The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1891-10-09
PRESIDENT ELIOT ON MUNICIPAL
GOVERNMENT

! ing municipal government. The former
speaks as one who has had experience in
such affairs, while the attitude of the
latter is that of a student of city adj
ministration, both in this country and
in Europe. President Low, from his
standpoint, finds probable remedy for
misgovernment in the concentration of
responsibility, and vests the authority,
as much as possible, in the hands of
single person. President Eliot, on the
other hand, while recognizing the adj
vantages following an extension of the
powers of the Mayor, yet believes that
the surer cure for present evils lies in
the employment of trained experts and
scientists as heads of departments, and
the conversion of the municipal service
into life career for intelligent young
Americans. These opinions he has en-
bodied in suggestive paper in the last
number of the Forum.
1t is significant, President Eliot OBJ
serves, that the failures of the Demo-
cratic form of government have Oc-
Cured chiefly in those matters of NUM-
cipal administration which belong to the
domain OF applied science. These in
clude such matters as the levying of
taxes, the management of water supplies
and drainage systems, the care of the
highways and control of corporations
which sell the city light heat, power
and transportation for persons, and the
supervision of the public health. The
comprehension and proper management
of such affairs all call for high degree
of scientific training. Coupled with
this, also, is the need of continuous
execution through long series of years.
Short and insecure tenures for the heads
of departments can only result in
municipal evils and bring discredit
upon free institutions.
The American people, 50 President
Eliot believes, have failed to note the
bearing of the wonderful changes in
business and life during the past two or
three decades upon municipal adj
ministration. The methods of local city
government have not grown and de-
veloped with the times. The officials
and voters, immersed in private inter
ests, have failed to grasp the new situa-
ton and appreciate quickly the condi-
tions. The result has been fear of adj
ministrative novelties on the part of an
official and leaning to precedents.
President Eliot finds a striking illus
tration Of this proneness to 'fall into
ruts" in the incidence of taxation. The
old theory of taxation was that every
man should be assessed at his home on
all his property. His property was all
there or returned thither periodically.
If man, by chance, possessed house
or land in another town, he was assessed
for taxes in the town where it lay. On
this simple basis the old methods of
taxation were formulated. Nowadays
all this is changed in cities, new forms
of property have been created, stocks
and railway and industrial bonds ale all
children of recent birth. How recent,
the fact that Harvard University. with
its funds for investment, owned in 1880
neither stock nor bond, except tifty-two
shares in local canal and certain inter
ests in three wooden bridges leading out
of Boston, that in 1860 only two per
cent. of its quick capital was in railroad
Oh
cent. is so invested, shows. Clinging to
the old theory, however, the City Asses
s0rs have still endeavered to tax, at the
ploce-of residence, property which did
not lie there and which never returned
thither and was wholly invisible there.
In this President Eliot sees the cause of
''all the inquistolial methods of assess
ment which disgrace the American
cities
The failure of so many street depart
ments, the uncertain and unsatisfac-
tory course in the matter of light and
water and similar sources of complaint,
he attributes largely to the inexperience
of those having the matters in charge,
and not to negligence. He gives es-
pecial emphasis to the small success of
American cities in dealing with sanitary
problems. London, with its six mil
lions of people, has habtually lower
death rate than Boston. New York,
Brooklyn or Chicago. Furthermore,
American cities which have made an
effort to protect the public health and
lower the death rate have had no such
success as European cities. BefOr 1871
the annual death rate in Berlin for thirty
years had been from 81 to 30 per 1000,
but since it has been reduced from p to
% per 1000. Massachusetts has taken as
much pains as any State in this country
in sanitary matters. Yet during the
past twenty-five years the death rate has
not been reduced.
Trained experts and scientists decline
to enter the municipal service at present
on account of the uncertainties of the po-
sition. They prefer less profitable but
a certainly more permanent place. The
result is that municipalities are obliged
to put up with second-rate men. The
remedy, so President Eliot believes,
then, is to make these positions perma-
nent, divorce them from politics, and
changes in the head of city affairs. His
idea would be the creation of municipal
service. for which Young men rould pre-