badly done by the city; it would lead to increased patronage and the extension of the spoils system." The sufficient answer to this is that many things which it is our duty to do are difficult and perhaps dangerous; that is no reason why we should shirk them. The business of governing cities is very difficult; it demands the best wisdom and highest integrity which the city contains; but it is a business which in this country belongs to the people, and the people must not shirk it, nor any part of it. We may not do it so well as it ought to be done, but we must do it as well as we can. It is not a pastime; it will take time and thought and courage and self-sacrifice; but it is our task and we must perform it. Woe to us if we try to evade it!

This, indeed, is exactly what we have been doing. We have shirked responsibility. We have been saying, nearly all of us, when we were called on to serve the city, "I pray thee have me excused." We have assumed that our business in life is to make money or push our personal fortunes, or have a good time; we have entrusted the whole business of managing the great interests of the city to the bosses and the spoilsmen. Now we say that because these, who are our representatives, are not fit to govern, there is nothing for us to do but to farm out the most difficult parts of the business of governing to private corporations. The reason that the respectable citizen gives for not wishing to have the government administer public service monopolies is the proclamation of his own infidelity to the highest trust committed to him, and the announcement of the fact that he does not mean to do his duty. He knows perfectly well that if the people of American cities-the respectable and intelligent people-would take into their hands their own business, which is the government of the city, and would manage it for themselves, this part of the city's business would be done, as it is done in most European 'cities, honestly and economically and with vast gains to the people.

There are a great many people who say that the cities must never undertake this business until they have a reformed civil service. I trust that I am not indifferent to the claims of civil service reform; but I never expect to see any efficient reform of the civil service until we have municipal ownership of municipal

monopolies. That will bring it, pretty speedily, I think; and nothing else will. The notion that we must get all our municipal machinery thoroughly reformed before we begin to do our plain duties is quite like to one with which, in another field, I have been somewhat familiar. We used to hear it said that it was impossible for any man to do right until he was converted. That doctrine is not preached now very much in the pulpit; it lingers only in the minds of municipal reformers. The theologians found out some time ago that the only way for a man to get converted is to begin at once to do as nearly right as he can and trust God to help him. It is just as true of a city as it is of a man, and it is to be hoped that the municipal reformers too will find it out before it is too late.

If it is true, as I think no man can well deny, that the vast majority of existing corruption in city governments springs directly from the relations between these governments and the public service corporations, then it is queer reasoning by which we are admonished that we must never interrupt these relations until we secure good government. There is absolutely no way of getting good government except by breaking off these relations.

There is a practical question to which the attention of practical men should be directed. It is evident that we have in all our cities a good many men of standing and influence, who control great masses and combinations of capital and who, under existing conditions, are deeply interested, financially interested, in having weak or corrupt city government. From thoroughly intelligent and efficient city government they could not obtain such franchises as they desire. It is to their interest to secure the election of city officials whom they can control. Is not this tremendous makeweight, so constantly thrown into the scale against good government, a difficult influence to overcome? Destroy this unnatural relation between the government and public service monopolies, permit the government to take into its own hands the functions that belong to it, and all these men would at once be deeply and financially interested in having good government.

That the city government would be exposed to temptations and perils if it assumed this task is not to be doubted. Nobody pretends that public ownership is a panacea. If the people should

elect dishonest men to office they would mismanage the business and heap up the burdens. But the astonishing fact is that those who urge this are so insensible to the oppressions which they are now enduring. "The argument that city governments are too corrupt and inefficient to carry on business is heard every day,' says Mr. C. W. Baker, "but nothing is ever heard of the fact that it is easier for a dishonest city official to make corrupt profits through connection with a franchise company, than for gas works or water supply system operated by the city." "The pressure," says Dr. Albert Shaw. "that would be brought to bear on the government to produce corruption under municipal ownership of monopolies like gas, electric light, transit, etc., would be incomparably less than the pressure that is now brought to bear by the corporations. The wear and tear upon the morals of a weak municipal government are greater by far when it comes to the task of granting franchises-that is to say of making bargains with private corporations—than when it is attempted to carry out a business undertaking directly on the public account."

There will be battles to fight for good government, after we have secured municipal ownership of these public service industries; that is not going to bring the millennium; what I am claiming now is what I thoroughly believe, that the line of least resistance runs through municipal ownership. This is the argument of expediency. But even if the path were more thorny than it is, it is the only path to freedom. The people, in a democracy, are the rulers, and they must rule. The functions of sovereignty are theirs and they must exercise them. It may be arduous work, but they are committed to it, and they must not draw back. With a great sum we have obtained this freedom; only by great services and sacrifices can it be preserved. When we are ready to pay a fair price for good government we shall find a clear solution of our tough municipal problems.

DANGERS OF THE COMMERCIAL SPIRIT
IN POLITICS.

HON. BIRD S. COLER,

Comptroller, Greater New York.

At the outset of my remarks I want to make it known that I am a pretty firm believer in our system of government, its plan and endurance, and that my faith in the wisdom and patriotism of the American people as a whole is unbounded. The record of our country and our government for more than a century is the convincing answer to every complaint of the pessimist or the doubter. It is a record of the greatest progress in the history of the human We have survived wars of invasion and wars of conquest. We remain a united people after the most bloody and persistent civil strife in the history of the world. A government that can survive all these trials must be a pretty good institution.

race.

But while our system of government, combined with the honesty and patriotism of the public as a whole, has enabled us to grow from a local experiment to a great world power, it may not be perfect in all its details and when we discover defects I regard it as the duty of the best citizenship to boldly expose errors and seek to correct them. We have grown great so fast that we have not always stopped to consider the morals of our methods, and getting rich in a hurry we may at times have failed to make the right change in our dealings with the people.

In recent years our material progress, that should safeguard the permanence of our institutions, has in reality been the nursery of the gravest dangers that confront our people. While getting rich and growing to greatness that seems to have no limit, we have been slowly, at times unconsciously, drawing away from those simple, but imperative rules of public conduct laid down for us by the wise men who created our system of government. To

the people of older forms and institutions we are known as a nation of shopkeepers, a commercial people. The general charge is not one to be resented and the condition not one to be ashamed of if we had not permitted short weight methods in our political system.

In the early days of the republic, politics, patriotism and statesmanship were in a large measure synonymous terms. Men sought office in those days for glory, not for gain, and accepted public responsibility in a spirit of true patriotism, always seeking to promote the best interests of their country. To-day the system is changed and when a man seeks public office it is far too often with a view to material personal benefit. From a nation of shopkeepers we have become a people dealing in political bargains. Patriotism, in many instances, has become a question of salary and perquisites, and public spirit a calculation in patronage.

A spirit of commercialism has invaded our politics and our statesmanship. Public interests have been sacrificed to private gain. The halls of legislation and the temple of justice have in far too many cases been converted into market places where the highest bidder may secure the most favorable legislation and the most important judgments. Men have discovered that there is money in the business of politics and with many of them their greed is greater than their public spirit. When the favors of a government are for sale buyers can always be found.

This system of making money out of government and politics, commercialism in public affairs, has been a matter of slow and unobtrusive growth. Almost as soon as we recognize its existence we find that it has reached dangerous proportions and that its destruction is no easy task. It is not the ordinary corruption that steals from a public treasury by the crude method of plain theft. We can always discover a shortage and usually catch a thief, but the man who deals in political and government favors as a business is a higher craftsman.

The root of this evil, which is so dangerous to our institutions, may be found in the mistakes in our system of politics. Our machinery for the maintenance of political divisions has become so vast and complicated that large sums of money are required to keep it in motion. We have not yet reached that degree of