The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-02-22
MAYOR PINGREE ON ''MUNIOI-
PAL REFORM"
BY "CHICAGO."

MAYOR PINeREE of Detroit is re-
former of bold and unique type;
one who will have reform if he has to
fight for it, and on the whole would
just as soon fight for it as not. A
few years ago he was elected Mayor
of Detroit and almost at once the
fight and the fun began. Detroit's
Mayor soon became famous for the
vigor and earnestness with which he
set about certain municipal reforms in
that city. His greatest fight was
against the city railways for three
cent fare, and many and tumultuous.
at times riotous, were the sessions of
the city fathers of Detroit owing to
Mayor Pingree's aggressive, fearless
and uncompromising line of policy
and action. He and his followers
carried their fight against the city
railways through all the courts of the
land to the Supreme Court of the
United States, and when they were
beaten there, he and the members of
the City Council, who bravely stood by
him, tried another scheme, namely
that of giving franchises on the best
streets to other companies with the
result that today in Detroit there is
only one company that charges five
cent fare.
Detroit's success has inspired other
cities to follow it's example and it was
probably to aid the present fight in
Chicago for lower street car fares that
Detroit's fighting Mayor was invited
to deliver an address on recent
Thursday night in Central Music Hall
on Municipal Reform" An audience
of perhaps one thousand persons list
ened to Mayor Pingree's address and
cheered him to the echo in his caus-
tic and witty arraignment of existing
forms of municipal corruption in all
our great cities. Mayor Pingree fe-
licitously defined the idea of govern
ment at present prevailing in most
cities as government of the many
by the few and for the few. The
masses" as the people in general are
called by the few, are permitted, ac-
cording to Mayor Pingree, for certain
purposes to take very active part in
the city government. "They have"
said Mayor Pingree, certain ancient
and humble privileges which are
strictly guarded and sacredly kept.
Among these are the right to pay
taxes and the pleasure of being held
up from day to day and compelled
to pay watered rates on gas light,
electric light, telephone and street
car stock"
These sacred rights are guarded in
Chicago with courage and fidelity by
Chicago's Aldermen,-a body of brave
men who, Mayor Pingree asserts,
"will hang together in the interests of
the new aristocracy until they hang
separately"
Rarely have municipal corruption
and the criminal negligence of citi-
zens to which it is due been placed
in clearer light than in Mayor Pin
gree's Chicago address.
Railroads and street railways,
trusts and Doodle Aldermen, all re-
ceived his careful attention and his
brave words and still more his sue
cess in carrying municipal reform in
to effect in his own city, will do much
toward strengthening the cause of
reform in Chicago. The whole ma
chinery that this aristocracy of the
few array against reform was accu-
rately described, and in the following
suggestions at least, Mayor Pingree
was almost photographed in his
account, as every one who has fol-
lowed his career knows: 81 would
not advise any of you who are sensi-
tive and easily discouraged to at
tempt to break the trust, because if
you do the new aristocracy to which
| have referred will attack you at
every point. This will generally be
done through the medium of some
trust newspaper, whose proprietors
are trying to be respectable by drink
ing pink tea and bathing in lavender
water"
In prosecuting such reforms as he
has himself attempted and partially
achieved in Detroit, Mayor Pingree
was but reciting his own experien-
ces when he warned his auditors that
if they essayed in earnest the role of
reformer, they would be called Popu-
lists, Socialists and Anarchists; would
have to take all their meals at home
or at a restaurant; and in general find
wealth and social influence thrown
in the scale against them. Neverthe-
less, and in this we heartily agree
with him, Mayor Pingree thinks it