next session the bill will be reintroduced, and that it will be so strongly supported by public opinion that its passage will be assured. Step by step the movement for better municipal methods proceeds. Each year shows a keener appreciation of the paramount importance of carefully guarding and husbanding municipal resources, not only to protect the interests of the present generation, but of those yet to come. A survey of the past year indicates that the people living in the cities are concerned about their franchises and are taking steps to protect their interests. The formation of national organizations of municipal officials like the American Society of Municipal Improvements and the League of American Municipalities is a hopeful sign of the deepening interest in municipal problems and is destined to aid materially in the solution of many of them. The object of the former society is "to disseminate information and experience upon and to promote the best methods to be employed in the management of municipal departments and in the construction of public works." Its principal purpose is to bring together those interested in the technical side of municipal work, to increase their general efficiency and usefulness. It is a fact worthy of comment that there is less cause for complaint along these lines of activity than along any other. This may perhaps be due to the fact that there is less chance for concealment and that incompetency would result in such disasters as appeal most directly to the public mind, but which really are less dangerous to the public weal in the long run than those subtle and less palpable evils which undermine the accepted ideas concerning public morality and honesty. The objects of the League of American Municipalities are defined to be "the general improvement and facilitation of every branch of municipal administration by the perpetuation of the organization of an agency for the co-operation of American cities in the practical studying of all questions pertaining to municipal administration and the establishment and maintenance of a central bureau of information for the collection, compilation and dissemination of statistics, reports and all kinds of information relative to municipal government." The organization of the League is an admission on the part of municipal officials, of which it is composed, of the necessity of responding to the demand of the times for better municipal government. Thus far it has devoted its main attention to the discussion of municipal policies, and especially the question of the municipal ownership of municipal monopolies. If continuously guided by high minded and public spirited men actuated by a profound appreciation of their obligations, the League is destined to be of great service. It will create and maintain a desirable esprit du corps; it will stimulate legitimate competition and rivalry, and will bring to each member the experience of all other members. It will have to contend against a tendency to make the conventions mere junketing expeditions and mutual admiration meetings; and above all it will have to guard against the insidious temptations with which rich and powerful corporate interests will seek to divert it from its original high purposes. As a logical outcome of the League, State associations are forming for similar purposes. The recently formed League for Social Service, “to educate public opinion and the public conscience, from the enlightening and quickening of which must come every needed reform, whether moral, political, industrial or social," is destined to a useful career. Its objects and purposes are substantially the same as those of the National Municipal League, only it is interested in applying them to all reforms, while our League is interested specifically in their application to the solution of the pressing municipal problems, although in their ultimate analysis they are moral, social and industrial, as well as political. Last January a conference was held in New York to discuss the question of primary legislation, and a National Primary Law Association was formed; but thus far it has not entered upon a very active existence. With the adoption of the Massachusetts ballot system, and the consequent abolition of the "straight" ticket, there is less danger from defective primary laws; but as in most States the primary law is now designed to aid the boss and prevent a free and full expression of opinion on the part of members of a party, it might perhaps be well to apply the Australian system to primary balloting and make primary elections a part of the regular election machinery. These various organizations and movements-local and national-serve to keep the municipal problem and its importance to the fore. They quicken public interest in municipal affairs. By an insistence upon high standards of efficiency and the maintenance of high ideals they appreciably improve municipal conditions and create a sounder and more efficient public sentiment which sooner or later will work out a permanent and satisfactory solution of the problem of American municipal government. It is a matter of profound import and auspicious augury that there are so many groups of men and women seeking in various ways to improve municipal conditions; that the mayors and officials of our cities are bestiring themselves as never before to meet the demand for better city government; that from the pulpit and the college chair, from the forum and the press there is now preached a doctrine of no uncertain sound as to the obligations of municipal citizenship; that men and women are coming to recognize that upon them depends the salvation of our modern municipal life; and that no charter, no statute, no organization however carefully and ingeniously devised will compensate for the want of a deep, intelligent, abiding interest and participation in public affairs. THE FINAL WORK OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. ence. SAMUEL B. CAPEN, President, Municipal League of Boston. The century which is now rushing to its conclusion has witnessed the solution of some wonderful problems. At its beginning there could be seen upon this continent a feeble Republic which had but recently secured its independence from the mother country and was just entering upon its new existThere was in it a strong religious life which had come down through the generations, born of the faith and prayer of those who came here to worship God. As a result of this religious life, and of its conception of the brotherhood of man, there came the struggle between freedom and slavery which waged so furiously during the first half of the century. The nation could not live half slave and half free, and the battle was joined as to which principle should be dominant. Foreign nations sneered and said, "this is the end of the Republic.” But that battle was fought through and the decision reached, and is now acquiesced in by all, that we should be one nation, and that nation the home of the free. Following this came a period of wonderful material prosperity, and the new Republic with rapid strides took her place in wealth and power among the nations of the first rank. America had such opportunities to offer that from every nation under heaven came pouring in upon us immigrants from the old world, who have scattered clear across the continent, until the settlements from the Atlantic to the Pacific have met and substantially our whole domain has been occupied. We have given manhood suffrage to all, and these people, side by side with those who were born here, are the rulers of the nation. But this marvelous growth, and this material prosperity, and this heterogeneous population, have brought its new probiems. As the business man upon the first day of January takes account of his stock, looks over his books and finds out his exact condition, so it is time for us as patriots again to take an exact inventory of our present condition and needs, ascertain where the danger lies, and see, if we may, what the final work of this wonderful nineteenth century is to be. For one of the grand things that is being taught is that the religious life of to-day has to do with the world that now is as well as that which is to come. It has to do not only with the State as a whole, but with the manifold details of its life-the caucus, the ballot-box, the city council. This is not a new conception of the province of religion, but it is a return to a phase of it which at times has been most sorely neglected. We have been often reminded of late, as suggestive of our present duty, of the work of the old Hebrew prophets. From Isaiah to Malachi they plead for righteous government. They not only tried to arouse the common people from their indifference to wrong, but spoke the most scathing words to those who were in authority and who abused their trust. They were civic reformers. Moses, the greatest statesman in the world, who wrote the first constitution of a free people, lived three thousand years before Jefferson. Nor need we go so far back for a justification for this new summons to religious men to become more interested in civic matters. The foundations of the thirteen original States were laid by such men. The religion of the founders of New England had to do primarily with the State. While they laid the emphasis upon the community and the community's interest, we have swung to the other extreme and laid the emphasis upon the individual and the individual life. It is time for the pendulum to swing back more to the position of our fathers. And let us keep clearly in mind just where the present battle is to be fought. The old contest for the integrity of the nation is forever settled. government of the great largely control the nation. Dr. Edward Everett The new conflict is for purity in the |