the-year-round establishments, 
 while many others provide for summer bathing. 
 Under proper regulations the public bath may be- 
 come one of the most effective of municipal enter- 
 prises for the control of leisure, the improvement of 
 the public health, and the increase of manliness and 
 self-respect among boys and young men. Bathing 
 at such a resort as Coney Island, uncontrolled by 
 municipal authority, and closely alHed with influ- 
 ences tending to vice and irresponsibility, is very 
 different in its social effects from bathing at a well- 
 regulated municipal establishment. Herein lies 
 164 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 the principal necessity for public control of the 
 bathing beaches in the neighborhood of great 
 cities. 
 
 The public-school bath is being established in 
 some American cities. During the year preced- 
 ing November lo, 1902, Public School Number i, 
 Borough of Manhattan, New York City, had fur- 
 nished about 14,000 individual baths to the school 
 children. Springfield, Massachusetts, also has es- 
 tablished some school baths, which are eagerly 
 sought by the children. In Springfield women 
 are admitted on Saturdays, and both women and 
 children during the summer months. The school 
 bath proper is a sanitary and educational institu- 
 tion, but may be made a nucleus of public interest 
 in the schoolhouse and help the development of 
 the school as a social centre. The school equipped 
 with playgrounds and baths, open throughout the 
 summer vacation, would be in a position to do 
 great service to the city in controlling the leisure 
 of the children, who are likely to learn lessons of 
 lawlessness and vice if turned loose on the streets 
 through the months when school is not in session. 
 
 The municipal theatre is practically unknown 
 in the United States. The nearest approach to it 
 is the street-railway pavilions such as I have men- 
 tioned, and which might easily come under munici- 
 pal control with the public ownership of the street 
 railways, and the open-air concerts often furnished 
 by cities in the parks during the summer time. 
 One of the greatest needs of the American city 
 
 165 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 is better theatres. In the popular estimation actors 
 and actresses as a class are people of loose morals, 
 and the entertainments which reach the masses of 
 the theatre-goers are enjoyed with this idea in view. 
 The theatres of the lowest class are directly allied 
 with vice, and many others, to which respectable 
 people go, point in that direction. The play is 
 especially attractive to city people, and becomes 
 a demoralizing influence of great power when it is 
 suggestive of immorality. The alliance of quasi-art 
 and vice is a source of great danger to democracy. 
 Under these conditions public entertainments under 
 municipal auspices are a legitimate and almost nec- 
 essary means for the protection of morals and the 
 training of citizenship. Vice is practically every- 
 where at the bottom of municipal misgovern ment, 
 and though the laws of nature fight against it and 
 destroy its votaries, it has been able in the history 
 of the world to sap the life of nations and topple 
 splendid cities in the dust. In fact, the problem 
 of vice in cities becomes a question of life or death, 
 and the expansion of municipal functions along the 
 lines here suggested for the purpose of controlling 
 leisure and keeping vice in check admits of no ad- 
 v(^rse argument unless it be on the score of effi- 
 ciency. It is certainly a part of the legitimate 
 purpose of democracy to preserve civilization and 
 promote the public welfare. 
 
 The American city does not understand the full 
 value of municipal ceremonials. True, we occa- 
 sionally have a parade of the police and fire de- 
 i66 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 partments, perhaps a few ceremonies to celebrate 
 park day, and an infrequent exhibition of civic 
 hospitality to welcome distinguished visitors. Per- 
 haps the most striking of all the street parades 
 of New York is the annual review of the street- 
 cleaners, who, since Colonel Waring' s day, are clad 
 in white uniforms and popularly known as " White 
 Wings." But as a rule municipal service in the 
 United States is a prosaic affair, with little to at- 
 tract public attention or enlist popular interest 
 except the importance of the service itself. This 
 is the more unfortunate because in a democracy 
 the public service needs to be kept in the public 
 eye, and the interest of the citizens in municipal 
 affairs constantly maintained. The street carni- 
 vals in fashion in some American towns, which 
 often attract wide attention, are likely to tend 
 toward libertinism and lawlessness, while strictly 
 municipal festivals are always conducive to law 
 and order. 
 
 Without doubt municipal government in Amer- 
 ica suffers chiefly from dearth of civic spirit among 
 the citizens. Civic spirit is the recognition of the 
 cooperative nature of life in cities, and the willing- 
 ness to subordinate purely personal and private 
 ends to the welfare of the community as a whole. 
 The dearth of civic spirit is due to the intense 
 competitive struggle in the industrial world, which 
 tends to foster a purely materialistic standard of 
 success. In other words, greed of gold is inimical 
 to public spirit and civic pride. It is within the 
 
 167 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 power of the municipality itself, or of groups of 
 citizens devoted to the public welfare, to adopt 
 measures calculated to cultivate civic spirit and 
 diminish respect for purely selfish success. Civic 
 spirit will always result from interest in municipal 
 affairs from the standpoint of public service. By 
 the cultivation of municipal art, removing the ugli- 
 ness of bill-boards, decorating public buildings, im- 
 proving vacant lots, planting shade trees, using 
 artistic lamp posts, street signs, fire-alarm boxes, 
 and poles for municipal wires, the city government 
 might stimulate the pride of citizenship and en- 
 croach upon the exclusiveness of private interests. 
 The great complaint has been that men are too 
 much engaged with business affairs to pay 
 attention to public questions. The fact is that 
 people in American cities have plenty of leisure, 
 which is now taken up in various forms of recrea- 
 tion, including banquets and suppers, dances and 
 card-parties, theatre-going, and globe-trotting, — 
 amusements that are often demoralizing by reason 
 of their inanity and because they furnish an excuse 
 for rivalry in the display of wealth, which is one of 
 the worst follies of American life and one of the 
 practices most destructive to the essential spirit of 
 democracy. General indulgence in these follies 
 is attributable to ignorance and the undue develop- 
 ment of the competitive spirit. People in America 
 do not yet realize how intensely interesting civic 
 affairs are, and how admirably adapted to the 
 beautiful and happy use of leisure are the common 
 
 i68 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 services of thought and action which are the privi- 
 lege of citizens in a modern city. 
 
 During the last few years there has been a great 
 awakening of interest in municipal art as evidenced 
 by the formation of improvement societies and art 
 clubs throughout the country, and the practical 
 application of the principles of art to municipal 
 affairs in some instances. In New York recently, 
 the authorities discovered that lamp posts and 
 street signs could be made beautiful. This move- 
 ment, however, is much narrower than it should 
 be. Democracy is interested in municipal art as 
 a means to the development of a higher type of 
 citizenship, and the great need of citizenship is the 
 intelligence and character to prefer a leisure devoted 
 to social service rather than a continuous round of 
 " social engagements " which cultivate stupidity, 
 and make the day's work a meaningless grind. 
 I do not wish to inveigh against relaxation or ani- 
 mated recreation, but to insist that an appreciation 
 of the vitality of civic interests would soon make 
 itself felt in the people's leisure, and discussion of 
 public affairs would be a very welcome substitute 
 for many less important and less interesting topics 
 of conversation now in vogue. 
 
 Civic spirit manifests itself chiefly in the use of 
 leisure. It involves a change of character through 
 growth and expansion. It involves a wider concep- 
 tion of duty, which comes by the awakening of the 
 social conscience. Self-seeking is transformed into 
 social service as the mainspring of citizenship. It 
 
 169 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 is a curious characteristic of human nature, at least 
 in American cities, that men seem to tire of law 
 and duty during their work hours, and consequently 
 strive in their uses of leisure to establish their lib- 
 erty to do as they please by coquetting with vice 
 and crime and getting as nearly beyond the ethical 
 bounds formally established by society as they can 
 or dare. People want to be just a little. wicked, in 
 order to prove, I suppose, the freedom of the will. 
 This tendency, which shows itself in recreation and 
 social pleasures, is a manifestation of the wildness 
 that flows in the blood of all men, and has come 
 down as an inheritance from barbarism and 
 savagery. The control of leisure, to bring men's 
 pleasures up to a higher ethical standard, consistent 
 with freedom as the end and aim of democracy, is, 
 perchance, the next great step in the development 
 of human nature. This forward step is imperative 
 in cities, for without it civilization becomes halt and 
 the artificial life runs amuck. 
 
 It should be the aim of every city to encourage 
 conditions under which the passion for service 
 becomes as eligible as the passion for gold. De- 
 mocracy has freedom for its aim. It must sternly 
 reject the gaudy allurements of license and refuse 
 the intoxicating cup of vice. Along with the stern 
 repression of lawlessness and public disorder, there 
 must be included in our municipal policy the culti- 
 vation of right uses of leisure, which naturally 
 follow from the recognition of the meaning of 
 brotherhood and social unity. A work of art is, in 
 
 170 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 its nature, unfitted for exclusive private possession. 
 Lurking underneath most forms of vice, I fancy, 
 is the fundamentally erroneous notion that the 
 beautiful can be owned. Art and the aesthetic 
 principle are essentially social, and the open door 
 for the development of civic spirit and the higher 
 citizenship is in the direction of chaste municipal 
 art. By this means the people may be most easily 
 led into the spirit of cooperation and mutual 
 helpfulness so necessary to the success of city 
 government, even from the financial point of view. 
 The apparently vicious tendencies of the majority 
 of the people of cities Hke New York and Philadel- 
 phia, as evidenced by the frequent votes of confidence 
 given to political organizations known to thrive 
 upon the protection of crime and the encourage- 
 ment of vice, while not calculated to inspire the 
 friends of democracy with hope, should not be 
 accepted as absolute and conclusive evidence of 
 unchangeable corruption. Much is already being 
 done in the name of better things. Boston has its 
 wonderful system of public baths, bathing beaches, 
 and gymnasia, which cannot fail to influence for 
 good the rising generation of citizens. New York 
 is extending its parks, and is building baths and 
 comfort stations for its people. Through its 
 system of free lectures, it furnishes entertainment 
 and instruction to many thousands of its adult 
 citizens, and it is making the public school some- 
 thing more than a children's institution. San 
 Francisco has awakened to a new era of civic 
 
 171 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 pride and civic duty, largely through the efforts 
 of its great Merchants' Association. Baltimore 
 has a fine series of public baths through the gen- 
 erosity of one of its wealthy citizens. Parks, 
 playgrounds, and libraries are being estabHshed 
 with great enthusiasm in many cities. 
 
 Yet the municipal ledger still shows a great 
 deficit so far as public provision for the control of 
 the people's leisure is concerned. Here is room 
 for endless activity. Our program for the check- 
 ing of vice and the building-up of the best type of 
 democratic citizenship should include : — 
 
 1. All kinds of helpful social activity that will 
 tend to increase the usefulness of the school and 
 the school building as a social center. 
 
 2. The performance on the part of the city of 
 all the public functions which the saloon has now 
 appropriated to itself, such as the supply of safe 
 and attractive drinking water, the supply of toilet 
 conveniences, and the provision of a place where 
 social life may centre without the dollar mark on 
 it. 
 
 3. The provision of accessible public parks, 
 athletic fields, gymnasia, public baths, and other 
 means of physical activity for health and recrea- 
 tion. 
 
 4. The active cultivation of municipal art by the 
 suppression of nuisances, such as unsightly poles, 
 flaming bill-boards, repulsive advertisements, and 
 the contamination of the air with smoke and dust, 
 by the construction of beautiful public buildings, 
 
 172 
 
THE CONTROL OF LEISURE 
 
 and the adornment of the streets and other public 
 places ; and, in the great cities, by the estabUsh- 
 ment of art galleries, museums, and municipal 
 theatres. 
 
 5. The encouragement of civic devotion, through 
 the use of municipal ceremonials, the attractive re- 
 port to the citizens of official action, and especially 
 the bona fide effort to serve the interests of the 
 people so that they will love and respect their gov- 
 ernment rather than distrust and despise it. 
 
 6. Most important of all, the cultivation by all 
 possible means, public as well as private, of the 
 ideal of civic righteousness as the only safe basis 
 of freedom and the only legitimate source of civic 
 pride. 
 
 173 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 The farmer may burn in his bed, but if he 
 suffers that fate, it is usually because he has not 
 cleaned his own chimney or has not covered his 
 own hearth. If the city man burns in bed, it is 
 generally because some one else has been careless 
 with fire. When a farmer goes out driving, he may 
 run great risk of being thrown out of his vehicle 
 and killed, but in general his safety depends upon 
 his own strength and skill as a horseman. When 
 the city man takes a street-car ride, or intrusts 
 himself to an elevator to be let down a couple of 
 hundred feet in the twinkling of an eye, his safety 
 depends hardly at all on his own strength or skill, 
 but upon the adjustment of machinery that he 
 seldom understands and the faithfulness of work- 
 men for whom he individually is not responsible. 
 If the farmer drinks from his well and gets 
 typhoid fever from it, he may thank himself for 
 polluting his own water-supply ; and if his milk is 
 unclean, he is the man that failed to wash the cow. 
 But the city man must drink from a well which 
 may be polluted from any one of a hundred sources 
 over- which he has no control, or from the city 
 174 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 mains through which he may receive the germs of 
 fever carefully brought to his door by the public 
 waterworks from a sewage-polluted river; and as 
 for the milk he drinks, most likely he never saw 
 the cow that gave it or the place it came from. 
 Illustrations might be multiplied, but let these 
 suffice. The point is that in the country, though a 
 man's life and property may be in greater danger 
 than in the city, still safety generally depends upon 
 the man himself, — his foresight, his courage, his 
 agiUty, his carefulness, his character, in short; 
 while in the city a man's life and property are 
 being continuously put in the hands of the commu- 
 nity at large, and responsibility for their safety 
 must be collective. Out of this necessity arise 
 those special forms of municipal insurance which 
 are furnished by police, fire, building, health, and 
 charity departments. 
 
 The police department stands in a general way 
 for law and order, the protection of citizens while 
 engaged in legitimate pursuits from the interfer- 
 ence of those who are disposed, through careless- 
 ness or social insubordination, to violate the rules 
 of civic life which are made necessary by the com- 
 plications of existence in cities. The magnitude of 
 the work of the police departments of our cities is 
 suggested by the fact that in the course of a year 
 one arrest is made for every twenty inhabitants, — 
 men, women, and children. These arrests are for 
 crimes, misdemeanors, and petty offences of all 
 kinds, considerably more than half of the whole 
 
 175 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 number being for drunkenness and disturbing the 
 peace. 
 
 The functions of the police are manifold. First 
 and foremost, the police officer is the watchman 
 who stands guard over the lives and property of 
 citizens, so that they may go about their business 
 and pleasures with a sense of security, or, more 
 truly, without a sense of danger. This function is 
 not fully performed, and in some cities there is 
 great danger in passing along certain streets at 
 night and considerable danger in going to sleep in 
 one's own house with any treasures. In the cities 
 of more than 100,000 population there are over 
 8000 arrests for house-breaking in a single year, 
 nearly 50,000 for larceny, and upwards of 42,000 
 for vagrancy, including loitering, loafing, begging, 
 tramping, etc. The efficiency of the police in 
 protecting citizens from robbers and burglars is a 
 variable quantity from city to city and from time to 
 time. Chicago has a rather bad reputation along 
 this line, and there are times in almost every city 
 when there is a sort of epidemic of crimes of this 
 kind. Undoubtedly, however, the dark places in 
 the great cities are being cleared up, so that there 
 are comparatively few streets in America where a 
 citizen may not go in safety at any time of day or 
 night if he is sober and goes about his business. 
 It is also becoming generally safer for respectable 
 women to go out evenings without escorts. 
 
 The inefficiency of the police, where they are 
 inefficient, can be accounted for largely by the 
 176 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 semi-alliance with the criminal classes which, in 
 the opinion of some police officers, is necessary, 
 and, in the opinion of others, profitable. It is 
 stated by Mr. Steffens in McClnre's Magazine that 
 the acting mayor of Minneapolis, after Dr. Ames 
 had fled, was approached by representatives of the 
 criminal fraternity who offered their assistance to 
 him in regulating crime.^ This assistance was 
 steadfastly refused in spite of alleged extraordinary 
 outbreaks after each refusal. But the acting 
 mayor did not consider an alliance with criminals 
 for the control of crime an impossible suggestion, 
 and said he was not sure but he should have recon- 
 sidered the question if he had been going to serve 
 a full term as mayor. This notion that " it takes 
 a thief to catch a thief " is tolerably widespread, 
 and in its practical workings furnishes the founda- 
 tion for Tolstoy's indictment of our whole system 
 of punishment.2 In ordinary times and without 
 
 ^ "The Shame of Minneapolis," in the January, 1903, issue. 
 
 2 In Resurrection, Tolstoy draws an especially terrible picture of 
 our system of punishment by which " respectable " rogues sit in 
 judgment on the bench and in the jury box upon their fellows. 
 Tolstoy's ideas are based upon the Christian doctrine of non-resist- 
 ance applied to society as a whole ; but many a man who believes 
 in vengeance will nevertheless balk at the spectacle of a drunkard 
 or a libertine sitting on the bench to pass society's sentences upon 
 the poor wretches who are caught in vice. For a sheriff, whose 
 constant aim is to steal all he can from the public treasury, to go 
 thief-catching is almost intolerable. Yet it is one of the peculiar 
 weaknesses of political institutions that they often fall into the con- 
 trol of men who would do honor to the criminal standards of a 
 penitentiary. 
 
 N 177 
 
THE AxMERICAN CITY 
 
 any startling revelations of official complicity with 
 vice and crime, citizens are loath to believe Tol- 
 stoyan charges. But special investigations and 
 close observation all too often reveal glimpses of a 
 subterranean world where the accredited agents 
 of civilization join hands with its deadly enemies. 
 
 This condition of affairs is doubtless made possi- 
 ble by a general spirit of lawlessness in the com- 
 munity. While most citizens are strongly in favor 
 of law and order when it applies to their neighbors, 
 comparatively few have attained to the ideal spirit 
 of democracy where they are in favor of law en- 
 forcement when it infringes upon their own free- 
 dom of action. A strict enforcement of all the 
 salutary ordinances and rules made necessary by 
 the complex conditions of city life would probably 
 antagonize a large majority of the people in an 
 average American city. This is the result of the 
 backwardness of human nature. The ordinary 
 type of this commodity still in use is out of date, 
 suitable perhaps for conditions that existed a cen- 
 tury ago, but entirely inadequate to the demands of 
 the present time. Social consciousness is crude 
 and undeveloped when compared with the condi- 
 tions that demand it. The danger to our civiliza- 
 tion and to democracy is that responsibility tends 
 to outrun ability to respond, and the immediately 
 pressing problem of our time is the development 
 of the responding organs. The natural result of 
 the individualistic spirit, which expects a man 
 knowingly to vote for his own interest against the 
 178 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 public welfare when the issue is drawn, and ap- 
 plauds him for doing so, forces the police authori- 
 ties into an equivocal position, where the line of 
 least resistance is in the direction of an understand- 
 ing with the violators of law. 
 
 This aUiance does not destroy altogether the 
 efficiency of the police in the performance of cer- 
 tain functions for as a rule only certain kinds of 
 vice and crime are protected. The thoroughly 
 honest citizen who has no desire to get something 
 for nothing or to break the law himself is seldom 
 directly affected by police laxity. It is the swin- 
 dler, the gambling-house keeper, the dive-master, 
 the Sunday liquor seller, and their ilk that receive 
 official protection. They desire to prey upon the 
 greed, the passions, the ignorance, and the insubor- 
 dination of citizens, and commit their crimes, as it 
 were, in response to a popular demand. The good 
 citizen hardly knows that he is hurt by the follies 
 of his neighbors. It is only after the police au- 
 thorities go into peculation and crime as their main 
 business, using their official duties as a cloak, as 
 they have done at times in New York under Tam- 
 many, that the honest citizen begins to feel the heel 
 of tyranny upon his own neck. Then, if you are a 
 builder, you must bribe the building department, or 
 submit to ruinous delays in the approval of your 
 building plans ; if you are a laborer, you must vote 
 as you are told, or lose your job ; if you are a mer- 
 chant, you must pay your blackmail or endure 
 unnecessary and damaging interference in the 
 
 179 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 handling of your goods ; if you bid for a city con- 
 tract, you must pay a rake-off or have your bid re- 
 jected no matter how low it may be. At this point in 
 the development of the police disease, when the 
 whole city is sick with political anaemia, a great revul- 
 sion of public sentiment is likely to come, resulting in 
 a mighty effort to shake off the leeches from the 
 city's neck. " An ounce of prevention is worth a 
 pound of cure," however. There is no evidence to 
 show that a city ever wholly recovers the moral 
 and political virtue lost by police corruption ; 
 for police corruption is as often as not a result 
 of popular corruption, and, in any case, cannot long 
 continue without resulting in the degradation of 
 public sentiment. 
 
 The police magistrate in any great city has a 
 position of peculiar responsibility. If his court is 
 a bulwark of justice mingled with mercy, his 
 influence for good is unmeasured among that 
 large class of people in every community who 
 approach, at some time or other in their lives, the 
 borderland of crime. On the other hand, when 
 the magistrate is brutal, ignorant, or corrupt, or 
 uses his position to build up for himself a political 
 following, one of the principal educational institu- 
 tions of the municipality is turned into a school of 
 depravity. The city that tolerates such a police 
 judge is committing suicide. It would be difficult 
 to ascertain the general efficiency of the police 
 courts of American cities, but it is well known in 
 many places that the judges are not as high- 
 i8o 
 
uNiveRsn Y 
 
 or . 
 
 MUNICIPALTNSURANCE 
 
 minded, intelligent, and courageous men as they 
 ought to be. It seems probable that conditions 
 are improving. Certainly the movement toward 
 juvenile courts and the separation of first offenders 
 from hardened criminals has gained much head- 
 way, and it seems hardly possible that the abomi- 
 nations of the Tammany magistrates* courts of 
 New York City, as they flourished prior to 1895, 
 will again be possible for any considerable period 
 in the near future. 
 
 The police department has other functions 
 besides the prevention and punishment of crime. 
 The poHcemen protect and preserve the parks 
 and playgrounds. They maintain order at public 
 meetings. They keep the way clear for street 
 processions and parades. They stand guard at 
 dangerous street crossings and help pedestrians 
 over. They catch runaway horses and impound 
 unmuzzled dogs. They take care of lost purses 
 and parcels. They give information about their 
 city to strangers. They turn in fire-alarms and 
 do many other friendly services for which the 
 community owes them a debt of gratitude. 
 
 There is a side of the policeman's life that is 
 very attractive to youths. His uniform makes him 
 a striking figure. His duties involve considerable 
 danger and occasional opportunities for heroism. 
 His miscellaneous services make him useful to 
 people. Indeed, the policeman has almost, if not 
 quite, as great an opportunity for influencing the 
 morals of youth as the school-teacher. It is all 
 
 181 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the more a pity that groups of boys often get to 
 look upon the policeman as their natural enemy, 
 and the policeman gets to look upon the boys as 
 the most lawless of citizens. This unhappy mis- 
 understanding is partly due, in some cases, to 
 official brutality and ignorance, but the main cause 
 for it is the premium put upon youthful lawless- 
 ness by the careless city that provides not for its 
 children. Playgrounds, vacation schools, public 
 baths, gymnasia, athletic fields, and the Hke enter- 
 prises are the means by which the policeman and 
 the boys can be brought into harmony to the 
 infinite advantage of both. 
 
 The great cities of America maintain side by 
 side at enormous expense two departments of 
 municipal government, — one for the education 
 of citizens, and one for their correction. To a 
 considerable extent the efficiency of the former 
 renders the latter unnecessary. Yet Philadelphia 
 spends ^700,000 more in a year for correction than 
 for education. Possibly that partly accounts for 
 her notoriety as a " corrupt and contented " city. 
 The 38 cities having over 100,000 population each, 
 and an aggregate population of a little over 14,000,- 
 000, spend about $60,000,000 annually for schools, 
 libraries, museums, etc., and $38,000,000 for the 
 police, police courts, jails, etc. This shows an 
 expenditure of ^j per cent more money for edu- 
 cation than for correction, the average for the 
 latter being $2.51 per capita. The percentage 
 of excess in expenditures for the one department 
 182 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 or the other in the principal cities is shown by the 
 following table : — 
 
 CITY 
 
 EXCESS IN EXPENDITURE 
 
 For education 
 
 For correction 
 
 New York 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 St. Louis 
 
 Boston 
 
 Baltimore 
 
 Cleveland 
 
 Buffalo 
 
 San Francisco 
 
 Cincinnati 
 
 Pittsburg 
 
 New Orleans 
 
 Detroit 
 
 Milwaukee 
 
 Washington 
 
 1 8 cities with from 30,154 
 to 33,988 population . . 
 
 per cent 
 
 78 
 
 112 
 
 15 
 
 34 
 151 
 
 54 
 
 28 
 
 76 
 
 98 
 
 82 
 
 66 
 118 
 
 25 
 
 232 
 
 per cent 
 
 20 
 9 
 
 In the 38 principal cities there are about 
 25,000 policemen, or approximately one for every 
 570 inhabitants. There are about twice as many 
 school-teachers, who are on the average paid con- 
 siderably less for their services than the poHce 
 officers. 
 
 In a study of the cost of the police and edu- 
 
 183 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 cational departments of city government, either 
 comparatively or otherwise, it must be borne in 
 mind that by no means all the effort and expense 
 involved in these great functions are carried by 
 the cities in their corporate capacity. In the 
 Eastern states, especially, vast sums of money are 
 spent in the support of private schools, and large 
 amounts are also spent privately in various cities 
 for police protection. The various detective agen- 
 cies and the companies organized to furnish night 
 watchmen have a liberal patronage. Indeed, it is 
 said that a considerable share of the police work 
 in New Orleans is done by a private company. 
 This is evidenced by the comparatively small 
 number of city police officers and the small pub- 
 lic expenditure in that city. With a population 
 greater than Detroit, New Orleans has only a few 
 more than half as many policemen, and spends 
 less than half as much money on the service. 
 
 Making allowance for such exceptional cities as 
 New Orleans, the public expenditures for the police 
 increase rapidly with the size of the cities, so that 
 in those of over a million population the cost of 
 the police is shown to be three times as much 
 per capita as in cities of from 30,000 to 40,000.^ 
 
 American cities need to become more law-abid- 
 ing. This result cannot be brought about by 
 police supervision alone. There is needed an 
 
 1 These estimates are made from the " Statistics of Cities," 
 published in the United States Bulletin of the Department of 
 Labor t September, 1902. 
 
 184 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 awakening of intelligence to the point where the 
 city will take more pains with the education of 
 youth, and will inculcate by precept and example 
 the necessity of subordinating private interests to 
 public welfare. The policeman should be re- 
 garded as the friend of all good citizens, the argus- 
 eyed guardian of public order, the brave champion 
 of law who takes his life in his hand for the pro- 
 tection of our liberties. The policeman ought to 
 be brought into closer touch with the moral and 
 educational forces of the community, both for his 
 own sake and for the benefit of the service. If 
 he spends his years in constant contact with 
 thieves, prostitutes, and drunkards, it is to be ex- 
 pected that his moral sensibilities will be deadened. 
 Police officers as a rule have little faith in human 
 nature. They know the dark side of so many so- 
 called respectable citizens' lives that they come to 
 regard movements for the eradication of vice as 
 impractical and harmful. Their attitude toward 
 the social evil is significant. It is believed that 
 the police almost universally aim to confine pros- 
 titution to certain districts and let it alone except 
 when it allies itself with other evils which are 
 generally regarded with more aversion. The 
 police favor confining prostitution to certain quar- 
 ters so that a man who is robbed or who catches a 
 contagious disease in a bawdy house may make 
 more effective complaint. In other words, they 
 regard prostitution as a social necessity, and strive 
 to make it safe. They are not idealists. They 
 
 185 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 need a broader education in social ethics. All 
 possible means should be used to increase the useful- 
 ness of the police force along other than purely 
 corrective lines, and to bring the police officers into 
 closer contact and more sympathy with the law- 
 abiding elements and the educational forces of 
 the community. 
 
 The fire department is perhaps the most pic- 
 turesque and popular of all the municipal depart- 
 ments. The sudden call, the magnificent response, 
 the horses, machinery, and men, all moving swiftly 
 through the crowded streets to the scene of dan- 
 ger, would give to the activities of the fire force 
 a prestige in popular favor, even if the people 
 were generally unconscious of the dreadful dan- 
 gers and the terrible heroisms of fire fighting. 
 There is, perhaps, nothing before which the wealth 
 and grandeur of a great city sinks so quickly into 
 insignificance as fire. There is no enemy that so 
 constantly threatens to imperil the life and property 
 of every citizen of a great city as fire. The great 
 fires in Chicago and Boston in the early seventies 
 are among the most terrible events of American 
 history, and in recent years the Paterson and 
 Baltimore fires, the hotel holocausts in New York, 
 and the Iroquois theatre fire in Chicago make 
 one's breath come quick to think of the responsi- 
 bility for life that rests upon the fire and building 
 departments of every great city. A hotel, or 
 tenement-house, not properly constructed or pro- 
 vided with means of escape in case of fire, is a 
 
 i86 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 death-trap more ghastly than any other ; for in it, 
 in the midst of civilization, comfort, and peace, 
 men, women, and children put their lives almost 
 without reservation into the care of others. They 
 have a right to expect a degree of safety impossi- 
 ble on a railroad train or in a mine. It is these 
 terrible moments of danger that give dramatic 
 interest to the fire department. 
 
 The total property loss by fire in cities of more 
 than 30,000 population is approximately $60,000,000 
 in an average year, resulting from about 60,000 fires. 
 There are, besides, a good many false alarms which 
 set the machinery of the department in motion 
 and test its eflficiency. It is estimated that the fire 
 losses covered by insurance in the various under- 
 writing companies amount to about 60 per cent of 
 the premiums paid. This means that it costs the 
 cities about $100,000,000 per year for fire insur- 
 ance, besides the cost of the municipal fire depart- 
 ments. These cost approximately $25,000,000 a 
 year, so that fires and protection from them cost 
 the cities about $125,000,000 annually. Municipal 
 fire departments are kept up to a standard of 
 eiBciency, partly through the general recognition 
 of their responsibility, and partly through the con- 
 stant pressure exerted by the fire-insurance com- 
 panies in raising or lowering rates in accordance 
 with the efficiency of service. The department 
 has not complete control over its own efficiency, 
 however, for it is largely dependent upon the water 
 pressure furnished by the city for its use. 
 
 187 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 It is interesting to note that the largest cities, 
 including all those with a population of more than 
 half a million, spend less than half as much on 
 their fire departments as they do for police pro- 
 tection ; while in cities of less than 50,000 popu- 
 lation the expenditures for the two kinds of 
 protection are nearly equal. Indeed, there are 
 eleven cities with more than 100,000 population 
 where the fire department costs more than police 
 protection. This comparison indicates that the 
 fire service is a more constant factor in the life 
 of cities, and less given over to fluctuations of po- 
 litical extravagance, than the police department. 
 The generally excellent service rendered by Ameri- 
 can municipal fire departments points to the tre- 
 mendous power for good that can be exerted over 
 government by a well-organized private interest 
 of practically universal character, such as fire 
 insurance. If the police department could be 
 subjected to some such pressure, there would be 
 a great cleansing of the Augaean stables. It is 
 not contended here that all fire departments are 
 free from corruption. Tammany influences cor- 
 rupt every department in a city's administration. 
 But corruption in the fire department is checked 
 before it materially diminishes the efficiency of the 
 service. 
 
 The inspection of steam boilers and the regula- 
 tion of the storage of explosives and combustibles 
 often form a part of the duties of the fire depart- 
 ment. Boiler inspection is also carried on by pri- 
 
 188 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 vate companies. In some cities, indeed, the fire 
 underwriters maintain a salvage corps whose 
 business it is to attend fires and supplement the 
 efforts of the municipal force in saving property. 
 In the case of boiler inspection, however, the work 
 of the municipal department is generally supple- 
 mental to that of the private companies. 
 
 The importance of the inspection of buildings 
 in great cities is not generally appreciated in full. 
 We have the authority of the last Tenement House 
 Commission of New York for the statement that 
 more than one-half of the inhabitants of the 
 American metropolis are dependent upon the strong 
 arm of law for safe housing. Under the condi- 
 tions that arise where population is congested, the 
 ordinary motives of self-protection and desire for 
 profit are inadequate to make buildings safe and 
 sanitary. The erection of suitable fire-escapes is 
 one matter of prime importance. Supervision of 
 the electric wiring of buildings at the time of their 
 construction is another such matter. The frequent 
 inspection of elevators and the guarantee of their 
 safety has become a prime necessity in modern 
 office buildings and stores. The occasional disas- 
 ters that result from the collapse of a building, the 
 explosion of a boiler, the falling of an elevator, the 
 wreck of a street car, or the destruction of a hotel 
 or theatre by fire serve as powerful reminders of 
 absolute dangers against which we are insured by 
 municipal inspection or under municipal control. 
 The necessity of public interference on behalf of 
 189 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 general safety is notorious. There is a class of 
 men who, actuated by ignorance or blinded by 
 greed, and devoid of any sense of social responsi- 
 bility, will build fine-looking death-traps for profit 
 only. There is no officer in a large city who needs 
 more intelligence and downright courage than the 
 building inspector. Under Tammany the New 
 York building department was one of . the most 
 corrupt. Of 333 tenement-houses under construc- 
 tion three or four years ago, inspected by the 
 Tenement House Commission, only 15 were being 
 built without any violation of the law. 
 
 Coercion is required in large cities to keep build- 
 ings up to right standards in three main directions 
 — safety from fire, safety from collapse, and sani- 
 tary safety. Not much is required of the ordinary 
 one or two story dwelling-house or shop, in the 
 first two particulars, and, in a general way, sani- 
 tary inspection may in these cases be confined to 
 the plumbing, except in the worst slum districts. 
 The requirement of fire-proof construction or of 
 adequate facilities for quick escape, in case of fire, 
 is chiefly important in the case of factories, big 
 stores, public buildings, office buildings, hotels, 
 and apartment and tenement houses of three or 
 more stories. The danger from collapse is also 
 practically confined to these classes of buildings. 
 Sanitary regulations are of greatest importance in 
 densely populated tenement-house districts, where 
 the dangers from defective plumbing are multi- 
 plied, and ventilation, light, and adequate sleeping 
 
 190 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 room are often wanting. Building inspection is one 
 of the public necessities arising from the growth of 
 cities. The minute regulations of the ordinances 
 are often annoying and expensive to the builder, 
 but they would be much less so if the citizens gen- 
 erally acknowledged their necessity and strove to 
 conform to them rather than to evade them. 
 
 One of the most interesting contributions made 
 in recent years to the story of municipal gov- 
 ernment is Mr. Henry W. Thurston's brochure, 
 entitled The Fight for Life in Chicago, recently 
 published by the Board of Education of that city 
 as the first of a series of " Municipal Studies " to 
 be prepared by the sociology department of the 
 Chicago Normal School, as a guide for the study 
 of civics in the public schools. The spirit of Mr. 
 Thurston's study can best be shown by quoting 
 from his opening paragraphs : — 
 
 "We are all familiar," says he, "with the cam- 
 paigns of the seven years' war which our great- 
 grandfathers fought for independence from Eng- 
 land. We have all heard the brave story of the 
 war between the Blue and Gray which set free our 
 colored people. The story of these wars, which 
 men fought with sword and rifle and cannon to 
 the music of song and trumpet and drum, is more 
 than a twice-told tale to us. But the story of the 
 seventy years' war right here in Chicago, the boys 
 and girls of the city, and even most of the men 
 and women, have never heard. And yet there has 
 been such a war in our city, a war not for the right 
 
 191 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 to govern ourselves as we think best, a war not to 
 free ourselves from slavery, but a war for the 
 chance to live. 
 
 ** When we began the campaign in the early days 
 of our city, our enemy was so cruel that he usually 
 took one out of every thirty of our number yearly. 
 During one unusually fatal year we lost one out of 
 every sixteen, and in 1849 one of every fourteen. 
 
 " But our war has been even more cruel than 
 these figures show; for, during many years, more 
 than half of those killed were not old men and 
 women, who had lived long and happy lives, but 
 little children, less than five years old, who had 
 hardly begun to know how sweet and beautiful life 
 may be." 
 
 Cholera broke out among the United States 
 troops sent to Chicago in 1832 to fight the Indians. 
 The next year the town was organized, and the 
 fight against disease began with the rule that no 
 dead animals should be thrown into the river within 
 the town limits. Scarlet fever became an epidemic 
 in 1843, ^^^ smallpox in 1848. In 1849 the 
 cholera broke out again, and carried off about 
 3 per cent of the population. Civic effort to 
 cleanse the city and protect life was spasmodic. 
 " So long as the lives of citizens were exposed only 
 to the ordinary diseases incident to the country, no 
 attention was paid to sanitary measures." But 
 gradually necessity compelled the city to take up 
 the several enterprises required for the protection 
 of public health, — a pure water-supply, a sanitary 
 
 192 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 sewerage system, the prompt removal of garbage 
 and refuse, the cleansing of the river, street clean- 
 ing, milk inspection, meat inspection, the inspection 
 of other foods and ice, the relief of overcrowding, 
 the abatement of the smoke nuisance, the establish- 
 ment of public baths, etc. The city has been only 
 partially successful in most of these enterprises. 
 The great drainage canal has not yet fully cleansed 
 the river, nor wholly removed the danger of sew- 
 age contamination of the water-supply. The 
 smoke nuisance has been partly removed, but 
 tenement-house overcrowding and street filthiness 
 have hardly been touched by municipal effort. In 
 1896 the Department of Health reported the 
 death-rate to be 80 per cent higher in ten wards 
 than in ten other wards ; while in the most un- 
 healthful ward the rate was 364 per cent higher 
 than in the most healthful one. The causes for 
 this difference were stated to be, in the order of 
 their relative importance : — 
 
 Firsts the condition of streets and alleys ; 
 
 Second, the character of the natural site ; 
 
 Third, the character of the habitations ; 
 
 Fourth, the character of the population. 
 
 The first three of these causes are social, and 
 depend to a considerable extent upon municipal 
 endeavor for their removal. The life-insurance 
 function of city government is admirably stated 
 in another report of the Chicago Health Depart- 
 ment. Says the commissioner : " Neglect of intel- 
 ligent, well-directed sanitary supervision by the 
 
 193 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 municipality for the protection of its citizens is mu- 
 nicipal murder. The city having assumed the sole 
 right to furnish water, drainage, paving, police pro- 
 tection, fire protection, etc., to the citizen in return 
 for taxes and assessments, is morally and should be 
 legally bound to protect him in the enjoyment of 
 his life and property, free from any nuisance cre- 
 ated on adjoining property injurious to him." 
 
 One of the most imperative functions of munici- 
 pal government is the protection of the lives of 
 infants. Infant mortahty is a pretty sure index 
 of municipal negligence. Children under five 
 years of age furnished only 30 per cent of the 
 deaths in Chicago in 1902. In the early days the 
 percentage was fifty or sixty. The Boston Depart- 
 ment of Statistics furnishes figures of infant mor- 
 tality in Massachusetts for the years 1891 to 1897.^ 
 In Fall River 255 children died under one year of 
 age for every 1000 births. The average rate for 
 all cities of the state was 164.2, and for the coun- 
 try districts 129.5. In five cities at least one baby 
 in five died. The last Federal census gives the 
 figures for the year 1900 in all the principal cities 
 of the country, and also in nine states included in 
 the registration area.^ These states are the six of 
 New England, together with New York, New Jer- 
 sey, and Michigan. The District of Columbia is 
 also included in the area. Within these states the 
 cities show an infant mortality of 184.7 P^r thou- 
 
 1 Monthly Bulletin, March, 1900. 
 
 2 Abstract of the Txvelfth Census, pp. 197-201. 
 
 194 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 sand, while the rate in the rural districts is 1 1 7.4. 
 The rate in New York City is 189.4. Minneapolis 
 and St. Paul, St. Joseph, Missouri, and Rochester, 
 New York, are the only cities with over 100,000 
 population in which infant mortality is less than 
 in the rural districts of the registration states. In 
 Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, New Orleans, 
 Memphis, Detroit, Providence, and Fall River, from 
 20 to 30 per cent of the babies die before they are 
 a year old. Richmond, Virginia, shows 30 per 
 cent, and Charleston, South Carolina, 42 per cent. 
 These figures seem almost incredible. If the 
 death-rate among infants were the same in the 
 cities as in the rural districts, 5800 baby lives 
 would be saved every year in New York City, 
 2400 in Philadelphia, 1250 in Boston, 1000 in Bal- 
 timore, 850 in Chicago, 450 in Providence, and so 
 on through the hst. 
 
 Typhoid fever, a disease that is usually con- 
 tracted from the use of impure water or milk, is the 
 cause of many deaths and of enormous expense. 
 Pittsburg and Allegheny have the unenviable dis- 
 tinction of standing at the head of the list of the 
 great American cities in the proportion of deaths 
 caused by typhoid fever. In Pittsburg 6.3 1 per cent 
 of all deaths during the year 1901 were from this 
 disease. The percentage in Allegheny was 5.53.^ 
 It is no wonder that these cities are agitating 
 the purification of their water-supply. The ex- 
 
 ^ See Bulletin of the United States Department of Labor ^ Novem- 
 ber, 1902. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 perience of Chicago shows clearly how much 
 can be accomplished in this way. The number of 
 deaths from typhoid decreased very strikingly 
 when the intake pipes were extended farther into 
 Lake Michigan about ten years ago. The number 
 of deaths from typhoid was 1008 in 1890; 1997 in 
 1891 ; 1489 in 1892; and only 670 in 1893. In 
 1900 the total number was 337; in 1901,. 509; and 
 in 1902, 801. But it is needless to present figures 
 to prove that a pure water-supply is in the interest 
 of public health. Indeed, pure water is so funda- 
 mental a necessity, and under urban conditions 
 individual care is so inadequate a protection against 
 dangers from pollution, that cities might well under- 
 take the absolute guarantee of the water, giving 
 citizens injured by drinking it the right to collect 
 damages from the municipality. 
 
 The health departments proper of the great 
 American cities spend only about one-tenth as 
 much money as is spent for police protection, 
 although it is undoubtedly true that on the average 
 municipal health activities save many more lives 
 than police activities. Chicago spends only about 
 ^200,000 on its health service. Expenses for sew- 
 erage and garbage removal are not included in 
 these estimates. In spite of these comparatively 
 small expenditures on public health, the reported 
 death-rates of our cities make a good showing.^ 
 
 1 The death statistics are not altogether reliable in some Ameri- 
 can cities. St. Joseph, Missouri, for example, shows a rate of only 
 9.1 per I,cxx3 for 19CX), and 6.5 for 1901. 
 
 196 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 The rate per looo population is seldom more than 
 20, the average for the 38 largest cities being 16.2. 
 The danger to life from disease is much greater 
 than the danger from violence, and, of course, the 
 total cost of curing and preventing sickness is 
 much greater than the cost of pohce protection. 
 But most of this expense takes the form of doctor 
 bills, hospital bills, and life-insurance premiums. 
 It seems certain that a much greater expenditure 
 on municipal life insurance in the way of better 
 sanitary inspection, purer water and milk supplies, 
 better housing, more public baths and small parks, 
 etc., would bring about a large total saving to the 
 community through lower death-rates and less 
 sickness. But we are not yet entirely past the 
 idea that sickness is inevitable and in accordance 
 with the will of Providence. Life and health are 
 often held in less effectual esteem than property, 
 and the community is sometimes not so well edu- 
 cated to the necessity of public protection for the 
 former as for the latter. 
 
 There is another great field of public insurance 
 which attains increased importance in cities. That 
 is insurance against suffering and death by reason 
 of poverty or incapacity. The processes of civili- 
 zation are costly. The wastes of progress are 
 enormous. The strain of our organized industrial 
 and social life uses men up before their time. 
 Vice multipHes its victims. The city is compelled 
 by the dictates of humanity and self-respect to 
 pick up and remove from the arena the victims of 
 
 197 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the strife that makes the city great. The home- 
 less children, the idiotic, the insane, the crippled, 
 the penniless aged, the social outcast, the misfit, 
 all must be cared for, that life may not absolutely 
 perish and that the footprints of the city's onward 
 progress may not be marked with blood. Municipal 
 charity is a kind of life insurance that reckons 
 physical existence as the essential thing in life, and 
 counts its duty done when men, women, and chil- 
 dren are kept alive. The quality of the life they 
 live seems of Httle account, only so they Hve. 
 This criticism of pubHc charity is not, of course, 
 universally applicable, but often public officials 
 think municipal duty is fulfilled by the mere pres- 
 ervation of life. New York and Boston spend 
 about as much on hospitals, asylums, almshouses, 
 and other charities as they do on their fire-depart- 
 ments, and Washington and several large Massa- 
 chusetts cities spend more, but most of the cities 
 spend far less. The city of Chicago spends 
 almost nothing in this way, charities being a county 
 function in Illinois. Indeed, charities are not nat- 
 urally a distinctively municipal function except in 
 so far as the wear and tear of civilization is accen- 
 tuated in city life. But the city is responsible for 
 the care of its human wastes no less than for the 
 disposal of its wastes in other forms. Its main 
 responsibility must be, however, in preventive 
 measures, arising out of the spirit of cooperation, 
 which is the only salvation of men under urban 
 conditions. 
 
 198 
 
MUNICIPAL INSURANCE 
 
 It is the competitive spirit that casts men into 
 the wine-press of civiHzation, and, after draining 
 off their life-blood and nerve-force, drops them 
 like useless pulp by the wayside of progress. 
 Democracy is opposed to this spirit. It cries out 
 that men are not fit materials for the wine-press. 
 It has faith in universal brotherhood. Mere life is 
 not particularly sacred to democracy, but the 
 opportunities for mere life to expand into full and 
 free life are sacred to it. Under democracy, mu- 
 nicipal insurance reaches far beyond mere exist- 
 ence and safety into the higher cooperations for 
 the guarantee of physical, industrial, and social 
 conditions fit for freedom. 
 
 199 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 Industrial society and political society are 
 organized on radically different principles. The 
 one lays emphasis on the differences among men 
 and employs division of labor to attain its ends. 
 The other lays emphasis on the universal attributes 
 of human nature and uses equal suffrage as its in- 
 strument. For industrial society, in considerable 
 degree, distance has been annihilated and space 
 overcome. For political society, under civiliza- 
 tion, place and territorial limits are fundamental. 
 The idea of equahty is an outgrowth of man's pri- 
 mary relations with nature. Every man must have 
 a place and on some spot of earth a home. This 
 fact is at the basis of free government, and out 
 of the recognition of its full significance grows 
 democracy. Birth, growth, nutrition, reproduction, 
 death, are the great levellers that remind us of the 
 essential equality of human life. It is with the 
 guarantee of equal opportunities to play our parts 
 well in these primary processes that government is 
 chiefly concerned. This of necessity brings govern- 
 ment into relation with place, for all the people are 
 divided up into little local groups called " families." 
 
 200 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 They are somtwhere, and government finds them in 
 that place. 
 
 The vast expansion of the facilities for trans- 
 mitting intelligence and goods has seemed of late 
 years to be breaking down the barriers of space and 
 diminishing its significance. We almost forget that 
 man needs a habitat. It is the boast of our era that 
 we can traverse an ocean or a continent in a few 
 days, can throw our voices a thousand miles, can 
 send messages around the world in a few moments. 
 We think that, space having been annihilated, we 
 need no room, and so will live all in one place. 
 Cities grow apace and population becomes con- 
 gested. But the earth goes rolling on, and we stay 
 with it. We still nurse at its bosom and sleep upon 
 its lap, and from the platting of the first acre the 
 price of land goes up. LocaHty persistently asserts 
 itself, and the faster distance is abolished the more 
 rapidly the price of standing room rises. And so, 
 step by step, ceaselessly and unflinchingly, nature's 
 dominance over man asserts itself. 
 
 The growth of cities and the unwonted develop- 
 ment of industrial society have taken us a long way 
 toward the social organism. But in the nature of 
 the case reaction must come, and this reaction is 
 taking the form of the problems of city govern- 
 ment. Division of labor in production, coupled 
 with intense competition in enjoyment, has resulted 
 in conditions that make civic cooperation necessary. 
 
 The growth of a city creates new place interests 
 and enlarges the functions of government. It is 
 
 201 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 no longer possible for every man to chop his own 
 road through the wood, but all the citizens must 
 combine not only to make streets, but to grade and 
 pave them at great expense. The householder can 
 no longer tap the earth in his front yard for a 
 supply of drinking water, but must unite with the 
 other householders to construct aqueducts and 
 reservoirs and lay an elaborate system, of pipes 
 in order to bring water to his door. He can no 
 longer raise and slaughter his own swine and 
 chickens, or depend upon his neighbors to do it, but 
 must unite with them to establish a market where 
 all may buy their meat from strangers under 
 guarantees of sanitary conditions. The city dwel- 
 ler can have no field, and perhaps no dooryard, in 
 which his children may play, but must unite with 
 his fellow-citizens to estabHsh public parks and 
 playgrounds for the use of all in common. Urban 
 citizens may even be unable to get fresh clean air 
 without putting their heads together to devise and 
 enforce building regulations or to abate the smoke 
 nuisance. 
 
 After the construction and maintenance of the 
 streets themselves, the so-called municipal monop- 
 olies offer the most inviting iield for civic coopera- 
 tion. The term " municipal monopoly " is quite 
 generally understood, though many citizens still 
 believe it a misnomer. As ordinarily considered, a 
 municipal monopoly is a business that requires for 
 its very existence the use of permanent fixtures in 
 the streets and alleys." It might be argued that 
 202 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 competition in the milk business or even the gro- 
 cery or dry-goods business, so far as the delivery 
 of goods is concerned, is unnatural and requires the 
 wasteful duplication of routes, all the dealers hav- 
 ing to send their wagons over the same streets to 
 serve scattered customers. There is force in this 
 argument, and for this very reason we find that 
 the large concerns can be most economically man- 
 aged and business is actually tending toward combi- 
 nation or division of territory for economy's sake. 
 Nevertheless we cannot consider the milk-supply 
 business a municipal monopoly in the same sense 
 as the water business. The one requires a small 
 capital investment and a comparatively large cur- 
 rent expenditure, while with the latter the case 
 is reversed. The installation of the permanent fix- 
 tures in the streets for the distribution of water, 
 gas, electricity, or steam, or for street-railway 
 transportation, requires such a great outlay of capi- 
 tal and imposes such a burden on the street that, 
 from the standpoint of the public as well as from 
 that of the purveyor of the commodities, it is 
 practically necessary in the long run for the same 
 water and gas mains to supply every house in the 
 street and for the same street-car line to carry all the 
 passengers in the district who desire to travel in that 
 way. The municipal monopolies, as commonly 
 understood, then, include waterworks and sewers, 
 street railways, and telephone systems, gas and 
 electric plants for light, heat, and power, and such 
 other kinds of business as may require special 
 
 203 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 permanent fixtures in the streets as a condition of 
 their existence. 
 
 These services tend to be universal, uniform, 
 and necessary. The unit of service is the private 
 residence which is a local institution. True, there 
 are many limitations upon the universal character 
 of the service. In some cities of considerable size 
 private wells are still the main source of supply 
 of drinking water, but as a rule the city water mains 
 carry water from a common reservoir to the tene- 
 ment and the mansion alike. In the same street 
 car the poor and the rich ride side by side if their 
 hours of labor are the same. Everybody pays the 
 same rate as a rule. Gas is not so democratic, 
 and electricity and telephones are still less so, yet 
 they tend toward universal use, and among the 
 users the service is practically uniform, the saloon 
 and the church, the boarding-house and the man- 
 sion, being actually hitched together by wires and 
 pipes. The points in which public utilities lend 
 themselves particularly to democratic cooperation 
 and ultimate control by the whole people are 
 these : — 
 
 First. Competition fails to give adequate con- 
 trol, because a large capital investment is required, 
 and this is practically wasted when applied to the 
 construction of duplicate plants. 
 
 Second. Competition is rendered still less fea- 
 sible as a mode of control by the congestion of 
 population and the consequent necessity of putting 
 land and franchise rights to their full use, double 
 204 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 lines being often intolerable from both a public 
 and a private standpoint. 
 
 Third. The unit of consumption is a local unit, 
 the family residence or the place of business. 
 This is true to a certain extent even with the street 
 railways, their profit depending principally on the 
 mimber of homes within easy reach of each partic- 
 ular line. 
 
 Fourth. The service is for all, determined accord- 
 ing to their location, not according to their wealth, 
 or personal tastes, or individual character. 
 
 It is clear according to the theory of democracy 
 that these universal interests where competition is 
 ineffective should be under popular control. That 
 every man should be able to get transportation, 
 water, and light, and dispose of his wastes at the 
 minimum cost, is one of the conditions of free life 
 in cities. In fact, the fixtures in the shape of 
 tracks, pipes, wires, and conduits, by which these 
 services' are performed, are in reality only a part 
 of the open road by which free movement for per- 
 sons and commodities is secured. The political 
 cooperation compelled by city conditions under the 
 theory of democracy logically tends toward the 
 absolute public ownership of the street and every 
 fixture in it, over it, or under it. And we may 
 confidently expect that, if democratic institutions 
 do not suffer abortion, municipal ownership of the 
 distributing systems, at least, of all public utilities 
 will in the long run become practically universal. 
 
 Civic cooperation does not stop here, however. 
 205 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 In the country every household has its own 
 milk supply or can get it from neighbors. Milk 
 is only second to water in universal importance, 
 and is peculiarly subject to contamination and 
 adulteration. In the first place great care must 
 be exercised in the production of milk to in- 
 sure that it is pure and nourishing. Then the 
 handling of the milk requires equal or greater care 
 to insure that its receptacles are kept sweet and 
 clean. Finally, milk must be delivered quickly 
 and consumed quickly. It is one of the most 
 perishable of foods. Upon pure, wholesome milk, 
 reasonably cheap, depends in large measure the 
 reproductive capacity of cities. Milk is the food 
 of infants. The appalling mortahty among infants 
 in some cities is a clear indication of the public 
 importance of a pure, wholesome, and abundant 
 supply of milk. In a city like Chicago, with its 
 2,000,000 people, the citizens are critically de- 
 pendent upon the public authorities for milk 
 inspection. The milk-supply business tends tow- 
 ard monopoly in a great city for the reason that 
 large quantities have to be moved long distances 
 and distributed as quickly as possible. The small 
 milkman cannot do business in a metropolis. The 
 economic demands for milk may be able generally 
 to stimulate the production of a sufficient supply, 
 but only municipal cooperation through authority 
 will insure that this supply is safe and nourishing. 
 So here we have another instance of the special 
 necessity that compels governmental cooperation 
 206 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 in cities. We often hear in these days rumors of 
 a milk trust for some city, but there is very Httle 
 talk as yet of municipal dairies in the United 
 States. Springfield, Massachusetts, however, 
 maintains as a part of its animal exhibit a herd 
 of thoroughbred cattle. The cows furnish milk 
 for other animals in the zoological garden, and a 
 considerable amount in addition, which is sold by 
 the city and brings in several hundred dollars a 
 year. 
 
 What is true of the milk supply is also true, 
 though to a less extent, of other food suppUes, 
 especially meat. The necessity of civic coopera- 
 tion for the purpose of securing food at reasonable 
 rates has given rise to municipal markets which 
 are almost everywhere a recognized municipal 
 function. The market is a public place where 
 buyers and sellers of food supplies congregate at 
 regular intervals to meet the constant and univer- 
 sal demands of the people of a city for food. The 
 market is the centre of the distributing system, 
 and here the municipal authorities exercise more 
 or less control by means of the inspection of weights 
 and measures and of the quality of the food itself. 
 The magnitude of the meat business and the 
 peculiar dangers to the public health from meat 
 contamination make meat inspection particularly 
 important. The disgraceful condition of private 
 slaughter-houses in and about Michigan cities led 
 to the passage, in 1903, of a stringent act giving 
 cities control over slaughter-houses, outside of 
 
 207 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 their limits even, and empowering each city to 
 establish a public abattoir and require that all 
 slaughtering for the city markets be done there.^ 
 This form of municipal cooperation, though common 
 in foreign cities, is as yet hardly known in the 
 United States. It is, nevertheless, a cooperative 
 function toward which the very conditions of city 
 life are driving us. 
 
 Free public education is the most firmly estab- 
 lished socialistic enterprise of the American com- 
 monwealth. We have already discussed at some 
 length ' the peculiar features of the educational 
 problem in cities. There are only one or two 
 things further to be said here in regard to public 
 education as a phase of civic cooperation. One 
 is in regard to the movement for free text-books. 
 Educators argue in favor of free text-books the 
 desirability of making education completely free 
 and the schools fully efficient. They say that a 
 text-book is as necessary to the child's education as 
 a desk, a pencil, or a blackboard. Why, then, 
 should the city stop short in its supply of the 
 necessary tools of education .? And, from the 
 standpoint of efficiency, why should the school be 
 compelled to lose several days or weeks every year 
 waiting for individual pupils to supply themselves 
 with text-books ? There are several arguments 
 advanced against free text-books, the most forcible 
 being brought forward by the taxpayers who 
 object to paying in proportion to their property for 
 
 1 Michigan Public Acts, 1903, p. 140. 
 
 208 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 the education of other people's children, and by 
 parents who send their own children to private 
 and parochial schools. These arguments would 
 apply with equal force against the whole system of 
 free public education. This is, however, primarily a 
 question of state socialism rather than of civic coop- 
 eration, except that in cities the problem becomes 
 more acute by reason of the greater prevalence 
 of private schools and the greater inequalities of 
 wealth among the citizens. 
 
 There is one phase of the educational problem 
 that is especially related to civic cooperation. I 
 refer to technical schools. By a recent Massachu- 
 setts law the state offers to cooperate with certain 
 cities in the estabHshment and maintenance of 
 such institutions.^ Already textile schools have 
 been established in New Bedford, Fall River, and 
 Lowell. Here again we have a municipal function 
 that is commonly undertaken in foreign cities, but 
 has been unknown in the United States until 
 recently. Public technical schools hardly come 
 within the necessary scope of municipal functions 
 except in cities where one industry is so predomi- 
 nant as to be vital to the prosperity of the town, 
 and therefore of universal interest to the citizens. 
 Many of the New England cities have such a con- 
 dition. Grand Rapids, Michigan, is one of the 
 best illustrations in the Middle states of a city 
 w4th one dominating industry. The furniture busi- 
 ness is so much the life of Grand Rapids that many 
 
 1 Laws of Massachusetts y 1895, Chapter 475. 
 p 209 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of its conservative citizens suggest the desirability 
 of a municipal school of design, without even think- 
 ing of socialism. 
 
 The protective functions of government are not 
 ordinarily considered socialistic. Even Herbert 
 Spencer found room for police protection in his 
 emasculated state. Nevertheless, in great cities 
 the municipal activities for the guarantee of life, 
 health, and property become so complex and far- 
 reaching as to constitute notable examples of civic 
 cooperation. This is undeniably true of such 
 functions as free fire protection and the free col- 
 lection and disposal of garbage. And in so far as 
 the police force is used for taking the school 
 census, giving information to strangers, and as- 
 sisting the work of other municipal departments, 
 it also becomes a witness to the fact that political 
 cooperation on a larger and larger scale is an urban 
 necessity. 
 
 Yet the most starthng and convincing illustra- 
 tions of the local unity that finds its expression in 
 civic cooperation come in cases of public emer- 
 gency. The expenditure of extraordinary sums 
 on public improvements in times of industrial 
 depression in order to give employment to labor, 
 and the turning of vacant lots into free vegetable 
 gardens for the unemployed are instances. Yet 
 these are of slight signification compared with the 
 entrance of cities into the coal and wood business 
 in the midst of a season of prosperity, as many 
 did during the winter of 1902-1903. Many of the 
 
 210 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 more wealthy and conservative citizens looked 
 with disfavor upon this new form of municipal 
 enterprise, even under the trying conditions that 
 existed, but there is no question about the general 
 popularity of the movement. The citizen with no 
 coal in his bin and unable to get any at any price 
 from his dealer did not stick on theory before buy- 
 ing a ton of anthracite from the municipality. 
 The lower house of the Massachusetts legislature 
 asked the supreme court of that state for a ruling 
 in reference to the constitutionality of proposed 
 legislation, giving cities and towns the right to 
 establish municipal fuel yards in certain contin- 
 gencies. The ruling was handed down in January, 
 1903,^ and held that a city could furnish fuel to 
 those unable to buy, by reason of its right to 
 relieve paupers ; that legislation could be passed 
 authorizing a city to act as agent for its citizens 
 in getting fuel where conditions were such that 
 private individuals could not get any ; but that so 
 long as private dealers furnished fuel, no matter 
 what the price, the city could not be authorized to 
 establish yards for buying and selling coal or wood, 
 thus entering into competition with its own citizens 
 in an ordinary private business. If this decision is 
 generally followed, it may check in some measure 
 the tendency toward civic cooperation in such 
 emergencies as a coal famine. Yet necessity, if it 
 becomes real, will obey a higher law and compel 
 the amendment of the restrictions of constitution 
 
 1 In r^ Municipal Fuel Plants, 66 N.E. Rep. 25. 
 211 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 and statute-book that were enacted without refer- 
 ence to the radically new conditions which confront 
 cities. 
 
 The chief danger to liberty is license. The chief 
 danger to democracy is mob rule. The chief danger 
 to cooperation is extravagance. This is in spite of 
 the fact that cooperation is always advocated as an 
 economy measure. Human wants show a peculiar 
 facility for expansion. As a result of this fact we 
 tend to anticipate the expected economies of co- 
 operation and raise our standards of living. We 
 mortgage ourselves to the future and spend the 
 money. This tends to be true in every depart- 
 ment of life where any form of cooperation other 
 than the organic form is tried. We should suppose 
 that two persons could live more cheaply together 
 than apart, yet, according to a common tendency 
 of human nature, two will demand a greater variety 
 of food, more utensils, and better service if they 
 feast together than if they feast separately. With 
 the entrance of every new partner into the coopera- 
 tion in consumption or enjoyment, the equipment 
 must be improved and the goose be hung a little 
 higher. It is a peculiar thing that the larger the 
 city the more expensively its citizens must dress. 
 It seems peculiar also that cooperative housekeep- 
 ing should generally be so expensive as to be within 
 reach of the wealthy alone. It is the same way in 
 the formation of trusts. The expected economies 
 are likely to be anticipated in watered stocks and 
 exorbitant salaries. 
 
 212 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 This tendency illustrates the gravest danger in 
 civic cooperation. The people like good things. 
 If they find they can have them cheaper through 
 public than through private agencies, they imme- 
 diately want more of them, and unless taxation is 
 so arranged that those who vote for expenditures 
 also feel the burden of paying for them, there is 
 a danger of extravagance which will react upon 
 the whole community and cripple it A low tax- 
 rate does not cease to be a good thing after the 
 people have embarked upon a policy of civic coop- 
 eration. There are some things we cannot afford, 
 even though they are cheap. This tendency to 
 extravagance in anticipation of the savings of co- 
 operation is not universally operative, and can be 
 held in check by a healthy conservatism born of 
 common sense and civic honesty. Yet it is a 
 menace to municipal democracy, and care should 
 always be taken in assuming any new municipal 
 function to keep the cost of it unmistakably before 
 the people, and the burden of its support so placed 
 that there will be no popular delusion about getting 
 something for nothing. Under complete demo- 
 cratic socialism this tendency would correct itself, 
 for its effect could not be concealed. The whole 
 people would immediately feel the pinch from pub- 
 lic extravagance. 
 
 Back of the danger of popular extravagance lies 
 a condition of citizenship that constitutes the chief 
 menace to democracy in American cities. This is 
 the lack of public spirit. The men who conduct 
 
 213 
 
THE AMERICAN CIT\^ 
 
 public affairs are animated by too nearly the same 
 motives as those who conduct private business. 
 The civic consciousness is hardly awakened. Yet 
 for the success of cooperation it is necessary that 
 public officials should be truly representative, — that 
 is, animated by pubhc motives. The popular de- 
 mand that public men should act from a different 
 motive in conducting the public business than the 
 rank and file of the people themselves do in their 
 own business, though seemingly inconsistent, is 
 nevertheless founded on a true distinction. The 
 very nature of public works demands the elimina- 
 tion of personal selfishness from the public officials. 
 Nevertheless, this demand is met only in a scant 
 measure. There is prevalent among office-holders 
 and office-seekers a spirit of commercialism that 
 would do honor to the most ruthless business man. 
 
 This spirit has been greatly stimulated by the 
 fee system in county offices. One of the big fee 
 offices in a county containing a large city comes 
 to be a gold mine, and an election to such an 
 office amounts to an exclusive lease to work the 
 mine for a term of years. Under these conditions 
 some of the worst forms of public plunder thrive, 
 and public spirit is practically excluded. Holding 
 office is a business proposition pure and simple, 
 with an odious monopolistic feature added. 
 
 Public officials come to regard themselves not as 
 the guardians of the public funds, but as licensed 
 looters whose main business is to unlock the pub- 
 lic coffers and draw out for themselves and their 
 214 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 friends the maximum amounts of money they can 
 get. The trouble is that competitive human nature 
 has failed to rise into a new category to meet in 
 good faith the demands of cooperation. Literally, 
 the trouble v/ith commerciaUsm in politics is that 
 it is out of date ; it does not belong to the coopera- 
 tive scheme ; it is primitive and uncivilized. 
 
 There are, of course, many other influences be- 
 sides the fee system that foster this evil spirit. 
 The American citizen must turn over a new leaf. 
 He must adjust himself mentally and morally to 
 the new conditions of life. Material development 
 has been too swift for him. Upon his farm and 
 forest lands has sprung up a glittering Babylon. 
 He is still a boor, and thinks that splendid civiliza- 
 tion is his to pillage. At least so one would think 
 who reads the shameful chapters in the history of 
 New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, New Orleans, 
 St. Louis, Minneapolis, and some other American 
 cities. Yet everywhere the spirit of the new time 
 is moving. Civic pride and the municipal con- 
 science are beginning to appear, and there is rea- 
 son to believe that time and necessity will in most 
 cases develop a better citizenship, and provide mu- 
 nicipal leaders worthy of the great trusts that fall 
 into their hands. 
 
 Even now the general inefficiency of municipal 
 work is probably much exaggerated. When a re- ; 
 former raises the cry that the city's affairs should .. 
 be conducted on business principles and points out 11 
 the disheartening inferiority of public as compared 
 
 215 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 with private methods, he generally has in mind 
 the best private business methods and the worst 
 public methods. The really successful and thor- 
 oughly honest business man is the exception and 
 not the rule. Gigantic blunders are often made in 
 private enterprises, and fraud, looseness, and in- 
 efficiency are not uncommon. It is not certain 
 that if all municipal business were compared with 
 all private business, the advantage would be with 
 the latter. Publicity of accounts and responsibility 
 to the people, imperfect as they are, are powerful 
 factors in keeping public business in a state of 
 efficiency. Nevertheless, we know all too well 
 that citizens often take a peculiarly base attitude 
 in their relations to the public treasury. They say 
 "the city is rich," and charge an extra price for 
 the goods they are selling. Even in the country 
 districts we often see the tendency of the tax- 
 payers to give a short measure of service in doing 
 road work. And in cities contractors form a 
 special class of citizens who generally strive to 
 help themselves at the expense of the public. In 
 so far as the charge of extravagance in public 
 work is true, it is due either to ignorance or to 
 that lack of civic consciousness which stands in 
 the way of a more extensive civic cooperation. 
 The citizen who, in his greed to enrich himself re- 
 gardless of method, robs the city, does not see that 
 he is stealing from himself. He does not feel the 
 unity that in fact exists among all the citizens of a 
 city so far as their public interests are concerned. 
 
 216 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 He is only half a man. He does not know that 
 he has any public interests. 
 
 The question as to whether a city should perform 
 its functions in all cases by its own officers and 
 employees or by means of contracts with private 
 individuals is a critical one in municipal circles. 
 According to the strict theory of civic cooperation, 
 contracts for the construction of public improve- 
 ments might be considered as much out of place as 
 contracts for the collection of taxes or the instruc- 
 tion of children. And yet in practice a broad dis- 
 tinction is made between services which are of a 
 continuous nature, and work which can be done 
 once for all. Thus the schools, the police patrol, fire 
 protection, and even the street cleaning, are gener- 
 ally carried on directly by the public employees. 
 On the other hand, as a rule, buildings and bridges 
 are erected, pavements laid, and sewers built by 
 contractors. This is on the same principle by 
 which a private individual lets a contract for the 
 building of his house, barn, or factory, but carries 
 on his business himself. 
 
 In municipal affairs there are a number of ser- 
 vices where the practice is not uniform. Most of 
 the cities clean their own streets ; yet Philadelphia, 
 San Francisco, Indianapolis, and a few others have 
 their streets cleaned partly or wholly by contract. 
 Garbage and ashes are collected and disposed of 
 by the city directly and by contractors in about an 
 equal number of cases, while the householders 
 still more frequently themselves dispose of these 
 217 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 wastes. Street sprinkling is also often done by 
 private parties who make contracts with the prop- 
 erty owners. In Grand Rapids the garbage con- 
 tract gives a monopoly of the business of collecting 
 unsanitary refuse to the contracting company un- 
 der the terms of an ordinance fixing the maximum 
 weekly charge which may be made for the service. 
 This contract has recently been relet by the board 
 of health, which regarded it as a franchise and 
 advertised for bids. The contract was awarded to 
 the highest bidder for a term of three and one-half 
 years. The price paid is $1200 per year. There 
 is a strong public feeling that such services ought 
 to be performed by the city itself free of cost, and 
 that it is particularly offensive to the funda- 
 mental principles of municipal freedom to grant 
 a monopoly to a private company, with prices high 
 enough to permit of its paying a bonus into the 
 city treasury. In Grand Rapids, however, the city 
 burns the garbage free of charge, and the bonus 
 paid by the company for its contract may be 
 rightly considered as a contribution to the ex- 
 penses of the garbage burner. 
 
 When we come to the question of making ordi- 
 nary street improvements by direct employment of 
 labor or by contract, it seems reasonable to say that 
 every city ought to have in its employ a man fully 
 able to direct this sort of work. Streets are being 
 graded, paved, and repaired continually, sewers are 
 being built and sidewalks constructed. There is 
 no good reason why the city should be put to the 
 218 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 extra cost of advertising for bids, supervision of 
 construction, and contractors* profits in such cases. 
 But when it comes to the building of a viaduct, 
 the construction of a city hall, or the digging of a 
 great water tunnel, there is reason for resorting to 
 contractors whose regular business it is to under- 
 take such work. It naturally follows that the 
 larger the city and the more public improvements 
 there are to be made every year, the greater is the 
 proportion of the work that can be done to advan- 
 tage by the city itself. 
 
 The contract system is one that is most annoy- 
 ing and that lends itself to extreme abuses. All 
 the circumstances go to make its operation unsatis- 
 factory. If the contractors have too much work 
 on hand, their bids are extravagantly high. If 
 they are eager for the work, they bid away down in 
 the hope of securing the job and then saving them- 
 selves by an inferior grade of workmanship or 
 materials, or by inducing the authorities to pay 
 large sums for extras. If the conditions seem 
 favorable, the contractors enter into collusion and 
 prevent competition, or a favored contractor bribes 
 the officials to accept his bid when it is too high. 
 Too, when the city does its work by contract, it is 
 difficult to protect properly the interests of citizens 
 while the work is being done. Streets are need- 
 lessly blockaded, work is long delayed, and private 
 frontages are more or less disfigured. The objec- 
 tions that lie to the direct employment of labor for 
 all street work come from those who claim that all 
 
 2IQ 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 municipal work is more expensive than private 
 work, and that an army of city employees lends 
 itself to the building up of political machines. 
 But where a city is corrupt, the contract system 
 also lends itself to the perpetration of frauds and 
 the cultivation of extravagance. 
 
 In an address before the League of American 
 Municipalities at its Baltimore convention in 1903, 
 Mr. James M. Head, of Nashville, Tennessee, gave 
 his experience as mayor of that city in regard to 
 The Advantages of Municipal Construction over the 
 Contract System} After referring to the almost 
 universal provision of law or custom that contracts 
 shall be let to " the lowest responsible bidder," a 
 responsible bidder being "any one who can give 
 bond for the faithful performance of his contract," 
 Mr. Head divides bidders for public work into 
 three classes : first, and least numerous, are the 
 honest contractors, who bid on public work the 
 same as they bid on private work, looking for a 
 fair profit and the strict fulfilment of their obliga- 
 tions ; second, there are the " adventurers," who 
 bid haphazard, but low enough to secure the jobs, 
 trusting to luck or to inefficient inspection to bring 
 them safely through ; and, third, there are the 
 boodlers, who get their contracts through political 
 favoritism or inside information which enables 
 them to underbid the honest contractors. The 
 public officials are under practical constraint to 
 
 ^The address is published in the Bulletin of the League for 
 November, 1903, pp. 21-39. 
 
 220 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 accept the lowest bid, and then the task of hold- 
 ing the dishonest or adventurous contractor to his 
 bargain is an extremely difficult one. **To such 
 an extent has this gone," says Mr. Head, " and so 
 well understood is it that the honest contractor has 
 little or no chance when it comes to bidding upon 
 public work, that a man or firm which is known to 
 be engaged in the business of securing public con- 
 tracts soon comes to be looked upon as little short 
 of a criminal, and his methods of doing business 
 regarded with suspicion by all classes of business 
 men. The contract system has done more to cor- 
 rupt public officials and lower the standard of 
 official integrity than any other one cause, save the 
 granting of franchises to quasi-public corporations." 
 
 Mr. Head then gives the experience of Nashville 
 in furnishing water, in public lighting, in street 
 construction, and in the cleaning, sprinkling, and 
 repair of streets, by direct employment of labor. 
 In these departments a great saving is shown over 
 the contract system in former years or in other 
 cities. Statistics of real value are not easily ob- 
 tainable to show the general comparative efficiency 
 of the two systems. Perhaps Nashville's good 
 results may be due to a provision in its charter for- 
 bidding the officials to employ or make contracts 
 with any person related to them " within the sixth 
 degree of consanguinity or affinity under the civil 
 law." 1 
 
 There is one case of municipal experience with 
 
 1 Charter, Sec. 32. 
 221 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the direct employment of labor in this country that 
 has done much to discredit the plan. That is the 
 case of the Boston municipal printing plant which 
 was established March i, 1897. In February, 1902, 
 Mr. Harvey S. Chase, a public accountant and 
 auditor, made a special report to Mayor Collins of 
 Boston, oh the workings of this enterprise up to 
 January 30, 1902, — that is, for a period of nearly 
 five years. Mr. Chase found that on a total 
 expenditure of 1^755,298.31, the plant had lost 
 ^40,128.83, including interest charges. The causes 
 assigned for this loss are: the employment of too 
 many men, the purchase of excessive stock, the 
 payment of extravagant prices in some cases, and 
 short hours. Mr. Chase says that the quality of 
 the work was uniformly good. His conclusions in 
 regard to the enterprise from a business stand- 
 point are especially interesting. " It is evident," 
 says he, "that the prospects of success for the 
 municipal printing plant, viewed as a business 
 operation, are discouraging. Here is an experi- 
 ment in municipal control — a municipal industry 
 — endowed with every advantage apparently : — 
 ample capital, generous appropriations, plant in 
 excellent physical condition, regular work of the 
 same general character throughout the year, every- 
 thing favorable for a successful enterprise which 
 should do the city's printing better than by con- 
 tract, and which should be able to pay as good or 
 better wages while giving shorter hours to the em- 
 ployee. With all this the plant should be able to 
 222 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 save money for the city through charges to the 
 other departments which should be less than out- 
 side concerns could afford. This was the theory 
 upon which the plant was established, and there 
 was nothing unreasonable about the theory. The 
 plant should have made just such a success in 
 these past years, and it is a humiliating fact, if not 
 a disgraceful one, that the financial result of these 
 years has been so far below what could have been 
 reasonably expected." 
 
 This Boston experience is unfortunate, just as 
 Philadelphia's experience with municipal gas is. 
 These cases bring out in strong light the funda- 
 mental weakness of American civic life, — namely, 
 the absence of the right public spirit. This is a 
 condition, however, which cannot be accepted as 
 final unless we propose the abandonment of popu- 
 lar government. The thing to be done is not to 
 abandon municipal enterprises which have fallen 
 into extravagant hands, but to step in and put them 
 on their feet. In other words, necessity points 
 toward an extended field of civic cooperation. The 
 difficulties in the way must not be accepted as per- 
 manent, but must be overcome by the development 
 of civic conscience and administrative reform.^ 
 
 A special problem that necessarily arises when 
 a city becomes a great employer of labor, is the 
 attitude to be taken by the government toward 
 
 ^ See Municipal Affairs^ Vol. IV, No. 2, June, 1900, for a valuable 
 article by Professor John R. Commons on " Municipal Employment 
 and Progress." 
 
 223 
 
THE AiMERICAN CITY 
 
 trade unionism among its own employees. Every 
 public department has to be organized more or less 
 on the military plan. Only the head officials may 
 determine policies. Clerks and laborers must do 
 their work under the control of their superiors. 
 This practical necessity puts the city at once into 
 the class of the employers of labor. In the work 
 of a great department, like the New York street- 
 cleaning department, there naturally arises more 
 or less friction, and the workmen have grievances. 
 When the late Colonel Waring was commissioner 
 of street cleaning in New York, he organized in his 
 department a system of conferences between rep- 
 resentatives of the workmen and representatives of 
 himself which proved to be exceedingly valuable 
 in allaying ill-will and engendering good feeling 
 among the men. Briefly his plan was to encourage 
 the men to organize and join with the officials in 
 hearing and passing upon grievances.^ 
 
 The policy followed by Colonel Waring differ- 
 entiates itself in a marked degree from the usual 
 lines of policy pursued by city officials. Too often 
 laborers are recognized as the menial adjuncts of 
 political or personal machines, and hold their jobs 
 not by reason of faithful performance of municipal 
 work, but by reason of their delivery of votes to the 
 party in power. This attitude of responsible public 
 officials toward the city's laborers is utterly degrad- 
 ing both to the city and to the workmen. It is this 
 spirit that stands most in the way of the improve- 
 
 ^ See Colonel Waring's Street Cleaning andits Effects, pp. 24-31. 
 224 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 ment and expansion of the public service. Along 
 another line, there is a frequent exhibition of a 
 tendency on the part of the public authorities to 
 " recognize " the trades unions and submit to their 
 domination. In one of our cities, for example, the 
 council grants concessions for the sale of refresh- 
 ments in the principal public park. The contract 
 with the concessionnaire includes two provisos : 
 first, that all buildings and booths erected in the 
 park by the concessionnaire shall be erected and 
 maintained under the supervision of the park com- 
 mittee ; second, that the concessionnaire shall not 
 sell any cigars that do not bear the " union label." 
 The union men are ever ready to urge that all 
 public printing carry the ** label " and that unionism 
 be recognized in all other possible ways by the 
 city. Municipal recognition gives prestige. But 
 the general solution of the problem of capital and 
 labor lies outside the scope of municipal functions, 
 and it is a clear perversion of democracy that 
 officials elected by the whole people should make 
 the city an instrument in furthering the special 
 ends of one class. 'Neither among its own em- 
 ployees nor among the employees of its contractors 
 should the city permit that species of trade unionism 
 which represents warfare in the community. The 
 government representing all the people abhors 
 every monopoly not created by itself and brought 
 under control for the public good. To recognize, 
 encourage, or protect a plumbers' combine or a 
 teamsters' union, striving to establish monopoly, is 
 Q 225 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 as much opposed to the spirit of cooperation as it 
 is to submit to a contractors' ring or a combination 
 among coal dealers.^ 
 
 Throughout the preceding pages we have seen 
 that with the growth of cities the conditions of 
 life more and more conspire to make cooperation 
 necessary through the expansion of city functions. 
 What are the limits, if any, of municipal socialism ? 
 The full-fledged socialist will not be contented 
 until the state owns and controls all the means 
 of production. Whether or not state socialism be 
 practicable or desirable has nothing to do directly 
 with the expansion of municipal functions. Under 
 any system of government — individualistic, pater- 
 nalistic, or socialistic — the existence of cities 
 creates certain special local necessities which under 
 a democratic system can be met only by coopera- 
 tion. The supply of universal utilities by means 
 of fixtures in the streets is perhaps the most im- 
 portant of these local necessities. The distribution 
 and possibly the production of the milk supply 
 may in time become a necessary public function. 
 This effect will be produced, if at all, by the fact 
 that milk in its natural form is a common necessity 
 of life, and is so perishable that it cannot be pro- 
 duced far from the place of consumption or delayed 
 long in distribution. The establishment of parks, 
 playgrounds, and other means of public amuse- 
 
 ^ For the attitude of the courts on this general question, see 
 Marshall and Bruce Company vs. City of Nashville^ a Tennessee 
 case, 71 S. W. R. 815, decided January 24, 1903. 
 226 
 
CIVIC COOPERATION 
 
 ment and instruction is a local city function for 
 the reason that these things are made necessary by 
 urban conditions. In general it is to be expected 
 that civic cooperation will be called upon to solve 
 all those special problems of universal interest to 
 urban dwellers which arise out of the peculiar 
 conditions of city life. City government is the 
 most emphatic protest of local interests against the 
 organization of society without reference to place. 
 Upon the effectiveness of this protest the life of 
 democracy depends. 
 
 Professor Ely has suggested one strong point in 
 favor of the extension of municipal functions by 
 the ownership and operation of public utilities. 
 This policy, he says, would help to establish a 
 better balance between private and public interests.^ 
 This suggestion has great significance. If the 
 theory advanced in this chapter, that government 
 and industrial society are based upon radically 
 different principles of social organization, is true, 
 and the efficiency of government is measured by 
 its resistance to the tendency of the organic prin- 
 ciple to draw into its web that part of social activity 
 which we may designate as public, then it becomes 
 clear that the welfare of the people depends not 
 upon the triumph of socialism on the one hand or 
 organism on the other, but on the maintenance of 
 a perpetual equilibrium between public and private 
 interests. At the present time, we, in America, by 
 common consent, are sick unto death with the 
 
 ^ See Evolution of Industrial Society, p. 237. 
 227 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 money mania. Public spirit, civic conscience, are 
 lamentably deficient. As things are, it does not 
 pay a, man to have public interests, and a man is 
 considered a fool unless he works for pay. Civic 
 cooperation, founded as it is on the /oca/ sense, 
 taking account of the universal characteristics of 
 men and pledged to the doctrine of equal oppor- 
 tunities, is the program that promises reUef from 
 the gross injustices of a one-sided civilization. 
 The man who is not also a citizen is an outcast. 
 He has no heaven. He is already in outer dark- 
 ness. It is the sum of the shadows enveloping 
 these men who are in no real sense citizens that 
 makes the twilight in which the American city is 
 now groping. What we must have at any cost is 
 light, a civic conscience. 
 
 228 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 We have thus far considered the main lines of 
 civic functions as determined by the conditions of 
 city life and the spirit of democracy. We must 
 now take up the scarcely less important problems 
 of governmental organization in order to see, if 
 possible, how the city may adjust itself to its tasks, 
 how democracy may set to work to accomplish its 
 ends. 
 
 It is almost an axiom of political science as well 
 as of political art that the strength of popular gov- 
 ernment depends upon the vitality of its local 
 units. We never tire of referring to the New 
 England town-meeting as the school of American 
 democracy, and one of our most frequent laments 
 is that the conditions of city life render the town- 
 meeting impossible. The town-meeting method 
 of government may have its drawbacks even under 
 rural conditions. Certainly there are instances 
 where the business of the township is conducted 
 in a loose, extravagant, and, perhaps, dishonest 
 manner. But the remedy lies right at hand, and 
 unless the majority of the people in a neighbor- 
 hood are corrupt or indifferent, there is no reason 
 
 229 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 why township moneys should be wasted where the 
 town-meeting system prevails. 
 
 Government, as we have already noted, is based 
 upon locaUty. States, counties, townships, cities, 
 school districts, are territorial divisions. A man 
 cannot vote .for presidential electors unless he lives 
 not only in some state, but in some election pre- 
 cinct. The whole inhabited surface of the country 
 is divided up into clearly defined districts for the 
 purpose of securing an accurate registration of the 
 popular will through elections. In this country a 
 man can vote in only one place, and that the neigh- 
 borhood of his residence. Moreover, our legisla- 
 tive bodies are generally elected by districts, and 
 every representative, senator, or alderman must, as 
 a rule, live in the district where he is chosen. 
 
 I refer to these well-known facts simply to show 
 that popular government is, in its machinery, 
 founded upon neighborhood unity and organiza- 
 tion. This is a simple consequence of the doctrine 
 that government should be participated in by all 
 men without regard to their special characteristics, 
 interests, or stations in life. A peace congress 
 gathered from all parts of the world does not bring 
 together so many kinds of men as a town-meeting. 
 The American Economic Association, meeting in 
 New Orleans or Washington, is a more homogene- 
 ous body than a well-attended primary in almost 
 any ward of any city. Government is concerned 
 with the universal side of humanity, and the popu- 
 lar will is expressed through a consensus of opinion 
 230 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 of all kinds of people. Both logic and convenience 
 make neighborhood the vital unit of political or- 
 ganization. 
 
 One of the main concerns of democracy is to 
 protect and strengthen this unit of its organization 
 against the inroads of organic society. The despair 
 of reform movements in cities is the congestion of 
 reformers at the centre. These movements are 
 undemocratic. Tammany wins because it caters 
 to the neighborhood and maintains strong local 
 organizations. City life takes the leaven of culture 
 and business ability out of the loaf and puts it 
 into the upper crust. The appearance is good but 
 the loaf is sodden. Fifth Avenue and Broadway 
 appear clean and bright, but where the people live 
 Tammany gets the votes. The growth of cities 
 and the increased differentiation of citizens on the 
 score of wealth make the neighborhood less truly 
 a miniature of the state and more a class affair. 
 But we still look to every locality for its quota of 
 councillors, and if the best blood of the city is con- 
 gested in one or two wards, we look to brawn to 
 represent the other sections. Brawn grows into 
 blood and brain, and the leaders of society are con- 
 stantly rising from the ranks. Democracy loses 
 time, to be sure, by reason of the leaders going 
 over to the aristocratic wards as soon as they have 
 proven themselves capable, but in the unending 
 upward struggle of plain manhood new leaders are 
 developed, and the world goes slowly on. 
 
 This process is sufficiently precarious and this 
 231 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 progress sufficiently slow, so that it behooves de- 
 mocracy to resist these tendencies and spare this 
 waste of leadership as far as possible. The de- 
 struction of the neighborhood runs counter to real 
 social Hfe and the development of general intelli- 
 gence and political capacity. It is more pleasant, 
 perhaps, for a man or a family to select associates 
 from all the people of a city according to personal 
 tastes and interests. It is perhaps convenient not 
 to know your next-door neighbors, or, knowing 
 them, not to cross their paths. It is attractive to 
 many to belong to the fashionable ^' set " or a high- 
 ^ grade literary club. But real culture and power 
 with men come from daily contact with those who 
 are unlike. The lack of understanding that often 
 separates classes in the community is due to the 
 absence of neighborhood life to bring them to- 
 gether. Nothing needs the ceaseless discipline of 
 the neighborhood so much as citizenship. It is 
 only thus that we are kept from forgetting the 
 fundamental equalities and universal necessities of 
 human life. Specialization in work is a serious 
 enough menace to citizenship, but specialization in 
 social relations is more threatening. 
 
 One of the great drawbacks in the organization 
 of the life of a great city as a unit is that there is 
 room for few leaders, whose places can be attained 
 only as a result of intense and costly rivalry. The 
 leader is spoiled because he is submitted to too 
 high pressure. He cannot grow as he leads. He 
 has no time to grow. He can only hurry from one 
 
 232 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 superficial relation to another. The fusing of ten 
 neighborhoods into one puts upon ten men the 
 leadership that a hundred ought to share. Every 
 new project must seek the indorsement and coop- 
 eration of the same small group of men. They 
 become too busy to be wise. The newspapers 
 reach out through the whole city with their mes- 
 sages and advice, but they get in such a hurry 
 to tell the news before it has happened that thought 
 is sacrificed to action, and instead of being a safe 
 guide to thought and a careful distributor of public 
 information, the newspaper becomes a Hghtning 
 chain of cheap sensations. And so in various ways 
 congestion of life, centrahzation of interests, and 
 the sapping of neighborhood vitality tend to unfit 
 men for citizenship. 
 
 One of the most important ways in which cen- 
 trahzation weakens popular government in cities is 
 through the alienation of the home from civic inter- 
 ests. Next below the neighborhood the home is the 
 normal local unit of society upon which govern- 
 ment rests. Popular government cannot succeed 
 without the cooperation of the home. Such coop- 
 eration can be fully secured only by putting those 
 governmental functions in which the people may 
 participate within easy reach of the home by the 
 old-fashioned land route. As conditions now exist in 
 most of our great cities, the home, the bulwark of 
 our national life, stands in antagonism to the city.^ 
 
 1 See Professor L. S. Rowe's article on " The Social Conse- 
 quences of City Growth," in the Yale Review for November, 1901. 
 
 233 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 Most city men are away from their families all 
 day at work. If they are to spend any time with 
 their wives and children, they must do it evenings 
 and Sundays. There is, consequently, a power- 
 ful motive at work to keep men from going down 
 town on civic business after the evening meal. 
 That involves a long walk or a street-car ride, and 
 the loss of considerable time, so that in most cases 
 the evening is wholly consumed by the trip. In 
 order to get citizens generally to give personal 
 attention to city affairs between elections, it will be 
 necessary to let them meet near home, and to open 
 the doors as widely as possible for the participation 
 of women in civic business. This can be done only 
 by means of strengthening the political neighbor- 
 hood and establishing many centres of civic activ- 
 ity. Even without an extension of the suffrage to 
 women, their interest and active cooperation in 
 many phases of public endeavor could be secured. 
 Thus the home would again be brought into alli- 
 ance with the city, and itself be greatly strength- 
 ened by the working together of men and women 
 for the furtherance of common ends. 
 
 Even in the most congested metropolis political 
 administration has not altogether abandoned the 
 neighborhood unit. It cannot. The conditions 
 of political activity make the neighborhood unit 
 necessary. We have already seen that elections 
 are always conducted locally. The same is true 
 of the public schools. Every large city is divided 
 into districts, and all the children living within any 
 
 234 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 one district are primarily expected to attend the 
 school in that district. The schools are scattered 
 everywhere over the city, so arranged as to reach 
 the people in the most convenient manner possible. 
 So al^o the fire-engine houses are distributed 
 throughout the city in districts. Fire protection 
 demands it. Generally also water-mains and 
 sewers are laid more or less according to districts, 
 and street improvements are paid for wholly or in 
 part by the abutting property owners. Indeed, 
 special assessment districts for street-improvement 
 purposes make one of the very strongest factors in 
 local civic life. All these local districts and local 
 political activities resist the centralizing influences 
 of the times and tend to keep the neighborhood 
 alive. Still, one important localizing factor is lack- 
 ing. There is needed the building in every district 
 for local meetings to discuss public affairs and 
 develop public sentiment. 
 
 The need of public social and political centres 
 is being generally felt. The enemies of intemper- 
 ance find to their dismay that the saloon has, to a 
 considerable extent, assumed this public function, 
 and immeasurably strengthened itself, not only by 
 rendering a real social service, but by gaining in 
 this way an extraordinary hold upon politics. In 
 the great cities the saloon is often the social centre 
 of the common people. Over the saloon are the 
 young men's club rooms and the fraternal lodge 
 rooms. Political clubs frequently have their head- 
 quarters in saloons, and it is a well-recognized fact 
 
 235 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 that many of the most successful political bosses 
 are or have been saloon-keepers. The reason for 
 this is not in the attractiveness of their business, 
 or in the depraved instincts of the average city voter. 
 But the saloon has stuck to place. It is in an im- 
 portant sense a local centre. It has its life in the 
 neighborhood. It reaches the people who have 
 neither time, nor clothes, nor money for making 
 frequent trips to the other end of town somewhere 
 to seek the society of congenial spirits. The saloon 
 stays on the corner, and the saloon-keeper, who 
 has political ambitions, looks after the petty, every- 
 day, near-at-home, universal interests of his neigh- 
 bors and patrons. This is particularly true in the 
 great cities like New York and Chicago. So strong 
 has been the hold of the saloon upon politics that 
 in many instances the people have thought it nec- 
 essary to get laws passed, forbidding the holding 
 of elections within a certain distance of saloons, 
 and to require that the saloon be closed on election 
 days. But the influence of the saloon as a local 
 political centre cannot be altogether destroyed by 
 repressive legislation. Some other local centre of 
 social and political life must be developed. For 
 under democracy neighborhood interests are bound 
 to control to a considerable extent the votes of the 
 masses of the people. 
 
 The church might, in some degree, become a 
 centre of civic life ; but it is not a universal insti- 
 tution, and is not well enough distributed to serve 
 this purpose in a complete way. What is needed 
 
 236 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 is an institution democratic in its nature, and so 
 placed as to be within easy reach of all citizens in 
 their homes. The public school is the one institu- 
 tion that meets this demand. Here are buildings 
 placed conveniently in every section of every city, in 
 which education, the main function of government 
 under democracy, already centres. Here the chil- 
 dren of rich and poor meet on common ground for a 
 common purpose. In this institution, as a local cen- 
 tre, are gathered into one mesh some of the strong- 
 est public interests of the citizens. The school and 
 the home are not against each other under any 
 reasonably normal conditions. The teachers are 
 reaching out to get in touch with the fathers and 
 mothers to secure their support and cooperation. 
 The school buildings and grounds represent an 
 enormous investment of the public money. They 
 are used for school purposes only a few hours 
 each day, for about half of the days of the year. 
 With a little readjustment and refitting, with light- 
 ing facilities made universal, and movable chairs 
 provided, the school buildings might be thrown 
 open to public use for parents' meetings, social 
 gatherings, lectures, debating clubs, and civic as- 
 semblies. Men and women who are unwilling to 
 go from one to several miles away from home to 
 attend a public meeting would not hesitate so long 
 about going a few blocks to meet their neighbors 
 informally. This plan is being worked out to some 
 extent already. New York and Chicago have free 
 evening lectures in the school buildings. In some 
 
 237 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 cities the school grounds are made into summer 
 playgrounds, and the school buildings kept open 
 for vacation schools. Even baths are being in- 
 stalled here and there for semi-public use. Every- 
 where the feeling is growing strong that the schools 
 should be utilized as local civic centres, and this 
 movement, if not too much controlled and prema- 
 turely urged along, promises better things than 
 almost any other movement of the times. What 
 democracy needs is local social organization en- 
 tirely independent of saloon influences. 
 
 Our definite public policy often runs counter 
 to the development of local organization. It is 
 the general theory in this country that districts or 
 wards having equal representation in legislative 
 bodies should be kept as nearly equal in popula- 
 tion as possible. As a result of the rapid growth 
 of cities and the quick shifting of population, fre- 
 quent changes in the arrangement of ward boun- 
 daries are made necessary under this theory. Yet 
 the inertia of place organization often keeps old 
 ward boundaries long after there are scandalously 
 unequal populations represented equally in the 
 city council. This tendency of local lines, even 
 when artificially drawn, to persist in the face of 
 inequalities and injustice, is only an illustration of 
 the fundamental and lasting influence of local 
 organization. It would seem that American cities 
 would do well to adopt a somewhat different policy 
 in the future, arranging ward boundaries as nearly 
 as possible according to natural neighborhood lines, 
 238 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 and then leaving them unchanged. Gross inequali- 
 ties in representation could be corrected from time 
 to time by fixing the number of aldermen to be 
 elected from the several districts in accordance 
 with population. Under such a policy it would 
 be possible in the larger cities to have a municipal 
 building in every ward or district, which would 
 serve as a centre for the civic life of the neigh- 
 borhood. This policy is followed out, though in an 
 entirely inadequate way, in New York. The sub- 
 divisions of London, Paris, and Vienna are well- 
 known examples of the division of European 
 cities into quarters each of which has its local his- 
 tory and civic unity. For the subdivisions of a 
 great city, separate municipal buildings in addi- 
 tion to the schools are feasible and may be neces- 
 sary. In the smaller cities, however, the most 
 economical and effective way to develop civic cen- 
 tres, and organize citizenship locally, is by a larger 
 use of the school buildings and their extension, 
 where necessary, by the addition of an assembly 
 hall and gymnasium. 
 
 The ideal uses of the ward hall have been well 
 set forth by Rev. B. A. Van Sluyters in a little 
 pamphlet on The Expansion of Municipal Func- 
 tions} " In every ward building," says he, " I 
 would have an assembly hall for free concerts, 
 lectures, readings, political rallies, art exhibitions, 
 etc. In this ward building should be a gymnasium 
 
 1 Published by the Class in Applied Christianity of the Fountain 
 Street Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan. 
 
 239 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 with apparatus for the use of all the people ; there 
 should be games of checkers, chess, dominoes, and 
 other suitable means of amusement such as a bill- 
 iard-table and a bowling-alley. Here I would have 
 a reading room supplied with the best of the 
 popular magazines and newspapers, American and 
 foreign. There should also be a branch library. 
 In this ward building should be bathing facilities. 
 In connection with the ward hall should be a com- 
 fort station. If necessary, day nurseries could be 
 established here so that mothers having to work 
 could be sure of having their infants well guarded 
 in these nurseries, rather than leave them as now 
 to kindly but busy neighbors or thoughtless older 
 children. 
 
 " Many other good uses could be found for the 
 ward building. It could be used for elections, 
 ward meetings, and so on. And these ward build- 
 ings properly conducted should be open day and 
 night, especially the library and reading room, 
 bath room, and comfort station. They should be 
 open on Sundays and legal holidays, when the 
 people have the most leisure to make good use of 
 them. If desired, they could be closed during 
 church hours. 
 
 '* It is not to be supposed that these centres of 
 public usefulness will spring into existence fully 
 equipped. Gradually the means will increase, as 
 the people learn to profit by them. First, per- 
 haps, free lectures ; then the branch reading room 
 and library ; then, if the demand continues, a gym- 
 240 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 nasium and amusement room could be added, and 
 bathing facilities for the public." 
 
 These suggestions may be regarded by con- 
 servative men as Utopian. The success of de- 
 mocracy is also Utopian. One thing is sure : civic 
 centres other than saloons and dives are necessary 
 for the political organization of the people and the 
 effective expression of the constant popular con- 
 trol over government which is the only salvation 
 of democracy. It is the absence of this ' that 
 palsies the hand of the law and makes public 
 officials so generally fall under the control, to a 
 greater or less extent, of selfish and vicious inter- 
 ests. The success of free lectures in school build- 
 ings, of school baths, and of social gatherings 
 gotten up by teachers for parents shows that the 
 people are ready for better opportunities for local 
 civic life in some directions at least. The enlarge- 
 ment and preparation of school grounds, wherever 
 practicable, for small parks, would undoubtedly 
 help along the movement for local civic centres. 
 There is no good reason why the municipal au- 
 thorities should strive to compel local organization 
 of the people. It is only necessary to provide the 
 opportunity and lend the movement such encour- 
 agement as is manifestly appropriate if our main 
 contention in this chapter is correct. 
 
 Already, as I have pointed out, all elections are 
 held locally, and in most cases members of legis- 
 lative assemblies are chosen by districts. There 
 is a considerable movement, however, toward the 
 241 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 election of city councils at large, — that is, by the 
 people of the whole city voting as a unit. This 
 plan is in fact a concession to the theory that it is 
 impossible to get good aldermen from the wards 
 where foreigners or other less intelligent citizens 
 form the majority of the voters. As a practical 
 expedient for temporary results the general ticket 
 plan of election may do very well, or indeed it may 
 be all right as a permanent policy to elect a certain 
 share of the aldermen at large, as is done in the 
 cities of Ohio under the new municipal code. But 
 in general the movement toward the general ticket 
 plan should be resisted until extremely good rea- 
 sons can be advanced in its favor. Its general 
 tendency is away from democracy, popular re- 
 sponsibility, and local political vitality. If fair 
 results are secured with a council or a board of edu- 
 cation elected by wards, much more is really accom- 
 plished than would be accomplished with the same 
 degree of administrative efficiency by an appointive 
 board or a board elected at large. For in the 
 former case the results include a constant process 
 of popular education through participation locally 
 in public affairs. 
 
 The law in Massachusetts provides for taking 
 a vote every two years by towns on the saloon 
 license question. Recently an act was submitted 
 to the people of Boston giving local option by dis- 
 tricts within the limits of the city. Unfortunately 
 the people rejected the proposed law. This meas- 
 ure would have offered one admirable way in 
 
 242 
 
LOCAL CENTRES OF CIVIC LIFE 
 
 which to cultivate democracy and stimulate local 
 political interest and solidarity. The government 
 should take advantage of all conditions which 
 make it possible to leave public questions to be 
 settled locally. This is the "home rule" princi- 
 ple extended to wards or precincts. Considerable 
 administrative simplicity and efficiency could well 
 be sacrificed, if necessary, for the benefits to be 
 derived from more intimate contact on the part of 
 the people in their home districts with civic affairs. 
 President David Starr Jordan has well expressed 
 the importance of definitely local citizenship. " The 
 lack of permanence in our population," says he, 
 "is the source of other evils. Migration diverts 
 attention from local questions. A man who moves 
 from place to place may be just as good an 
 American — or sometimes better — as one who 
 stays at home, but he is not so good a Californian, 
 and he is not so useful a citizen in his relation to 
 local affairs."^ In the long run those who have 
 permanent local interests will control local affairs. 
 It is best, therefore, to furnish every opportunity 
 possible for the intelligent organization of these 
 local interests, 
 
 1 See article in Merchants* Association Review of San Francisco, 
 May, 1897, ^"^ "The Government of Cities." 
 
 243 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 The first great question in political organization 
 after the development of local civic life is the 
 question of the suffrage. Who shall vote in 
 local affairs ? It is the general American theory 
 that in municipal affairs as elsewhere every male 
 citizen over twenty-one years of age should be 
 entitled to one vote only, to be cast in the voting 
 precinct in which he resides. 
 
 In theory, municipal democracy is opposed to all 
 political distinctions among citizens on the score of 
 property. However, a taxpaying or landholding 
 qualification for voting on the grant of franchises or 
 the issue of bonds is not altogether un-American. 
 Franchises and bonds are really mortgages upon 
 the real estate of the city, and so long as we 
 adhere to private ownership of land, there is consid- 
 erable justice in the claim that only freeholders 
 should be free to mortgage the land. So far as the 
 voting of bonds is concerned, the restriction of the 
 suffrage to taxpayers is not at all unknown in 
 the United States. The recent home rule amend- 
 ment of the Colorado constitution includes a 
 provision that franchises in Denver can be granted 
 only by vote of the taxpayers. In Western cities 
 244 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 freehold qualifications for holding certain municipal 
 offices is not uncommon. In Michigan only tax- 
 payers can vote on school matters where the 
 raising of money is directly involved. While 
 democracy sets man above money, it does not 
 altogether disregard the holding of property as 
 an evidence of good citizenship and lasting inter- 
 est in local affairs. Still this evidence is hardly 
 sufficient to be made a qualification for suffrage. 
 It ought rather to be taken into favorable con- 
 sideration by the people in the choice of officers. 
 Taxpayers are in little danger of oppression under 
 democracy so long as they are willing to pay their 
 tithes of personal service as well as taxes to the 
 government. 
 
 Without discussing the incidence of taxation, we 
 must recognize the fact that democracy will not 
 admit, in cities, of a freehold qualification for 
 general voting. Even if women were included, 
 such a restriction would create an aristocracy. 
 Less than 19* per cent of the families in Boston 
 owned th^r' homes in the census year 1900, and 
 more than half of these had homes subject to 
 mortgage. In New York City the home-owning 
 families numbered less than one-eighth of the total, 
 and in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx 
 less than one-sixteenth. Of the 11 cities with 
 over 300,000 population each, only one, Cleveland, 
 shows more than one-third of the families owning 
 their homes, and of the 20 cities with more than 
 200,000 population not one shows 40 per cent 
 
 245 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of the families as home-owners. The whole i6o 
 cities with a population of over 25,000 each show 
 in the aggregate practically three-fourths of all 
 families renters. The percentages are : hired 
 homes, 74.3; owned homes free of debt, 14.5; 
 mortgaged homes, 11.2.^ These facts show how 
 utterly undemocratic it would be to limit the 
 suffrage to taxpayers while taxpaying is practi- 
 cally confined to freeholders, If taxes were 
 levied against occupiers or householders in accord- 
 ance with rental, then there would be more show 
 of justice in such a limitation of the suffrage. 
 
 The EngHsh suffrage is, to a considerable ex- 
 tent, based upon the family as the lowest political 
 unit. In America the adult individual is regarded 
 as the unit upon which government is built. A 
 young man living with his father has an equal 
 right of suffrage with him. A woman Hving with 
 her husband has an equal right with him so far 
 as we have extended the suffrage to women at 
 all. In a sense English suffrage is based more 
 exactly on the relation of government to locality 
 than ours. There the owner of property votes 
 where the property is located, and, of course, the 
 occupier votes where he occupies. With us no 
 man can vote except in the precinct where he is at 
 the time domiciled, no matter how little property 
 he may have in that place or how much he may 
 have elsewhere. According to our theory gov- 
 ernment is chiefly concerned with the rights of 
 
 '^ Abstract of the Twelfth Census, pp. 133-135. 
 246 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 men without regard to property, but, of necessity, 
 with regard to place. It is the place of a man's 
 life and not of his possessions that determines for 
 us where he shall be allowed to vote. So long as 
 the suffrage is generally denied to women, it is 
 logical and proper that every rhan who has a 
 family should be required to vpte in the locality of 
 his home. It is true, however, that most city men 
 live more away from home than at home, and if 
 suffrage were extended to women so that the 
 home would be represented locally, it would not 
 be counter to the principles of democracy to per- 
 mit persons engaged in regular business or work- 
 ing continuously at the same shop to vote where 
 their work is. There would be some considerable 
 advantage in this plan. As conditions now are in 
 many large cities, notably New York, the wards 
 or districts which are the centres of wealth and 
 traffic are under the political control of the most 
 ignorant and vicious classes. Vice seems to seg- 
 regate itself, to a considerable extent, in or near the 
 business district, and the intelligent and well-to-do 
 men of affairs take their homes to the fashionable 
 streets, or the suburbs, leaving the political con- 
 trol of the business section to the night population, 
 which is, so to speak, the residual wreckage left 
 after the daily "ebb of the tide of humanity that 
 surges through the heart of every large city while 
 the sun shines. The disadvantage arising from the 
 tendency of the best-Btted to flock by themselves in 
 the aristocratte wards would be largely obviated by 
 247 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 giving every man the right to vote and be voted 
 for in the place where his business is. 
 
 I This brings us to the question of woman suf- 
 frage. As a general proposition it may be said 
 that women have no right to vote in America 
 except on school matters. The possession of prop- 
 erty, the payment of taxes, the conduct of busi- 
 ness, the headship of a household, — these things 
 do not carry with them the suffrage right. Age, 
 
 \male sex, residence, and citizenship are the qualifi- 
 cations that count. There are some exceptions to 
 
 /this rule. Four of the Rocky Mountain states 
 
 /give full suffrage to women, and Kansas gives 
 / full suffrage in municipal elections. Women are 
 / often given the school suffrage alone. All to- 
 / gether there are twenty-six states in which women 
 have full or partial suffrage.^ 
 
 The opponents of woman suffrage sometimes 
 point to the fact that often only a small percentage 
 of the women vote where they have the right. 
 In Boston, where women have an equal right with 
 men to vote for members of the School Committee, 
 only 18,445 were registered in 1902, as against' 
 111,817 registered men.^ That is to say, one 
 woman qualified herself for voting to every six men 
 who did the same. In 1895 less than one-tenth as 
 many women as men, in proportion to the number 
 qualified to vote, registered in the state of Massa- 
 
 ^ See Woman and the Law, by George James Bayles, p. 246. 
 2 See the Monthly Bulletin of the Boston Statistics Department, 
 November, 1902. 
 
 248 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 chusetts, and only a little over half of these voted 
 even on the question of extending municipal suf- 
 frage to women. For the period of ten years, 
 1892 to 1 90 1, on the average 74.21 per cent of the 
 registered women of Boston voted. ^ This was 
 about 3 per cent less than the average for the men. 
 It is often observed that women vote with less regu- 
 larity than men, turning out to the polls in large 
 numbers only when some special issue of great 
 interest to the home is at stake. Thus, in 1887, 
 only 725 women voted in Boston, while in 1899 
 there were 19,490 ^ballots cast by women. Natu- 
 rally, we should expect that women, being to a 
 great extent devoid of political affiliations and party 
 traditions, would be independent voters so far as 
 partisan questions are concerned, — at least until 
 woman suffrage becomes general and habitual. It 
 is also to be expected that women will be more 
 easily swayed by the character of candidates, and 
 vote more for individuals than men do. 
 
 Our present American concept of democracy 
 |does not necessarily include the participation of 
 I women in government. Still it seems clear that 
 the extension of full suffrage to women on an 
 equality with men is a logical outgrowth of demo- 
 cratic tendencies, and is more than likely to be 
 tried as a part of the democratic experiment. 
 
 In a country where free public schools are fur- 
 nished for all the children, illiteracy of adults is 
 
 1 Monthly Bulletin of the Boston Statistics Department, Octo- 
 ber, 1 901. 
 
 249 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 abnormal and may reasonably be made a bar to 
 the suffrage. The percentage of persons over ten 
 years of age who are unable to read and write is 
 3.87 in Chicago, 4.39 in Philadelphia, 4.43 in St. 
 Louis, 5.13 in Boston, 7.16 in Baltimore, and 8.25 
 in old New York. For the whole United States 
 the percentage is 10.65, though in most northern 
 states illiteracy is less in the great cities than in the 
 states at large. More than two-thirds of all illiter- 
 acy is found among the negroes and the foreign- 
 born.^ The effort now being made by many 
 Southern states to disfranchise the negro is incon- 
 sistent with democracy. The educational test is 
 too severe, and no educational test at all is allow- 
 able unless the state gives universal opportunities 
 of education to its citizens. The clauses granting 
 the suffrage to illiterate white men because their 
 grandfathers had the right to vote, is a rank viola- 
 tion of the spirit of An(ierican freedom. This does 
 not affect many large cities at the present time. 
 New Orleans being the principal one. But the 
 colored vote is a considerable factor in the politics 
 of many cities outside the belt of southern states 
 where the negro is being put under the ban. In 
 advocating municipal suffrage based upon adult 
 manhood and womanhood, we do not condemn any 
 restrictions which are calculated to limit the suf- 
 frage to normal persons under conditions of freedom 
 favorable to universal self-development. 
 
 There is one limitation upon the suffrage which 
 
 1 See Abstract of the Twelfth Census^ pp. 1 6, 17, 1 1 5- 117. 
 250 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 is often considered and has many advocates among 
 practical citizens, which, nevertheless, has never 
 been tried to any extent in the United States. This 
 is compulsory voting. The objection to woman 
 suffrage on the score of non-usage could be met 
 by a provision abrogating every person's right to 
 vote for a period of years after a failure to exer- 
 cise that right, unless the failure could be reason- 
 ably excused. This would offer a practical means 
 for urging citizens to the performance of their 
 primary civic duties and for weeding out of the 
 electoral lists the great body of citizens who re- 
 spond fitfully and passionately to personal or 
 occasional appeals rather than deliberately and in- 
 telHgently to the regular demands of citizenship. 
 In working out a plan for compulsory voting, it 
 might not be inadvisable to impose a fine in case 
 of failure to exercise the suffrage as an alternative 
 to loss of the franchise. This, however, is a matter 
 of detail that would have to be worked out by 
 experience. 
 
 A radically different proposition, which would in 
 effect be a curtailment of the suffrage, is the sug- 
 gestion sometimes made that various interests be 
 given representation on city councils and ad- 
 ministrative boards. This plan would constitute 
 an adjustment of government to organic society. 
 If fully carried out, it would subvert the founda- 
 tions of democracy and establish a sort of govern- 
 ment by guilds. In principle it recognizes special 
 classes of citizen's with special interests. The phy- 
 
 251 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 sicians, for example, would be permitted, through 
 their voluntary organization, to choose one or more 
 representatives to share in the city government. 
 The lawyers would do the same. The boards of 
 trade would do likewise, and organized labor would 
 have its representation also. In some respects 
 this is an attractive proposition, as it would guar- 
 antee active interest on the part of these citizen 
 bodies in municipal affairs, and would enlist in the 
 service of various municipal departments special 
 knowledge and experience. But so far as it ap- 
 plies to representation in the city council or law- 
 making authority, it is too radically opposed to the 
 principles of equal political rights for all normal 
 adult citizens to be seriously considered in Amer- 
 ica. As far as administrative boards are con- 
 cerned, not chosen by popular vote, and given only 
 advisory authority in matters of municipal policy, 
 the representation of special interests deserves 
 consideration. This idea has been partially carried 
 out in the New York City Municipal Art Commis- 
 sion, of which some of the members are appointed 
 from a list of names furnished by the Fine Arts 
 Federation. This plan might perhaps be well ap- 
 plied to boards of fire commissioners and boards of 
 health, giving representation to the fire and life 
 insurance companies. Sinking fund commissions 
 might have members representing the bankers of 
 the city. But the list is soon run through where 
 such a scheme could be appropriately applied. In 
 general it should be left to the appointing authority 
 252 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 in the city government to choose for the adminis- 
 trative departments and boards such citizens as are 
 deemed fittest for the work, without recognizing the 
 right of any private organization to dictate or make 
 municipal appointments. 
 
 Having considered the fundamental basis of 
 popular political responsibility, — namely, the suf- 
 frage, its extensions and limitations, — we are 
 brought face to face with one of the most serious 
 of all our municipaL problems ; that is to say, the 
 mode of organization by which the qualified elec- 
 tors are to make their will effective in the choice 
 of municipal officers, and the determination of 
 municipal policies. According to the general 
 habits of American municipal life, the people 
 divide into parties in accordance with principles 
 or prejudices having to do with national affairs. 
 The national political parties, differing as they do 
 with reference to questions of finance, revenue, 
 class legislation, national expansion, and so forth, 
 maintain their cohesion by careful local organiza- 
 tion. Recognizing the fundamental fact that gov- 
 ernment is based on place, they maintain their 
 party organization in every district, city, and ward, 
 ceaselessly struggling for local offices in order to 
 gain prestige and patronage to help them in state 
 and national elections. It is to be feared that the 
 spoils of office, which often represent various forms 
 of public plunder and governmental favoritism, 
 furnish the greatest power of cohesion that the 
 political parties have, year in and year out. 
 
 253 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 Strange to say, it has occurred to many men in 
 recent years, that municipal interests are of suffi- 
 cient importance to be determined on their own 
 merits and without reference to national issues. 
 It is the foremost plank in almost all municipal 
 reform association platforms that municipal affairs 
 should be entirely separated from state and 
 national politics. Many efforts have been and 
 are still being made to put into practical operation 
 this apparently simple principle, but generally with 
 only moderate success. 
 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the most notable 
 example among American cities where the citizens 
 have forsworn their party affiliations in local affairs 
 and continuously for a long period of years chosen 
 their city officials solely on personal merit and 
 local issues. Says Mr. F. W. Dallinger : " In the 
 city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1867, with 
 the exception of three years, nominations for mu- 
 nicipal offices have been made entirely without ref- 
 erence to national politics.^ In each of the three 
 exceptional years, the candidate receiving a straight 
 party nomination" obtained a non-partisan nomina- 
 tion in addition. Caucuses for the nomination of 
 candidates for municipal office have been some- 
 times called by a self-constituted committee of 
 citizens, but more commonly by the chairman and 
 secretary of the previous year's municipal conven- 
 tion of some one of the local parties. The fact 
 that Cambridge, for the past twenty-seven years, 
 has enjoyed a non-partisan municipal government, 
 254 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 and is to-day, by impartial observers, considered 
 the best-governed city of its size in the United 
 States, affords a fair test of the wisdom and effec- 
 tiveness of the absolute separation of national and 
 state politics from the conduct of municipal affairs, 
 as a remedy for the evils at present complained 
 of in our large cities." ^ 
 
 New York City has struggled for non-partisan- 
 ship, but even when Tammany has been over- 
 thrown, the reform government has been compelled 
 to compromise more or less with party organiza- 
 tions, and apportion a part of the offices in the way 
 of rewards for party support. The fact is, the 
 political habits of the people are so strong and the 
 spoils of municipal office are so rich that it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to put the non-partisan program 
 into successful operation. In the nature of things 
 the people must organize in some way to express 
 their will, and ther only quarrel that we have with 
 the domination of local affairs by national parties 
 is that they thwart the expression of the public will 
 on civic questions. Wli^ we want to know how 
 the people stand on th^ fi-anchise question or Sun- 
 day closing of saloons, it is absurd to take a vote 
 on the tariff or Filipino independence. To a cer- 
 tain extent the political parties do often adjust 
 themselves to local issues, and the growing power 
 of the independent voter is compelling them to do 
 so more and more. Yet the results are unsatisfac- 
 
 ^ Nominations for Elective Office i?t the United States, p. 207, 
 published in 1897. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 tory at best, and there remains no good reason for 
 a Democratic and a Republican party on municipal 
 questions. 
 
 It is sometimes suggested that municipal parties 
 should be built up to control local affairs, something 
 as in London the people have organized into Mod- 
 erates and Progressives. To a considerable extent 
 Tammany Hall and the Citizens' Union in New- 
 York are such parties, the one based on the prin- 
 ciple of city government for '* graft," and the other 
 on city government for civic self-help. It is rather 
 astonishing to find local parties in the metropolis 
 of America divided on such a question with the 
 actual preference of the majority of the people on 
 a full vote and clear issue a matter of grave doubt. 
 It shows in what a primitive and provisional con- 
 dition American municipal democracy still finds 
 itself. The great difficulty with local parties in 
 the United States is that conditions of city life do 
 not offer the opportunity for opposing parties to 
 develop upon local issues, except those like the 
 franchise question and the saloon question, which 
 are hopelessly entangled in state politics through 
 the customary interference of the state legislature 
 in municipal charter-making and police legislation. 
 In fact the state legislature, which at the same 
 time elects United States senators and regulates 
 the destinies of cities and villages, is the powerful 
 link that chains the cities to the chariot of national 
 politics. Without municipal home rule, it is prac- 
 tically impossible to establish local parties which 
 256 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 can maintain themselves strictly independent of 
 national questions. 
 
 There are many who believe that the exclusion 
 of the political parties from local affairs is practi- 
 cally impossible even though theoretically desir- 
 able. Some maintain that it is not theoretically 
 desirable even. These classes of people do not 
 tire of asserting that attendance upon the party 
 caucus or primary is the only and all-sufficient 
 remedy for existing evils. They are apt to favor 
 primary reform and direct nominations as a means 
 to the purification of politics and the election of 
 good men to office. Primary reform has made 
 notable progress within the past few years, and is 
 undoubtedly efficacious in redeeming the parties 
 from the control of unpopular machines. The 
 primary reform laws in various states and cities 
 differ widely in the emphasis laid upon party 
 fealty. The Kentucky law requires the voter who 
 would participate in the primary to register himself 
 as a Republican, a Democrat, or other kind of par- 
 tisan at the regular registration time. The Min- 
 neapolis law as first enacted provided for a blanket 
 ballot, and every voter was permitted to participate 
 in the primary, voting on any party ticket he 
 chose without declaring his political allegiance. 
 The law in Grand Rapids compels the voter to 
 declare his political party preliminary to receiving 
 the separate ballot of that party. If challenged, 
 he must take oath that he is in general accord with 
 the party and expects to support its candidates at 
 ' 257 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the coming election. An independent voter who 
 is strictly conscientious is debarred by those re- 
 quirements from all participation in the primary. 
 On the accepted theory of party organization, this 
 exclusion of the independent voter is just and 
 appropriate. Why should people who do not 
 belong to the party help nominate party candi- 
 dates ? Nevertheless there is a great difference of 
 opinion among the friends of primary reform as to 
 whether the separate ballot and the open declara- 
 tion of party affiHation should be the rule, or the 
 blanket ballot with the simple requirement that no 
 voter shall vote for the nomination of candidates 
 on more than one party ticket. The trend of sen- 
 timent among party men is toward the former, 
 principally for the reason that the blanket ballot 
 offers the opportunity for members of one party, 
 in which there are no sharp contests, to help nom- 
 inate the candidates of the other party. It is 
 claimed that Dr. Ames secured the Republican 
 nomination for Mayor in Minneapolis in this way 
 by the help of his Democratic followers. It was 
 this experience which led to the adoption of the 
 separate ballot system when primary reform was 
 made general in Minnesota. 
 
 The principal objections to direct nominations 
 from the standpoint of the party man who is also 
 a reformer are these. First, the candidates have 
 to thrust themselves forward and conduct an ex- 
 pensive campaign for nomination and a second 
 one for election. The dignity of the offices is 
 =^58 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 abridged by the scramble for them, and the care- 
 less voters who respond to the persuasion of a keg 
 of beer are as corrupt as the convention delegates 
 who are "lined up" for certain candidates at so 
 much a head. Then, through division of voters, 
 men who do not fairly represent the dignity and 
 principles of the party are Hkely to be nominated 
 by plurality. Furthermore, under the system of 
 direct nominations, where important offices are at 
 stake, candidates are tempted to subsidize the 
 press and thus corruptly influence the voters 
 through their principal means of receiving political 
 intelHgence and information about candidates. 
 There is more or less validity in these objections 
 to direct nominations, but the cure for the evils 
 suggested is in an alert public conscience and a keen 
 interest in nominations. No system can work well 
 without these, and the only valid claim of primary 
 reform is that it provides machinery suited to give 
 easy expression to these forces where they exist. 
 The Grand Rapids law provides that every can- 
 didate shall not only announce himself but pay a 
 fee before having his name printed on the primary 
 ballot. This fee amounts to ^15 for the principal 
 city offices. These provisions are founded on a 
 crude notion of political rights that has developed 
 out of spoils politics. It is assumed that in all 
 cases the man seeks the office, and that every man 
 has a right to run for nomination. In order to 
 keep persons from running who have no reason- 
 able chance of nomination, the payment of the fee 
 
 259 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 is required to make a candidate think twice before 
 announcing himself. This perversion of demo- 
 cratic principles and degradation of public office- 
 holding is a sad commentary on the condition of 
 American politics. Democracy knows nothing of 
 the right of every man to run for office. It knows 
 nothing of his right to choose himself, but only of 
 his right to be chosen by his fellow-citizens to any 
 position of public service for which they think him 
 fitted. The requirement of a fee operates to dis- 
 courage poor men from becoming candidates and 
 also to keep down small parties which have no 
 immediate chance of electing their nominees. 
 
 These features of primary reform not only do 
 not point to municipal betterment, but are directly 
 antagonistic to the best principles of civic life. 
 They tend to strengthen party cohesion and exalt 
 the ideals of spoils politics. The remedy lies in 
 the adoption of the principle of free nominations 
 by petition, the doing away altogether with party 
 primaries for municipal offices, and the printing of 
 the names of all candidates upon a single ballot 
 without any party designation whatever. This 
 plan has been recommended by the National 
 Municipal League in its carefully worked out pro- 
 gram. ^ It has not been very extensively tried 
 in this country, but is the regular method of mak- 
 ing municipal nominations in Great Britain, except 
 that there the names are not all printed on one 
 ballot. An interesting advance in this line was 
 
 1 A Municipal Program^ p. 1 76. 
 260 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 made in Grand Rapids in 1903, when the new 
 Public Library Commission was established. Five 
 commissioners were chosen from twenty-one candi- 
 dates, all of whom had been nominated by petition 
 of twenty-five citizens. In spite of the large num- 
 ber of candidates, the plan worked very satisfac- 
 torily and a good commission was chosen. Even 
 better results might, perhaps, have been obtained 
 if the electors had turned out uniformly all over 
 the city. As it was, an abnormally heavy vote was 
 cast in some of the wards where there were sharp 
 contests for school trustee. 
 
 The requirement of a nominating petition does 
 away with the necessity for a candidate's fee and 
 puts the emphasis upon the idea that the office 
 should seek the man rather than the man seek 
 the office. It solves the problem of nominations 
 for municipal offices perfectly without the costly 
 machinery of party primaries. It does not ex- 
 clude party nominations if the parties have suffi- 
 cient cohesion to hold together and support their 
 candidates on the blanket ballot without the help 
 of the party name. As a matter of fact many 
 Enghsh municipal elections are fought out on 
 national party lines, but the ordinary American 
 politician knows perfectly well that the strength 
 of his candidates before the people depends very 
 largely upon their names being tagged with the 
 party name and emblem. Free nominations by 
 petition with all the names printed together in 
 alphabetical order on one ballot without any 
 
 261 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 party designation would practically destroy the 
 objectionable influence of party politics on munici- 
 pal affairs as far as elections are concerned. 
 
 There might still remain this difficulty, namely, 
 how are public policies to be crystallized and re- 
 ceive popular approval except through party 
 organizations? To meet this difficulty, if such 
 it is, we need only to introduce the referendum, 
 allowing the elected officials to formulate munici- 
 pal poUcies and submit the most important ones 
 to the people for their approval. In this way 
 temporary civic organizations would spring up 
 from time to time to influence the people to vote 
 one way or the other on particular issues. In 
 each case the people would be able to express 
 themselves squarely without voting on the tariff. 
 Indeed, a man could be in favor of municipal 
 ownership without giving his vote for a "wide- 
 open town," and the unfortunate alliance that now 
 too often exists between the corporation fighters 
 and the free-and-easy-morals people could be 
 broken up. As things now are, the corporate 
 interests ally themselves with party organizations, 
 and an independent leader who is struggling to 
 bring the franchise-holders under municipal con- 
 trol finds it easiest to get the funds necessary for 
 maintaining a long, hard poHtical fight by cater- 
 ing for the support of the criminal and vicious 
 classes. Thus, personal morality and respectabil- 
 ity get divorced from the cause of civic rights and 
 the enforcement of responsibility upon wealth. 
 
 262 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 The division is fatally confusing and only the cor- 
 rupt interests of the vicious on the one side and 
 the franchise-grabbers on the other reap any 
 advantage from it.^ 
 
 A great many men in this country, politicians 
 and others, practically admit that democracy has 
 in many respects proven a failure. This is espe- 
 cially true when municipal government is under 
 consideration. Very different reasons for this un- 
 fortunate condition are assigned by different men. 
 One class, notably business men who have devoted 
 their lives to the accumulation of wealth, and are 
 dissatisfied with political conditions because they 
 find a great deal of worriment in holding on to 
 their property, ascribe the alleged failure of de- 
 mocracy in this country to the ignorance and shift- 
 lessness of the fourth estate. These men do not 
 believe in manhood suffrage. Many of them favor 
 a property qualification for voters, and many see 
 the cause of our ills in the foreign vote. At the 
 same time they recognize the practical hopeless- 
 ness of any movement toward a substantial limi- 
 tation of the suffrage. The consequence is that 
 they favor a strict limitation of the functions of 
 
 1 This organization of civic interests at cross purposes has been 
 well illustrated within the last few years by the experience of Chicago, 
 Detroit, Cleveland, and Toledo. In New York and Philadelphia, 
 however, corporate interests are allied with the friends of vice and 
 the advocates of municipal laxity. In these latter cities a decent 
 citizen knows how to vote. The results would seem to indicate that 
 a division of the forces of evil is a good thing. Certainly this is so 
 where the really good citizens are in the minority. 
 
 263 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 government and want the actual control of pub- 
 lic affairs removed as far as possible from the 
 people. They believe that their interests — and 
 they identify the public interests with their own 
 — can be best protected from the populace by a 
 roundabout political system, a series of checks 
 and balances, of powers granted in one section 
 and withdrawn or curtailed in another. In short, 
 the working ideal of this class of men, so far as 
 they interest themselves in politics, is a political 
 system in which the popular will must pursue the 
 most devious and difficult paths to secure effective 
 expression. Thus, even if the people do not weary 
 in their efforts on account of the legal difficulties 
 to be overcome in bringing about their desires, 
 it is still generally possible to thwart them by a 
 concentration of the power of wealth on certain 
 strategic points in the governmental machine. 
 Democracy is a failure, these men would say, but 
 we cannot get rid of universal suffrage ; therefore, 
 let us so construct the political machine that votes 
 will not count. 
 
 Men of another class admit that democracy has 
 failed to a lamentable extent, but argue that the 
 cause of this failure does not lie primarily in the 
 ignorance or lack of thrift of the voters, but rather 
 in the very machinery of government which has 
 been devised, to a great extent, so as to thwart the 
 effective expression of the popular will. These 
 men say that what we need is not less democracy, 
 but more. They generally claim that property is 
 264 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 for man and not man for property, that in the long 
 run it is futile to attempt to protect vested inter- 
 ests /n?;;^ the people; they must be protected, if at 
 all, by them. These men generally admit that the 
 people may often be wrong, and certainly that they 
 may be confused and blundering in their political 
 action. But, they argue, what of it } The people 
 can only learn by doing, and without question the 
 moral strength and the practical intelligence of 
 the masses will be immeasurably increased by the 
 bona fide exercise of political functions. In the 
 long run the people can be trusted to promote 
 the general welfare. We are all men together, 
 anyway, and under the conditions of modern life, 
 especially in the great cities, it is impossible to 
 isolate individual welfare. Conditions of life, say 
 men of this class, are rapidly coming to the point 
 where there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as 
 private welfare, or private property. We have 
 democracy in outward form, and we have reached 
 a stage in human progress where the very worth- 
 fulness of life itself is bound up with democracy's 
 success. To try to make universal suffrage a farce 
 by making it difficult for the popular will to express 
 itself or by putting the thumb-screw of private 
 interests upon the chosen agents of the people is 
 socially suicidal. 
 
 The initiative and the referendum have their 
 
 sanction in the same conditions that make direct 
 
 nominations and free nominations desirable. It is 
 
 not to be contended that the whole mass of the 
 
 265 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 people can pass more intelligently upon most legis- 
 lative questions than a body of representatives 
 chosen fairly from all localities by popular vote. 
 Often the people cannot pass as intelligently on 
 public questions as such a body. There are, to be 
 sure, certain broad issues affecting the common 
 life, such as prohibition and some forms of taxation, 
 where laws, to be enforced, must have the general 
 support of public opinion, and such issues may ap- 
 propriately be submitted to vote of the whole people 
 under any conditions. But conditions at the pres- 
 ent time are such that many other questions must 
 be brought within the purview of the people if 
 popular government is not to prove a fiasco. With 
 the power of wealth so much concentrated, espe- 
 cially under corporate control, where the ordinary 
 rules of personal ethics do not seem to hold good, 
 it is practically impossible to select an average lot 
 of representatives who will not be brought under 
 control by the ^//^popular influences focussed upon 
 them. The government, whether in nation, state, 
 or city, must nominally at least assert its authority 
 over large enterprises, especially such as are of a 
 semi-public nature. These enterprises are prone 
 to protect their private interests against the en- 
 croachments of the government when it is looking 
 after public interests. If the legislators cannot be 
 bought in the vulgar way, at least they can be 
 argued over by the superior wit and knowledge 
 of lobbyists. Most questions are complex, and 
 most of the highest-trained men in the community 
 266 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 stand ready to beat the devil around the bush for 
 a pot of gold, so that the representative system 
 breaks down in the face of present conditions. 
 The people are much of the time betrayed, either 
 consciously or unconsciously, and v^^e get cor- 
 poration government instead of popular govern- 
 ment. On the other hand, the gravest objections 
 to direct legislation by the people have disap- 
 peared with the settlement of the country, the 
 growth of the press, and the marvellous develop- 
 ment in facilities for transportation and the trans- 
 mission of news. Now the people can formulate 
 their judgment quickly and on many issues. 
 
 ''^^T^urious compromise law was passed in Illinois 
 a few years ago, authorizing the submission of 
 questions to the people for an expression of opin- 
 ion. The aim of this law evidently was to provide 
 a means whereby legislative bodies could satisfy 
 themselves as to the trend of public opinion with- 
 out being actually bound to follow it. Even such 
 a law seems to have been efficacious in diminish- 
 ing corporate power over government. One of the 
 first questions submitted to the people of Chicago 
 under this act was the advisability of municipal 
 ownership of the street-car lines. The majority in 
 favor of municipal ownership was enormous, and 
 since then Chicago has secured from the legis- 
 lature an enabling act by which municipal owner- 
 ship has become possible. Even under the stress 
 of existing conditions, representatives cannot easily 
 hold out against the desires of their constituents 
 267 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 when definitely expressed at the ballot-box. The 
 popularity of direct legislation is shown by the 
 fact that the people of Illinois voted five to one in 
 favor of it under the advisory referendum. 
 
 The referendum has been made use of by the 
 Massachusetts legislature with considerable freedom 
 in recent years. New city charters and important 
 charter amendments are commonly made condi- 
 tional upon popular approval in the cities of that 
 state. Boston voted on eight propositions in the 
 ten years, 1890 to 1899, ^-nd on the average about 
 60 per cent of the registered voters have expressed 
 themselves on these questions.^ 
 
 San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, and Port- 
 land, Oregon, have all adopted both the referendum 
 and the initiative in municipal affairs. Oregon and 
 South Dakota have adopted these reforms in state 
 affairs, and the movement seems to be gaining great 
 headway in other states. The initiative is only 
 another step beyond the referendum in making the 
 government responsible to the people. It gives 
 fluidity to political forces. Any considerable 
 group of men who are sufficiently interested in any 
 species of legislation can call for a yea and nay 
 vote of the people on it. The roll-call is rather 
 expensive, but experience shows that it is not often 
 required. The representative system works better 
 where the people hold the string rather than let 
 organized wealth get hold of it. 
 
 1 Monthly Bulletin of the Statistics Department, December, 
 1900. 
 
 268 
 
UNIVERSITY I 
 
 POPULAR RES?ei4feBrrjTY 
 
 The principal advantages of direct legislation 
 are these : — 
 
 First. It gives the people's representatives an 
 opportunity to measure accurately public opinion 
 on important questions. ** In a country like ours, 
 permeated with the democratic spirit," says Mr. 
 Horace E. Deming, "the problem of securing 
 honest, progressive, efficient government is at bot- 
 tom essentially the same whether considered as 
 a national question or as one relating to a single 
 city like Columbus or Philadelphia. In both cases 
 the first requisite is that the government shall be 
 the product of and conform to the will of the 
 governed when that will is deliberately expressed ; 
 shall be evolved from and responsible to the people 
 it governs, not imposed by some outside authority. 
 No other government can be good government 
 according to the American democratic ideal, and 
 the struggle to attain the realization of that ideal 
 is the most potent and most permanent factor in 
 our political development." ^ 
 
 Second. It provides a check upon the power of 
 organized wealth to control legislation in its own 
 interest. 
 
 Third. It gives an opportunity for progressive 
 legislation upon the initiative of those who have 
 studied any public question enough to have formu- 
 lated a definite program in regard to it. 
 
 Fourth. It gives thfe people the opportunity to 
 
 ^ Publications of the National Municipal League^ Pamphlet 
 No. 7, p. 7. 
 
 269 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 express their will on definite issues without refer- 
 ence to parties or individuals. 
 
 Fifth. It furnishes a powerful incentive to 
 popular education in citizenship by compelling the 
 people to formulate and register their opinions on 
 public questions. In this way, and perhaps in 
 this way only, can the rank and file of the electors 
 be trained in the political self-control and intelligent 
 cooperation necessary for the realization of the 
 main purposes of democracy. 
 
 It is often said that men are too busy to attend 
 to their civic duties. This allegation is for the 
 most part beside the mark. The trouble is that on 
 account of our awkward political machinery a citizen 
 cannot register his public opinion effectively with- 
 out giving his whole time to it. Political interests 
 touch him daily in his work and play, but he is 
 cut off from responding to them on the spot. The 
 electrical circuit is incomplete. The return current 
 from the citizen is through the ground, and the 
 lightning of the public will creeps feebly back, 
 doing damage by electrolysis and wasting its 
 strength before getting to its destination. 
 
 All the arguments in favor of direct legisla- 
 tion as a democratic method apply with particular 
 force to cities. There local questions are distinct 
 and affect the whole population intimately. The 
 narrow space covered and the excellent facilities for 
 public discussion through the press and otherwise 
 make it comparatively easy for citizens to form in- 
 telligent judgments quickly on the issues pending. 
 270 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 There is one further development of the ma- 
 chinery for the popular control of government 
 which is sometimes advocated. I refer to what is 
 known as the recall. The charter drafted by the 
 first charter commission of Denver and rejected by 
 the people, contained a provision to the effect that 
 on petition of 30 per cent of the electors any 
 elected official could be made to stand for reelec- 
 tion at any time during his term of office. The 
 regular term of office was fixed at four years. In 
 Los Angeles, the recall was incorporated into 
 the city charter by an amendment in 1903. The 
 petitions to put it into practical operation must be 
 signed by 25 per cent of the voters. Terms of 
 office in Los Angeles are two years. 
 
 The recall is intended to keep elected officials in 
 line with public sentiment by requiring them to 
 procure a vote of confidence from the people on 
 evidence being presented that a sufficient number 
 of the citizens are dissatisfied. Direct legislation 
 furnishes a means for popular control of legislative 
 policies. The recall would give the people power 
 over administrative policies so that the enforcement 
 of laws could be compelled whenever public senti- 
 ment favored law enforcement. American cities 
 are now troubled with political hypocrisy which is 
 shielded by the fact that one set of authorities 
 makes the laws and another administers them, 
 neither set being subject to adequate popular con- 
 trol whenever money rather than honor is the 
 leading official motive. Direct legislation and the 
 
 271 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 recall would bring law-making and law-enforcement 
 under the immediate control of the same body, the 
 people. This would bring about greater harmony 
 in government and would certainly tend to destroy 
 the hypocrisy that makes our city government so 
 often a byword. 
 
 Another line of reform that is often urged is 
 minority or proportional representation. This 
 proposal is based on a recognition of the perma- 
 nence of the party system or of class interests. 
 However valuable it may prove in national or state 
 politics, its application to municipal government is 
 quite unnecessary, with the reforms already sug- 
 gested. The plan usually involves election by gen- 
 eral ticket, which runs counter to the development 
 of local political centres as here advocated. The 
 representation of the minority presupposes party 
 differences, whereas it is our contention that mu- 
 nicipal elections should take place without divisions 
 along national party lines. Election by districts, 
 the initiative, the referendum, and the recall would 
 obviate any possible necessity of special provision 
 for the representation of minorities on local issues. 
 Proportional representation would apply where 
 there are several parties with considerable strength, 
 and in municipal affairs would most naturally lead 
 to the representation of special interests, which we 
 have already discussed and dismissed as undemo- 
 cratic. 
 
 The whole democratic theory of popular respon- 
 sibility calls for fluidity in the organization of the 
 272 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 government, so that the popular will shall be most 
 readily and effectively translated into the public 
 will. This applies particularly to nominations and 
 elections, and the determination of policies. The 
 machinery of government and, in particular, that 
 part of it through which the popular will is crystal- 
 lized and expressed, needs to be perfected. The 
 " machine " in politics, as it now exists, is a more 
 or less private affair which does not furnish a 
 means for the free expression of the people's will. 
 The boss, our uncrowned king, is the man who 
 manipulates the machine. There is nothing objec- 
 tionable in the paramount influence of certain indi- 
 viduals, so long as they are the normally chosen 
 leaders of the people, and can hold their power 
 only while the people will it.^ 
 
 In fact what we need more than anything else 
 in pontics is the freeing of the individual, so that 
 any citizen or group of citizens shall be able to take 
 their purposes before the people and get a definite 
 expression of the popular will on any subject that 
 appeals to the people's interests. For this reason, 
 the percentage of voters required on the initiative 
 and referendum petitions should not be high. Ten 
 per cent is enough in large cities. The freeing of 
 the individual would encourage those who are 
 specially qualified along particular lines to associ- 
 ate themselves with the municipal departments in 
 
 ^ See Professor Goodnow's chapters on " The Boss " and " Re- 
 sponsibility of Parties and Party Leaders," in Politics and Adminis- 
 tration^ pp. 168-254. 
 
 "^ 273 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 voluntary committees to give the public the benefit 
 of their knowledge and interest. As things now 
 are in most American cities little or no effort is 
 made to secure the voluntary cooperation of citi- 
 zens with the city government in this way. 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to add at the close of 
 this chapter that all the means suggested for secur- 
 ing the better political organization of the people 
 would be futile without a carefully protected ballot. 
 Absolute honesty in the conduct of elections is a 
 matter of primary importance, and the election 
 officer who commits fraud, the citizen who corruptly 
 bargains away his vote, and all those who strive to 
 thwart the honest expression of the people's will 
 should be dealt with unsparingly by the law and 
 the public prosecutors. The grosser forms of 
 election frauds have become comparatively rare in 
 New York City in recent years. Baltimore has 
 cleaned itself up to a considerable extent. But 
 Philadelphia still wallows in the slough of electoral 
 corruption. It is not believed, however, that elec- 
 tion frauds on a large scale take place any more in 
 most of our cities. The corruption of the elector- 
 ate now common is accomplished by promises of 
 position, by the distribution of cigars and beer, 
 by appeals to personal or party prejudices, and by 
 other means which operate chiefly outside of the 
 polling place. 
 
 ** The people are responsible " for the character 
 of their government, but this responsibility is more 
 theoretical than actual where no adequate methods 
 274 
 
POPULAR RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 are devised for their making response. The pur- 
 pose of the changes in our form of government 
 suggested in this chapter is to enable the people to 
 respond, so that the government will truly reflect 
 their will and furnish an accurate measure of the 
 progress or decay of the political capacity of nation, 
 state, or city. 
 
 27s 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 . OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 There is no consistent theory of official responsi- 
 bility in American cities, and consequently we find 
 every type of municipal organization in various 
 degrees and combinations, so that, viewed as a 
 whole, our city government is a chaos of forms. 
 We have a half-hearted theory that the separation 
 of legislative and executive powers, which is a 
 marked characteristic of our state and national 
 governments, should be carried out in local gov- 
 ernment also, and in a general way this is done, 
 though subject to countless limitations and excep- 
 tions. We also think that the chief executive of 
 the city should be elected by the people. This 
 rule is universal with us outside of the city of 
 Washington, except when Mr. Quay suspends 
 popular government in Pennsylvania for a season. 
 We also have everywhere, except in Washington 
 city, a municipal legislative assembly variously 
 called the common council, the city council, coun- 
 cils, the board of aldermen, the board of super- 
 visors, the municipal assembly, etc., and having 
 at least a nucleus of ordinance-making powers. 
 
 We are toying with the theory that official re- 
 sponsibility should be concentrated in the hands of 
 276 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 one man elected by the people for a comparatively 
 short term of office. But the real desideratum 
 of municipal organization is the definition rather 
 than the concentration of responsibility. The citi- 
 zens should be able to find with ease which one 
 of their official servants is responsible for the per- 
 formance of any particular function of govern- 
 ment, and get at him if he fails to do his duty. 
 We want to be able to tell who is neglecting what, 
 and bring pressure to bear upon him to compel 
 him to carry out the will of the people. We want 
 also so to distribute official duties that we shall 
 get the best possible results when the average 
 character of the men likely to hold office is taken 
 into account. This is extremely important, for it 
 is no more possible to get an adequate response 
 from heaping responsibility upon an ignorant or 
 weak man than it is to store a pail of water in a 
 teaspoon. The responsibility will slop over if the 
 man is not big enough. It is a great mistake to 
 think that there are plenty of men in any city who 
 are capable of taking up the executive and ad- 
 ministrative work of the city, and carrying it on 
 successfully if only they are given full authority. 
 We have few trained mayors in the United States, 
 and mere business experience often proves almost 
 worthless in a great political office. 
 
 The " council system " may be regarded, the 
 whole world considered, as the norm of municipal 
 organization under popular government, and all 
 other systems as modifications of it. The council 
 
 277 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 system is found in its purest form in the cities of 
 Great Britain. There practically the whole cor- 
 porate power of the city is in the hands of a body 
 of men chosen by the electors, except that those so 
 elected may add one-third to their own number by 
 their own choice. The council elects a mayor who 
 is titular head of the city government, but continues 
 to be a member of the council, with only the ordi- 
 nary powers of a councillor. The council elects 
 committees of its own number, each of which has 
 charge of a special department of the city govern- 
 ment subject to the approval and control of the 
 whole council. All executive officers are appointed 
 by the council. All municipal projects that come 
 within the scope of the city's powers are worked 
 out by the council and determined upon by it. 
 Every municipal enterprise is carried out by the 
 council's servants under its supervision. Each 
 member of the council is responsible to his con- 
 stituents for the part he takes in official proceed- 
 ings, but this responsibility can be enforced only 
 at the end of his term if he stands for reelection, 
 and by the pressure of public opinion through the 
 ordinary channels of social intercourse at other 
 times. The council may be elected either on gen- 
 eral ticket or by districts with one or more repre- 
 sentatives each, the latter being the general practice 
 in towns and cities of any considerable size. 
 
 Even in England the council system has been 
 subjected to certain moderate limitations. Educa- 
 tion, not being considered strictly a municipal func- 
 278 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 tion, has only recently been brought within the 
 scope of the city council. Poor relief still remains 
 under local boards independent of the town coun- 
 cils. The auditing officers of the corporation are 
 elected by the people, and the people decide as to 
 whether the city shall adopt certain optional legis- 
 lation, such as the free libraries act. 
 
 In the United States the council system has 
 been modified in so many ways as to be hardly rec- 
 ognizable. The first great modification of it is in 
 the separation of executive and administrative func- 
 tions from the scope of the council and in placing 
 them in the hands of officers independently re- 
 sponsible to the people. The election of the 
 mayor by popular vote is in itself a serious en- 
 croachment upon the council system even where 
 the authority of the mayor is greatly limited. It 
 marks the creation of a coordinate authority, and 
 points to the time when the council is to become 
 merely a legislative body. It is not long before 
 other officials, such as the treasurer, the auditor, 
 the city attorney, and the members of various ad- 
 ministrative boards are elected by the people, or 
 appointed by the mayor or governor. The coun- 
 cil often retains some control over the personnel 
 of the administration by means of the right to 
 approve or reject the mayor's appointments. 
 
 The complete separation of the executive from 
 
 the legislative department is not attained even in 
 
 the national government. Besides the power of 
 
 confirmation of appointments given to the United 
 
 279 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 States Senate by law, the members of the na- 
 tional legislative body have great powers of patron- 
 age individually which are accorded to them by 
 political custom. In cities the members of the 
 council have less individual patronage but more 
 authority as a body to control official appointments. 
 In many cases the clerk of the council, who is also 
 the city clerk, is still chosen by the city's legisla- 
 tive body. Indeed in the smaller cities the council 
 often retains very considerable powers of appoint- 
 ment and administrative supervision. For example 
 in Dallas, a city of nearly 50,000 population and 
 one of the largest towns in Texas, the new char- 
 ter of 1899, after providing for the election of 
 seventeen officials by popular vote, gives to the 
 city council the power of choosing all appointive 
 officers with the exception of the police and fire 
 commissioners, who are appointed by the governor 
 of the state, and the members of the police and 
 fire departments, who are appointed by the com- 
 missioners. Among the officials appointed by 
 the council are a city secretary, a city electrician, 
 a city engineer, a secretary of waterworks, and an 
 auditor. 
 
 The charter of Nashville, Tennessee, a city of 
 80,000 population, provides for the election of ten 
 administrative officials by popular vote. The or- 
 ganization of the executive department is beyond 
 ordinary comprehension, but the city council re- 
 tains the right to establish new offices and deter- 
 mine how they shall be filled. The council may 
 
 280 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 also remove members of the Board of Public 
 Works and Affairs by a three-fourths vote after a 
 hearing, subject to no appeal. As this board has 
 the appointment of all subordinate officials pro- 
 vided for by the charter, including even the police- 
 men and firemen, the control of the council over 
 its members is of considerable importance. The 
 power to remove city officials by special vote with 
 or without a trial is a remnant of administrative 
 authority quite commonly remaining with city 
 councils. 
 
 On the other hand the new charter of Portland, 
 Oregon, the new municipal code of Ohio, and 
 many of the charters of the great cities confine 
 the council to legislative functions almost exclu- 
 sively. 
 
 The second important modification of the council 
 system is found in the legislative powers of the 
 mayor. In Chicago and many smaller cities the 
 mayor presides over the council. In Grand Rapids 
 he even appoints the council committees. Further- 
 more, the mayor's veto is an almost universal 
 institution in American cities. The typical form 
 of the veto power gives the mayor the right to file 
 objections to any ordinance or resolution passed 
 by the council within a certain number of days, 
 with the effect that the ordinance or resolution 
 will not go into force unless repassed by an abso- 
 lute two-thirds majority of the council. In many 
 cases, however, the veto power has been extended 
 to apply to items in appropriation bills. In Nash- 
 281 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 ville, indeed, the mayor may veto separate provi- 
 sions of any ordinance. Furthermore, the veto power 
 has been so extended in some cities that for certain 
 classes of ordinances a three-fourths, four-fifths, or 
 five-sixths vote of the council is necessary to over- 
 come the mayor's objections. In New York City 
 the mayor's veto of a franchise grant is final. In 
 some cases the influence of the mayor and other 
 executive officers over legislation is increased by 
 the grant of the right to them to attend council 
 meetings and participate in debate, though with- 
 out a vote. 
 
 A still further modification of the council system 
 is found in those cities where a part of the legisla- 
 tive functions have been transferred to other local 
 boards, such as the board of education, the board 
 of health, and other boards having in charge special 
 departments of municipal government. It is often 
 true that education is not under the direct control 
 of the council at all, though in some cases, where 
 there is an independent elective school board, the 
 council has the right to revise the annual school 
 budget. In Cleveland, since 1 89 1 , the school system 
 has been organized on an elaborate plan by itself 
 with a strict separation of executive and legislative 
 authorities. The board of health often occupies a 
 semi-independent position in city government under 
 the authority of the general state law governing 
 health administration. In the city of New Haven 
 there is a paving commission appointed by the 
 mayor. It is the duty of this commission to deter- 
 
 282 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 mine what kind of pavements shall be laid in streets 
 which the council has ordered improved. The 
 sanitary drainage district and the park boards of 
 Chicago have certain legislative functions quite 
 independent of the city council. 
 
 The most important limitation of the council's 
 legislative powers on behalf of other local boards 
 is, however, in the department of finance. In the 
 middle of the last century it was customary in New 
 York for the state legislature to make the annual 
 tax levy for municipal purposes in the metropolis. 
 The spirit of partisanship was so strong and the 
 inefficiency of the city council so marked that it 
 was not thought safe to leave the city authorities in 
 control of local finances. In 1873, however, fol- 
 lowing one of the most remarkable periods of 
 municipal corruption and extravagance in the 
 annals of any American city, the statesmen of New 
 York hit upon a new plan for the control of the 
 appropriations of the reformed city. A board of 
 estimate and apportionment was established, made 
 up of the mayor, the comptroller, and certain other 
 city officials, all ex officiis. This board was given 
 authority to prepare the annual budget for sub- 
 mission to the council, which had the right to reduce 
 but not to increase any items. The general man- 
 agement of the finances and responsibility for the 
 city's credit were lodged with this board. The plan 
 proved eminently successful so far as the protection 
 of the city's credit was concerned, and has been 
 considerably imitated in American cities. The 
 
 283 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 board of estimate and apportionment as now 
 organized in New York City is composed of the 
 mayor, the comptroller, and the president of the 
 board of aldermen, who have three votes each; 
 the presidents of the boroughs of Manhattan and 
 Brooklyn, with two votes each ; and the presidents 
 of the boroughs of Queens, Richmond, and the 
 Bronx, with one vote each. All of these members 
 are elected officials. Prior to the charter revision 
 of 1900 the board consisted of five members with 
 one vote each, including the mayor and two of his 
 appointees. The board of estimate and apportion- 
 ment is required to prepare the annual budget and 
 submit it to the board of aldermen for approval. 
 The aldermen have twenty days for its consideration, 
 but are not permitted to increase any item of the 
 appropriations, to insert any new item, or to change 
 the conditions of the various items as submitted to 
 them. Furthermore, the aldermen are not author- 
 ized to reduce appropriations for the payment of 
 interest or principal of the public debt or for expen- 
 ditures made mandatory under the law. If the 
 aldermen take no action, the budget stands as 
 reported to them. If they reduce any item, the 
 mayor may veto their action, and a three-fourths 
 vote of the aldermen is required to override his 
 veto. Under these conditions it can be easily seen 
 that the New York City council has very narrow 
 financial powers. Careful provision is made in the 
 charter for the payment of the city's debt, and 
 the board of estimate and apportionment has been 
 284 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 amply authorized and instructed to protect the 
 city's credit. Indeed, the board is practically 
 supreme in all financial matters. At least, no local 
 improvement can be made, no franchise be granted, 
 no city undertaking be put through, without its 
 approval. 
 
 As already stated, this plan of financial control 
 has been copied in other cities. It is considered a 
 real triumph in legislative ingenuity. It provides 
 a plan by which a city can weather flagrant cor- 
 ruption and extravagance without becoming bank- 
 rupt. Generally speaking, a city's bondholders do 
 not worry over the amount of the municipal debt, 
 provided only that all technical requirements have 
 been complied with and provision made for interest 
 and sinking fund charges. It may be doubted 
 whether this board has reduced taxes, but in any 
 case it has made bonds ironclad. 
 
 In New Haven the body is called the board of 
 finance, and is composed of the mayor, the comp- 
 troller, two aldermen, and three citizens appointed 
 by the mayor, one each year for a term of three 
 years. This board has about the same powers as 
 the New York board with reference to the budget, 
 though the council's authority is even more re- 
 stricted, as it requires a two-thirds vote to make 
 any change whatever in the estimates of the board 
 of finance. The school tax is levied directly by 
 this board without the intervention of the council. 
 The board of finance also acts as a committee on 
 claims and accounts, which, though not a strictly 
 
 2»S 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 legislative function, is one of considerable impor- 
 tance in many city councils. This board also has 
 authority to fix salaries. Rochester, Syracuse, 
 Albany, Troy, and Utica, being cities of the second 
 class in the state of New York, each has a board 
 of estimate and apportionment composed of five 
 executive officers, including the mayor and two of 
 his appointees. 
 
 The Baltimore board of estimates is constituted 
 in about the same manner, and has, in addition to 
 its budgetary powers, authority to revise proposed 
 franchise grants and fix the compensation for fran- 
 chises before they are granted. The Detroit board 
 of estimates is a much more popular body, being 
 composed of five members elected at large and two 
 elected from each of the seventeen wards. The 
 Detroit board is also peculiar in this, that the 
 budget is first passed upon by the council and 
 then referred to the board for final approval or re- 
 vision in the direction of reducing the appropria- 
 tions but not increasing them. 
 
 Sometimes the financial powers of the council 
 are not absolutely curtailed, but their exercise is 
 made dependent upon the concurrent will of 
 special majorities. Thus in St. Paul, under the 
 charter of 1900, where the common council is a 
 two-chambered body, **no appropriation of money, 
 or resolution, order, or ordinance for the payment 
 of money or creating any pecuniary liability, shall 
 be valid or operative," unless passed by an absolute 
 two-thirds affirmative vote in both chambers ; and 
 286 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 if vetoed by the mayor, such a measure requires an 
 absolute four-fifths vote to be passed over the veto. 
 One would suppose that with all the limitations 
 already described, the council system would be 
 sufficiently emasculated to suit its most ardent 
 opponents. But the modifications so far spoken 
 of apply only to the transfer of powers from the 
 council to other municipal bodies. It is one of the 
 marked characteristics of American municipal gov- 
 ernment that local legislative powers are generally 
 exercised by the state legislature, so that often only 
 the shadow of the ordinance power remains in the 
 hands of any municipal authority whatever. This 
 condition of affairs has arisen out of two things : 
 first, the American theory that municipal powers 
 must all be enumerated in every charter, and sec- 
 ond, the proneness of political parties to control 
 city government through state machinery. These 
 things have made our city charters in many cases 
 as voluminous as a book of ordinances. The or- 
 ganization of the city government is often fixed in 
 detail, and sometimes even the salaries of subordi- 
 nate administrative officers are fixed in the charter. 
 For example, of the ;^ioo,ooo,(XX) spent by New 
 York City in 1901 over two-thirds " was for manda- 
 tory expenditures as to which the city authorities 
 could make no change whatever," and nearly half 
 of the remainder was practically mandatory, so that 
 not more than 17 per cent of the budget could 
 really be affected by the local authorities.^ 
 
 ^ John G. Agar in Municipal Affairs, Tune, 1902, p. 205. 
 
 287 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 The interference of the state legislatures in 
 municipal affairs will be more fully discussed in 
 the next chapter. It remains to note here a still 
 further curtailment of the powers of the council 
 which has made considerable headway in some 
 American cities, and which is advocated by the 
 friends of democracy generally. I refer to the in- 
 troduction of the initiative and the referendum in 
 their various forms, by means of which the discre- 
 tion of the council in legislative matters is directly 
 subjected to the popular veto or mandate. This 
 limitation is of a different kind from the others, and 
 is calculated in a large measure to supplant them. 
 
 The council system presents a sorry spectacle 
 indeed, in American cities. Yet we must not think 
 that the council is everywhere equally impotent. 
 In a good many of the smaller cities it still retains 
 large administrative powers, and its legislative 
 powers are wide in so great a city as Chicago. 
 It is the tendency of recent charters to enlarge the 
 council's legislative authority, and to supplement a 
 detailed by a general grant covering all matters per- 
 taining to municipal welfare. The new charter of 
 Portland, Oregon, gives a good illustration of this 
 tendency. In the first place it states that "the 
 council shall have and exercise exclusively all 
 legislative powers and authority of the city of Port- 
 land, and no legislative powers or authority, either 
 express or implied, shall be exercised by any other 
 person or persons, board or boards, other than the 
 council." Then follows through seventy-eight 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 paragraphs a detailed description of specific powers 
 conferred upon the council. After that comes the 
 statement that **the foregoing or other enumera- 
 tion of particular powers granted to the council in 
 this charter shall not be construed to impair any 
 general grant of power herein contained nor to 
 limit any such general grant to powers of the same 
 class or classes as those so enumerated." The 
 powers of the St. Paul council are enumerated in 
 thirty-five sections, one of which has sixty-two sub- 
 divisions. In the New Haven charter also the 
 council's powers are described in detail ; but un- 
 luckily the separate paragraphs are lettered, so 
 that when the charter-makers got as far as " z," 
 they had to quit. We cannot be certain but that 
 some essential local legislative powers have been 
 omitted because of the failure of the alphabet to 
 furnish enough headings. On the other hand, 
 in the latest charter of New York, the powers of 
 the board of aldermen are not set forth in great 
 detail, while one section gives a general grant so 
 generous that it is easy to detect an earnest desire 
 on the part of the charter revision commission to 
 rehabilitate this body, which had long been about 
 the most insignificant city council in the civilized 
 world. *' No enumeration of powers in this act," 
 says the charter, " shall be held to limit the legis- 
 lative power of the board of aldermen, which in 
 addition to all enumerated powers may exercise all 
 of the powers vested in the city of New York by 
 this act or otherwise, by proper ordinance, rules, 
 u 289 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 regulations, and by-laws, not inconsistent with the 
 provisions of this act, or with the constitution or 
 laws of the United States or of this state." 
 
 The typical form of the council is that of a sin- 
 gle body elected by districts and choosing its own 
 officers. True, in England the councillors elected 
 by wards choose one-third of their number to be 
 aldermen, who are councillors of a higher grade, 
 though forming a part of the single responsible 
 legislative body. In this country we have experi- 
 mented a great deal with the bicameral system. 
 Many of our large cities, including Boston, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, St. Louis, and St. Paul, 
 now have councils composed of two chambers, the 
 upper house being smaller than the lower and its 
 members elected by different districts. The bicam- 
 eral system has not, however, proved very satisfac- 
 tory. New York and New Haven have lately given 
 up the second chamber. The plan that finds most 
 favor in recent legislation is to provide for the elec- 
 tion of a part of the council by general ticket and 
 the rest by wards. The new Ohio code provides 
 that one-fifth of the aldermen shall be elected at 
 large. The Portland charter makes one-third of 
 the councilmen elected on general ticket. The 
 same provision is found in the charter for the city 
 of Wilmington, Delaware, proposed in 1901. The 
 charter of Denver now provides for the election of 
 five supervisors at large and one from each ward. 
 The new charter recently drafted for Denver, but 
 disapproved by the electors, went to the full length 
 
 290 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 of providing that the whole city council should be 
 chosen by general ticket. San Francisco elects 
 its eighteen supervisors in that way. In both of 
 these latter cities the council is known as the board 
 of supervisors. 
 
 Another modification of the typical form of the 
 council is found in the election of its presiding 
 officer by the people at large as a sort of vice-mayor. 
 This is the plan in New York, and it is being fol- 
 lowed to some extent elsewhere. It gives a cer- 
 tain amount of dignity to the council and provides 
 a popularly elected official to succeed to the mayor's 
 chair in case of vacancy. 
 
 Generally councilmen elected by wards have to 
 be residents of the wards they represent, but 
 New York City has finally broken away from this 
 thoroughly American rule, and has provided that 
 any citizen of the city shall be eligible to represent 
 any aldermanic district in it. This condition is 
 sometimes reversed. In San Jose, California, there 
 is a council of five members elected from separate 
 wards by vote of the whole city. The same plan 
 was in vogue in Lincoln, Nebraska, until recently 
 and is not uncommon in Southern cities. 
 
 The National Municipal League in its program 
 of municipal reform recommends that the city coun- 
 cil be elected on general ticket and be endowed with 
 practically complete powers of local legislation. 
 It is left optional with cities of 25,000 population 
 to frame their own charters and establish ward 
 representation if they so desire. In view of the 
 
 291 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 need for local civic spirit in the several sections of 
 a large city, district representation becomes of great 
 importance. It seems desirable therefore to adhere 
 to the ward system, only modifying it to the extent 
 of electing the president and, say, one-third of the 
 councilmen on general ticket. This would approx- 
 imate as near to the English plan as American 
 traditions will permit, the councilmen at large 
 corresponding to the English aldermen and consti- 
 tuting as it were an honorary class in the council 
 for the purpose of intelligent leadership. 
 
 Leaving the council system as the norm of mu- 
 nicipal organization, there is only one other scheme 
 to be found in American cities which deserves to 
 be called a system. This is the so-called " federal 
 plan," which is best illustrated in the city govern- 
 ment of Cleveland as it was from 1891 to 1903. 
 The federal plan, as its name indicates, is a more 
 or less exact copy of the general principles of 
 organization found in our national government. 
 These principles are three : first, a clear separation 
 of executive and legislative powers ; second, a con- 
 centration of executive responsibility in the hands 
 of one man who derives his power directly from 
 the people ; and third, the provision of a cabinet or 
 group of heads of administrative departments to 
 advise the chief executive. This may be regarded 
 as the distinct American contribution to the theory 
 of municipal organization, and, indeed, in theory, 
 though not historically, the federal plan may al- 
 most venture to dispute with the council system 
 
 292 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 the honor of being regarded as the norm m this 
 country. At any rate it will be most convenient 
 for us to consider it as the new American type, 
 and note the departures from it in our municipal 
 practice. 
 
 The first important limitation upon the federal 
 plan to be considered is the incomplete divorce- 
 ment of the city's legislature from administrative 
 functions. The council's power of appointment 
 or confirmation is almost everywhere considerable. 
 Even in Cleveland under the federal plan, as indeed 
 in the national government, the appointment of 
 members of the cabinet by the executive head was 
 subject to the council's approval. In practice, 
 however, this limitation upon the mayor amounted 
 to little more than the similar limitation upon the 
 President does. The mayor was to all intents and 
 purposes the one responsible head of the whole 
 administration. 
 
 A further limitation upon the federal plan is 
 found in the election of independent administrative 
 officials not responsible to the mayor. Indeed, 
 this is such a radical departure from the federal 
 system that it clamors for recognition as a system 
 by itself. Students of American administration 
 are well aware of the radical difference in the 
 organization of the national and the state govern- 
 ments. In the former responsibility is concentrated. 
 In the latter it is distributed. This latter system 
 has been copied more or less closely in many cities 
 and has a tenacious hold upon the popular mind in 
 
 293 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the small places. Almost everywhere, even in the 
 largest cities, several administrative officers are 
 elected. In Cleveland, under the federal plan, the 
 only administrative officers besides the mayor who 
 were elected were the treasurer and the prosecuting 
 attorney for the police court, except the director of 
 schools, whose department was quite separate from 
 the city government proper. In New York City 
 now the comptroller and the borough presidents 
 are important administrative officials elected by the 
 people. 
 
 The art of executive disorganization has been 
 carried far in many American cities. For example, 
 the city of Nashville, Tennessee, elects, besides the 
 mayor, a city treasurer, a comptroller, a city attor- 
 ney, a city marshal, a tax assessor, and a board of 
 public works and affairs of three members. This 
 board has the appointing power in practically all 
 the departments of the city outside of the schools, 
 even in the police and fire departments, although 
 there is a separate board of police and fire com- 
 missioners appointed by the mayor. The health 
 officer is an exception to the rule, for he is ap- 
 pointed by the board of health. 
 
 But the most striking example of deliberate dis- 
 sipation of responsibility is found in the new Ohio 
 municipal code. The system there provided is a 
 combination of village methods and the machinery 
 worked out by Mr. Cox for the easy control of 
 Cincinnati. In a recent magazine article on public 
 school business administration Mr. C. B. Gilbert 
 
 294 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 says, " The theory underlying the organization of 
 public business is that it is best to avoid the possi- 
 bility of fixing responsibility." 1 They seem to 
 have followed this idea in Ohio. Turning its back 
 completely on the federal plan so far as the organ- 
 ization of the executive was concerned, the Ohio 
 legislature imposed upon all the cities of the state 
 a system that seems to have for its object the de- 
 moralization of the executive. First, there is the 
 mayor, who has the right to call the directors of 
 departments together for consultation. He is 
 twice described in the act itself as *' the chief con- 
 servator of the peace." He has the appointment 
 of the board of public safety subject to confirma- 
 tion by two-thirds vote of the council. But if 
 the council fails to confirm within thirty days, the 
 appointments are made by the governor. The 
 mayor is a sort of emergency head of the police 
 and fire departments, and has the great privilege of 
 appointing policemen and firemen from a limited 
 list furnished him by the board of public safety 
 acting in the capacity of a civil service commission. 
 The president of the council, who is vice-mayor, 
 the auditor, the treasurer, and the solicitor are 
 elected by the people. So also are the directors 
 of public service, who constitute a board which has 
 control of streets, sewers, public utilities, parks, and 
 charitable and reformatory institutions. In short, 
 the board of public service is at the head of the 
 strictly municipal administrative work. The mayor 
 
 ^ Forufu, October-December, 1903, p. 309. 
 295 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 appoints a board of health subject to confirmation 
 by the council, and a library commission without 
 such confirmation. 
 
 This Ohio system is extreme. Yet almost 
 everywhere there is some limitation upon the 
 mayor's responsibility arising from the fact of in- 
 dependent elective officials. Another limitation 
 upon the federal plan is the appointment of city 
 officials for definite terms and the absence of power 
 in the mayor to remove his own appointees except 
 for judicial cause. In a few of the new charters 
 the mayor is given absolute power of removal. 
 The plan formerly in vogue in New York City was 
 to allow the mayor to remove his appointees at any 
 time within six months after their appointment. 
 This is the plan in Baltimore now. The theory of 
 it is that the mayor should have the right to make 
 his appointments on probation, but that six months 
 of faithful service ought to insure a definite term 
 of office to his appointees. New York had an ex- 
 ceedingly disagreeable experience with this theory 
 while Mr. Strong was mayor. Two of the four 
 police commissioners lost their efficiency after the 
 six months had expired, and, as they were stubborn, 
 the department remained in a deadlock for a long 
 time. Now the mayor of New York has absolute 
 power of removal over his appointees. 
 
 The New York deadlock was, of course, due as 
 
 much to the bipartisan organization of the board as 
 
 to the mayor's inability to remove the discordant 
 
 commissioners. The bipartisan idea has a strong 
 
 296 
 
 i 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 hold upon municipal legislation, there being many 
 instances in widely different parts of the country 
 where half the members of a municipal board are 
 required to be taken from each of the leading 
 political parties, or, more commonly, not more than 
 half can be taken from any one party. The 
 recently enacted charter of South Bend, Indiana, 
 provided for a board of public works of three mem- 
 bers to be appointed by the mayor, two from his 
 own party, and one from the party casting the next 
 highest vote. The charter even provided that of 
 the waterworks employees "not more than half, 
 as nearly as may be, shall be appointed from one 
 political party," and the fire and police forces were 
 to be, and remain, as nearly as possible, equally 
 divided between the two principal parties. San 
 Francisco, which has had three principal parties 
 of late years, has provided in her new charter that 
 of the three members of the board of public works 
 and the civil service commission, the mayor shall 
 not appoint more than one from any one party. 
 The board of education, the police board, and the 
 fire board each consists of four members of whom 
 not more than two can be from one party. The 
 board of health must consist of five physician -? 
 members, two from each of the two principal 
 parties, and one from a third, if possible. If there 
 is no third party having a physician in its ranks, 
 the mayor is permitted to use his discretion in 
 the appointment of the fifth member. This partisan 
 limitation upon the federal plan is good evidence of 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 the tremendous hold of the party system on city 
 affairs and is at the same time a recognition of its 
 evil influence. 
 
 The most important modification of the federal 
 plan is the merit system of appointment in the 
 subordinate. administrative service. This limitation 
 is most important, not because it is most common, 
 not because it diminishes the mayor's responsibil- 
 ity most, but because it is a constructive limitation. 
 It limits and yet it is inconsistent with the plan 
 and gives it strength and practicability. The two 
 objections that were raised against the federal plan 
 as it was operated in Cleveland were, first, that the 
 mayor through his right to attend council meetings 
 and participate in debate was able to exert undue 
 influence over the legislative department, and, 
 second, that on account of his practically unlimited 
 power of appointment and removal he was enabled 
 to build up a powerful machine for his own politi- 
 cal aggrandizement. The first of these defects 
 could have been cured by limiting the mayor to 
 written communications to the council. The 
 second defect could have been obviated by the 
 introduction of the merit system. The theory of 
 this system is that public employment in all subor- 
 dinate positions should be open to all citizens 
 without regard to their political or religious affilia- 
 tions, selections to be made from those showing 
 superior fitness in an open competitive examination. 
 In other words, the merit system is directly opposed 
 to the idea that public offices and employments 
 
 298 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 may be rightly used as rewards for party service. 
 Furthermore, the merit system stands for expert 
 municipal service which requires a relative per- 
 manency in official tenures. For this reason under 
 the merit system, as usually arranged, officers and 
 employees cannot be removed except for judicial 
 cause, — that is, for malfeasance or misfeasance 
 in office. Sometimes, however, the mayor is per- 
 mitted to remove officials in the classified civil 
 service with assignment of his reasons in writing. 
 All cities in New York and Massachusetts have 
 the merit system under state law. Chicago adopted 
 it by popular vote. San Francisco, Los Angeles, 
 Seattle, Milwaukee, New Haven, New Orleans, and 
 Portland, Oregon, have the merit system established 
 in various degrees of efficiency in their charters. 
 It is applied to the police and fire departments in 
 many other cities. The success of the system 
 depends largely upon its being administered by 
 its friends. But when its friends are in power, the 
 system is not so much needed, and sometimes 
 even gets in the way of desirable reorganization. 
 The merit system has three practical purposes in 
 view. These are, first, to prevent spoils politicians 
 from filling the offices with incompetent party 
 workers ; second, to provide a simple and just way 
 of selecting fit persons for official employment, 
 thus relieving the mayor or other appointing 
 authority of the irksome and unprofitable task of 
 passing upon all applicants by personal examina- 
 tion or by the consideration of the applicants' 
 
 299 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 recommendations ; and, third, to give all applicants 
 for appointment an equal chance in accordance 
 with their ability. A spoilsman mayor has no use 
 for the second function of the merit system and 
 evades the first if possible. An efficient nonpar- 
 tisan mayor has no need of the first but finds the 
 second a great help, unless the red tape of the civil 
 service examination happens in some unusual in- 
 stance to bar out a candidate known to possess 
 exceptional qualifications for some particular posi- 
 tion. Too, if the law is dishonestly administered 
 by its enemies, when its friends get into power, 
 they may find the pay-rolls loaded with a lot of 
 half-competent employees whose tenure of office is 
 protected by the law so that they cannot be re- 
 moved to make way for more efficient persons. 
 In New York City, particularly, these difficulties 
 have been encountered. 
 
 Nevertheless, after all has been said that can be 
 said against the merit system, we find the substance 
 and principle of it untouched. This system is 
 democratic, for it gives every citizen an equal op- 
 portunity to participate in the public service accord- 
 ing to his fitness. It is economical, because it 
 brings into office competent persons who work for 
 their wages and are not required to spend half of 
 the city's time " hustling " for votes or organizing 
 political clubs. It is scientific, because through 
 permanence of official tenure it develops speciahsts 
 in every department of city administration. It is 
 now well recognized that the merit system, or at 
 300 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 any rate the application of its principles, is a neces- 
 sary condition of general success in the municipal 
 operation of public utilities, and everywhere civil 
 service reform is a twin plank in a municipal 
 ownership platform. All except partisan politi- 
 cians favor it, some because they want our present 
 municipal undertakings well handled, others be- 
 cause they want the city to become capable of the 
 safe expansion of municipal functions. 
 
 One of the most important features of the federal 
 plan is the mayor's cabinet. This feature is radi- 
 cally important because it gives intelligent unity 
 to a city administration. The greatest need of our 
 city government to-day is foresight and coordina- 
 tion. The mayor's cabinet in Cleveland was a com- 
 pact body composed of the heads of the six munici- 
 pal departments, who, with the mayor, formed the 
 Board of Control. This board was required to 
 meet at least twice a week and keep a formal 
 record of its proceedings. It came nearer the 
 " magistracy " or administrative board of a German 
 city than anything else I know of in American city 
 government. A few years ago Mayor Quincy, of 
 Boston, organized a sort of extra-legal cabinet for 
 advisory purposes. This was a committee of lead- 
 ing business men with whom the mayor consulted 
 frequently.^ The cabinet idea has taken consider- 
 able hold upon municipal law already. The boards 
 of estimate already described are in a measure 
 akin to the mayor's cabinet. 
 
 1 See Municipal Affairs, September, 1897, PP* 491-508. 
 301 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 St. Paul now has a " conference committee " 
 composed of thirteen officials, including the presi- 
 dent of the upper house of the council and the 
 chairman of the ways and means committee of the 
 lower house. Certain county officials are invited to 
 attend the meetings of the conference committee 
 and take part in its deliberations, but without a 
 vote. The committee must meet at least once a 
 month. The charter requires that at these monthly 
 meetings eleven different officials shall present 
 written reports of the affairs of their departments 
 covering the points described in the charter itself. 
 Absence from two successive sessions of the com- 
 mittee, or failure to make a required report, operates 
 to put any member out of office and disquaHfy 
 him for holding any city office for a year. The 
 committee has no authority to excuse any mem- 
 bers from making the required report. If at any 
 time the committee thinks a department is being 
 conducted in such a manner that it will be impos- 
 sible for it to keep within its appropriation during 
 the year, the committee may so advise the officer 
 or board in charge, and thereafter no further obli- 
 gations or expenses can be incurred except after 
 the approval of four-fifths of the committee by 
 formal resolution. The committee is also authorized 
 to give advice to any department. In this confer- 
 ence committee are the mayor and eight of the 
 mayor's appointees, but most of the latter hold 
 office for several years and, once appointed, are not 
 absolutely responsible to the mayor. 
 302 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 Another interesting experiment in cabinet gov- 
 ernment is being worked out in Portland, Oregon, 
 where the new charter provides for an executive 
 board of ten members besides the mayor. The 
 members are appointed by the mayor and may be 
 removed by him at any time. The board has 
 charge of the fire and police departments, the 
 street and Hghting departments, the harbor and 
 the pound. This leaves the waterworks, the 
 health department, the parks, etc., under the con- 
 trol of separate boards or officers not responsible to 
 the executive board. 
 
 The final limitation upon the federal plan arises 
 from the same source as the similar limitation 
 upon the council system, — that is, from state inter- 
 ference. If the legislature chooses to arrogate to 
 itself the functions of the city council, it also fre- 
 quently confers upon the governor part of the 
 mayor's powers. In various cities of the United 
 States there are police boards, boards of health, 
 and other municipal bodies appointed by the cen- 
 tral state authority. The Baltimore poUce board 
 is elected by the general assembly of the state. 
 Denver has a board of public works and a board 
 of fire and police commissioners appointed by the 
 governor. Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Toledo, 
 Detroit, St. Louis, New Orleans, San Francisco, 
 and other cities now have or at some past time 
 have had one or more boards named by the state. 
 This is a considerable limitation upon the federal 
 plan, greatly decreasing the authority and power 
 303 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of the mayor, especially in Ohio cities, where the 
 mayor is only the " chief conservator of the peace " 
 anyway. 
 
 I have briefly explained the two typical systems 
 of municipal organization and the ways in which 
 they have been modified in American cities. The 
 results show such absolute confusion that it is 
 practically impossible to construct a form of mu- 
 nicipal government proven to be good by experi- 
 ence under American conditions. 
 
 The whole theory of modern freedom holds that 
 in the long run, through blunders, heedlessness, 
 and wrong-doing, the people themselves will work 
 out for themselves the government best suited to 
 their needs. It is too late in the history of the 
 world to take a step backwards and rely on aris- 
 tocracy or monarchy. We must, therefore, organ- 
 ize our city governments on the basis of democracy 
 and with an eye to the gradual strengthening and 
 perfection of democratic ideals. In doing this we 
 must, of course, work along the lines of least re- 
 sistance. For us this seems to be the federal plan. 
 Coupled with municipal home rule, the merit 
 system, and optional direct legislation, this plan 
 offers a reasonable hope of bringing efficient gov- 
 ernment. With a careful separation of powers, 
 the legislative function can be intrusted to typical, 
 everyday Americans from middle life who yet 
 have broad enough training to enable them to see 
 the interests of the city as a whole. In most cities 
 strictly legislative duties would not seriously inter- 
 304 
 
 I 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 fere with a man's regular business, and therefore 
 the councilmen need not either be rich or receive 
 high salaries from the city. The danger of such 
 men falling a prey to greed would be largely obviated 
 by popular control through the initiative and the 
 referendum. The mayor elected by the people 
 and given practically full power over all branches 
 of the administration, with a provision for his con- 
 sulting with the heads of departments before tak- 
 ing action, could give a brilliant administration if 
 he is a strong leader, and a safe administration 
 if he is honest but timid or hesitating. If the 
 mayor is a bad man, we must depend upon the 
 merit system, the pressure of public opinion, and 
 perhaps the right of recall to compel him to per- 
 form his duty passably. As I have said before, 
 concentration of responsibility is not to be sought 
 for its own sake. --What we want is fixed respon- 
 sibility. The simplest way to fix it is to load it all 
 on one man. But one of the negative lessons from 
 American experience is that loading responsibility 
 all on one man is a failure unless you have a very 
 exceptional man. The common method of distrib- 
 uting responsibility among many elected officials 
 is a worse failure, because the necessary unity in 
 municipal administration is lost, and, under the 
 conditions of party government, officials are not 
 held closely to individual responsibility for the 
 conduct of their offices. They are all bunched to- 
 gether on the party ticket. Furthermore, even 
 with free nominations and nonpartisan elections, 
 X 305 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 careful discrimination by the voters in choosing 
 from a dozen to a hundred officials is impossible. 
 This is especially true in large cities, where most 
 fellow-citizens are strangers to each other. The 
 best way out of the difficulty seems to be by the 
 concentration of ultimate responsibility for all 
 branches of the administration upon one man, with 
 the requirement that he shall ask, even if he does 
 not follow, the advice of a group of men, either 
 the officials appointed by himself, or a separate 
 body chosen by the people or by the council. The 
 federal plan contemplates that the mayor's advis- 
 ers are to be the heads of departments appointed 
 by himself. In some of the cases I have cited 
 consultation is had with a group of officials, partly 
 elected and partly appointed ; but in these cases 
 there is usually more or less division of responsi- 
 bility without adequate provision for its correlation. 
 In St. Paul the conference committee has adequate 
 authority to compel the various departments and 
 officials to keep within their appropriations. The 
 committee's control amounts to a limitation upon 
 the amount of money to be expended. 
 
 But whether responsibility is concentrated in the 
 hands of the mayor or carefully distributed among 
 elected or appointed officials with definite terms of 
 office, the absolutely essential thing is that the 
 heads of departments should be compelled to meet 
 together frequently and report to each other the 
 policies and conditions of their respective depart- 
 ments, and consult with each other as to the means 
 306 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 to be employed to insure harmonious, efficient, and 
 economical government. 
 
 The scheme of organization recommended by 
 the National Municipal League, after years of 
 widely extended observation and deep study, is, 
 perhaps, the safest comprehensive plan yet devised 
 for municipal organization in this country. This 
 plan includes the separation of legislative from 
 administrative functions. It makes the council the 
 sole legislative body of the city, subject to popular 
 control through direct legislation if the people so 
 desire. It makes the mayor and the councilmen 
 the only elective officials. It provides that nomi- 
 nations shall be by petition, and that the ballot 
 shall not contain party designations. It gives the 
 council authority to appoint the controller, who is 
 to be the chief financial officer of the city. It 
 gives the mayor the authority to appoint and re- 
 move at pleasure all other department heads. It 
 makes the tenure of all appointed officers indefinite, 
 with the hope that this will encourage permanency 
 during good behavior. It establishes the merit 
 system of appointment in the subordinate adminis- 
 trative service. No definite provision is made for 
 a cabinet or consulting group of department heads, 
 and this is probably the most serious omission in 
 the general plan. 
 
 The organization of city government is funda- 
 mentally important. It is the construction of the 
 machinery by which many of the most sacred 
 interests of citizenship are cared for. Something 
 
 307 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 more than the nice adjustment of official duties is 
 required. There must be adequate provision for 
 intelligent response on the part of officials to the 
 people whose servants they are. Municipal reports 
 are of much greater importance than is ordinarily 
 conceived. Boston has an efficient bureau of 
 municipal statistics under the skilled direction of 
 Dr. Edward M. Hartwell. Chicago also has a 
 statistical bureau. New York started one under 
 Mayor Van Wyck's administration, but it was 
 found that Tammany figures were hardly worth 
 publishing, and the bureau was discontinued. 
 
 The whole subject of municipal book-keeping 
 and accounting is one of great interest. Care 
 should be had not to confound the principles of 
 private with those of public book-keeping. Private 
 books are often kept for the purpose of concealing 
 facts from all those who are not in the secrets of 
 the business. This, so to speak, esoteric book- 
 keeping has no place in public offices. Even 
 where private accounts are not arranged to deceive 
 the unwary, they are almost never arranged with 
 the idea of showing at a glance to strangers the 
 condition of the business. But public accounts 
 must be simple, clear, and graphic, so that any 
 citizen can easily understand them. 
 
 Students of American municipal statistics have 
 found the reports of different cities so confused 
 and uncertain as to afford no basis for trustworthy 
 comparisons of the cost and efficiency of the sev- 
 eral departments of city government in different 
 308 
 
OFFICIAL RESPOxNSIBILITY 
 
 places. Out of this difficulty has grown a strong 
 movement in favor of uniform municipal statistics.^ 
 Primarily the demand for uniformity is based on 
 the desire to compare the experiences 6f different 
 cities. This is, of course, a laudable desire, and 
 the ability to satisfy it with reasonable accuracy 
 would undoubtedly throw light on many dark prob- 
 lems and facilitate reforms. Cities ar6 prone to 
 seek to learn from each other in order to avoid 
 mistakes, and to imitate successes. This is a nat- 
 ural tendency, and, if made to supplement honest 
 effort at home rather than to substitute for it, the 
 study of other cities' experience will always be 
 helpful. So long, however, as reports are vague, 
 misleading, and incomplete, one city cannot tell 
 whether it is copying the mistakes or the successes 
 of another. 
 
 Another reason for uniformity within the limits 
 of any one commonwealth is to secure a basis for 
 central administrative control. Thus in Wyoming 
 there has long been a state examiner of accounts 
 
 ^ The National Municipal League, in 1901, appointed a special 
 committee to investigate this subject and report a plan of uniform 
 accounting. The reports of this committee, of which Dr. Edward 
 M. Hartwell of Boston is chairman, and many other valuable arti- 
 cles on this subject are to be found in the published proceedings 
 of the last three Conferences for Good City Government. See 
 Rochester Conference, 1901, pp. 248-314 ; Boston Conference, 1902, 
 pp. 292-329 ; and Detroit Conference, 1903, pp. 247-297. The 
 schedules adopted by the League have formed the basis of uniform 
 accounting in Ohio, and have been put into use with more or less 
 modification in Boston, Cambridge, Baltimore, and other cities. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 with authority to prescribe forms for all local gov- 
 ernmental bodies. In Ohio, also, in 1902, a law was 
 passed giving the state auditor similar authority. 
 
 The greatest advantage to be secured from uni- 
 formity, however, is an incidental one. A uniform 
 method must in the nature of the case be simple 
 and intelligible in its results. What is most needed 
 is that the people of a city should have presented 
 to them a report of their own city finances that 
 they can understand. As a rule, the taxpayer 
 puts his contribution into the hopper, and there 
 is ground out for him a confused mixture of bene- 
 fits and annoyances which are reported to him 
 inaccurately and in piecemeal by the newspapers. 
 Probably not one in a hundred of the taxpayers, 
 certainly not of the voters, can give with close 
 approximation the proportions of his tax that are 
 devoted to the several functions of local govern- 
 ment. Very much more should be made of mu- 
 nicipal reports than at present. To be sure, almost 
 every large city publishes an elaborate volume every 
 year for distribution among the city officials and for 
 exchange with other cities. But these volumes are, 
 as a rule, both comparatively uninteresting and com- 
 paratively unintelligible. At any rate, citizens hardly 
 ever see them. The manual of the council often 
 contains in useful form considerable information, but 
 this, too, is not widely distributed. In order to be 
 really responsible to the citizens a city government 
 should annually put into the hands of every elector 
 a comprehensive but popular report of the work 
 310 
 
OFFICIAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 of the city and a sketch of the municipal organiza- 
 tion. If well prepared and universally distributed, 
 such a document would do more for the education 
 of citizenship than the whole year's daily papers 
 and two or three political campaigns combined. 
 Such city reports as we now have in the great 
 majority of cases are totally unsuited to this popu- 
 lar use. It would require a bureau with a trained 
 man at its head to prepare such a report as is 
 needed. The cost of supplying every citizen 
 would be considerable, but in the long run it 
 would be saved in the greater economy and effi- 
 ciency of the government which would follow 
 from the active and intelligent public interest of 
 the citizens. The greatest danger arising from 
 the adoption of this policy would be that each 
 administration might attempt to exploit its own 
 merits in the annual report without regard to 
 facts. In order to insure fairness and precision 
 the publication would have to be controlled by 
 an advisory committee independent of the officials 
 directly interested. 
 
 New York City publishes a daily City Record^ 
 but it is altogether too bulky and too technical to 
 be available for general use. The statistical bulle- 
 tins issued by Boston and Chicago every month or 
 two are much more popular and useful for ordinary 
 citizens. But what is needed is an annual report 
 that shall be a handbook of the city government, 
 which the average citizen would keep for reference 
 and in which he could find out anything he needs 
 3" 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 to know about the workings of the government, 
 or at least get directions as to where it could be 
 found out. 
 
 Popular government in cities is a complex prob- 
 lem. In order to succeed we must put responsi- 
 bility where we can find it when we look for it, 
 and then not forget to look for it. 
 
 312 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY, OR MUNICIPAL HOME RULE 
 
 Home rule as applied to cities is a rather vague 
 term. It needs to be crystallized into a program. 
 It may include three tolerably distinct rights. One 
 is the right of the municipality to choose from 
 among its own citizens the officers who are to ad- 
 minister the law in the locality. The local choice 
 of officers who act locally is the most usual form 
 of local self-government that we have in America. 
 This principle is applied everywhere, with now 
 and then a glaring exception. The second right 
 of home rule is the right of the locality, usually a 
 city, to determine its own form of organization for 
 governmental purposes. This right is not gener- 
 ally recognized. Formerly New York City had a 
 charter convention from time to time to frame a 
 new charter, but this custom fell into disuse more 
 than fifty years ago. To-day certain cities have 
 the right to frame their own charters within certain 
 limitations in several of the states, and the National 
 Municipal League has included this right of home 
 rule in its " Program," limiting its application, 
 however, to cities with a population of 25,000 or 
 more. The third right that may be included under 
 home rule or local self-government is the right 
 3^3 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 locally to determine the scope of the local govern- 
 ment. This right is of vital importance. It in- 
 cludes the right to expand municipal functions or 
 contract them according to the political judgment 
 of the locality. This is the kernel of home rule so 
 far as home rule represents a change from our 
 prevalent political habits. With this right granted 
 every city would be enabled to determine for itself 
 whether or not it will own and operate public utili- 
 ties, and whether or not it will establish baths, 
 gymnasiums, parks, playgrounds, etc. It is in 
 this right that the possibility of separating local 
 from national and state politics rests. It is in this 
 right that the hope of democracy lies through the 
 cultivation of civic spirit and the promotion of civic 
 education. Another right of a somewhat different 
 nature from these, and yet fundamentally impor- 
 tant, is the right to levy taxes and incur debt with- 
 out limitation by the state. This right is not 
 generally recognized. Its full guarantee would 
 imperil the sovereignty of the state, but its undue 
 limitation makes all other forms of home rule 
 largely futile. 
 
 According to the general theory of American 
 law, a municipal corporation is the creature of the 
 state legislature, and possesses only such powers 
 as are expressly enumerated or clearly implied in 
 the city charter. Upon this theory, whenever con- 
 stitutional provisions guaranteeing municipal home 
 rule have been lacking, the cities of the United 
 States have been completely at the mercy of the 
 3H 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 state legislatures. In Michigan, however, this 
 doctrine of the unlimited authority of the legisla- 
 ture over the city has been modified by the doctrine 
 of local self-government, as enforced by the supreme 
 court. The Michigan court has held, in effect, that 
 back of the written constitution of 1850 lies a gen- 
 eral scheme of local self-government, which is 
 presupposed by the constitution, and cannot be 
 abrogated by the state legislature.^ 
 
 The court has " fully recognized that the legis- 
 lature may grant, withhold, or take away the cor- 
 porate powers of cities, but it cannot take away 
 from the people of any locality the fundamental 
 right of managing their own affairs. That is, the 
 essentials of county and township government are 
 guaranteed absolutely to all the people, and if 
 further privileges are given to cities, they can be 
 exercised only by local officers. There are certain 
 general functions, such as the police power, which 
 may be exercised in a supplementary way by state 
 officials, but not to the displacement of ordinary 
 local officers. And, further, the legislature cannot 
 radically change the existing forms of municipal 
 government, as, for instance, by depriving the city 
 council of its essential position as the municipal 
 legislative power." ^ 
 
 With the growth of the political importance of 
 cities, state legislatures have developed great 
 interest in the internal affairs of municipal cor- 
 
 ^ See the author's Municipal Government in Michigan and 
 Ohioy pp. 35-50. 2 Ibid., p. 30. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 porations. It often happens that the political 
 complexion of a city government differs from that 
 of the state government. In such cases, the spoils 
 of municipal offices tempt the legislature to interfere 
 with municipal affairs and oftentimes to reorgan- 
 ize the whole scheme of municipal government. 
 The excuse for such interference, where partisan- 
 ship is not frankly avowed, is, usually, that the 
 city authorities are delinquent in the enforcement 
 of state laws. Between partisanship on the one 
 hand, and municipal delinquency on the other, state 
 interference has developed large proportions in 
 New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, 
 Missouri, and some other states. This applies prin- 
 cipally to the great cities. 
 
 Another side of the evil is that, apart from 
 political interference, a great mass of local and 
 special legislation has grown up in many of the 
 states, by which responsibility for local affairs has 
 been confused, and the statute-book loaded with 
 conflicting and piecemeal charter provisions, leav- 
 ing the authorities of the cities greatly hampered 
 in any intelligent effort to govern their municipali- 
 ties well. This sort of legislation is usually passed 
 on the recommendation of the members from the 
 localities affected and without any consideration of 
 its merits by the legislature as a body. In this 
 way the member or members of the legislature, 
 elected by the particular city, along political lines, 
 and for the purpose of taking part in the general 
 legislation of the state, come to be in reality a 
 316 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 supreme local legislative body, responsible only 
 indirectly to their constituents for their acts. Any 
 one having a pet measure, affecting the city, has 
 only to persuade the members of the legislature 
 from his locality to introduce it and vouch for it, and 
 it will become a law, no matter how the people of 
 the city may stand upon the question at issue. 
 
 This condition of confused responsibility, imper- 
 fect publicity, and domination by private interests 
 has led to incalculable evils in municipal govern- 
 ment in most of the states of the Union. 
 
 The evils of special and local legislation had 
 become so apparent fifty years ago, that the people 
 of Ohio, in the constitution of 185 1, prohibited all 
 special legislation for cities. 
 
 In the same year Indiana followed suit. Since 
 then, half or more of the states have made similar 
 attempts. These constitutional provisions have 
 taken various forms, but have been only moderately 
 successful in accomplishing their ends. The new 
 constitution of Alabama, adopted in 1901, forbids 
 the legislature to pass any special act, (i) incorpo- 
 rating a city, town, or village ; (2) authorizing any 
 city, town, or village to issue bonds except where 
 the issue has been approved by the people of the 
 locality, and excepting refunding bonds ; (3) amend- 
 ing, confirming, or extending the charter of any 
 municipal corporation, provided that the legislature 
 may rearrange city boundaries. 
 
 The history of constitutional provisions, prohibit- 
 ing special legislation, is interesting and instructive, 
 
 317 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 though not particularly encouraging. The experi- 
 ence of Ohio is perhaps more striking than that of 
 any other state. After the constitution of 185 1 
 was adopted, the legislature passed a general 
 incorporation act for cities. It soon became appar- 
 ent, however, to the statesmen of Ohio, that a 
 general charter of enumerated powers could not be 
 easily adapted to the needs of cities of different 
 sizes and having different physical environments. 
 Consequently it was not long before the legislature 
 classified cities according to population, the first 
 class being composed of all cities having a popula- 
 tion of 20,000 or more. At that time Cincinnati 
 was the only city of the first class. It is needless 
 to go into the detailed history of classification in 
 Ohio. Suffice it to say, that the supreme court 
 having assumed the right of the legislature to clas- 
 sify cities according to population, this right came 
 to be abused in the most flagrant manner, until the 
 letter and spirit of the constitution were practically 
 nullified, and for many years special legislation for 
 cities was rampant in Ohio without let or hindrance. 
 The supreme court in 1902 found the condition of 
 affairs so bad as to warrant its reversing a long 
 line of decisions, and practically declaring the 
 whole municipal code of the state null and void. 
 The legislature was called in special session for 
 the sole purpose of enacting a general municipal 
 code in compliance with provisions in the constitu- 
 tion that had been a dead letter for nearly fifty years. 
 The experience of Ohio shows two things : — 
 
 318 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 First. There is real difficulty in enacting a gen- 
 eral municipal law that shall apply to cities of all 
 sizes and under all conditions, so long as it is 
 deemed necessary to follow the general practice 
 of American law, and dole out, bit by bit, the 
 whole series of municipal powers, functions, and 
 modes of organization. 
 
 Second. The spirit of. partisanship is so strong 
 and the habits of state legislatures are so bad, that 
 nothing but an iron-clad constitution, rigidly inter- 
 preted by the courts, will prevent a state legisla- 
 ture from gradually reasserting its authority over 
 the local affairs of cities, and making municipal 
 government dependent upon the caprice of cUques 
 and parties not directly responsible for it. 
 
 The experience of Illinois has not been quite 
 the same as that of Ohio. Special legislation and 
 state interference with local affairs had developed 
 to a considerable extent prior to 1870, when the 
 state constitutional convention met. The atten- 
 tion of this convention was called to the evils of 
 special legislation, and a. section was inserted pro- 
 hibiting the further enactment of special city char- 
 ters. Two years later, the legislature passed a 
 general incorporation act, which, with some amend- 
 ments, has been the basis of municipal government 
 in Illinois until the present time. This act is com- 
 paratively brief and provides for the organization 
 and powers of cities in general terms, so that there 
 has been less necessity for amending it than would 
 have been the case if it had attempted to go into 
 
 319 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 utmost detail. Under it, accordingly, the cities of 
 Illinois have an exceptionally wide scope for self- 
 government. The city of Chicago has not, how- 
 ever, escaped entirely from the evils of state 
 interference. The legislature has been enabled, 
 by means of legislation applying to cities of a cer- 
 tain population, to control the affairs of Chicago 
 to some extent. Nevertheless, Chicago enjoys an 
 enviable distinction among American cities in the 
 way of opportunity for self-government. Its prin- 
 cipal drawback is the extreme restriction put upon 
 its financial operations. Under the law, the debt 
 of Chicago is limited to 5 per cent of its taxable 
 valuation ; and the tax laws recently enacted make 
 the valuation for taxing purposes only 20 per 
 cent of the real valuation, thus making the actual 
 debt limit of Chicago i per cent of its property 
 assessment. This limits the city's debt, except for 
 special purposes, to less than $20,000,000 or about 
 ;^io per capita, which is not one-eighth of the 
 actual per capita debt of New York and Boston. 
 The experience of Illinois, Chicago in particular, 
 thus indicates that municipal home rule may be 
 rendered of Uttle account unless cities are granted 
 a large degree of autonomy in their financial opera- 
 tions ; for money, in municipal business as in other 
 business, is the wherewithal of progress. 
 
 In 1873 the constitution of Pennsylvania also 
 
 prohibited special legislation for cities, but, thanks 
 
 to a system of classification which has been upheld 
 
 by the supreme court, the city of Philadelphia has 
 
 320 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 always been in a class by itself, subject to the com- 
 plete control of the state legislature. The second 
 class of cities in Pennsylvania includes three, — 
 Pittsburg, Allegheny, and Scranton. The con- 
 stitutional convention of 1873, not satisfied with 
 prohibiting special legislation for cities in general 
 terms, adopted this specific provision, that "the 
 general assembly shall not delegate to any special 
 commission, private corporation, or association, any 
 power to make, supervise, or interfere with any mu- 
 nicipal improvement, money, property, or effects, 
 whether held in trust or otherwise, to levy taxes or 
 perform any municipal function whatever." In 
 spite of these restrictions, the poUtical machine of 
 Pennsylvania, which controls the legislature, has 
 found it possible to interfere with the affairs of 
 cities, apparently to the extent of its desire. The 
 so-called " ripper " legislation recently passed, pro- 
 viding a system of government for cities of the 
 second class, removed the mayors of Pittsburg, 
 Allegheny, and Scranton from office, and provided 
 for city recorders, to be appointed by the governor, 
 to succeed them. It is needless to say that the 
 governor made good use of the authority thus 
 granted him in behalf of the machine of which 
 he was a part, and the three cities named were 
 put almost absolutely under the control of the 
 state administration for a period of two years. 
 
 The experience of Pennsylvania again demon- 
 strates that constitutional guarantees must be care- 
 fully drawn, and loyally upheld in the courts, in 
 V 321 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 order to protect the people in any city from the 
 interference of the state legislature for partisan 
 ends. 
 
 Other states which have constitutional provisions 
 prohibiting special legislation have had experiences 
 similar, though in most cases not quite so outra- 
 geous. Even CaHfornia, with its system of home- 
 rule charters, has for purposes of general legislation 
 divided cities into seven classes, of which the first 
 three contain only one city each. 
 
 The state of New York has attempted to secure 
 municipal home rule, not by absolutely prohibiting 
 special legislation, but by giving the cities a quali- 
 fied veto upon it. The evils of state interference 
 for partisan purposes have undoubtedly reached 
 their maximum in New York. The constitutional 
 convention of 1894 recognized this fact, and, still 
 considering that absolute prohibition of special 
 legislation would be impracticable, adopted the 
 following provisions : — 
 
 1. Cities were divided into three classes, accord- 
 ing to population. 
 
 2. A special act was defined as an act applying 
 to any less than all of the cities of a class. 
 
 3. Every special act, after passing the legisla- 
 ture, was required to be submitted to the municipal 
 authorities of the city or cities affected, who were 
 authorized, after giving a public hearing, to approve 
 or veto the measure. If approved, the act would 
 become law upon receiving the governor's signa- 
 ture; if disapproved, it would not become law, 
 
 322 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 unless repassed by the legislature and signed by 
 the governor. 
 
 These provisions have resulted in considerable 
 benefit from one standpoint. They have at least 
 insured a certain degree of publicity of all local 
 measures passed by the legislature. They have 
 not, however, succeeded in bringing about home 
 rule, for in the state of New York when any parti- 
 san measure, affecting any of the larger cities of 
 the state, has been determined upon by the machine, 
 the veto of the local authorities operates only to 
 delay, not to prevent its enactment. Two charters 
 of greater New York have been passed since 1894 
 over the veto of the mayor, even though in one 
 instance the mayor belonged to the same politi- 
 cal party as the majority of the legislature. To 
 be sure, he had acted as an independent. Some 
 protection to local interests is secured, however, 
 by the veto of special legislation passed near 
 the end of the legislative session. Bills passed 
 in the last fifteen days before adjournment, if not 
 approved by the local authorities, cannot be re- 
 passed ; consequently, they fail. 
 
 Another method of insuring municipal home rule 
 was first adopted in the Missouri constitution of 
 1875. Prior to that time municipal conditions in 
 St. Louis had been very unsatisfactory, and there 
 had been considerable interference on the part of 
 the state legislature. The St. Louis delegates in 
 the constitutional convention proposed a scheme 
 by which that city was to have the right to frame 
 323 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 its own charter. As finally adopted, the provision 
 was as follows : — 
 
 " Any city having a population of more than 
 100,000 inhabitants may frame a charter for its 
 own government, consistent with and subject to 
 the constitution and laws of this state, by causing 
 a board of thirteen freeholders, who shall have 
 been for at least five years qualified voters thereof, 
 to be elected by the qualified voters of such city at 
 any general or special election ; which board shall, 
 within ninety days after such election, return to 
 the chief magistrate of such city a draft of such 
 charter, signed by the members of such board, or 
 a majority of them. Within thirty days thereafter, 
 such proposed charter shall be submitted to the 
 qualified voters of such city at a general or special 
 election, and if four-sevenths of such qualified 
 voters voting thereat shall ratify the same, it shall, 
 at the end of thirty days thereafter, become the 
 charter of such city, and supersede any existing 
 charter and amendments thereto. A dupHcate 
 certificate shall be made, setting forth the charter 
 proposed and its ratification, which shall be signed 
 by the chief magistrate of such city and authenti- 
 cated by its corporate seal. One of such certificates 
 shall be deposited in the office of the Secretary of 
 State, and the other, after being recorded in the 
 office of the Recorder of Deeds for the county in 
 which such city lies, shall be deposited among the 
 archives of such city, and all courts shall take judi- 
 cial notice thereof. Such charter, so adopted, may 
 324 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 be amended by a proposal therefor made by the 
 lawmaking authorities of such city, published for 
 at least thirty days in three newspapers of largest 
 circulation in such city, one of which shall be a 
 newspaper printed in the German language, and 
 accepted by three-fifths of the quaHfied voters of 
 such city, voting at a general or special election, 
 and not otherwise ; but such charter shall always 
 be in harmony with and subject to the constitution 
 and laws of the State." 
 
 At the time of the adoption of this constitution, 
 and for many years after, St. Louis was the only 
 city in Missouri entitled to frame its own char- 
 ter. Since then Kansas City and St. Joseph have 
 passed the hundred-thousand mark, and the former 
 has framed a charter of its own. In Missouri, as 
 in other states, there has been a tendency on 
 the part of the state legislature to render nugatory 
 constitutional provisions granting municipal inde- 
 pendence in local affairs. Mr. Charles Nagel at- 
 tributes the interference of the state legislature 
 to partisan differences, St. Louis being the one Re- 
 publican stronghold in a Democratic state. ^ He 
 cites two measures passed by the legislature in 
 1899. One was the police law under which a board 
 of police commissioners appointed by the governor, 
 the mayor being the only locally chosen member, 
 has complete control of the police department, even 
 to the extent of making the annual appropriations 
 without having to consult the city legislative 
 
 '^Rochester Conference for Good City Government, p. 107. 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 assembly. The law itself fixes the minimum 
 number of police officers and determines their 
 salaries. The other measure is an election law 
 applying to St. Louis alone^ " This law," says 
 Mr. Nagel, " comparatively innocent upon a super- 
 ficial reading, is probably as carefully designed a 
 measure for the perpetration and protection of elec- 
 tibn frauds as was ever enacted. The governor 
 appoints the election commissioners. These in 
 turn elect the judges and clerks of election for all 
 political parties. Most of the registration of voters 
 is had at one central point. Between this law 
 and the police law the opportunities are practically 
 unlimited. How they were availed of is attested 
 by grand jury reports, and by the developments 
 in election contests. Even the most unsophisti- 
 cated have been compelled to admit that these two 
 laws are intended to reverse the will of the people 
 of St. Louis." ^ 
 
 It becomes apparent from the experience of 
 St. Louis, that municipal home rule is not a party 
 measure, but is everywhere the cry raised by 
 municipalities whose interests have been prosti- 
 tuted to the demands of state partisan politics. 
 Which party is in control of the state legislature 
 makes little difference, so long as some partisan ad- 
 vantage can be discovered in "ripper" legislation. 
 
 The Missouri home-rule system gave such 
 promise of favorable results, that it was copied in 
 1879 with some modifications in the constitution of 
 
 ^ Rochester Conference for Good City Government, p. 108, 
 326 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 California. California, however, having experi- 
 enced the same tendency of the state legislature to 
 get around the constitutional provisions and inter- 
 fere with local affairs, has been engaged in an 
 effort to improve its constitutional system. At the 
 present time in California, any city with a popula- 
 tion of 3500 is authorized to frame its own charter, 
 which becomes law after being passed by the 
 legislature without amendment. So far, sixteen 
 cities have availed themselves of this privilege, and 
 not one charter has been rejected by the legisla- 
 ture.^ It is provided in the constitution that a 
 charter framed by a city " shall become the organic 
 law thereof and supersede any existing charter, 
 and all amendments thereof and all special laws 
 inconsistent with such charter." It is further pro- 
 vided that all charters *' framed or adopted by 
 authority of this constitution, except in rmmicipal 
 affairs^ shall be subject to and controlled by gen- 
 eral laws." As a result of these various constitu- 
 tional provisions, some of them only recently 
 adopted, Californians think they have secured a 
 reasonably certain guarantee of municipal home 
 rule in strictly municipal affairs. It is noteworthy, 
 indeed, that Governor Gage, in his message to the 
 California legislature in 1903, called attention to 
 the possibility of impairing the sovereignty of the 
 state by radical measures for local autonomy. 
 
 1 These cities are Eureka, Fresno, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Napa, 
 Oakland, Pasadena, Sacramento, Salinas, San Diego, San Francisco, 
 Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Stockton, Vallejo, and Watsonville. 
 
 327 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 The city of San Francisco, after laboring for 
 many years under the handicap of a confused 
 jumble of laws, called the "Consolidation Act," 
 finally succeeded, in 1900, in adopting a freehold- 
 ers' charter, which is the most radical charter of 
 any great city in the United States. Four times 
 charters framed by boards of freeholders in San 
 Francisco had been rejected by the people. In 
 every case the political spoilsmen intrenched in 
 the city and county offices, growing fat upon irre- 
 sponsibility, had fought the charter tooth and nail. 
 
 The Missouri and California system was adopted 
 in the state of Washington in 1889, and all cities 
 with a population of 20,000 in that state have the 
 right to frame their own charters. Seattle and 
 Tacoma have taken advantage of this provision. 
 
 Minnesota also has fallen into line and adopted 
 a constitutional amendment by which cities are 
 permitted to frame their own charters within gen- 
 eral limits prescribed by the legislature. This 
 amendment was passed in 1898, and provides that 
 a board of fifteen freeholders, who have been for 
 five years electors and residents of the city, shall 
 be appointed by the district judges for a term not 
 to exceed six years, all vacancies to be filled by the 
 judges, and the board to be kept up permanently. 
 This board frames the charter and submits it to 
 the people. It requires a four-sevenths vote for 
 adoption. Amendments petitioned for by 5 per 
 cent of the voters must be submitted. These free- 
 holders' charters are subject to general laws of 
 328 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 uniform application to cities by classes. The con- 
 stitution provides that these classes shall be four 
 in number, with population as follows : first class, 
 50,000 or more ; second class, 20,000 to 50,000 ; 
 third class, 10,000 to 20,000; fourth class, less 
 than 10,000. St. Paul and Duluth, as well as a 
 number of small cities, have obtained home-rule 
 charters under this amendment. The charter 
 framed by Minneapolis in 1898 failed to receive 
 the required number of votes. 
 
 In 1902 Colorado adopted the most radical home- 
 rule constitutional provision to be found anywhere 
 in the United States. By its terms every city in 
 Colorado with a population of more than 2000 
 may elect by general ticket a charter convention 
 composed of twenty-one resident taxpayers. This 
 convention must then proceed to frame a charter 
 which, if approved by the people, will go into 
 effect without any action whatever by the state 
 legislature. The initiative and referendum on the 
 question of a charter convention, on charter amend- 
 ments, and on other measures, are guaranteed in 
 the constitution, and no charter, charter amend- 
 ment, or measure adopted or defeated under these 
 provisions can be amended, repealed, or revised 
 except by petition and vote of the electors. Fran- 
 chises cannot be granted except by vote of the 
 taxpaying electors. By the terms of the constitu- 
 tion, the city "may purchase, receive, hold and 
 enjoy, or sell and dispose of real and personal 
 property; may receive bequests, gifts, and dona- 
 329 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 tions of all kinds of property, in fee simple, or in 
 trust for public, charitable, or other purposes, and 
 do all things and acts necessary to carry out the 
 purpose of such gifts, bequests, and donations, 
 with power to manage, sell, lease, or otherwise dis- 
 pose of the same in accordance with the terms of 
 the gift, bequest, or trust ; shall have the power, 
 within or without its territorial limits, to construct, 
 condemn, and purchase, acquire, lease, add to, 
 maintain, conduct, and operate, waterworks, light 
 plants, power plants, transportation systems, heat- 
 ing plants, and any other public utilities, or works or 
 ways local in use and extent, in whole or in part, 
 and everything required therefor, for the use of 
 said city and the inhabitants thereof, and any such 
 system, plants, or works or ways, or any contract 
 in relation or connection with either, that may 
 exist, and which said city may desire to purchase, 
 in whole or in part, the same or any part thereof 
 may be purchased by said city which may enforce 
 such purchase by proceedings at law as in taking 
 land for public use by right of eminent domain, 
 and shall have the power to issue bonds upon the 
 vote of the taxpaying electors, at any special or 
 general election, in any amount necessary to carry 
 out any of said powers or purposes as may by the 
 charter be provided." 
 
 Denver voted on its first home-rule charter in 
 
 September, 1903, and rejected it. But under the 
 
 constitutional provision, a new charter convention 
 
 must be elected at once and another charter pre- 
 
 330 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 pared by it within sixty days after its election. As 
 long as the people reject the charters submitted 
 to them, the charter-making will continue. The 
 only conservative feature in the Colorado scheme 
 is the limitation of the suffrage to taxpayers 
 when franchises or bond issues to provide for 
 municipal ownership of public utilities are being 
 voted on. 
 
 Oregon also has taken up the home-rule move- 
 ment. The legislature of 1901 appointed a charter 
 commission of Portland citizens to draw up a new 
 charter for that city, which, if approved by the 
 people, was to be submitted to the legislature for 
 passage or rejection without amendment. Thjs 
 program was carried out, and a new charter con- 
 ferring very extensive powers upon the city was 
 adopted. The legislature of 1901 also proposed a 
 constitutional amendment, granting to all cities the 
 right to frame their own charters by means of 
 boards of freeholders and popular ratification. 
 Charters so adopted would supersede old charters 
 and all conflicting special laws. The amendment 
 also required that the " legislative assembly by 
 general laws shall provide for the incorporation, 
 organization, and classification in proportion to 
 population of cities and towns, which laws may be 
 altered, amended, or repealed." This amendment, 
 as may be readily seen, is far less radical than 
 the Colorado measure, and in one respect gives 
 a less adequate guarantee of home rule than the 
 Minnesota scheme, which definitely limits the 
 
 33^ 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 classification of cities for purposes of general legis- 
 lation.^ 
 
 Many advocates of municipal home rule fail to 
 comprehend the reasons why the state at large has 
 a deep interest in several branches of municipal 
 government. Where a city is well governed, the 
 state may well be content to leave the administra- 
 tion of public affairs to the local authorities with- 
 out interference. But when a great city falls into 
 the hands of a gang of municipal pirates who fear 
 neither God nor man, and care nothing for the 
 welfare of the city except that it may be rich for 
 plunder, the state cannot well keep its hands off 
 and see the children educated in ** graft " rather 
 than in learning, criminals taken into partnership 
 with government, vice promoted by civic authority, 
 the public health endangered by lax sanitary con- 
 trol, and its own resources impaired by the plunder 
 of the people in its richest cities. Professor Frank 
 J. Goodnow, of Columbia University, has done 
 more than any other American student to point 
 out the balance of interests between city and state.^ 
 He advocates the grant to cities of comprehensive 
 local authority, subject in its exercise to a con- 
 
 1 In Oregon a constitutional amendment has to be ratified at 
 two consecutive sessions of the legislative. assembly before being 
 submitted to the people. The legislature of 1903 ratified the home- 
 rule amendment proposed in 1901, but failed to pass a law sub- 
 mitting it to the people. So it cannot be submitted until after 
 another legislative session. 
 
 2 See his books on Municipal Home Rule, Municipal ProblemSy 
 and Politics and Ad?ninistraHon. 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 siderable control by state administrative authori- 
 ties. He points out how this system has secured 
 to the cities of Germany, France, and Great 
 Britain much wider freedom than American cities 
 have had, while at the same time in these for- 
 eign countries general interests are protected and 
 municipal extravagance held in check. 
 
 Largely through Professor Goodnow's influence 
 the National Municipal League embodied in its 
 proposed constitutional amendments some provi- 
 sions looking toward state administrative control 
 as a necessary correlative of local self-government. 
 As every constitutional provision in regard to cities 
 has a bearing on this problem of local responsi- 
 bility, we may as well review the main features of 
 the League's proposals for incorporation into the 
 fundamental law of the several commonwealths. 
 They are the following : — 
 
 (i) Municipal shall be separate from national 
 and state elections. 
 
 (2) All municipal officers shall be nominated by 
 petition. 
 
 (3) The names of candidates for the same 
 office shall be printed on the ballot in alphabeti- 
 cal order under the title of the office. 
 
 (4) The legislature shall not grant any exclu- 
 sive privilege to private parties. 
 
 (5) The city shall have no power to alienate 
 its public places except by a four-fifths vote of 
 the council, with the approval of the mayor. It 
 shall grant no franchise for a longer period than 
 
 5S3 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 twenty-one years. Such grant shall make provision 
 for possible municipal ownership in the future. 
 Every grantee of a franchise shall make financial 
 reports to the city authorities, and the books of 
 every such grantee shall be open to inspection 
 by them. 
 
 (6) The power of the city to incur indebted- 
 ness shall be Umited to a certain per cent of 
 the assessed valuation of real estate subject to 
 taxation within the city, but revenue bonds issued 
 in anticipation of the collection of taxes and 
 bonds issued for the purpose of engaging in re- 
 munerative public services shall not be included 
 in the debt limit, provided that these public ser- 
 vices are self-supporting. The rate of taxation, 
 except for the payment of the principal and inter- 
 est of the debt, shall be limited to a certain per 
 cent of the assessed valuation of real estate. 
 
 (7) Any city may establish a method of direct 
 legislation and of minority or proportional repre- 
 sentation for city offices. 
 
 (8) All cities shall keep books of account in 
 accordance with forms and methods prescribed 
 by the state fiscal officer and shall make annual 
 financial reports to him, these reports to be printed 
 as a part of the public documents of the state. The 
 state fiscal officer shall have authority to examine, 
 or cause to be examined, the affairs of the financial 
 department of any city of the state at any time. 
 
 (9) Cities may establish minor courts within 
 their limits. 
 
 334 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 (lo) Every city shall have a council and a 
 mayor elected by the people. The mayor shall 
 appoint or remove heads of departments, except the 
 comptroller, and shall appoint and remove all other 
 officers in the employ of the city, subject to civil 
 service regulations. All persons in the administra- 
 tive service of the city, except the mayor, shall 
 hold their positions indefinitely. 
 
 (ii) Cities shall have within their limits the 
 same powers of taxation as are possessed by the 
 state government and shall be vested with all 
 powers of government, subject to the limitations 
 contained in the constitution and laws of the 
 state. Proposed laws applicable to less than all of 
 the cities of the state shall require a two-thirds 
 vote of the legislature, and, unless approved 
 by the city authorities within sixty days, must 
 be repassed by a three-fourths vote of the legis- 
 lature before going into effect. 
 
 (12) The legislature must pass a general mu- 
 nicipal corporations act to apply to all cities 
 which choose to adopt it. 
 
 (13) Every city with a population of 25,000 
 or more may frame its own charter.^ 
 
 This elaborate system of constitutional provi- 
 sions was intended to cover the municipal needs 
 of every state. It will be readily seen by any one 
 at all familiar with the state constitutions that 
 in many states some of these reforms could be 
 carried out by the legislature. But it is mainly 
 
 ^ See A Municipal Program^ pp. 176-186. 
 
 335 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 against the bad habits of the legislature that 
 such provisions are aimed. Nothing short of con- 
 stitutional guarantees will insure the stability of 
 local self-government. 
 
 Referring back to our analysis of the main 
 forms of home rule, we find that the local choice of 
 local officers is generally permitted, the most fre- 
 quent exceptions being in the case of police boards. 
 The traditional American doctrine of local self- 
 government is so perpendicular that it bends 
 backward ; for the absolute right of the locality 
 to choose from its own citizens the officers who 
 are to administer the state laws in the city, 
 township, or county, gives the locality the prac- 
 tical right of suspending unpopular statutes. In 
 this way the liquor law of a state is often nearly a 
 dead letter in many cities and towns. The Ameri- 
 can method of controlling local administration by 
 further legislative enactment has been a failure. 
 So far as the city is the agent of the state for the 
 execution of general laws, the city officers should 
 be under the control of the state administration. 
 In extreme cases it may even be necessary to sub- 
 stitute state appointees for local appointees. Gen- 
 erally, however, sufficient control can be exercised 
 by means of the power of removal, without actually 
 resorting to state appointment. In New York the 
 governor has the right to remove the mayor or the 
 police commissioner of the metropoHs under cer- 
 tain conditions. The recent legislation which gave 
 the governor of Pennsylvania the absolute right to 
 336 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 appoint and remove the chief executives of three 
 great cities for the period of two years was a 
 factional measure, and cannot be considered as a 
 step in the direction of legitimate state administra- 
 tive control. Suffice it to say, however, that the 
 traditional right of the locality to choose its own 
 officers ought to be established in constitutional 
 law in a somewhat modified form, so that, first, the 
 state government shall have no right to interfere 
 in the appointment of city park boards, boards of 
 public works, and other officials whose duties are 
 strictly local ; second, the state administration 
 should have a limited power of removal over 
 mayors, police commissioners, boards of health, 
 and other officers whose duties are both local and 
 general ; third, the state government should have 
 the right to appoint excise commissioners, factory 
 inspectors, and other officers whose sole duties arise 
 out of the general law. 
 
 The second right of home rule, namely, the right 
 to frame the local charter — to determine the 
 forms of municipal organization — is not in accord- 
 ance with general American traditions. It involves 
 a curtailment of that legislative control which has 
 been the unfortunate policy of our system. How- 
 ever, as already shown, this curtailment is going 
 on, and to-day there are eight cities in the United 
 States having over 100,000 population, each of 
 which enjoys this right under more or less complete 
 constitutional guarantees. All together about thirty 
 cities in the western states are living under home- 
 
 '"^ 337 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 rule charters. There is no good reason for diversity 
 in the main lines of municipal organization in the 
 several cities of any one state, and yet it seems im- 
 possible to get good general legislation on this point. 
 The details of organization ought to be left to the 
 locality in any case, and under existing circum- 
 stances there is reason to believe that the whole 
 matter of municipal organization should be left to 
 the people of the locality without any reference to 
 the legislature or the governor for approval or veto. 
 
 The third and most important right of municipal 
 home rule — that is, the right of every city to deter- 
 mine the scope of its own functions — is generally 
 included in the right to frame its own charter. It 
 is, however, distinct in principle. Many cities not 
 having the right to frame their own charters have 
 a considerable latitude for expanding or contracting 
 their municipal activities. It is here, however, that 
 the need of municipal home rule is greatest. This 
 applies particularly to problems arising out of the 
 grant or operation of street franchises, but may 
 affect other matters of importance at any time. 
 The American rule of enumeration of powers 
 ought to be reversed, and cities be given a local 
 grant of authority to attend to all local matters, 
 leaving the courts to decide, whenever the question 
 is raised as to the city's overstepping its jurisdic- 
 tion. It is in this direction that the home-rule 
 program should be most aggressive. 
 
 In the matter of taxation and borrowing money 
 the general rule is that the city should be limited 
 
 338 
 
LOCAL RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 either by specific maximum levies and loans or by 
 the withholding of these rights except for definite 
 purposes. So far as the latter is true the limita- 
 tion amounts to an absolute veto upon home rule ; 
 for practically nothing can be done without money. 
 It seems perfectly proper that the state should put 
 a definite maximum limit upon local taxation and 
 local debt, though in the case of debt the Hmit 
 should not apply to debt created for the purchase, 
 construction, or equipment of self-supporting enter- 
 prises. So long as we rely upon a variety of taxes 
 for the support of government, it would be advan- 
 tageous for the state to select certain special sources 
 of revenue for general purposes, and leave the 
 cities free to adopt any other forms of taxation 
 which they might consider advantageous. In this 
 case a debt or tax limit might be put on a per 
 capita basis rather than a basis of assessed valua- 
 tion. A state municipal government board with 
 authority to advise cities in regard to bonding and 
 taxation, with a veto upon local action within cer- 
 tain limits, might be conducive to careful municipal 
 financiering, and certainly would not be in viola- 
 tion of legitimate home-rule rights. 
 
 The most strenuous objection urged against 
 municipal home rule, both in general and in par- 
 ticular cases, is the ignorance or depravity, or both, 
 of the masses of people living in cities. In so far 
 as it is true that city populations are ignorant and 
 corrupt, in so far does home rule become not only 
 expedient, but necessary from the standpoint of 
 
 339 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 democracy ; because, according to our theory, self- 
 government and definite political responsibility are 
 the sovereign remedy for ignorance and corruption. 
 Home rule frees the hands of good citizens and 
 offers the opportunity to make one's efforts toward 
 civic betterment count for something. With home 
 rule, an individual citizen, or a body of citizens, is 
 not compelled to confound any project of munici- 
 pal reform with the irrelevant issues of state and 
 national politics, or to appeal to an irrelevant body 
 of men, chosen by constituencies only remotely in- 
 terested in the questions involved. The ideal of 
 municipal democracy is to have such a system of 
 government that every citizen who has time, intel- 
 ligence, and inclination to serve his city, will be 
 enabled to do so with the least possible waste of 
 effort. 
 
 The crowning argument in favor of home rule 
 is, that it would make municipal organization more 
 fluid and less cumbersome, more a means of carrying 
 out rather than of tiring out the people's will. 
 
 340 
 
or THE '^ ^\ 
 
 UN/VERSfTY ) 
 
 ^. °^ 
 
 iroRH' 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 The raising of revenue with which to carry out 
 the primary purposes of government is a matter 
 that is all important in its practical aspects. It is 
 in this that the people realize the necessity of pay- 
 ing for the benefits of government. There is no 
 magic in the name of municipal cooperation to 
 conjure up substantial benefits for the pubHc with- 
 out money and without price. If this practical limi- 
 tation upon the operation of municipal cooperation 
 prevents the people from enjoying all the imagined 
 advantages of government, it also makes them ap- 
 preciate better the advantages they do receive and 
 necessitates more or less constant practice of public 
 economy, which, in itself, is a good thing for the 
 people under the conditions of life that surround 
 us all. 
 
 The thirty-eight American cities with a popula- 
 tion of over 100,000 have a total net indebtedness 
 of about ^55 per capita, and spend ;^20 per capita 
 every year for maintaining their governments.^ In 
 other words, the people of these cities spend ;^20 a 
 
 ^ The data here given are taken from the Bulletin of the United 
 States Department of Labor for September, 1902, in which are 
 given " Statistics of Cities." 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 year of their own money for the benefits of municipal 
 governm.ent, and have spent in addition a total of 
 $55 apiece for public improvements generally called 
 permanent. So far as these improvements are 
 unproductive, this expenditure is the expenditure 
 of our children's money. New York and Boston 
 are by long odds the most expensive of these cities. 
 The net debt of each is more than $80 per capita, 
 while the current expenditures are nearly $30 per 
 capita for New York and nearly $40 for Boston. It 
 should be stated also that these thirty-eight cities 
 own property, not counting streets and sewers, which 
 is worth in the judgment of the city authorities 
 about $125 per capita. Of this property $85 per 
 capita is in the form of parks, other lands, and 
 public buildings which are not financially produc- 
 tive, and, in all likelihood, will never be turned 
 into money. The annual cost of the government 
 is ;$20 per capita in addition to the free use of 
 this property for governmental purposes. The 
 productive and semi-productive public works, such 
 as waterworks, gas-works, docks, markets, ferries, 
 bridges, and cemeteries, amount to a little over $40 
 per capita in value, in the opinion of the city 
 officials. 
 
 Some allowance should be made for exaggera- 
 tion in estimating the value of municipal assets. 
 There is no adequate standard by which to meas- 
 ure these values. Often the estimate is based on 
 the cost, as, for example, the city hall and city hall 
 site of Philadelphia, which are set down as worth 
 342 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 ;^2 5,000,000. The improved streets and the 
 sewers of a great city are of course of immense 
 financial value to the citizens. It is certain that 
 they would more than make up for any exaggera- 
 tions of city officials in estimating other assets, 
 though they are not to be considered productive 
 property in any ordinary sense. The streets, 
 however, are generally heavily encumbered with 
 franchises held by private companies for which 
 the city has received little or no compensation. 
 
 So, although we can claim that along with the 
 debt of $55 per capita we are bequeathing $125 
 per capita of public property, making a net be- 
 quest of $70 apiece to the future as a result of 
 our industry, wisdom, and foresight, we shall have 
 to admit that this property is mostly of the kind 
 that will require an annual expenditure for its 
 maintenance and preservation, while the street 
 franchises, well-nigh imperishable assets, of con- 
 stantly increasing value, have been in many cases 
 alienated for all time to come. Productive prop- 
 erty is the only legitimate basis of a standing debt, 
 and, judged by this principle, we are clearly in 
 arrears to the coming generations. 
 
 Of the nearly $300,000,000 net receipts of the 
 thirty-eight largest cities of the United States for 
 the year 1901, about 61 per cent was derived from 
 the general property tax, 7 per cent from liquor 
 and other license fees, 5 per cent from special as- 
 sessments, 10 per cent from waterworks, gas-works, 
 docks, etc., i per cent from fines and official fees, 
 343 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 I per cent from franchise sales and franchise taxes, 
 2 J per cent from state subsidies, and I2|^ per cent 
 from miscellaneous sources. The bulk of this 
 last item was made up by New York, Boston, and 
 Cincinnati. The Cincinnati item was principally 
 income from the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, 
 and the Boston item income from the sale of water- 
 works to the state and from poll-taxes. New 
 York's income of ten and one-half millions from 
 miscellaneous receipts included the bank tax and 
 other items not so easily discoverable. 
 
 The sources of municipal revenue may be 
 roughly classified as follows : — 
 
 1. Taxation on property. 
 
 2. Special assessments. 
 
 3. Public industries. 
 
 4. The sale of privileges> 
 ' 5. License and poll-taxes. 
 
 1 6. Fees. 
 
 i 7. Subsidies from the state. 
 
 I 8. Gifts from private persons. 
 
 V 9. Loans. 
 
 Let us take these up in reverse order. We may 
 pass over loans, as they form a secondary source of 
 income, and must be paid out of receipts from other 
 sources. Besides, the question of municipal debt 
 will be treated separately in the next chapter. 
 
 /Gifts are not of much importance as contribu- 
 tions to current revenue. Indeed, their acceptance 
 generally involves an increased draft upon other 
 sources of income for annual revenue. This is 
 344 
 
 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 notably true where library buildings, public baths, 
 and park lands are given to cities. Mr. Carnegie 
 has made a specialty of library buildings, always 
 attaching as a condition that the city shall appro- 
 priate a certain amount of money every year for 
 the purchase of books and the expenses of main- 
 tenance. Springfield, Massachusetts, has built up 
 its great park by a series of gifts and purchases 
 mixed. The public baths of Baltimore are the gift 
 of a private citizen. Almost every city has some- 
 thing to be credited to the generosity of its wealthy 
 citizens. Grand Rapids, where the complaint is 
 often heard that its wealthy citizens are devoid of 
 public spirit, nevertheless received as a gift the 
 original portion of its most celebrated park, and is 
 just now receiving from a former citizen a beautiful 
 ^25o,(X>o library building. The city also holds one 
 small park and a scientific museum as the result of 
 private benefactions. 
 I State subsidies are of little importance as a 
 \ source of revenue to American cities except for 
 * school purposes. Many of the commonwealths 
 have established state funds for the encouragement 
 of education, from which payments are made every 
 year to the municipaHties in proportion to their 
 school populations. Seventeen out of thirty-eight- 
 cities, having more than ioo,cxx) population each, 
 receive in the aggregate between ;^4,ooo,ooo and 
 ;^5,ooo,ooo a year for this purpose. Michigan is 
 especially generous in this particular, having given 
 to every locality the sum of ;^3.io for every child of 
 345 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 school age in the year 1903. This money is mostly 
 derived from railway taxes, taxes on express, tele- 
 phone, and telegraph companies, insurance taxes, 
 inheritance taxes, and franchise fees. Under the 
 state constitution a separation of the sources of 
 revenue for state and local purposes is impossible. 
 The state is required to distribute to the localities 
 the largest share of the money it collects, while for 
 state expenses the localities are all required to con- 
 tribute in the form of direct taxation on property. 
 Under normal conditions state subsidies for local 
 purposes are hardly justifiable, and when they are 
 granted for semi-local purposes, such as education, 
 they should go hand in hand with state control. 
 Indeed, in some cities where the police or other 
 municipal departments are under state control, 
 conditions are reversed, the locality being com- 
 pelled to pay all the expense, while the department 
 is amenable to the state government alone. Amer- 
 icans are not slow to see the injustice of this, 
 though they are sometimes unable to escape from 
 it. The city of Washington is exceptional in many 
 ways. It is altogether under the control of the 
 federal government, and half of its ordinary re- 
 ceipts is in the form of an appropriation from the 
 general treasury. In a sense liquor-license money 
 collected by state officers and turned over in part 
 to municipal authorities is in the form of a state 
 subsidy. In New York, where all hquor taxes are 
 collected by the state excise commissioner, the 
 cities receive two-thirds of the amount collected 
 346 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 within their limits. In Michigan collections are 
 made by the county treasurers, and one-half of the 
 receipts is turned over to the cities, villages, and 
 townships, while the rest goes into the general 
 fund of the county. State subsidies for local pur- 
 poses are in general to be discouraged. They tend 
 to develop extravagance and beggary on the part 
 of the localities. State control can better be exer- 
 cised in other ways, such as the state supervision 
 of accounts, tax levies, and bond issues. 
 
 Fees form another comparatively unimportant 
 'source of city revenues. The fee system has been 
 prevalent in county government, always tending to 
 corruption where the county includes a large city. 
 In order to avoid this evil, county officers have been 
 put on salaries, in whole or in part, in New York, 
 South Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, California, and 
 I know not how many other states. The fee sys- 
 tem is not generally appHcable to city officers, the 
 nature of their duties being such as to make the 
 charging of fees either impossible or obnoxious. 
 To be sure, the police are often supposed to raise 
 a considerable illegal private revenue from black- 
 mail in the nature of license or inspection fees, but 
 for the police department to charge fees for legiti- 
 mate protection would be quite contrary to our 
 ideas of government. It is not uncommon, how- 
 ever, for cities to collect fees for the inspection of 
 building plans, of plumbing, and of street work. 
 These fees, as a rule, belong to the city, not to the 
 officials who perform the service. While we need 
 
 347 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 not regard the charging of fees for services ren- 
 dered as in all cases out of place, still the ordinary 
 services of a city should for the most part be free. 
 It is often desirable to charge a small fee in con- 
 nection with public baths, concerts, theatrical 
 entertainments, and so forth. But I do not include 
 among fees the charges made to consumers of 
 public utilities and similar industries. It is the 
 usual rule to make a charge for such services, 
 sometimes more and sometimes less than enough 
 to meet expenses. 
 
 Another and much more important source of mu- 
 Inicipal revenue is license and poll-taxes. I class 
 )them together, as a poll-tax is in the nature of 
 a license to live within the city where it is levied. 
 Americans do not always pay their licenses to live 
 in the cities of their choice. In the year 1901 
 Boston levied a tax of $2 per capita on 172,445 
 polls, and collected during the year ^106,221 or 
 31 per cent of the whole amount. The cost of 
 assessment and collection of poll-taxes was ap- 
 proximately 43 per cent of the total amount col- 
 lected. This record would compare favorably with 
 the dog-license record of many an American city, 
 where the freedom-loving dogs resent the impo- 
 sition of a poll-tax and defy the authorities. 
 Luckily the penalties visited upon the delinquent 
 polls in Boston are less severe than the impounding 
 and asphyxiaticr^ to which the dogs are liable. 
 Boston citizens do not even lose their suffrage in 
 default of payment of their poll-taxes. In certain 
 348 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 southern commonwealths the poll-tax is being used 
 as a means for the limitation of negro suffrage. 
 For such a purpose, where the authorities are suffi- 
 ciently interested in the project, the poll-tax may 
 be an effective instrument. As a means of raising 
 revenue or of decreasing population, it is a failure. 
 Business licenses are more commonly required 
 in southern cities than in northern, except for the 
 conduct of saloons and restaurants, and some minor 
 lines of trade, usually having special relation to th« 
 street, such as running hacks and drays, fruit 
 stands, huckster wagons, etc. Specially doubtful 
 enterprises, such as fortune-telling, clairvoyance, 
 auctioneering goods on the street, and pawnbrok- 
 ing, are generally required to pay for the privileges 
 of the city. The regular professions and the high- 
 class legitimate businesses are not often subjected 
 to a license tax except in the South. License taxes 
 other than the liquor tax make up of the total 
 revenues of Mobile, 25 per cent; of Birmingham, 
 Alabama, 21 per cent; of Montgomery, Alabama, 
 18 percent; of Charleston, 14 per cent; of Nor- 
 folk and Savannah, 12J per cent; of Knoxville, 11 
 per cent ; of Atlanta, 7 per cent ; of New Orleans, 
 6 per cent; of St. Louis, 5 per cent; of Kansas 
 City, Missouri, and Louisville, 4 per cent ; of Rich- 
 mond, Virginia, 2^ per cent ; while the average for 
 the large cities of the country is only a little over 
 I per cent. The difference between northern and 
 southern influences in this respect is seen very 
 markedly in the contrast between Cleveland and 
 
 349 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 Cincinnati, cities at opposite extremities of the same 
 state. The latter received in 1901 ahnost twenty 
 times as much from licenses, other than saloon 
 licenses, as the former. The raising of revenue 
 by license taxes on legitimate businesses, except 
 where they call for special protection or regulation, 
 and the license fees are levied to meet the expense 
 of this, is not regarded as a satisfactory form of 
 taxation in progressive communities. There is 
 a feeling that every legitimate field of trade or 
 work should be left as free as possible to open 
 competition. 
 
 The liquor traffic is peculiar in that it is uni- 
 versally regarded as a dangerous and only semi- 
 legitimate business. License fees of considerable 
 magnitude are imposed upon it everywhere, partly 
 to cover the cost of public surveillance, partly to dis- 
 courage the consumption of liquor through raising 
 its price and diminishing the number of saloons, 
 and partly as an easy means of raising revenue for 
 general purposes. In 1901 the saloon contributed 
 over ^20,000,000 to the support of the city govern- 
 ments in our cities of more than 100,000 population. 
 In this matter also there is a marked difference 
 between northern and southern cities, the former 
 levying much higher license taxes upon the saloons 
 than the latter. The curious difference between 
 the North and the South in this matter of license 
 taxes can be seen at a glance in the following 
 comparisons of cities having about the same 
 population. 
 
 350 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 St. Louis . . 
 Boston . . . 
 Baltimore . . 
 
 Pittsburg . . 
 New Orleans . 
 Detroit . . . 
 
 Jersey City . . 
 Louisville . . 
 Minneapolis . 
 
 Dayton . . . 
 Richmond, Va. 
 
 Wheeling, W. Va 
 Mobile, Ala. . 
 
 Knoxville, Tenn. 
 Schenectady, N. Y 
 
 POPULA- 
 TION 
 
 575.238 
 560,892 
 508,957 
 
 321,616 
 287,104 
 285,704 
 
 206,433 
 204,731 
 202,718 
 
 85.333 
 85,050 
 
 38,878 
 38,469 
 
 32,637 
 31,682 
 
 RECEIPTS FROM 
 LIQUOR LICENSES 
 
 $1,051,969 
 
 1,437,281 
 
 408,798 
 
 515.723 
 151,500 
 273,889 
 
 253.079 
 136,565 
 351,000 
 
 63,823 
 18,125 
 
 38.936 
 10,430 
 
 13,000 
 37.483 
 
 RECEIPTS FROM 
 OTHER LICENSES 
 
 $655,175 
 
 48,524 
 
 79.467 
 
 100,037 
 
 269,547 
 16,520 
 
 7.382 
 136,199 
 
 28,912 
 
 2,562 
 40,945 
 
 6,432 
 63.044 
 30,684 
 
 1,281 
 
 While similar comparisons could not be made in 
 every case between northern and southern cities, 
 they represent the rule rather than the exception. 
 I do not know why northern cities should tax the 
 liquor traffic so much more severely than southern 
 cities, unless it be that the evils of the liquor traffic 
 are more apparent in the north on account of the 
 colder climate and the greater proportion of Euro- 
 pean-born inhabitants. At any rate the liquor tax 
 is a poor source of revenue for municipal govern- 
 ment. If the business is regarded as thoroughly 
 legitimate, it ought not to be taxed more than 
 
 351 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 other branches of trade. If the tax is to meet the 
 expense of the extra policing demanded by the 
 nature of the business, then some better way- 
 should be devised for estimating this expense and 
 devoting the tax directly to it. If the tax is for 
 the purpose of raising revenue for general pur- 
 poses, it has one merit, and that is success. But 
 this success is attained by governmental alliance 
 with a business which, in the judgment of most 
 thoughtful men, needs to be curtailed and dis- 
 couraged rather than promoted. The English 
 commons won sovereignty from the king because 
 they held the purse-strings. Democracy should 
 hesitate long before it surrenders to the liquor traffic 
 the control of cities in return for fat revenues. 
 
 Somewhat allied to license fees as a source of 
 revenue is the sale of special privileges or fran- 
 chises. It is now well known that the franchises 
 of a great city, under the conditions ordinarily im- 
 posed, are of enormous value. A franchise has 
 value only in so far as it partakes of the nature of 
 a monopoly in practical operation. Unless the 
 monopoly element enters in some degree, the fran- 
 chise is a mere license or permit. 
 
 The movement for the taxation of franchises as 
 I real estate has gained considerable headway since 
 it was put into practical operation in New York a 
 few years ago. A franchise is undoubtedly a right 
 to the use of land and should be classed along 
 with landed property strictly. The taxation of 
 franchises is in no sense a compensation for them. 
 
 352 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 It is simply the taxation of a certain amount of 
 very real property that is in private hands. Never- 
 theless, in bringing this class of property upon the 
 tax rolls, when up to this time it has been as 
 clearly and universally exempt as United States 
 bonds, we take out of its value a sum equal to the 
 amount of taxes annually paid capitalized at the 
 normal rate of interest. For example, supposing 
 that the city of Gasopolis twenty years ago gave 
 to a company the right to use the streets for the 
 purpose of distributing gas to be sold at a maximum 
 price of ^i.oo per looo cubic feet, the franchise to 
 continue for forty years, subject to such regulations 
 and conditions as may have been imposed when the 
 charter was granted. Now suppose that the com- 
 pany invested $100,000 in the construction of its 
 gas-plant and distributing system, and is now able 
 to pay a normal dividend upon $200,000 worth of 
 stock. We should say that the franchise of the 
 company under the existing conditions is worth 
 $100,000. If we have been taxing only visible prop- 
 erty, we have the gas company assessed for $100,000 
 only. That has been the condition under which 
 the -franchise was worth the other $100,000. If 
 now we begin to tax the franchise as real estate, 
 and put the whole $200,000 upon the tax rolls, we 
 have taken away a certain amount from the value 
 of the property. If the tax rate is 2 per cent, 
 for example, the amount of taxes received on 
 account of the franchise will be $2000, and the 
 franchise itself will be worth $2000 per year less 
 
 ^^ 353 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 to its owners. If the normal rate of interest is 
 5 per cent, then the value of the franchise will have 
 been diminished $40,000, which is $2000 capitalized 
 at 5 per cent. By bringing the franchise under 
 the tax law, the government will thus confiscate 
 40 per cent of the value of the franchise. Yet 
 this is confiscation only in the same sense that 
 any new tax involves confiscation. Nevertheless, 
 in this hypothetical case we should have the gas 
 company assessed at $200,000 when its property, 
 under the new condition involved in the taxation 
 of the franchise at its previous value, has been 
 reduced in value to $160,000. Under the circum- 
 stances, therefore, the franchise should be assessed 
 at less than its previous value. If assessed at 
 $71,428.57, its value will be brought down to ex- 
 actly that amount, and the tax will be just. 
 
 We must not be deluded, however, by the idea 
 that by taxing a franchise we receive compensa- 
 tion for it. It would be absurd to say that a grant 
 of land by the government is not a gift, because 
 the land is taxed at its full valuation after it be- 
 comes private property. If I sell my neighbor 
 a house, he is not relieved from paying taxes be- 
 cause he bought the house. True, one of the 
 conditions that fixed the price of the house was the 
 general fact of its being property subject to taxa- 
 tion. And so if the city sells me a franchise and 
 I pay full value for it under the condition that 
 it shall be exempt from taxation, then if later the 
 city taxes the franchise, in justice it should return 
 354 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 to me, not the whole amount I paid for my 
 special privilege, but just the difference in value 
 between the franchise taxed and the franchise not 
 taxed. 
 
 The only possible excuse for giving away any 
 franchise is the desire to " build up the country," 
 to encourage the development of property for the 
 benefit of the community and as a basis for future 
 taxation. Upon this theory franchises were given 
 away in the earlier history of most American cities. 
 Indeed, new franchises are still given away on that 
 theory in many cases, especially where the grant 
 is made for the development of a new kind of 
 public utility such as the distribution of heat and 
 cold. This is precisely the same theory on which 
 the United States has given away lands of great 
 potential value to actual settlers. 
 
 But for any city of considerable size now to give 
 away a street railway, gas, or electric light, water, 
 or telephone franchise on the same conditions 
 under which similar franchises now have an imme- 
 diate and real market value is, unless to be re- 
 garded as charity, a rank injustice, a governmental 
 iniquity, — for what else is it to give to one the 
 property of all } And, indeed, to sell a franchise 
 on condition that it shall be exempt from taxation 
 is a ruinous mortgaging of the future. For exam- 
 ple, if the city of Gasopolis now sells a twenty-year 
 franchise under condition of exemption from taxa- 
 tion, it will receive ;^ 100,000 in cash, which may be 
 immediately devoted to some permanent public 
 
 355 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 improvement requiring the expenditure of that 
 amount. If, on the other hand, the franchise is 
 sold subject to taxation, the city will receive only 
 $71,428.57 down and will have to borrow the re- 
 maining $28,571.43 needed for the desired improve- 
 ment. If the city pays si P^^ ^^^^ interest on this 
 sum, it will amount to exactly $1000 per year. On 
 the other hand, the city will be receiving 2 per cent 
 in taxes on $71,428.57, which is the value of the 
 franchise. This will amount to $1428.57 per year, 
 so that the city will be the gainer by $428.57 
 annually. 
 
 Without going further into mathematical subtle- 
 ties, we may say that under normal conditions in 
 matters of taxation and municipal credit, it is more 
 profitable to sell a franchise subject to taxation 
 than to sell it exempt. In either case the lump 
 sum received can be properly expended only on 
 improvements lasting as long as the franchise. In 
 other words, the sale of franchises in this way 
 should never be made to supply current revenue. 
 That would be following the old New York cus- 
 tom of selling land to pay current expenses. The 
 present value of a franchise is of course dependent 
 upon many circumstances. If I am to pay $100,000 
 for a forty-year franchise, I must expect that 
 during this period I will be able to secure net profits 
 from the operation of my plant sufficient to cover 
 the interest at the normal rate for the whole period 
 upon the cost of the plant and also to return to me 
 my $100,000 with interest. In order to fulfil this 
 356 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 condition, it may be necessary during some part of 
 the period to receive two or three times the nor- 
 mal rate of interest on the whole amount. All 
 these things tend to make the sale of franchises 
 for lump sums an unprofitable policy. 
 
 It remains for us, if we are to receive any com- 
 pensation for franchises, to arrange for it on the 
 basis of annual rental in some form or other. 
 The form most often advocated is that of a per- 
 centage of gross receipts. This plan recognizes 
 the changing value of franchises from year to year 
 and the impossibility of lumping them off in ad- 
 vance. It may take the place of the ad valorem 
 tax, or may be simply for the purpose of providing 
 an annual rental in payment for the fran- 
 chise. In the former case it combines the pur- 
 chase price of the franchise with the taxation of 
 the franchise and the other property held by the 
 grantee. In whatever way we get at it, the im- 
 portant thing is not to confound compensation 
 for a franchise with the tax levied on it as prop- 
 erty. The franchise originally belongs to the 
 city, and if it is worth anything, should be paid 
 for and then taxed equally with other property 
 that is acquired by purchase. 
 
 As I have said, the value of a franchise depends 
 on the monopoly element in it. This may be 
 expressed in the grant or may be simply the result 
 of conditions which discourage or prevent com- 
 petition. In the nature of the case a franchise for 
 the establishment of a continuous line of fixtures 
 
 357 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 in the street tends toward monopoly. It is open 
 for a city to adopt one of two courses toward 
 these privileges. First, the city may cultivate the 
 monopoly features in order to raise a revenue from 
 them. Or, second, the city by regulation may hold 
 down prices or hold up the service to the point 
 where the monopoly principle loses its venom, and 
 the franchise has no value. Usually this question 
 resolves itself into the question of a percentage of 
 gross receipts for the city treasury or lower fares 
 for the street-car passengers, lower tolls for the tele- 
 phone patrons, or lower prices for the gas, water, 
 and electric light and power consumers. There is 
 comparatively little clear thinking on this question 
 in American cities, and every man answers it accord- 
 ing to his instincts. If he is a large property owner, 
 he is anxious to relieve himself of a portion of the 
 burden of direct taxation and favors selling fran- 
 chise-monopolies so as to replenish the public 
 treasury. If, on the other hand, he is poor or in 
 very moderate circumstances so that his street-car 
 fare, his water rate, and his gas bill are a burden to 
 him, he wants prices reduced so that he can get 
 transportation, water, and light at cost. It is 
 generally agreed that a consumption tax on the 
 common necessities of life operates as a special 
 burden upon the poor, and is therefore unjust and 
 undemocratic. On this theory, then, democracy 
 will insist that franchises for the supply of the 
 common necessities of urban life must have their 
 value regulated out of them in the interest of 
 358 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 cheaper and better service. It is not inconsistent 
 with this theory, however, to leave enough value 
 in franchises to pay all the expenses incidental to 
 their exercise. That is to say, it may be proper 
 to require street-railway companies to pay into the 
 public treasury, in addition to any tax that may be 
 levied on their property, a sum sufficient to reim- 
 burse the city for all extra expense in the construc- 
 tion and care of streets caused by the presence 
 and activities of the street-railway business. The 
 taxpayer has no claim to relief by means of the 
 profits of public utilities except in so far as he 
 furnishes a street specially prepared for their fix- 
 tures. It is the user that makes a public utility 
 profitable, and consequently he should get the 
 benefit. 
 
 The United States Department of Labor Statis- 
 tics of Cities shows that American cities received 
 in 1 90 1 about ;^4,ooo,ooo from the tax on franchises, 
 and about j^ 700,000 by the sale of franchises. The 
 special United States Census Bulletin on " Street 
 and Electric Railways " gives the total capital stock 
 and funded debt of these enterprises outstanding 
 June 30, 1902, as ^2,308,282,099. The total amount 
 paid in dividends and interest for the year was ap- 
 proximately ;^8 3 ,000,000. Capitalized at 4^ per cent, 
 this would make the market value of street-railway 
 securities in the United States an even two billion 
 dollars. I use 4^^ per cent as the basis for capital- 
 ization because this is the ratio between the sum of 
 dividends and interest payments and the market 
 
 359 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 value of the securities of the Chicago street railways 
 discovered by the agents of the Chicago Civic 
 Federation in the only scientific street-railway in- 
 vestigation of importance yet reported in this 
 country.^ 
 
 The Chicago companies opened their books to 
 the Federation, and, upon the basis of an expert 
 examination made in 1898 and supplementary 
 statistics for the three or four years following, Mr. 
 Maltbie found that on July i, 1901, the securities 
 of the Chicago street railways had a market value 
 of ;^ 1 20,000,000, and their assets, excluding fran- 
 chises, an estimated value of about $45,000,000, 
 leaving approximately $75,000,000 or 62 per cent 
 of the total for the value of the franchises. Figur- 
 ing on the same relative value in the street-railway 
 business elsewhere, we should find the street- 
 railway franchises of New York worth $240,000,000, 
 and those of the whole United States $1,240,000,000. 
 This is, of course, an exceedingly crude way of 
 estimating the general value of franchises, as 
 conditions differ very materially in different cities, 
 especially where there are great differences of 
 total population and density. The topography of 
 the cities and the conditions of the franchise grants 
 also make material differences in the street-railway 
 business. The assessed valuation of all New York 
 City franchises, including gas and electric light 
 as well as street-railway rights, was, in 1901, 
 $211,000,000. 
 
 iSee Municipal Affair s^ June, 1901, pp. 439-694. 
 360 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 It will be noted that the sum received by Amer- 
 ican cities from the franchise tax and from the 
 sale of franchises is ridiculously small when com- 
 pared with their actual value. According to the 
 estimates just made, the cities would have received, 
 with a tax rate of only i per cent of full value, 
 $12,400,000 from street-railway franchises alone. 
 Some slight deduction should be made for fran- 
 chise values in cities of less than 30,000 popula- 
 tion, from which the figures are not included in 
 the statistics of revenue furnished by the Depart- 
 ment of Labor. The total combined capitalization 
 of the electric light and gas companies is about 
 one-half as much as that of the street railways.^ 
 If the franchise values hold the same proportion 
 to the totals, we shall have to add 50 per cent to 
 our estimate of what a one per cent tax would 
 amount to, making a total of more than $1 8,000,000, 
 or nearly four times as much as the cities actually 
 received from both taxation and sale of franchises 
 in 1901. 
 
 One method of receiving compensation for fran- 
 chises, now often advocated, is by the provision 
 in the grant that the grantees' plant and prop- 
 erty in the streets shall fall to the city without 
 compensation at the expiration of the franchise 
 period. Such an arrangement for franchise grants 
 is now optional with New York, Chicago, San 
 
 1 See Census Bulletin No. 123 for '* Gas, " and Bulletin No. $ 
 issued by the Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the 
 Census, for "Central Electric Light and Power Stations." 
 361 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 Francisco, and some other cities in different parts 
 of the country. 
 
 Some of the provisions of the newer charters, 
 especially those of western cities, are interesting 
 and instructive. St. Paul and Portland, Oregon, 
 represent two distinct policies with reference to 
 public utilities. St. Paul does not permit mu- 
 nicipal ownership of street railvays or commercial 
 lighting plants. Nevertheless, close restrictions 
 are put upon the grant of franchises. They require 
 a three-fourths vote of all the members of each 
 branch of the city council, and if vetoed by the 
 mayor, they must receive a four-fifths vote for 
 repassage. Every franchise must provide for the 
 payment of at least 5 per cent of the gross re- 
 ceipts into the city treasury. No exclusive fran- 
 chise can be granted, and no franchise at all granted 
 for more than a twenty-five-year period. Every 
 franchise-holder is required to make an annual 
 report to the city comptroller, showing in detail 
 the financial statistics of his business for the pre- 
 ceding year. The council is forbidden to grant 
 any extensions of any kind to existing franchise 
 companies except on their written agreement to 
 exercise their present franchises under all the 
 terms and conditions of the charter, including the 
 payment of the percentage of gross receipts. 
 
 The Portland charter grants to the city complete 
 
 authority to own and operate public utilities. If 
 
 franchises are granted, the power to tax them like 
 
 other property cannot be bargained away. Grantees 
 
 362 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 may be required to pay a percentage of gross 
 receipts in addition to all other forms of compen- 
 sation, and must in all cases make financial reports 
 to the city auditor according to forms prescribed 
 by him. Whenever a franchise is applied for, the 
 executive board, which I have described in a 
 preceding chapter, is required to make an estimate 
 of the value of the franchise on the basis of either 
 a cash payment or an annual percentage of gross 
 receipts. 
 
 A recent act of California, applying to all cities 
 which have not covered the same subject by 
 home-rule charters, requires that when a franchise 
 is petitioned for, the city council shall advertise 
 for bids on the basis of a payment of 2 per cent 
 of the gross receipts after the first five years. 
 When the bids are opened, any responsible party 
 may raise the highest bid by not less than lo 
 per cent, and this bid may be raised in like man- 
 ner. The franchise goes to the highest bidder 
 who is able to establish his good faith by prompt 
 payment of the price offered. All these western 
 laws are of too recent origin to have been tested 
 very fully in their practical workings. 
 
 Provisions for the sale of franchises are not 
 confined to the home-rule charters of western 
 cities. Even New York, the mother of American 
 municipal improvidence and the ancient exemplar 
 of the *' piracy of public franchises," has at last 
 got a charter that protects in some fashion the 
 remnant of public privileges still within the city's 
 
 3^3 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 gift. The most common form of payment for street- 
 railway franchises has been hitherto the assumption 
 by the franchise-holders of certain special duties 
 in the care of the streets. Baltimore was the wis- 
 est of all our great cities when the street railways 
 came in, and required them to assume paving bur- 
 dens that have amounted to millions of dollars. 
 Philadelphia has also received a small part of the 
 value of her franchises in street improvements 
 made or paid for by the street railroads. This, 
 however, is the old form of compensation which 
 does not appear in immediate expenditure and does 
 not satisfy the demand of the people nowadays for 
 a cash payment into the city treasury in return for 
 a valuable privilege. There is nothing especially 
 wrong with the paving tax, provided that the street 
 railways pay in cash the extra cost to the city of 
 paving between and near the tracks. This ought 
 to be reckoned as a part of the cost of the business. 
 The trouble comes where, as in Philadelphia, the 
 franchise companies assume indefinite burdens, 
 and, instead of paying the city for the paving 
 work, do it themselves. Then the city does not 
 know what it is getting for its franchises. 
 
 This question of whether franchises should be 
 sold or made valueless by regulation is closely 
 allied to the question of policy in relation to public 
 industries as revenue producers. It makes no 
 difference in the principle whether the franchise is 
 sold by the city or is operated for profit by the 
 city. Municipal ownership and operation of all 
 364 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 franchises is often held up as a possible and proper 
 source of large net revenues to the city. If the 
 theory suggested in a preceding paragraph is 
 correct, then this idea of making public industries 
 a source of net revenue to help pay the cost of the 
 general functions of government is all wrong. 
 Public utilities are undertaken by the city usually 
 because they are matters of common necessity, 
 and should be distributed to the people as cheap 
 as possible. The transportation system of a city 
 ought not to be operated on the principles of the 
 **hold up" by our taking advantage of the ne- 
 cessities of travel to levy tribute upon the people. 
 It ought rather to be conducted on broad principles 
 with a view to performing the greatest possible 
 social service within the limits of self-sustenance. 
 If this policy were followed, an equilibrium between 
 the tendency to lower fares and the demand for 
 better service would be maintained at a point where 
 the system would be fully self-sustaining and no 
 more. The same should be true of municipal 
 waterworks and lighting plants. 
 
 In regard to other forms of public industries, if 
 any are undertaken, such as cemeteries, markets, 
 slaughter-houses, dairies, pawnshops, coal yards, 
 etc., the same principle should apply. The city 
 government is hardly justified in going into busi- 
 ness for profit. It is only on account of the 
 necessity for regulating prices or the character of 
 the service that a city may go into any of these 
 enterprises, except on the out-and-out socialistic 
 365 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 principle, and under that condition profit would 
 certainly not be justifiable. It is safe to say that 
 public industries ought not to be regarded as a 
 legitimate source of general municipal revenue. 
 When the city is compelled to take over any 
 industry for the protection of public interests, that 
 industry should be put under a separate bureau 
 of administration and a strict account of all its 
 operations kept. Water, light, and other commodi- 
 ties used for public purposes should be credited 
 to the appropriate bureaus, and interest on debt, 
 depreciation, taxes, and all expenses incurred on 
 account of the public industries should be charged 
 up to those bureaus. Every industry should be 
 made safely self-sustaining, but no more than that. 
 There might be an exception made in favor of public 
 baths or other semi-free services. 
 
 Strictly speaking, public industries ought not to 
 be compelled to provide sinking funds for the 
 liquidation of their debt, provided that they keep 
 the plant strictly as good as new and lay aside a 
 reserve fund to cover necessary displacements 
 through new inventions, improved processes, etc. 
 Nevertheless, debts should be paid, and all public 
 plants should as soon as possible become the 
 unencumbered property of the city. If a public 
 industry is fully and absolutely self-sustaining, the 
 plant, which becomes the property of the city as a 
 whole, should be paid for out of taxes. The 
 industry ought to pay into the city treasury an 
 amount equivalent to the taxes that would be 
 366 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 collected, if it were in private hands, plus the 
 interest that the city would have to pay on bor- 
 rowed capital. This is a part of the expense 
 of a self-sustaining business. But the debt itself 
 is another thing. All permanent improvements, 
 requiring the issuance of long-time bonds, if legiti- 
 mate governmental enterprises, are undertaken 
 for the public benefit, and the discharge of the 
 debt ought to be laid as a burden upon the public 
 through the ordinary modes of raising revenue for 
 general purposes. 
 
 If our conclusions thus far have been correct 
 these modes must be either by special assessments 
 or by general taxation. It is an almost universal 
 practice in the cities of the United States to pro- 
 vide for what are termed local street improvements, 
 in whole or in part, by special assessments. These 
 special assessments are usually levied for grading 
 and paving streets and for putting in lateral sewers. 
 Assessments are often levied for purchasing the 
 land required to open streets or construct sewers, 
 and any local improvements which may be con- 
 strued to be of particular benefit to the real estate in 
 the vicinity may be paid for by special assessment. 
 
 It is customary for the city to pay a certain part of 
 the cost of these improvements, — at least enough 
 to cover the cost of the improvement at street 
 intersections and the cost of cross walks and all 
 improvements in front of city property. The part 
 of the cost which is paid by special assessments is 
 usually levied in one of two ways : — 
 
 367 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 Firsts the cost may be levied upon abutting 
 property in accordance with the number of feet 
 frontage of each lot. In this case the making of 
 assessment rolls is a very simple matter. 
 
 Second^ the special assessments may be levied 
 upon all real estate within a designated district, 
 in accordance with the estimated benefit received 
 by each lot, or in accordance with the assessed 
 valuation of the lots. If in accordance with the 
 estimated benefits, the process of making out the 
 special assessment rolls becomes somewhat difficult 
 and complicated, involving careful investigation 
 and the exercise of nice judgment on the part of 
 the assessing officers. The problem is less diffi- 
 cult if a special assessment district is established 
 and all real estate within it taxed pro rata for the 
 improvement. 
 
 It is customary for the city levying an assess- 
 ment to make it payable in several instalments, so 
 that the burden of the improvement will not fall 
 too heavily upon the private owner at any one 
 time. Where this is done, the city usually issues 
 special short-time improvement bonds in anticipa- 
 tion of the collection of the assessments, but inter- 
 est is often charged the private property holders 
 on all assessments remaining unpaid after the roll 
 has been confirmed. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no department of municipal 
 
 government in which there is more variation of 
 
 practice than in the levying of special assessments, 
 
 and on account of established habits in this very 
 
 368 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 important matter in the different cities of a state 
 where special charters have been the rule, special 
 assessments would prove one of the greatest stum- 
 bling-blocks in the way of a general municipal cor- 
 porations act applicable to all of the cities of the 
 state, unless this general act left the determination 
 of the methods of levying special assessments to 
 each individual city. 
 
 The general municipal corporations act proposed 
 by the National Municipal League as a part of its 
 program provides that **the city shall have power to 
 make local improvements by special assessment or 
 by special taxation or both, on property adjudged 
 to have received special benefit, or by general taxa- 
 tion ; the ascertainment and apportionment of the 
 benefits derived from such local improvements 
 shall be made in accordance with state laws." ^ 
 The league's program further provides, however, 
 that no improvement, to be paid for by special as- 
 sessment, shall be undertaken without the consent 
 of the majority in interest and number of the own- 
 ers of the property to be assessed, except on an 
 affirmative vote of three-fourths of all the mem- 
 bers of the council approved by the mayor after a 
 public hearing. 
 
 According to the charter of Detroit, paving and 
 grading of streets, except at the intersection of 
 cross streets, must be paid for by the owners of the 
 abutting property in proportion to the frontage 
 of the lots, but if, on account of the triangular or 
 
 1 A Municipal Program, p. 197. 
 2B 369 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 irregular shape of a lot, it would be assessed too 
 much according to this rule, the council may pro- 
 vide for paying a part of the assessment out of 
 the general road fund. 
 
 The charter of Grand Rapids provides that the 
 council may determine that a public improvement 
 shall be paid for, wholly or in part, by special 
 assessments on the property benefited. The coun- 
 cil is required to establish a special assessment 
 district. The assessment rolls are made out by the 
 board of assessors of the city and confirmed by the 
 council. The council may authorize the issue of 
 street-improvement bonds to run no longer than 
 five years, and assessments may be divided into 
 instalments payable one each year, with interest 
 at 6 per cent on all that remains unpaid, until due. 
 If not paid then, lo per cent is added. 
 
 The municipal code, enacted in 1902 by the 
 general assembly of Ohio, contains some inter- 
 esting provisions for special assessments. The 
 council of any municipal corporation is authorized 
 to assess upon " abutting, adjacent and contiguous 
 or other specially benefited lots or lands" any part 
 of the entire cost and expense of street improve- 
 ments, including paving, repaving, repairing and 
 constructing sidewalks, sewers, or drains, and also 
 any part of the cost of lighting, sprinkling, sweep- 
 ing, or cleaning the streets or planting shade 
 trees. 
 
 These assessments may be made by any one of 
 three methods : — 
 
 370 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 First, by a percentage of the taxable valuation 
 of the property assessed. 
 
 Second, in proportion to the benefits resulting 
 from the improvement. 
 
 Third, by the foot frontage of the property 
 abutting on the improvement. 
 
 The city must pay "such part of the cost and 
 expense of improvements for which special assess- 
 ments are levied as the council may deem just," 
 being not less than one-fiftieth of the total ; and 
 shall, in addition thereto, pay the cost of street in- 
 tersections. However, in all cases of assessments, 
 the council must limit them to the special benefits 
 actually conferred, and in no case may special 
 assessments be levied exceeding 33 per cent of the 
 taxable valuation of the property assessed within 
 a period of five years, and assessments for main 
 sewers must not exceed the estimated cost of ordi- 
 nary street sewers. No lots are to be assessed 
 that do not need local drainage or that are pro- 
 vided with it already. Whenever a special assess- 
 ment has been levied for the improvement of the 
 streets, the property assessed cannot be again 
 assessed for more than one-half of the cost of re- 
 paving and repairing the street, unless the grade 
 is changed. The council may provide that assess- 
 ments shall be payable in from one to ten instal- 
 ments, interest on bonds to be included in" the 
 cost. No public improvement which is to be paid 
 for in part or in whole by special assessments can 
 be made without the concurrence of three-fourths 
 
 371 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of all the members of the council, unless the owners 
 of the majority of the foot frontage to be assessed 
 petition for the improvement. The council is 
 authorized to appoint two citizens, owners of abut- 
 ting property on any street, to serve with the 
 street commissioners in supervising the repair of 
 the street, the planting and taking care of shade 
 trees, and sprinkling, sweeping, and cleaning the 
 street. These citizens, with the street commission- 
 ers, constitute a board which may make contracts 
 for performing the services mentioned. 
 
 In Indianapolis, the board of public works is 
 authorized to apportion damages and benefits when- 
 ever private property is appropriated for street 
 openings or other public uses. In the case of street 
 openings within the city or within four miles of it, 
 a list of owners or holders of property or of valu- 
 able interest therein to be beneficially affected must 
 be prepared. This list must not be confined to 
 owners of property along the line of the proposed 
 work, but must extend to all property taken, 
 benefited, or injuriously affected. Damages and 
 benefits in these condemnation cases are to be 
 awarded without reference to each other, and any 
 balance of benefits over damages accrues to the 
 city. The cost of street improvements is levied 
 according to foot frontage, and the whole cost is 
 paid by such special assessment, except one-half 
 of the cost of street or alley intersections, this 
 portion being levied upon the property abutting 
 upon the intersecting streets and alleys for the 
 372 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 distance of one block in each direction. The 
 assessments are made without reference to as- 
 sessments for taxation. The assessment includes 
 principal and interest, together with the cost of fore- 
 closure and a reasonable attorney's fee where the 
 land has to be sold for collection. Assessments may 
 be paid in ten annual instalments with interest. 
 Any one wishing to take advantage of this privi- 
 lege must sign an agreement within thirty days 
 after the allowance of the final estimate, that he 
 will make no objections to any illegality or irreg- 
 ularity in the assessment of his property. If this 
 agreement is not signed and filed within thirty 
 days, the whole assessment becomes payable in 
 cash. Assessments for sewers, drains, and levees 
 are made in a similar manner. The cost of 
 sprinkling streets is assessed against the adjoining 
 property, while the cost of sweeping or cleaning 
 them is paid out of the city treasury. The board 
 of public works may let contracts for the construc- 
 tion of lamp-posts, the cost to be assessed against 
 the abutting property. The cost of ordinary local 
 sewers is assessed against abutting property, but 
 where the sewer is to provide drainage for a 
 district, the extra cost of making the large sewer 
 is assessed upon all the property of the district 
 including the abutting property. 
 
 The law for the government of cities of the 
 second class in New York provides that the 
 expense of opening or altering streets shall be 
 borne by the franchises and real estate benefited 
 
 373 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 thereby to be assessed in proportion to benefits in 
 the districts of benefits. The expense of improv- 
 ing a street must be assessed upon the property 
 abutting upon the street as nearly as possible in 
 proportion to benefits without reference to any 
 existing improvements. After a street has once 
 been paved and curbed by special assessment, 
 every expense for keeping the street in repair and 
 cleaning from sidewalk to sidewalk must be borne 
 by the whole city, except that the railway compan- 
 ies must keep the street in repair between their 
 tracks and for two feet on each side. The expense 
 for the construction of sewers is borne in the same 
 way as that for opening streets. 
 
 The charter of St. Paul gives the city the 
 authority to condemn land for public parks, 
 markets, all kinds of street improvements, drain- 
 age, etc. The expense of acquiring this land and 
 of making the local improvements is defrayed by 
 special assessment on the real estate benefited, 
 excepting that the construction and maintenance 
 of crosswalks, and sidewalks next to public places, 
 must be paid out of the general fund, and the 
 council may pay the expense of improving or 
 ornamenting parks and paving and grading street 
 intersections wholly or partly out of the general 
 fund. After any local improvement has been 
 determined upon and the contract awarded, it is 
 the duty of the board of public works, before the 
 contract is executed, to determine the district 
 within which property will be specially benefited 
 374 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 by the improvement, and compute the total valua- 
 tion of the property within the district. If the 
 total cost of the improvement exceeds 25 per cent 
 of the assessed valuation, the council may either 
 make provision for the payment of the excess out 
 of the general fund or cancel all proceedings taken 
 thus far. 
 
 By the general laws of Missouri for the gov- 
 ernment of cities of the second class, which have 
 a population of from 20,000 to 100,000, provi- 
 sion is made that the council may cause streets 
 to be improved and, if the improvements are peti- 
 tioned for by the resident real-estate owners own- 
 ing a majority of the foot frontage, may cause the 
 expense of the improvements to be paid by means 
 of " special tax bills," the Missouri term for spe- 
 cial assessments. The cost of constructing side- 
 walks, including curbing and guttering, must in all 
 cases be paid by special tax in accordance with 
 the foot frontage. The cost of grading a street, 
 exclusive of grading the sidewalks, must be 
 charged as a special tax on the adjoining property 
 in accordance with the value of the real estate, 
 exclusive of improvements. The expense of other 
 street improvements is to be levied by special tax 
 according to frontage. When a petition is required 
 for an improvement, it is sufficient if signed by 
 property holders owning a majority of the front 
 feet owned by residents of the city. Special tax 
 bills may be made payable in five equal instal- 
 ments, bearing interest at 7 per cent. Three- 
 
 375 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 fourths of the expense of sprinkling and cleaning 
 streets may be levied by special taxes on the 
 abutting property according to frontage, the 
 remaining one-fourth of the cost to be paid out of 
 the city treasury. Sewers are divided into three 
 classes : public, district, and private sewers. Pub- 
 lic sewers are to be established along the principal 
 courses of drainage and paid for by general tax. 
 District sewers must be paid for by special tax 
 upon all the lots in the whole district in proportion 
 to area. Private sewers may be constructed under 
 public regulations at private expense. 
 
 New York City and Chicago have paid for their 
 street improvements very largely by special assess- 
 ments, but Boston has experienced great difficulties 
 in applying the system. The supreme court of 
 Massachusetts decided, in 1901, that an act author- 
 izing the levy of the whole cost of an improvement 
 upon abutting property was unconstitutional, as it 
 might easily exceed the special benefits in many 
 cases. This decision threw the Boston assessments 
 into great confusion. Mr. Harvey S. Chase, an 
 expert accountant, after making a careful investi- 
 gation, reported that the city would be unable to 
 collect from special assessments more than from 
 25 per cent to 40 per cent of the cost of street and 
 sewer construction.^ However, the decision of the 
 Massachusetts court clearly sustains the funda- 
 mental theory of special assessments, namely, that 
 
 1 Report of the Collecting Department of Boston, City Document 
 83, 1901. 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 real estate specially benefited by a street improve- 
 ment should contribute the whole or a proportion- 
 ate amount of the benefit to defray the cost of 
 the improvement. Otherwise local improvements 
 would be gifts of great value from the city at 
 large to the adjoining property owners. 
 
 The total amount received from special assess- 
 ments in 1 90 1 by the thirty-eight largest cities of 
 the country was something more than ;^ 18,000,000, 
 or not quite as much as was received from liquor 
 licenses. There can be no doubt that special 
 assessments form a legitimate source of revenue 
 for cities, but not, of course, for the general pur- 
 poses of government. Undoubtedly, too, these 
 assessments are often unjustly laid. If the people 
 living on one residence street pave it, those who 
 live on the next street will come over and drive on 
 it. Traffic goes out of its way to seek a well-paved 
 street. In such cases the paving of the street 
 in front of a man's house may be a damage instead 
 of a benefit to him, especially if his business does 
 not require him to use the pavements. It seems 
 reasonable that a portion of the cost of paving 
 should be borne by the city at large, and the 
 remainder assessed against benefited property in 
 proportion to the benefits without reference to 
 whether the property has yet been improved or 
 not. It might be fair to pay a part of the cost of 
 street construction and repair by means of a vehicle 
 and street-car license tax. This would be on the 
 theory that the streets are a public utility for 
 
 377 
 
\ 
 
 THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 which the users should pay. If, on the other hand, 
 we regard the streets as one of the free services that 
 the democratic city owes to its people, then all the 
 cost should be derived from general taxation, 
 except the part that could be raised by special 
 assessments under a strict construction of benefits, 
 giving the property owner the advantage of the 
 doubt in all cases. 
 
 The principal source of municipal income to meet 
 current expenses is, in practically all American 
 cities, the general property tax. Forty-four out of 
 the fifty largest cities got more than half of their 
 ordinary revenue from this source in 1901. Five 
 others received more than half from this source 
 and special assessments, leaving only Washing- 
 ton, with its immense subsidy from the national 
 government, to derive less than half its ordinary 
 revenue from the property tax and special assess- 
 ments. 
 
 The general property tax is conceded to be a 
 failure by economists and practical tax experts. It 
 has been condemned by the history of the world ; 
 yet it lingers on as the basis of our whole tax sys- 
 tem. The attempt made in many states to tax 
 credits as property results in double taxation where 
 successful. Ordinarily it only succeeds in levying 
 a special tax upon honest men and people of small 
 means, and seems so unjust that the average 
 American will perjure himself, if necessary, to 
 escape from it. Credits are, as David A. Wells 
 said, the shadow of property. They should be 
 
 378 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 exempted from taxation both for fiscal and for 
 ethical reasons. 
 
 The case is nearly as strong in regard to all 
 kinds of personal property. The attempt to tax 
 it inevitably leads to gross injustice, because no 
 assessor can even approximately estimate the value 
 of the various kinds of personal property found in 
 cities. Then, too, personal property can in many 
 cases run away or hide itself and so escape taxation. 
 It is notorious that the great bulk of the wealth of 
 the rich in great cities is made up of credits and 
 personal property, most of which now escapes 
 taxation through the most outrageous system of 
 guesswork on the part of the assessors and per- 
 jury on the part of the assessed that could be de- 
 vised. As much as 80 per cent or 90 per cent of 
 the personal property put on the rolls every year 
 by the New York City assessors is sworn off by 
 the poverty-stricken citizens.^ The personal prop- 
 erty assessment in New York City is about ^ of 
 the total assessment; in Chicago J; in Philadelphia, 
 -^|-g- ; in St. Louis, J ; in Boston, |- ; in Baltimore, 
 I ; in Cleveland, ^ ; in Buffalo, j^^ ; in San Fran- 
 cisco, -^^ ; in Pittsburg, y^- ; in Detroit, | ; in Wash- 
 ington, -^Q ; and so on. Wilmington, Delaware, 
 enjoys the distinction of having no personal prop- 
 erty on its tax rolls. 
 
 If personal property were exempted from taxa- 
 tion, the added burden of taxes would fall upon real 
 estate. Now real estate includes land, buildings, 
 
 ^Durand, TAe Finances of Ne%v York City^ pp. 191-195. 
 379 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 other improvements, and franchises. Franchises are 
 rights to the special use of land and are of the same 
 nature as other rights in land. They may properly 
 be classed as landed property. Mr. Henry George 
 and his many followers have favored not only the 
 exemption of credits and personal property, but the 
 exemption of buildings and other improvements as 
 well, leaving the whole burden of general taxation 
 to fall upon land itself. The ** single tax" doctrine 
 is sound for cities, if sound at all ; for in cities the 
 difficulties attending the levy of taxes upon personal 
 property are multiplied, and the evils resulting 
 from land speculation are enormously increased. 
 Special assessments are, in a crude way, based 
 upon the single-tax theory, and whatever is sound 
 in them is the outcome of the idea of taking the 
 " unearned increment" from the private landowner 
 and devoting it to public purposes. In some spe- 
 cial assessment laws specific provision is made that 
 levies upon land for benefits shall be made without 
 reference to whether the land is vacant or has 
 been improved. This is the correct plan, though 
 generally wide departures from it are made. The 
 rankest injustice is performed when the property 
 is levied upon in proportion to its assessment for 
 general taxation. This is unusual, however. Nev- 
 ertheless, a maximum percentage of the assessed 
 valuation is often fixed as the limit of special as- 
 sessments. This might easily work out favorably 
 for the owner of vacant lots, and thus be in direct 
 violation of the theory of the single land tax. 
 
 380 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 It is not generally known what relation the land 
 values of a city bear to the total value of real estate. 
 The city of Boston, however, assesses land and 
 buildings separately, so that personal property 
 and buildings being stricken from the rolls, 
 everything would be ready to put the tax upon 
 land value into operation. The total real-estate 
 assessment of the city for 1900 was ;^902,490,700, 
 of which $532,933,500, or 59 per cent, was land 
 value, and the rest the value of buildings.^ In 
 thirteen out of twenty-five wards the land values 
 were greater than the building values. These 
 wards included the four in the heart of the city 
 having the highest assessments. In the seventh 
 ward, which contains by far the largest amount of 
 property, land values amounted to ;^ 160,000,000, 
 while buildings were not worth quite ;^ 5 8,000,000. 
 During the fifteen years from 1885 to 1900, 
 according to the assessed valuations, land values 
 increased ;^244,ooo,ooo, or a little less than 85 per 
 cent, while the value of the buildings increased 
 1^164,000,000, or about 80 per cent. During 
 the same period the city collected from taxes, 
 
 1 Annual Report of the Assessing Department, City Document 3, 
 1901. Land and buildings are now assessed separately in New 
 York City and Detroit. The Detroit assessment shows land values 
 to be 59 per cent of the total real-estate valuation, the same as in 
 Boston. In New York, taxed land values are about 60 per cent of 
 the total. According to the assessors' figures, the bare land values 
 of the American metropolis, including exempt property, amount to 
 nearly $3,700,000,000. See The Public, Feb. 6, 1904, pp. 690, 691, 
 and Feb. 20, 1904, p. 724. 
 
 # 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 water-rates, and other income besides loans 
 ;^247,627,69i.42, which is practically equal to the 
 amount of the increment in land value during 
 that time, if the assessors* estimates are correct.^ 
 During this same fifteen years the city increased 
 its debt by about ^34,000,000. A tax of 5 per cent 
 per year on land values only would have brought 
 in a revenue of about $300,000,000, or nearly 
 $20,000,000 in excess of all receipts for the period, 
 including water-rates and loans less the amount of 
 loans repaid and the increase of the sinking fund. 
 If the water department be set on one side as a 
 self-supporting public industry, there would have 
 been a further surplus of nearly $30,000^000. 
 This and the decreased expenditure on account of 
 the simplification of the taxing machinery under 
 the single land-tax system would have made a four 
 per cent tax an ample source of revenue for all 
 ordinary and extraordinary municipal purposes. 
 During these years Boston has been making a 
 hard struggle against higher taxes, an increasing 
 debt, and a threatening annual deficit. $240,000,000 
 has meanwhile gone into the pockets of the land- 
 owners from the natural increase in the land values 
 as a result of the growth and industry of the city. 
 
 The theory of the single taxer is simple. He 
 says that the increase in the value of urban lands 
 is the measure of the economic advantages of city 
 life. People live in cities because it pays them to 
 do so. Density of population has certain definite 
 
 1 See Special Publications No. j- of the Statistics Department. 
 383 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 and great advantages for trade and many branches 
 of manufacture. The natural or ''unearned" 
 increment in the value of the land tells from year 
 to year how great these advantages are. But there 
 is a law of compensation applying to city life as 
 well as to all other human things. The city man 
 finds that he must pay for all these advantages of 
 city life. He has to build streets, and then bring 
 water from afar. He has to construct railways 
 and then ride on them to find a place to sleep. 
 He has to buy parks and fit up playgrounds and 
 put manual training into the schools to save his 
 family from physical and moral degeneration. He 
 has to maintain a fire department to save himself 
 and his property from burning, and a police 
 department to keep himself from getting robbed 
 or murdered and to help his wife across the street 
 at dangerous crossings. He has to establish a 
 health department and pay great fees to have his 
 garbage removed and his sick neighbor quaran- 
 tined. 
 
 In brief, just as he reaches out to enjoy the 
 economic advantages of city life, he experiences 
 what I have called the resistance of local interests. 
 The land levies a tax on him for wanting to put it 
 to new and unheard-of uses. When this tax 
 becomes greater than the unearned increment in 
 land value, city life ceases to be economically 
 profitable. It does not pay any longer. The city 
 is too big or too extravagant. Now the single taxer 
 says that our present system of taxation is a misfit 
 
 3^3 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 because it lets the economic advantages of city life 
 be absorbed by the landlords and makes us all help 
 pay for having the disadvantages removed. The 
 expense of city government is a local necessity; 
 it is the tax that the land levies on the people for 
 wanting to live all in one place. Why should not 
 the people turn about and tax the land to keep 
 even .'' That is precisely what is being done all the 
 time by the construction of high buildings, and the 
 laying of a network of pipes and wires under- 
 ground, and all the other devices to get an added 
 use out of land. The trouble is that this tax is 
 absorbed as rent and does not go to balance the 
 other tax at all, except the fraction now taken in 
 the general property tax. 
 
 Clearly, as regards cities at least, the single taxer 
 is right. The only really legitimate source of 
 municipal revenue is the tax on land value. This 
 includes a franchise tax and a vehicle tax, if the 
 city desires to treat the streets like other land and 
 make them self-supporting. Special assessments 
 would disappear as such, for every assessment 
 would be special, — a tax on benefits pure and 
 simple. All public industries of importance would 
 be managed independently on a self-supporting 
 basis. The change from the present system could 
 be made easily by a gradual process of exclusion. 
 If done in this way, the " confiscation " of land 
 would be a no more serious innovation than the 
 confiscation that takes place whenever any new 
 tax is imposed or the ordinary rate of taxation 
 384 
 
MUNICIPAL REVENUES 
 
 increased. But the change ought not to be too 
 gradual, for we have lost a great deal of time 
 already, and the city problem is pressing us hard. 
 An honest and simple tax system is at the basis of 
 good government and healthy civic life. The 
 single tax upon land values is the most promising 
 of all the planks in the program of civic reform, 
 except the change in human nature proposed by 
 the evangelists of the gospel of love. 
 
 2C 
 
 38s 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 Most American cities go into debt whenever 
 they desire to make improvements that will last 
 for a number of years, such as the construction of 
 pavements, bridges, public buildings, sewers, water- 
 works, etc., or the purchase of park lands. It is 
 believed that as the citizens of next year and the 
 following years will have a share in the benefits of 
 these improvements, they ought to help pay for 
 them. This theory is sound when applied to great 
 undertakings that are started as soon as they are 
 needed, so long as the bonds do not run beyond 
 the bona fide life of the improvements. But when 
 improvements are postponed while the original 
 real-estate owners are pocketing their winnings 
 from the first great advance in the advantages of 
 city life, it is unfair to throw the cost of delinquent 
 improvements upon the future, for the simple 
 reason that such a policy will keep the city from 
 ever catching up, each generation having the debt 
 of the preceding one to pay. It is also unfair to 
 issue bonds that will not fall due until after the 
 original improvements are " dead and gone." But 
 even if this unfairness be avoided, it is poor fiscal 
 policy to borrow money for the construction of 
 386, 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 unproductive public works except in cases of real 
 necessity, and then the bonds should be issued for 
 minimum periods. 
 
 New York's per capita debt was, at the begin- 
 ning of 1902, $86.82 as against San Francisco's 
 ^1.48.^ The enormous amount of municipal in- 
 debtedness of most of the large cities imposes a 
 heavy burden upon the current revenues for the 
 payment of interest. All together this amounts 
 annually to about $36,000,000 in the cities of 
 100,000 population. This is a great sum when we 
 remember that waterworks are about the only rev- 
 enue-producing plants of any consequence owned 
 by cities, so that this interest on debt is almost 
 wholly paid out of current taxes. 
 
 All debt is a burden except where it has been 
 issued to provide means for the construction of fully 
 self-supporting commercial plants. In that case 
 the debt is no burden as long as the industry pays 
 the interest on it, and lets the principal stand. If the 
 city takes over an industry with the idea of making 
 a profit from it, the incurring of a debt may be an 
 absolute advantage. But we have concluded in 
 the preceding chapter that it is undemocratic and, 
 in fact, ungovernmental for a city to go into 
 industry for profit. If this principle is accepted, 
 then public industry debts will be neither an 
 advantage nor a disadvantage so long as they 
 remain unpaid. If the city pays them out of taxes, 
 
 ^ See Bulletin of United States Labor Department, September, 
 1902, p. 981, for the total debt of leading American cities. 
 
 387 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 and then collects from the industries less than 
 the normal private rate of interest on the cap- 
 ital invested, the city at large will be the loser 
 financially. 
 
 The long-term bonds issued by the cities of 
 100,000 population in 1901 amounted to more 
 than ;^75, 000,000; while the long-term bonds paid 
 amounted to about ;^2 7,000,000, leaving a net in- 
 crease in the debt of these cities of about ^48,000,- 
 000 for a single year. The increase in debt for the 
 year 1900 was about $50,000,000. The total net 
 debt of these cities at the close of the year 1901 was 
 somewhat more than ;^76o,ooo,ooo. This amounts 
 to only fifteen or sixteen years' debt at the present 
 rate of increase. If this rate keeps up, making no 
 allowance for increase according to increase of 
 population, in the year 1950, these thirty-eight 
 cities will have a debt of about ;^ 3, 200,000,000. 
 The debt in 1900 amounted to a little more than 
 $50 per capita and is increasing in the amount of 
 ;^3.50 per capita per year, on the basis of a station- 
 ary population. The actual rate of increase of the 
 per capita debt seems to be about $1.50 per year. 
 At this rate in 1950 these cities would have a per 
 capita debt of $125.1 
 
 All these figures are based upon the supposition 
 that the cities will continue to follow the general 
 policy in regard to permanent improvements now 
 being pursued. We must remember, however, 
 that the movement toward municipal ownership 
 
 iSee Bulletin^ op. cii., September, 1901, and September, 1902. 
 388 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 is a strong one, and that before another fifty years 
 comes around, there is likely to be a vast increase 
 of municipal debt on account of the purchase or 
 construction of gas and electric light works, street 
 railways, telephones, etc. Municipal ownership 
 should not be discredited because of its tendency 
 to increase the municipal debt, provided that the 
 new enterprises of the city are made to be fully 
 self-sustaining. Indeed, the increase in indebted- 
 ness on account of taking over public utihties will 
 be to a great extent only a nominal increase ; for 
 all franchises now in private hands are in reality 
 mortgages upon the streets to the full extent of 
 their market value, and should be added to the 
 other debts of the city if we desire to ascertain its 
 total obligations. If Mr. Maltbie's estimate of the 
 value of Chicago's street-railway franchises is 
 correct, the real debt of that city on account of 
 this class of franchises alone is ;?75, 000,000, or 
 double the nominal city debt.^ 
 
 This is such an important proposition that we 
 need to consider it with some care. A franchise is 
 a special right to the use of the street for a definite 
 or indefinite period, or forever. In granting a 
 franchise the city binds itself to deliver to the 
 grantee the use of the street to the extent named 
 in the contract every year until the expiration of 
 the grant. This delivery of the use of the street is 
 equivalent to an annual payment into a sinking 
 
 1 See Municipal Affairs^ June, 1901, for an article on "Chicago 
 Street Railways," to which reference has already been made. 
 
 389 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 fund for the liquidation of the franchise. If the 
 city has sold the franchise and used the money, it 
 has amounted to raising a loan by pledging a 
 certain use of the street or a certain part of the 
 revenues of the street. If the city receives an 
 annual payment to the full amount of the annual 
 value of the franchise, then no debt is created, for 
 the city has given nothing away, and receives from 
 year to year dollar for dollar of the use value 
 delivered to the franchise-holder during the year. 
 If, however, a valuable franchise has been given 
 away, the city has indebted itself to the extent of 
 the value of the franchise just the same as if it had 
 issued bonds to that amount, a certain proportion 
 of them to fall due every year during the period, 
 but had received nothing for the bonds. The 
 value of the franchise as delivered in instalments 
 from year to year equals the original value plus 
 interest charges. Giving away a franchise is like 
 giving away bonds to the amount of the present 
 value of the franchise. Selling a franchise for a 
 lump sum is like selling bonds. 
 
 Taking these facts into consideration we find 
 American cities in a much more deplorable condi- 
 tion at the present time than is shown on the face 
 of the debt statements. At the same time the 
 prospective increase in debt on account of taking 
 over public utilities is seen to be nothing to cause 
 alarm, at least so far as the value of the franchises 
 is concerned. To resume the franchises, unless 
 the city pays more than they are worth, will be 
 
 390 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 simply to convert one sort of obligations into an- 
 other, or, if you please, to fund a floating debt. So 
 far as the actual cost of public utility plants is con- 
 cerned, there will be a real increase in debt which 
 will add to the burden of the taxpayers unless 
 these plants are made absolutely self-supporting. 
 
 In most American cities the suffrage is suffi- 
 ciently democratic so that practically all resident 
 male citizens are entitled to equal voice in the 
 conduct of the government. It is easy to see that 
 the right to impose unlimited debt upon a city is 
 equivalent to the ultimate ownership of all the 
 real estate in the city ; for a man cannot mortgage 
 a house and lot unless they are his. In so far as 
 the voters have a right to bond the city, in so far 
 all the lands and buildings within the city ulti- 
 mately belong to the voters. Yet Americans are 
 jealous of the rights of private property and feel 
 the necessity of protecting themselves from the 
 ultimate community ownership that is the logical 
 result of democratic sovereignty. 
 
 This protection, where it has been secured, has 
 been the outgrowth of one of two policies, namely, 
 first, the limitation of the suffrage in voting upon 
 bond issues; and second, the limitation of the 
 debt which any given locality may impose upon 
 itself. The former policy would so far infringe 
 upon the principles of democracy as to permit only 
 taxpayers or freeholders to vote, or to hold office. 
 When a freehold qualification is required for mem- 
 bers of the city council and the mayor, and the 
 
 391 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 people are not authorized to vote directly upon the 
 issue of bonds, the limitation amounts to a good 
 deal even where the suffrage has no taxpaying 
 qualifications. Whenever property qualifications 
 for voting on bond issues are required, the demo- 
 cratic principle is applied among the actual voters, 
 so that a man who pays taxes on $1000 valuation 
 has the same vote as the one who pays on ;^ 1,000,000. 
 Though a good many instances can be pointed out, 
 where property and taxpaying qualifications have 
 been relied on to curtail debt, generally speaking, 
 this Umitation of the suffrage or of office-holding 
 is not popular in America. 
 
 The more common device for protecting private 
 property from confiscation by vote of the property- 
 less electors is to limit the rate of debt or taxation, 
 or both, that may be voted by any locality. Of 
 the largest cities only seven have no debt limit. 
 These are Baltimore, St. Paul, Toledo, Columbus, 
 Cincinnati, Newark, and Jersey City.^ The per 
 capita debt of these cities is about $62, approxi- 
 mately 20 per cent above the average. Four cities, 
 New Orleans, Washington, New Haven, and Mem- 
 phis, have their borrowing powers controlled from 
 time to time by the state and national legislatures. 
 Their per capita debt is about $48.50, which is 
 slightly less than the average. The other cities 
 have debt limits fixed by constitution or statute at 
 from 2 per cent to 30 per cent of assessed valua- 
 tion for taxing purposes. In a number of cases 
 
 1 See Statistics of Cities^ op. cit., September, 1 902. 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 the water debt lies outside the limit. Sometimes 
 the limit can be raised by popular vote. Boston, 
 with its limit of 2| per cent on the average assessed 
 valuation for the preceding three years, has a per 
 capita debt 60 per cent above the average. This 
 is made possible by excluding much of the debt 
 from the Hmit and by extremely high assessments. 
 Chicago, with its 5 per cent limit, has a debt 60 per 
 cent below the average. This is made necessary 
 by extremely low assessments. 
 
 So long as the fixing of the debt limit is left to a 
 state legislature elected by manhood suffrage, or 
 to a state constitution adopted by equal vote of all 
 the people, there is no violation of the principles 
 of democracy involved in the Hmitation of munic- 
 ipal indebtedness. Private property is maintained 
 by the state, and no claim can be set up, on the 
 ground of democracy, that the people of a city 
 should have the right to confiscate the property of 
 their fellow-citizens against the will of the state 
 as expressed in its constitution and statutes. In 
 short, municipal debt is one of the fields of mu- 
 nicipal government where the state must retain the 
 right of control either through the legislature or 
 the administrative authorities, or by means of con- 
 stitutional limitations. 
 
 In some of the states the constitutions require 
 the legislature to limit the powers of the cities in 
 levying taxes, incurring debt, and loaning their 
 credits. This method of controlling municipal 
 debt has not proven very satisfactory. Except in 
 
 393 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 extreme cases, the state legislature is not con- 
 cerned about the issue of city bonds, and grants 
 the authority upon request of the local represen- 
 tatives in the legislature. The National Munici- 
 pal League proposes a constitutional debt limit 
 of a certain per cent of the assessed value of real 
 estate, but would not include within this limit tem- 
 porary loans or loans made for the construction of 
 public utilities which actually support themselves. 
 Professor Tooke has suggested that all debts in- 
 curred on behalf of public utility plants should be 
 a lien upon those plants alone, and consequently 
 not rest as an ultimate burden upon the general 
 property rolls of the city.^ 
 
 This whole question of municipal debt is one of 
 grave difficulty. The duty of the state to protect 
 its own sources of revenue, the right of the private 
 owner of real estate to the possession of his prop- 
 erty under the law, the right of the city to gov- 
 ern itself and work out its own destiny, and the 
 right of future, generations to pay their own debt 
 and not ours, seem to conflict in many points. It 
 seems reasonable to believe that the best solution 
 of the difficulty would be to place a general limit 
 upon local indebtedness by constitution or statute 
 and leave the determination of the issue of bonds 
 within that limit to popular vote in the locality, 
 subject to the approval of a state fiscal officer or 
 
 1 Charles W. Tooke, Constitutional Limitations of Municipal 
 Indebtedness, reprinted from the proceedings of the Syracuse Con- 
 vention of the League of American Municipalities. 
 
 394 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 board whose duty it would be carefully to examine 
 existing conditions of the municipal debt and see 
 that the provisions of the law had been lived up to 
 before approving any bond issue. 
 
 One of the conditions universally applying to 
 municipal bond issues for unproductive improve- 
 ments should be the establishment of sinking 
 funds and sufficient annual payments from taxes 
 to provide for the redemption of the bonds at the 
 expiration of their terms. Of course, if all bond 
 issues were arranged so that an equal amount 
 would fall due each year and be paid out of cur- 
 rent revenues, there would be no need of sinking 
 funds. Bond issues for productive enterprises 
 may be for longer terms than other bonds. But 
 there should in no case be a permanent debt any 
 more than there should be a grant of perpetual 
 franchises. In general, debts should be made due 
 soon and paid when due. There will always be 
 enough reason for creating new debts for new im- 
 provements, so that the old debts ought to be got 
 out of the way as quickly as possible. 
 
 In order to be able to judge a little more intel- 
 ligently as to the best policy for correcting the 
 grave abuses of municipal credit and putting our 
 cities on a more honorable basis with reference 
 to the future, let us examine somewhat in detail 
 the bond issues of one or two American cities, and 
 see for what purposes municipal debt is incurred. 
 The comptroller's report of the city of New York 
 for the year 1901 showed that on December 31 
 
 395 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of that year the gross funded debt of the city was 
 $416,262,22^.61. The schedule of the various 
 series of bonds making up this total fills seventy 
 printed pages. The distribution of this debt was 
 about as follows : — 
 
 For water-supply and waterworks $75,000,000 
 
 For street improvements and sewers 70,000,000 
 
 For parks and boulevards 54,000,000 
 
 For docks and ferries 46,000,000 
 
 For school sites and schoolhouses 44,000,000 
 
 For bridges 39,000,000 
 
 For rapid transit tunnel construction 12,000,000 
 
 For museums 9,000,000 
 
 For sites and buildings for administrative purposes 27,000,000 
 For refunding old debt, for paying judgments, and 
 
 for miscellaneous purposes 40,000,000 
 
 It is impossible to analyze closely the last item 
 of ;^40,ooo,ooo, most of it being made up of refund- 
 ing bonds and old county bonds, with no indication 
 as to the specific purposes for which the debt was 
 originally incurred. 
 
 During the thirty years from 1870 to 1900 the 
 city of Boston created debts amounting to a total 
 of ;^i24,753,io8.65.i 
 
 This amount was distributed as follows : — 
 
 For water-supply and waterworks $18,133,711.11 
 
 For street improvements and sewers . . . . 59,520,151.74 
 
 For parks and public grounds 15,444,760.98 
 
 For ferries 724,000.00 
 
 1 See Special Publications No. j, Statistics Department, City of 
 Boston, Table III A. 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 For school sites and schoolhouses $7,917,822.07 
 
 For bridges 3,609,716.66 
 
 For rapid transit 4,700,000.00 
 
 For public library 2,947,900.00 
 
 For sites, buildings, and equipment for admin- 
 istrative purposes -. . 10,454,246.09 
 
 For miscellaneous purposes 1,300,800.00 
 
 We have already referred to Boston's debt limit 
 being fixed at 2J per cent of the average valuation 
 of taxable property during the preceding three 
 years. It should be noted that of the 1^77,000,000 
 debt created between 1885 and 1900, $40,000,000 
 came outside of the debt limit by authority of special 
 statutes, and the $64,000,000 water debt created 
 was also excepted from the debt limit. This shows 
 how frail a thing a debt limit is when established 
 by statute. In this case 40 per cent of the debt 
 created came within the rule and 60 per cent within 
 the exception. 
 
 Along with the debt statements of Boston and 
 New York we may set that of Grand Rapids, a 
 much smaller city, and one that has only one-fourth 
 as much debt per capita. The total indebtedness 
 of this city on July i, 1903, was $2,212,000, distrib- 
 uted as follows : — 
 
 For water-supply and waterworks $935,000 
 
 For street improvements 400,000 
 
 For school sites and schoolhouses 227,000 
 
 For bridges 150,000 
 
 For city hall and for market site 225,000 
 
 For electric light works 125,000 
 
 For current expenses incurred about ten years ago . 1 50,000 
 
 397 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 These analyses show in a general way the pur- 
 poses for which debt is incurred. The Grand 
 Rapids waterworks have cost to date about 
 ;^ 1, 500,000, or over 60 per cent more than the 
 present water debt. The works were begun about 
 thirty years ago, and very little of the original debt 
 has ever been paid off, but the water department 
 has followed a conservative policy and paid for 
 considerable construction from year to year out of 
 revenues or taxes. New York City's waterworks 
 have cost more than $123,000,000, while the debt 
 is only about ;^75,ooo,ooo, unless some water debt 
 is concealed in the refunded debt. The New York 
 waterworks have been going for about seventy years 
 however, and the city might be expected to have 
 paid off all the original debt and the debt incurred 
 for extensions and renewals during the first thirty 
 or forty years. 
 
 On October 29, 1903, the people of San Fran- 
 cisco voted by more than two-thirds majority to 
 bond the city for forty years for $17,741,000 for 
 the following purposes : — 
 
 For repaying streets $1,621,000 
 
 For building sewers 7,250,000 
 
 For school sites and buildings 3?595jOoo 
 
 For a public library 1,647,000 
 
 For a city and county hospital . : 1,000,000 
 
 For a new jail and addition to hall of justice . . 697,000 
 
 For public parks 1,220,000 
 
 For playgrounds 771,000 
 
 398 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 This enormous bond issue was heartily supported 
 by the Merchants' Association of San Francisco, 
 and undoubtedly represents the dehberate judg- 
 ment of the city.^ The municipal debt springs at a 
 single bound from $250,000 to about ;^ 18,000,000, 
 or $50 per capita. None of the contemplated im- 
 provements will be productive. San Francisco 
 ov/ns no public utilities. At the same election at 
 which these bonds were authorized, the people 
 failed to approve by the necessary two-thirds vote 
 the proposition to buy one of the street-car lines. 
 The vote on this question stood 14,381 for the pur- 
 chase and 10,757 against it. Only a few years ago 
 the city adopted a charter which declared unequiv- 
 ocally in favor of the municipal ownership of all 
 public utilities. Yet now the city plunges into debt 
 at the rate of ;^5o per capita for unproductive im- 
 provements. If the city desired to municipalize 
 the waterworks alone, it would involve a further 
 debt of about $30,000,000,2 gQ ^-j^^i- ^-j^g^ San Fran- 
 cisco would have a debt of $135 for every in- 
 habitant, which would be much the largest per 
 capita debt among great American cities. 
 
 A large proportion of the debt of most cities is 
 for street improvements and sewers. Often this 
 debt only nominally belongs to the city as a whole, 
 provision being made to pay it off by the collection 
 
 ^ See Merchants' Association Review, October and November, 
 1903. 
 
 ^ See Municipal Affairs, June, 19CX), for an article by A. S. Bald- 
 win, entitled " Shall San P^ancisco Municipalize its Water-supply? " 
 
 399 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 of special assessments from the owners of bene- 
 fited property. In Grand Rapids all street improve- 
 ment bonds are paid in this way. In many other 
 cities conditions are different. In so far as street 
 improvements are a direct benefit to abutting prop- 
 erty, it is manifestly improper for a city to incur a 
 debt on their account unless as the agent for the 
 property owners who are unable to pay except 
 on the instalment plan. In so far as street im- 
 provements benefit the city as a whole, they should 
 be paid for out of taxation, and there is no good 
 reason for running into debt on account of them, 
 except when there is an extraordinary congestion 
 of improvements in some one year so that it seems 
 desirable to keep down the taxes approximately to 
 the normal rate. 
 
 Another large share of municipal debt has been 
 incurred for school purposes. It seems unfortu- 
 nate to have to borrow money to educate our 
 children so that they will in turn have to borrow 
 money to educate their children, and the school- 
 houses and grounds continue to be in large part 
 the property of the city's bondholders. It seems 
 particularly unfitting that New York City, with her 
 immense wealth and stupendous display, should be 
 running deeper and deeper into debt for schools. 
 
 Unquestionably we must call a halt in the piling 
 up of debts for our children to pay. The loails 
 we make should be for shorter periods, better 
 provision should be made for paying them when 
 they fall due, and more so-called permanent invest- 
 400 
 
MUNICIPAL DEBT 
 
 merits should be made out of the annual revenues. 
 The appalling danger of a rapidly increasing debt 
 lies in the fact that the future needs of a growing 
 city are sure to compel many radical reconstruc- 
 tions in addition to the natural expansion of func- 
 tions where population is rapidly increasing. 
 
 2D 
 
 401 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 In the preceding chapters we have discussed 
 many proposed remedies for existing evils. These 
 are all ultimately dependent upon the transforma- 
 tion of our ethical standards. Yet that transfor- 
 mation cannot take place by a turn of the wheel. 
 If it is brought about at all, it will be by the steady 
 and manifold efforts of citizens to carry through 
 specific reforms. All over the United States to-day 
 in all the principal cities there are organizations 
 working to this end. Indeed, there are several 
 national organizations, made up of affiliated local 
 bodies that recognize the national import of the 
 city problem. It may be of interest to describe 
 briefly some of these organizations in order to 
 measure, as far as possible, the forces that are 
 working in definite ways to bring about civic 
 betterment. 
 
 In January, 1894, the first National Conference 
 for good city government was held in Philadel- 
 phia. As an outcome of the meeting the National 
 Municipal League was formed a few months later, 
 its membership being composed of local leagues in 
 various cities. Since that time national confer- 
 402 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 ences have been held in Minneapolis, Cleveland, 
 Baltimore, Louisville, Indianapolis, Columbus, Mil- 
 waukee, Rochester, Boston, and Detroit. After 
 each conference a volume is published containing 
 the reports of proceedings, together with the papers 
 and addresses presented at the meeting. The 
 result of this policy has been the putting forth of 
 ten volumes which constitute a valuable library on 
 municipal conditions in the United States. At 
 first the league confined itself principally to the col- 
 lection of information as to the actual condition of 
 affairs in different cities of the country. After 
 three or four years it became apparent to the 
 moving spirits of the league that the reformers 
 of the country needed a constructive program. As 
 a result a special committee of seven, ^ which num- 
 bered among its members several leading students 
 of municipal politics, was appointed to collate the 
 manifold lessons of municipal experience in the 
 various localities of the United States, and present 
 a practicable working plan for the guidance of 
 municipal reformers throughout the country. The 
 final report of this committee was made at the 
 end of two years' study, adopted by the league 
 and embodied in A Municipal Program, ^ to which 
 
 1 The members were Horace E. Deming, Esq., Prof. Frank J. 
 Goodnow, Dr. Albert Shaw, Prof. L. S. Rowe, Clinton Rogers 
 Woodruff, Esq., Charles Richardson, Esq., and George W. Guthrie, 
 Esq. 
 
 ^ Published by the Macmillan Company for the National Munici- 
 pal League. 
 
 403 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 several references have already been made in this 
 book. This program consists of two parts : — 
 
 Firsts a series of constitutional amendments suited 
 for adoption in the fundamental laws of the various 
 commonwealths. These amendments contained in 
 outline the reforms which, in the judgment of the 
 league, ought to be guaranteed beyond the caprice 
 of the state legislatures.^ 
 
 Second, a general municipal corporations act suit- 
 able for adoption by the various state legislatures to 
 supplement and carry out the proposed constitu- 
 tional amendments. 
 
 This program has attracted wide attention, and 
 has already had a marked influence on new legis- 
 lation in some states and cities. The program un- 
 doubtedly has helped to clear the air and crystallize 
 into practical form the best judgment of students 
 of our municipal problems as to the legislative re- 
 forms needed. 
 
 After the adoption of the "program," the league 
 established two other important special committees, 
 one on the subject of "Instruction in Municipal Gov- 
 ernment in American Educational Institutions," and 
 the other on " Uniform Municipal Accounting and 
 Statistics." These committees also have done excel- 
 lent work, especially the latter, which devised sched- 
 ules for municipal reports that have already been 
 made use of in several cities and that promise to lead 
 the way toward a rational system of accounting.^ 
 
 1 See ante, pp. 333-335, for a summary of these measures. 
 
 2 See ante, p. 309. 
 
 404 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 Another national organization, in some respects 
 more important than the one we have just been dis- 
 cussing, is the League of American Municipalities, 
 which is composed, as the name implies, of affiliated 
 cities. The delegates to the meetings of this or- 
 ganization are city officials, men who are grappling 
 at first hand with problems of government which the 
 reformers approach, to a considerable extent, from 
 the theoretical standpoint. These meetings are 
 held annually, one year in one city and the next in 
 another. The papers and proceedings are published, 
 and are a distinct contribution to the literature of 
 city government. There is an excellent semi-official 
 monthly magazine, the Municipal Journal and En- 
 gineer^ which makes the league more useful by fur- 
 nishing a medium for education along the practical 
 lines of civic work. The league gets its greatest use- 
 fulness from being a sort of clearing-house for the 
 experience of cities in practical administration. At 
 last the idea has dawned upon the city officials in 
 many cities that municipal administration demands 
 a special degree of intelligence. This is a most 
 important step toward the rescue of our cities 
 from the unreasoning domination of state and 
 national party politics. 
 
 As an outgrowth of the League of American 
 Municipalities several state leagues of cities have 
 been formed, and in some cases are doing impor- 
 tant work in the education of the officials of small 
 and medium-sized cities. The California league 
 has had a particularly vigorous life. So far as 
 
 405 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 sheer usefulness goes, the state leagues ought to 
 be of more importance to the smaller cities than 
 the national organization, for it is within the indi- 
 vidual states that legislation affecting cities has to 
 be secured. The appalling decentralization of state 
 administration was curiously illustrated soon after 
 the California league was organized. The secre- 
 tary of the league wrote to the secretary of state 
 for a complete list of the incorporated cities in Cali- 
 fornia. The list as furnished contained at least 
 thirteen cities that, upon investigation, were found 
 to be no longer performing municipal functions.^ 
 
 Besides the two national bodies we have described 
 there are a number of organizations for special pur- 
 poses, such as the American Park and Outdoor 
 Art Association, the American League for Civic 
 Improvement, and the American Society of Mu- 
 nicipal Improvements. There are organizations for 
 the waterworks men and also for the health boards 
 and health officers. Indeed, intermunicipal organ- 
 ization has become so much appreciated that it may 
 perhaps be overdone. The main duty of public 
 officials is to stay at home and attend to their offi- 
 cial functions. Trips of inspection, conventions, 
 and the like should never be permitted to take the 
 place of honest effort to make practical use of the 
 knowledge already possessed. Nevertheless, it is 
 a hopeful sign of the times that both citizen re- 
 formers and municipal officials are organizing for 
 discussion and enlightenment. 
 
 1 See California Municipalities, 1899. 
 406 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 Improvements have to be worked out practically 
 in the home city. For this reason, strictly local 
 organizations are almost as interesting to us as 
 national and state bodies. There are hundreds of 
 municipal leagues, civic clubs, taxpayers' associa- 
 tions, and the like, in the United States ; but their 
 purposes and the principles of their organization 
 are by no means uniform. The following may be 
 considered as the leading types: — 
 
 1. The citizens' party. 
 
 2. The voters' non-partisan league. 
 
 3. The taxpayers' association. 
 
 4. The law and order league. 
 
 5. The civic improvement club. 
 
 (i) The citizens' party has not thus far devel- 
 oped continuity of life in many cities, though there 
 are frequent instances of its temporary success. 
 The World Almanac for 1902 gives statistics of 
 103 cities.^ The mayors are classed as Republicans 
 or Democrats in all but five of these. In New 
 York, Mr. Seth Low was elected by a non-partisan 
 fusion movement headed by the Citizens' Union. 
 Mayor S. M. Jones, of Toledo, and Mayor Charles 
 S. Ashley, of New Bedford, were independent 
 mayors elected by their personal followers. Mayor 
 Eugene E. Schmitz, of San Francisco, was elected 
 by the Labor Union party. The mayor of Des 
 Moines, Iowa, was the other independent mayor, 
 but I do not know his particular brand of indepen- 
 dence. There are more or less permanent citizens' 
 
 ^ pp. 393-394. 
 407 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 parties in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1896 there 
 was a citizens' party organized in Biddef ord, Maine, 
 and after four annual elections in which it came off 
 successful, the old parties ceased to put up can- 
 didates.i Citizens' movements for the nomination 
 of candidates have a better chance of success in the 
 smaller cities, because in them partisans have less 
 at stake in the offices. 
 
 (2) The second type of local reform organization 
 is the voters' league. The Municipal Voters' League 
 of Chicago has won great fame throughout the 
 country. It was organized in 1 896 with the defi- 
 nite purpose of redeeming the city council from 
 the boodlers. At that time fifty-eight out of sixty- 
 eight aldermen were organized for public plunder .^ 
 The league set about a careful investigation of 
 the records of all candidates for aldermen, pub- 
 lished its findings, and recommended for election 
 only such as were believed to be aggressively 
 honest, without regard to party. After the fourth 
 annual campaign Chicago had a majority of 
 " honest " aldermen, and in 1903 after four more 
 campaigns there were only seventeen out of 
 seventy aldermen not enjoying the confidence 
 of the league. The league pledged its candidates 
 
 1 See Rochester Conference for Good City Government^ pp. 124- 
 127. 
 
 2 An extremely interesting account of the Chicago Municipal 
 "Voters' League by Frank H. Scott, vice-president of the organ- 
 ization, is found in the Detroit Conference for Good City Govern- 
 ment, pp. 147-157- 
 
 408 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 to a non-partisan organization of the council. This 
 is now secured by the appointment of committees 
 agreed upon by the representatives of the two 
 parties in the council. The influence of the league 
 is enormous, and to its credit must be placed the 
 fact that Chicago now has by far the best council 
 of any of the half dozen largest cities in the United 
 States. If no change for the better had been 
 brought about, the city would no doubt have been 
 despoiled ere now of new street-railway franchises 
 without any considerable protection of the public. 
 As it is, there is some reason to hope that Chicago 
 is in a position to settle the street-railway problem 
 pretty nearly on its merits. Candidates for alder- 
 men are given a chance to sign the program of the 
 Voters' League, which includes non-partisanship 
 in council matters, the enforcement of the civil- 
 service law, the keeping of the appropriations 
 within the revenues and the reservation in all 
 public utility franchises of opportunity for munici- 
 pal ownership. 
 
 Several other cities have organizations of a some- 
 what similar nature, based on the theory that the 
 voters will elect good men to municipal office with 
 little regard to party if the facts in regard to can- 
 didates are presented to the people impartially. 
 Cleveland has its Municipal Association which pre- 
 sents its records of candidates and makes recom- 
 mendations for all city, county, and school offices. 
 Salem, Massachusetts, has a Municipal Record 
 Association, which tabulates and publishes the 
 409 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 votes given by aldermen on all important proposi- 
 tions coming before the city council. 
 
 (3) The taxpayers' associations are generally 
 organized for the purpose of investigating financial 
 abuses and the waste of public funds. They are 
 based on the theory that the direct taxpayers have 
 a special interest in city affairs, and that financial 
 honesty and economy are the desideratum of good 
 municipal government. As a rule, they do not at- 
 tack or recommend candidates, but give publicity 
 to abuses and strive to improve the system of law 
 and administration under which the abuses have 
 arisen. The Civic Club of Grand Rapids is an 
 organization of this kind. The City Club of New 
 York follows this general line of activity. The 
 Taxpayers' League of Portland, Oregon, was or- 
 ganized in 1899, with the following declared ob- 
 jects : — 
 
 {a) " The uniting of all taxpayers in one poten- 
 tial non-political centre of force for the purpose of 
 promoting the general welfare of this city. 
 
 {b) "To place municipal and county administra- 
 tion on a purely business basis. 
 
 {c) "To maintain and enforce the law and to 
 reduce the expense of our county and city admin- 
 istration to the lowest cost consistent with good 
 government. 
 
 {d) " To protect in every lawful way the rights 
 of the people of this city and county. 
 
 {e) " To suggest and endeavor to have adopted 
 new laws or amendments to existing laws where 
 410 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 experience demonstrates the necessity for such 
 change." 
 
 As an outgrowth of the work of this league, 
 Portland has secured its new charter, to which 
 several references have been made in preceding 
 chapters. 
 
 (4) The law and order leagues are generally or- 
 ganized for the purpose of securing the enforcement 
 of liquor laws and the laws against gambling and 
 vice. They often derive their main support from 
 the churches and the temperance element. They 
 are rather unpopular with business men, because 
 these leagues stand for uncomfortable rigidity in 
 public morals. To those who work in law and 
 order leagues, moral backbone seems to be the 
 supreme need of public officials. The work of 
 these societies is invited and made necessary by 
 the entrance of the saloon into politics, the corrupt 
 alliance between the police and the vicious classes, 
 and the appalling lawlessness that pervades many 
 American communities and causes, not only the 
 general deterioration of health and morals, but 
 occasional calamities which, like the Iroquois 
 theatre fire in Chicago, shock the community into 
 a temporary realization of the importance of law 
 and official responsibility. 
 
 (5) Civic improvement clubs are organizations 
 of citizens who believe that reformers should have a 
 more definite and tangible policy than mere honesty. 
 They set about to do some positive work for the 
 betterment of the city. They may ask for clean 
 
 411 
 
i 
 
 THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 streets, or better pavements, or a pure water-supply, 
 or larger parks. They stand for progress prima- 
 rily, — economy, honesty, and law-enforcement 
 being to them incidental to efficient municipal 
 service; the one great purpose of city government. 
 \ Boards of trade and chambers of commerce often 
 enter this field for a part of their work. The 
 most notable single organization working along 
 these lines is, probably, the Merchants' Association 
 of San Francisco, which was organized about 1894 
 with 47 members, and has grown in ten years to 
 include on its rolls the names of more than 1300 
 business men and firms. The association prints a 
 monthly Review in an edition of 6000 copies 
 which are distributed free. The association, by 
 taking the contract and doing the work itself, 
 demonstrated that the streets of San Francisco 
 could be cleaned. It has also constructed and 
 presented to the city a well-equipped public con- 
 venience station under the sidewalk on a down- 
 town square, and an " isle of safety " in one of the 
 crowded streets, in order to show the city the util- 
 ity of these improvements. It has for years taken 
 an influential part in the civic life of the commu- 
 nity, and has helped to secure the new charter with 
 its civil-service reform provisions, and the immense 
 bond issue recently voted for sewers, pavements, 
 parks, playgrounds, and pubhc buildings. 
 
 It is true that few reform organizations confine 
 themselves strictly to any one of the five main lines 
 of activity that I have described. Yet nearly all 
 
 412 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 municipal leagues lay particular emphasis on one 
 or another of these policies. Many more organi- 
 zations are comparatively unsuccessful than are 
 successful. Yet a review of the struggles for re- 
 form in the cities of the United States during the 
 past ten years shows a marvellous development of 
 public interest and an irrepressible tendency tow- 
 ard agitation and education. If, from the stand- 
 point of municipal shortcomings, the outlook is 
 rather pessimistic, on the other hand, the splendid 
 vitality of citizenship shown in the civic awakenings 
 of the last decade gives us good ground for hope. 
 Indeed, the most cheerful thing for us in the pres- 
 ent high efficiency of city government in Great 
 Britain lies in the fact that, seventy years ago, 
 British municipal administration was more hope- 
 lessly corrupt than ours now is. True, English 
 cities began to work out their problems long before 
 suffrage became almost universal, long before street 
 franchises obtained their present enormous values, 
 and in a country where urban population is homo- 
 geneous. Yet our American cities along with their 
 greater difficulties have some advantages over the 
 British cities of seventy years ago. Universal 
 popular education and the characteristic hopeful- 
 ness and energy of the American people are im- 
 portant elements in the outlook for better city 
 government in the United States. There is noth- 
 ing, however, in the general municipal situation to 
 comfort the citizen who is not himself giving his 
 personal attention to civic betterment. 
 413 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 The fundamental plank in the program of civic 
 reform must be a greater honesty in our ideas of 
 wealth and our industrial relations. We have noted 
 the main lines along which citizens now organize 
 for reform purposes. Let us resume and elaborate 
 our program. The first necessity of democracy is 
 that productive labor be universally respected. The 
 most promising means for the attainment of this 
 end is the extension of manual training and indus- 
 trial education in the schools. Along with this 
 must go the public provision of the necessary 
 gardens, laboratories, and workshops for the use of 
 the children. Along this line also is the organization 
 of the children into leagues for civic improvement 
 and the performance of certain civic functions. In 
 the first place ^ therefore^ let every municipal reformer 
 give his hearty support to every effort that may be 
 made to set the children of the city at work in con- 
 nection with their education. 
 
 The second great necessity is that citizens should 
 realize their interest in civic affairs by feeling the 
 burden and enjoying the benefits of city government. 
 This is chiefly hindered by a dishonest system of 
 taxation and the grant of special privileges. Taxa- 
 tion should be so arranged that every citizen would 
 contribute directly to the support of government in 
 proportion to his privileges. Either special fran- 
 chise values should be wiped out under private or 
 public management, or they should be treated like 
 other exclusive rights to the use of land and their 
 benefits be drawn into the public treasury. In the 
 
 414 
 
A PROGRAM OF CIVIC EFFORT 
 
 second place, therefore, let every municipal reformer 
 support every effort that may be made to exempt 
 credits, personal property, and, ujtimately, improve- 
 ments from taxation, to bring fratichise values upon 
 the tax rolls, and to obtain for the public full value 
 for every franchise granted, either by itnproved ser- 
 vice and lower charges or by an annual rental paid 
 into the city treasury. 
 
 The third necessity of democracy is that the peo- 
 ple's deliberate judgment in any community shall 
 be freely expressed and honestly carried out. The 
 hiatus that exists between the liquor laws and the 
 laws against vice, on the one hand, and the stand- 
 ard of law enforcement supported by public sen- 
 timent, on the other, is in cities a standing bribe 
 offered to police officials to enter into corrupt alli- 
 ance with vice and crime. This bribe is often ac- 
 cepted, with baleful consequences to the city. In 
 order to unify municipal policy and remove the civic 
 hypocrisy that now paralyzes the arm of city gov- 
 ernment, we must have laws made and enforced 
 by officers responsible to the same constituency. 
 In order to make the popular will effective as the 
 public will, we must reserve to the people the right 
 of passing upon measures directly. In the third 
 place, therefore, let every mtmicipal reformer support 
 every effort to bring about municipal home rule in 
 local affairs, central administrative control in state 
 affairs, and the initiative, the referendum, and the 
 recall. 
 
 415 
 
THE AMERICAN CITY 
 
 These three principles — 
 (I) Universal respect for labor, 
 (II) Universal participation in the burdens and 
 
 benefits of government, 
 III) Direct responsibility of the people for the 
 \ control of their own public affairs — 
 
 are the bases on which the success of democracy 
 in American cities depends, — and if democracy 
 fails here, the story of America will be a closed 
 chapter in the annals of freedom. 
 
 416 
 
INDEX 
 
 American League for Civic Im- 
 provement, work of, for civic 
 education, ii8, 119. 
 
 Baldwin, William H., Jr., views on 
 protection of vice, 132, 133. 
 
 Baltimore, streets owned by street 
 railways in, 31 ; board of esti- 
 mates of, 286. 
 
 Baths, in schools, 115, 116, 165; 
 public, in American cities, 163- 
 165. 
 
 Boards of estimate and apportion- 
 ment, in New York City, 283- 
 285; in New Haven, 285, 286; in 
 other cities, 286. 
 
 Booth, Charles, views of, in regard 
 to transportation problem of 
 London, 44 note. 
 
 Boston, public gymnasia in, 116; 
 pleasure grounds of, 162 note ; 
 public baths of, 164; municipal 
 printing plant of, 222, 223; 
 woman suffrage in, 248, 249; 
 mayor's cabinet in, 301 ; poll- 
 taxes in, 348 ; special assess- 
 ments in, 376, 377 ; valuations of 
 land and buildings in, 381 ; reve- 
 nues of, 381, 382; debt of, 396, 
 
 397- 
 
 Brace, Charles Loring, views of, 
 on remedies for congestion in 
 New York, 38; on dangers of 
 tenement-house life in New York, 
 124. 
 
 Buildings, inspection of, 189; ne- 
 cessity for same, 190-191. 
 
 Ceremonials, municipal, signifi- 
 cance of, 166, 167. 
 
 Charities, public, a form of mu- 
 nicipal insurance, 197-199. 
 
 Chase, Harvey S., report of, on 
 Boston printing plant, 222, 223; 
 report of, on Boston special as- 
 sessments, 376. 
 
 Chicago, fight for life in, 191-196; 
 sentiment for municipal owner- 
 ship in, 267; home rule in, 320; 
 franchise values of street rail- 
 ways in, 360 ; work of municipal 
 voters' league in, 408, 409. 
 
 Cincinnati, regulation of prostitu- 
 tion in, 128-130. 
 
 Cities, population of, 4; their in- 
 fluence upon national life, 14, 15, 
 16, 21 ; growth of, 18 ; relation of, 
 to political parties, 20 ; the prob- 
 lem of,22ff. ; Benjamin Harrison's 
 ideal for, 26, 27 ; their influence 
 upon human nature, 91, 92 ; pe- 
 culiar educational problem of, 
 97-101 ; uses of leisure in, 121 fif. ; 
 marriage statistics in, 133-137; 
 causes of vice in, 138-140 ; preva- 
 lence of gambling in, 145-147; 
 intemperance a vice of, 149; 
 necessity of insurance in, 174, 
 175 ; expansion of cooperative 
 functions in, 201, 202; effects of 
 centralized social organization 
 in, 231-234; ownership of 
 homes in, 246, 247; illiteracy 
 in, 250; theory of single tax in, 
 380-385. 
 
 2E 
 
 417 
 
INDEX 
 
 Citizens' party, a mode of civic 
 effort, 407, 408. 
 
 Civic improvement club, a mode of 
 civic eifort, 411, 412. 
 
 Civic spirit, nature of, heretofore, 
 25 ; the children's, in New York, 
 118 ; dearth of, in American 
 cities, 167, 168; significance of, 
 167-171 ; awakening of, 171-173 ; 
 influence oh, of fee system, 214; 
 of rapid material development, 
 215; municipal ownership as a 
 stimulant for, 227, 228. 
 
 Civil service, the merit system in, 
 298-301. 
 
 Cleveland, federal plan in, 292, 
 293, 294, 298, 301. 
 
 Colorado, home rule in, 329-331. 
 
 Committee of Fifteen, views of, on 
 the social evil, 124-126 ; on reme- 
 dies for the same, 140-143. 
 
 Contracts, municipal, 219-221. 
 
 Cooperation, civic, 200 ff. ; con- 
 trast of, with industrial coopera- 
 tion, 200, 201 ; in operation of 
 public utilities, 202-205 '> ^^ sup- 
 ply of milk, 206-208 ; in public 
 education, 208-210 ; in supply of 
 fuel, 210-212; dangers of, 212- 
 215; results of, as compared 
 with private enterprise, 215, 216 ; 
 principles of, in the employment 
 of labor, 217-226 ; limits of, 226- 
 228. 
 
 Council system, the norm of mu- 
 nicipal organization, 277; descrip- 
 tion of, in England, 278, 279; 
 modifications of, in the United 
 Siates, 279 ff. ; remnants of, in 
 the United States, 288-290; 
 organization of, 290-292. 
 
 Dallas, Texas, elected officials in, 
 
 280. 
 Deming, Horace E., views of, in 
 
 relation to American democracy, 
 
 269. 
 
 Democracy, and city life, i ff. ; 
 American, principles of, 2 ; con- 
 ditions favorable to, 4, 5 ; effect of 
 immigration upon, 5, 6 ; effect of 
 social organization upon, 6,7; 
 effect of the expansion of human 
 interests upon, 8, 9; effect of the 
 wage and salary system upon, 10, 
 11; relations of organized capi- 
 tal to, 10, II ; historical develop- 
 ment of, in the United States, 12, 
 13, 14; relation of, to vice, 121, 
 122; relation of, to suffrage 
 qualifications, 244 ff. ; relation of, 
 to woman suffrage, 249 ; relation 
 of, to representation by interests, 
 251, 252; alleged failures of, 263- 
 265. 
 
 Denver, home rule in, 330, 331. 
 
 Detroit, referendum on franchises 
 in, 59, 60; board of estimates in, 
 286 ; special assessments in, 369, 
 
 370. 
 Direct legislation, advantages of, 
 262-270; petitions required in 
 use of, 273. 
 
 Education, civic, 91 ff. ; principal 
 factors in, 92; importance of 
 civic traditions in, 92, 93, 94 ; the 
 home as a factor in, 94-97 ; the 
 public school as a factor in, 97- 
 117; children's civic leagues as 
 a factor in, 118-120; a coopera- 
 tive function, 208 ; technical, 
 209, 210. 
 
 Elections, necessity of honesty in, 
 274. 
 
 Electric lighting, necessity of pub- 
 he control of, 48, 49; municipal 
 ownership of, 53. 
 
 Ely, Richard T., views of, on mu- 
 nicipal ownership, 227. 
 
 Employment, direct, of labor, 217, 
 221-223. 
 
 Expenditures, municipal, amount 
 of, 341, 342. 
 
 418 
 
INDEX 
 
 Federal plan, principles of, 292; 
 limitations upon, 293-303. 
 
 Finance, department of, t^ken out 
 of control of council, 283 ; under 
 boards of estimate and appor- 
 tionment, 283-286. 
 
 Fire, protection from, 186 ; losses 
 from, 187; cost of, compared 
 with police, 188. 
 
 Forester, city, work of, in Spring- 
 field, Massachusetts, 119. 
 
 Franchises, grant of, 55 ff. ; in Mich- 
 igan, 56, 57; in South Carolina 
 and other states, 57, 58 ; in Vir- 
 ginia and Colorado, 58, 59 ; du- 
 ration of, 60, 61, 62, 63; condi- 
 tions of, 64-67 ; compensation 
 for, 67-69; evils of private pos- 
 session of, 69-76; remedies for 
 evils in connection with, 76-88; 
 correct policy in regard to, 88- 
 90; taxation of, 352-357; value 
 of, 358-361 ; regulations regard- 
 ing, 362, 363 ; paving tax in pay- 
 ment for, 364; correct policy 
 regarding value of, 364, 365, 
 366; a part of municipal debt, 
 389. 390. 
 
 Freeholders, proportion of, in cities, 
 245, 246. 
 
 Fuel yards, municipal, 210, 211. 
 
 Gambling, prevalence and dangers 
 of, 144 ; special causes of, in cit- 
 ies, 145-147 ; public policy in re- 
 gard to, 148, 149. 
 
 Gas, necessity of public control 
 over distribution of, 46 ; leakage 
 of, 47, 48 ; municipal ownership 
 of, in the United States, 53. 
 
 George, Henry, theory of, in regard 
 to taxation, 380. 
 
 Gilbert, C. B., views of, on public 
 administration, 294, 295. 
 
 Gill, Wilson L., his advocacy of 
 self-government in the schools, 
 106. 
 
 Goodnow, Professor F. J., views of, 
 on home rule, 332, 333. 
 
 Grand Rapids, public and private 
 parks of, 161, 162; special assess- 
 ments in, 370 ; debt of, 397, 398. 
 
 Gymnasia, public, a factor in civic 
 education, 116. 
 
 Harrison, Benjamin, views of, on 
 the ideal city, 26, 27. 
 
 Head, James M., views of, on the 
 municipal contract system, 220, 
 221. 
 
 Health, protection of public, 191 ff. ; 
 history of, in Chicago, 191-194 ; 
 dangers to, of infants, 194, 195; 
 dangers to, from impure water, 
 193, 196; cost of protection of, 
 196, 197. 
 
 Home rule, municipal, 313 ff. ; 
 principles of, 313, 314 ; in Michi- 
 gan, 315; interference with, 315, 
 316; scheme for, in New York, 
 322, 323; in Missouri, 323-326; 
 in California, 327, 328 ; in other 
 states, 328-331 ; in program of 
 National Municipal League, 333- 
 336; phases of, 336-339; objec- 
 tion to, 339, 340. 
 
 Illiteracy, extent of, in United 
 States, 250. 
 
 Indianapolis, special assessments 
 in, 372, 373- 
 
 Initiative, purpose of, 268 ; advan- 
 tages of, as a part of direct legis- 
 lation scheme, 269, 270. 
 
 Insurance,municipal, 174 ff. ; by po- 
 lice department, 175-186 ; by fire 
 department, 186-188 ; by building 
 inspection, 189-191 ; by health 
 department, 191-197 ; by charities 
 department, 197-199. 
 
 Intemperance, a city vice, 149. 
 
 Jordan, David Starr, views of, on 
 local citizenship, 243. 
 
 419 
 
INDEX 
 
 Labor, direct employment of, 217, 
 221-223 *> relation of, to city, 223- 
 226. 
 
 Law and order league, a mode of 
 civic effort, 411. 
 
 League of American Municipalities, 
 work of, 405. 
 
 League of California Municipali- 
 ties, work of, 405, 406. 
 
 Leisure, control of, 121 ff. ; relation 
 of home life to, 122-124; relation 
 of, to the social evil, 124-126; re- 
 lation of, to gambling, 145, 146; 
 governmental duty in regard to, 
 156-158; positive program for, 
 158 ff. ; uses of, 168, 169. 
 
 Licenses, as a source of municipal 
 revenue, 349-352. 
 
 Local centres of civic life, 229 ff. ; 
 neighborhood units as, 234, 235 ; 
 the saloons as, 235, 236; the 
 public schools as, 237, 238 ; ward 
 halls as, 239-241 ; relation of 
 election by districts to, 241, 242. 
 
 Local responsibility, 313 ff. 
 
 Los Angeles, water supply of, 45, 
 46; the recall in charter of, 
 271. 
 
 Maltbie, Milo Roy, valuation of 
 franchises by, 39 note, 360. 
 
 Markets, a cooperative function of 
 cities, 207. 
 
 Marriage, statistics of, in city and 
 country, 133-137; vices of, in 
 cities, 138, 139, 143. 
 
 Marshalltown, Iowa, instruction in 
 sex physiology in, 117. 
 
 Mayor, veto power of, 281, 282; 
 cabinet of, 301-303 ; responsibility 
 of, under an ideal charter, 305. 
 
 Michigan, franchise regulations in, 
 56, 57 ; doctrine of local self-gov- 
 ernment in, 315, 
 
 Milk, supply of, for cities, 206. 
 
 Minnesota, home rule in, 328, 329. 
 
 Missouri, scheme for home rule in. 
 
 323-326; special assessments in 
 certain cities of, 375, 376. 
 
 Municipal accounting, uniformity 
 in, 308-310; simplicity in, 310. 
 
 Municipal debt, 386 ff. ; theory of, 
 386; amount of, 387, 388, 389; 
 franchises, a part of, 389, 390; 
 prospective increase of, 390, 391 ; 
 relation of, to the suffrage, 391, 
 392 ; limits upon, 392-394 ; anal- 
 ysis of, in New York, 396; in 
 Boston, 396, 397 ; in Grand Rap- 
 ids, 397 ; in San Francisco, 398 ; 
 generally, 399-401. 
 
 Municipal monopolies, nature of, 
 202-205. 
 
 Municipal ownership, of water in 
 Los Angeles, 45, 46; of gas in 
 Glasgow, 46, 47, 48; extent of, 
 in the United States, 52, 53, 54, 
 55 ; of street railway tracks, elec- 
 tric wires, etc., 80-82 ; of all pub- 
 lic utilities, 82-88; reasons for, 
 202-205, 227 ; sentiment for, in 
 Chicago, 267. 
 
 Municipal Revenues, 341 ff. ; 
 sources of, 343 ff. ; from gifts, 344, 
 345; from subsidies, 345-347: 
 from fees, 347, 348; from poll- f 
 taxes, 348, 349; from licenses, 
 349-352; from franchises, 355- 
 367; from special assessments, 
 367-378 ; from general property 
 tax, 378 ; from personal property 
 tax, 379; from land tax, 380-385. 
 
 Nagel, Charles, views of, in relation 
 to home rule in Missouri, 325, 
 326. 
 
 Nashville, direct employment of 
 labor in, 221 ; executive respon- 
 sibility in, 280, 281, 294. 
 
 National Municipal League, atti- 
 tude of, toward the council sys- 
 tem, 291 ; scheme of organization 
 recommended by, 307; com- 
 mittee of, on uniform accounting. 
 
 420 
 
INDEX 
 
 309 ; constitutional amendments 
 proposed by, 333-336; program 
 of, in regard to special assess- 
 ments, 369; constitutional debt 
 limit proposed by, 394; organi- 
 zation and work of, 402- 
 404. 
 
 New Haven, board of finance in, 
 285, 286. 
 
 New Orleans, sewerage franchises 
 
 in, S3. 54- 
 
 New York City, Whitman Vdescrip- 
 tion of, 23, 24; absence of homes 
 in, 25; transportation problems 
 of, 29, 30, 31, 38 ff. ; congestion 
 of population in, 35 ff. ; tenement- 
 house problem in, 95, 96; juve- 
 nile street-cleaning leagues in, 
 118 ; vice in, as a result of con- 
 gestion, 124; uses of Mulberry 
 Bend Park in, 159; school baths 
 in, 165 ; board of estimate in, 283- 
 285 ; experience of, with mayor's 
 limited power of removal, 296; 
 debt of, 396. 
 
 New York State, scheme for home 
 rule in, 322, 323 ; special assess- 
 ments in second class cities of, 
 
 373. 374- 
 Nominations, reform in, 257-260; 
 free, 260, 261 ; fees for, 261. 
 
 Official responsibility, 276 fF. ; as 
 secured by the council system, 
 277-292 ; as secured by the fed- 
 eral plan, 292-303 ; principles of, 
 304-306 ; as secured by account- 
 ing and reports, 307-312. 
 
 Ohio, new system of municipal 
 government in, 295, 296 ; special 
 legislation in, 317, 318; special 
 assessments in, 370-372. 
 
 Oregon, home rule in, 331. 
 
 Parks, public, an element in the 
 control of leisure, 159; statistics 
 of, in American cities, 160 ; rela- 
 
 42 
 
 tion of, to private pleasure 
 grounds, 161-163. 
 
 Pennsylvania, special legislation in, 
 320, 321. 
 
 Playgrounds, distribution of, in 
 American cities, iii, 112; pur- 
 pose of, 112, 113. 
 
 Police magistrate, important func- 
 tions of, 180, 181. 
 
 Police, relations of, to vice, 128- 
 132; functions of, 176, 181 ; rela- 
 tions of, to the punishment of 
 crime, 177-180 ; attractiveness of 
 functions of, to youth, 181, 182; 
 expense of, compared with edu- 
 cation, 182-184; right attitude 
 towards, 184-186. 
 
 Political parties, relation of, to city 
 affairs, 253-260; membership in, 
 as a qualification for appoint- 
 ments, 296-298. 
 
 Poll-taxes, in Boston, 348. 
 
 Popular responsibility, 244 ff. ; re- 
 lation of suffrage to, 244-250 ; re- 
 lation of political parties to, 253- 
 260; relation of direct legis- 
 lation to, 262-270; relation of 
 the recall to, 271, 272; relation 
 of proportional representation 
 to, 272; relation of the boss 
 to, 273. 
 
 Portland, Oregon, executive board > P/ 
 in, 303; home-rule charter for, ' 
 
 331 ; franchise regulations in, 
 362, 363; taxpayers* association 
 of, 410, 411. 
 
 Primary reform, progress of, 257, 
 258 ; objections to, 258-260, 
 
 Program of civic effort, 402 ff. 
 
 Proportional representation, fu- i 
 tility of, in municipal affairs, 
 272. 
 
 Public utilities, the city's paramount 
 interest in, 49; tendencies of, 
 towards monopoly, 50, 51 ; con- 
 trol of, 52 ff. ; monopoly charac- 
 ter of, 202-205. 
 
 I 
 
INDEX 
 
 Recall, in Los Angeles charter, 271 ; 
 purpose of, 271, 272. 
 
 Referendum, importance of, in mu- 
 nicipal affairs, 262-267; use of, 
 in Illinois and Massachusetts, 
 267, 268. 
 
 Reform club of New York, fran- 
 chise estimates by, 39 note. 
 
 Reform organizations, national, 
 402-406; local, 407-413. 
 
 Reports, municipal, importance of, 
 308, 310-312. 
 
 St. Louis, corruption in franchise 
 grants of, 70, 71 ; home rule in, 
 325. 326. 
 
 St. Paul, limitations upon council's 
 powers in, 286; conference com- 
 mittee in, 302; franchise regula- 
 tions in, 362 ; special assessments 
 in, 374. 375. 
 
 Saloon, American attitude towards, 
 149, 150; social services per- 
 formed by, 150-153; Sunday 
 closing of, 153, 154 ; political in- 
 fluence of, 155 ; as a local civic 
 centre, 235, 236; local option on, 
 242, 243. 
 
 San Francisco, home-rule charter 
 of, 328; new debt of, 398, 399; 
 Merchants' Association of, 412. 
 
 Schools, public, an instrument of 
 civic education, 97-117; the kin- 
 dergarten in, loi, 102; manual 
 training in, 102-104 ; self-govern- 
 ment in, 105-107; their function 
 in assimilating the foreign ele- 
 ments, 108, 109; civics in, 109, 
 no; influence of playgrounds, 
 vacation schools, etc., upon, 115- 
 117; cost of, compared with po- 
 lice, 182-184; technical, 209; as 
 local centres of civic life, 237, 238. 
 
 Schools, vacation, purpose of, 114, 
 115; influence of, upon regular 
 schools, 115, 116. 
 
 Search. Preston W., views of, in 
 
 regard to the surroundings of 
 city schools, 120. 
 
 Sewerage, municipal ownership of 
 systems of, 53, 54. 
 
 Shaw, Dr. Albert, views of, on 
 municipal gas in Glasgow, 46, 47, 
 48 ; views of, on municipal owner- 
 ship in Germany, 83 ; commenda- 
 tion of the Gill school city by, 106. 
 
 Sikes, George C., article by, on in- 
 determinate franchises, 78. 
 
 Single tax, theory of, in relation to 
 cities, 380-385. 
 
 Sinking funds, for public industries, 
 how provided, 366, 367 ; for un- 
 productive debts, 395. 
 
 Social evil, causes of, 124-126; dan- 
 gers of, to democracy, 126, 127 ; 
 American policy in regard to, 
 127, 128; regulation of, in Cin- 
 cinnati, 128-130; a cause of police 
 corruption, 130-132; relation of 
 marriage to, 133-140; remedies 
 for, 140-143, 148, 149. 
 
 Special assessments, methods of 
 levying, 367, 368 ; proposed by 
 National Municipal League, 369 ; 
 in Detroit, 369, 370; in Grand 
 Rapids, 370; in Ohio, 370-372; 
 in Indianapolis, 372, 373 ; in New 
 York cities of second class, 373, 
 374. 375; in Missouri, 375, 376; 
 in New York City, Chicago, and 
 Boston, 376, 377; total receipts 
 from, 377, 378. 
 
 Special legislation, evils of, 316, 317 ; 
 prohibition of, 317-322; Hmita- 
 tions upon, 322, 323. 
 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, city for- 
 ester in, 119 ; school baths in, 165 ; 
 milk production of, 206. 
 
 Street, the, 28 ff. ; public ownership 
 of, 31, 32. 
 
 Street railways, social importance 
 of, 32, 33; their r61e in relation 
 to parks and pleasure grounds, 
 161, 162 ; sentiment for municipal 
 
 422 
 
INDEX 
 
 ownership of, in Chicago, 267; 
 capitalization and franchise val- 
 ues of, 359, 360. 
 
 Strong, Josiah, author of The 
 Twentieth Century City, 17, 18. 
 
 Subsidies, state, to cities, 345-347. 
 
 Suffrage, property qualifications 
 for, 244, 245; basis of, in Eng- 
 land, ^6; women's rights to, 
 247-249 ; educational qualifica- 
 tions for, 249, 250. 
 
 Taxation, see revenues. 
 
 Taxpayers' association, a mode of 
 civic effort, 410, 411. 
 
 Telephones, necessity of public 
 control of, 48, 49. 
 
 Tenement-houses, problems of, in 
 New York, 36 ff. ; in other cities, 
 43, 44 ; relation of, to home life, 
 95. 96. 
 
 Theatres, municipal, need of, in 
 American cities, 165, 166. 
 
 Thurston, Henry W., his outline 
 for teaching civics, 109, no ; his 
 story of Chicago's health activi- 
 ties, 191-194. 
 
 Tolstoy, his indictment of police 
 and judicial system, 177 note. 
 
 Tooke, Charles W., views of, on 
 municipal debt limit, 394. 
 
 Transportation, facilities for, in 
 New York City, 29, 30; neces- 
 sity for public control of, 31 flf. ; 
 problems of, in New York, 38 ff. ; 
 in London, 44 note. 
 
 Typhoid fever, prevalence and 
 causes of, 195, 196. 
 
 Van Sluyters, Rev. B. A., views of, 
 on the uses of ward halls, 239- 
 241. 
 
 Voters' league, a mode of civic 
 effort, 408-410. 
 
 Waring, Colonel George E., his 
 work with the children in clean- 
 ing New York City streets, 118 ; 
 his experience with laborers, 224. 
 
 Washington City, revenue of, from 
 national subsidies, 346. 
 
 Washington State, home rule in, 
 328. 
 
 Water supply, necessity for public 
 control of, 45, 46 ; in Los Angeles, 
 idem ; municipal ownership of, in 
 the United States, 52, 53 ; in Cal- 
 ifornia, 54. 
 
 Weber, Adna F., author of The 
 Growth of Cities, 18. 
 
 Whitman, Walt, views of, upon the 
 city problem, 23, 24. 
 
 423 
 
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