The morning call., 1892-07-02
WHAT WE GET FOR OUR MONEY.

The steady growth of municipal taxation
is not receiving the attention which it de-
serves. The following table shows the
amounts raised by taxation for city pur-
poses only during the years named:
600
IS9l............,........... 32O0 600
..............-............ 3,4OO,000
If the taxes continue 10 swell at this rate
they will amount to $4,000, 900 in 1895 and TO
over 5000. 900 at the end of the century.
This willdnvolve dimnution in the rate Of
wages and the value of real property, for
wages and land fall as taxes rise. In more
places than one we have seen city lots sold
for trifls because their rents covered
but little more than the cost of taxation
ana insurance on Improvements; and at
this very moment mechanics are leaving
parts or Australasia because the taxation
caused by extensive systems Of public i'm
pr0vements undertaken on credit has re-
duced the price of labor below a living
standard.
If we got anything for our Ontlay it might
be borne more cheerfully. But San Fran
cisco is not only the most heavily taxed city
in the Union, but is the worst governed, and
the one in which ineficiency Of administra-
tion has reached its eliminating point
The new City He'll is a nest of incompe-
tents, who neither know their duty nor care
enough to treat citizens with common
cvility. They are generally the same gang,
whichever party is in power. They owe
their berths to the influence of some boss,
and cannot be displaced, however unfit
they may prove. There is courtesy Of
the City HalP' among city politicians;
Democrats oblige their Republican friends
4l.atr l..
Republicans return the compliment when
their turn comes. How this works in prac-
tice Thomas Magee tells us in his Real
Estate Circular:
Clerks and deputies are nearly all now enl-
ployed because Of political services in corrupting
elections. Six out Of eight OF them are utterly
incompetent, eDd, having obtained their places
for tie services noted, the honest discharge of
their dulles TO the best OF their poor abilities
hardly enters into their thoughts. Each of them.
too has 10 suffer the loss of 10 TO 20 per cent OF
his salary, ether directly 10 the ruling boss or
indirectly for the sOcalied campaign assess
ments. Any pretense of duty TO the city and of
debt TO conscience are absolved In the average
clerks eyes by this fact. He Is not allowed 10
keep his full pay and he therefore thinks any
kind OF service he gives The public is, under lhe
circumstances, quite enough.
The trouble of the business comes in
when the estimates are made up, and each
department demands more money to spend
among its hangers on. When the figures
were laid before the Finance Committee the
other day it appeared that the Street De-
partment wanted some S450,000 more.
Those who are curious to learn what that
department did with the money il got last
year should take drive along Van Ness
avenue from Market 10 Vallejo streets.
Van Ness is or ought to be the finest street
in the city. Some Of the wealthest people
live on it, and lots are worth from $500 to
$3.50 per front foot. Two or three years
ago the roadway got into so bad condition
that repairs were necessary. The Street
Department ordered it maeadamlzed at the
cost of the lot-owners. The work was
badly done, as all such work is i; everybody
saw that it would not last very long; but in
the meantime it afforded work to an army
of laborers, who were at the service of tie
Street Department on election day.
Now it is an endless succession of ruts
and holes. 1t is crossed by fourteen lines
of cable or horse cars, not one of which has
been compelled to adjust its rails to the
level of the street. The consequence is that
this broad avenue, which is the only avenue
in the city outside Of the park that Is
suitable drive, Is so uneven that to drive
over it except at a walk is to endanger
springs and subject tenants of vehicles to
churning process-hefe we go up, up, up,
and here We 60 down, down, down. of
course the Street Department will meet
criticism with the reply that the street is
not accepted. but the maeadam which was
laid down two or three years ago was laid
down under the orders OF the Street De-
paTtment, and that department had TO GER
iify that the work was well done before the
contractors collected their bills. Did the
Superintendent and his deputies not know
that the work was not well done. but was
UNANIMOUSLY bad? Again, it lies within the
province OF the department to insist that
the cable and horse car companies shall
lay their rails smoothly over crossings so
that vehicles shall not be jolted up and
down when thcy cross the rails. Has any
remonstrance ever been addressed 10 the
companies by the department?