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 improper 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 democracy, and practicable under existing conditions, would involve the following points: I. Insist that every public utility now owned and operated by a city should be conducted on clear-cut principles, and should render an unmistakable public account of itself. 2. Compel all public utility operators dependent upon special privileges in the streets, to make frequent 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 government to prevent and correct overcapitalization. 5. Make all new franchises terminable at any 1 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 advantages of monopoly. 8. Undertake public ownership and operation whenever, after full discussion, the people of a city deliberately favor that policy.1 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-being, 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. Municipal 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 1 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 Ownership and Public Franchises held under the auspices of the New York Reform Club Committee on City Affairs, February 25-27, 1903. 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. 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 control, 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 education. 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 degeneration found in highly civilized society; but, properly trained, human nature in cities develops a wider social consciousness, a heartier spirit of coöperation, 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 democracy can succeed in cities. And so it is fitting 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 fundamental social problems of the city. In this chapter, therefore, I wish to discuss the problems of civic education, with the idea constantly 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 education. 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 absolute 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 example, 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 |