Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-29

tax which supports the policemen and the
expenses of the county jail He believes IN
all kinds of influences that can be brought
to bear to prevent evil before it happens.
He is not of those who think the best use OF
money is to spend it for ambulances at the
foot of dangerous cliff, but that far more
wise expenditure is for fence along the top
to keep the people from falling over. AS-
cordingly, the Christian citizen is exceed
ingly interested in the moral issues of all
the questions that are raised in the city.
Mr.. Stead said the other day to the electors
at Newcastle that if there was to be prop
osltion made that on the first day of Janu-
ary there should be an altar raised on a
hill on one side of the city dedicated to
Bacchus, and that young man chosen from
the youth of the city should be offered as q
living sacrifice to that heather deity, the
whole city would be up in arms. And that
If upon the first day of July a similar prop,
osltlon should be attempted to be forced
upon that city, that young woman should
be offered as living sacrafice upon an altar
to Venus, built upon another hill on the
other side of the city, there would be an
MIR. stead's Striking simile.
People would no longer consider what
party politics they had or what church they
belonged to-all the Christian citizens of
that city would be up in arms. And then
he reminded them that it is not only one
here and another there who is offered as a
sacrifice to these unspeakable divinities OF
the past, but that every day tens and scores
of the young men and the young women OF
the city are given up and no reckoning
made of them. 1t is when things are put In
that picturesque kind of way that we real
ize the prosaic duties that we have every
day around us. The Christian citizen more
and more realizes that.
The Christian citizen recognizes that one
of the greatest enemies of Christianity and
one of the greatest provoeatives to crime is
poverty. And he knows exactly how to
measure poverty Poverty, unless we set
definition to it, is a most eyasive word. A
man may be poor who has 500, 900 in COM
parison to another man who has $1,000, 900.
We are all Of US poor in comparison to some
other people. But poverty accurately de-
fined is the deprivation of the opportunity
to enrich ones life. The man who has no
chance to better himself, who has no hope
in the future of being any higher than he is,
who has no opportunity to cultivate his
mind, or to get any of the healthtul pleas
ures OF life, is poor.
The City Is Big Family.
And because the city is all one family,
we cannot afford to have any poor people in
the city. We cannot afford to have any of
our brothers and sisters lacking in those op-
portunities that belong by right to every
child of God under the wide sky. And
although the Christian may not know
exactly what to do, he sets his face against
poverty, and he wants the Christianity of
the city to do everything it can in the min
istration of opportunity to the people who
lack opportunity. He wants clean streets
in front of all the tenement houses. He
wants the observation of sanitary law to
the utmost.
The Christian, realizing his civic RESPONSE
bilities, realizes also that there is need of
good officials in the city government to help
him, to represent him; mad. accordingly.
he does his share in their selection and
election. He wants men who will actually
represent him, and not some ring or corpora
tion. If he finds that Councilman repre-
sents such hidden influence, he votes next
time for some other man.
The Christian citizen in electing the Off
GERS of the Christian city, has no regard to
whether they belong to one political party
or the other. The bane of municipal ad-
ministration in this country is the admi1-
ture of national politics. The only requisite
of an official in city is efficiency. 1t
makes no difference whether he is Repub-
lican or Democrat. any more than it makes
a difference whether he is Presbyterian or
an Episcopalian. We care no more for his
opinion in regard to the tariff, than we care
for his opinion in regard to the Westmin-
ster Confession of Faith.
Running a City on Business Lines.
We want a man who will fulfill his
duties Because, after all, the city is only
a larger offce-building in which the houses
take the place of rooms and the streets take
the place of the halls. There is no reason
why city should not be run as well as an
And the city is only an
other kind Of club, to which we all be-
long, and in which we ought to be served
with the common conveniences utterly re-
gardless of our income, as men are served
in their clubs. The city ought to be con-
Quoted upon Christian principles. There is
no distinction between good business and
good religion. That does not mean there
ought to be prayer meeting in the Council
chamber before every session; but it does
mean that those who have the rule in the
city, and the rest of us who give them rule,
ought to desire simple efficiency in all mu-
nicipal administration.
The Christian citizen recognizes the diff
Guilty of getting the right men, and he
realizes that there is still another way of
getting good government beside the absolute
of the ideal men, and that is the giving of
the city officials great deal to do. 1t is
the people who live in the little country
towns, where all the interests are petty, who
fall into miserable gossip and live narrow
lives. 1t is the little sleepy country parish
that has all manner of parochial fights going
on from one end of the year to the other
Making the Councilmen Work.
1t is in the body of men who have obscure
and Insignificant duties that you will find
the obscure and insignificant men. 1t is
said that the great trouble with the Prince
of Wales is that he is not given enough to
do; the great trouble with municipal ad-
in the opinion Of good many
people, is that there is not enough to do
that is worth doing. And accordingly, they
are going on the principle on the other side
of the water, where are to be found the best
governed cities on this planet, of giving a
great deal into the hands of the Councilmen.
The more they have to do with the great
public parks, and with the. management of
libraries for the people and with the care of
all the great monopolistic interests of the
city, to be run in the interest of all the
the more they have to do directly
with the life of the city in its sanitary legis-
lation, the more great burdens are laid upon
them, so much more will they come to feel
themselves actually the servants of the city.
That is not realized by the half of the Off
cials or the tenth part of the people. The
idea in many cases seems to be that one
great purpose of holding Office is to get some
share of our money. The people say some
times: "Well, the Democrats have had the
offices good while, and now we ought to
turn them over to the Republicans"
Getting Eminent Mon in Councils
But the whole purpose of Office ought to