The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-06-29
All Natural MonOpoIies That a
Mayor Can Oversee
THE CITY SHOULD OWN
Regards the City as a Great
Stock Company
Of Which the Chief Magistrate
Is the Manager.

dent. W J. Abbott at Chicago:
When I asked Carter H. Harrison,
mayor of Chicago, TO express his opin-
ion upon the issue of municipal owner
ship, ne was fresh from a mission likely
to impress upon him wildly the demer-
its OF the present system.
The legislature of Illinois, now ad-
journed, had then before it two meas
ures fathered. respectively by the Gas
Trust and Street Railway Trust. the
two most powerful combinations of cap
iral in Chicago.
The one was designed to enable the
several gas companies in Chicago to
unite openly in one great corporation,
instead OF doing so secretly by devious
and unlawful means, as at present. This
measure was passed with reasona bic
smoothness, and future candidates for
attorney general are likely to miss the
lavish campaign contributions the Gas
Trust made to their predecessors. But
the other corporation measure-the So
called Allen bill-was q different thing
and this the young mayor OF chicago
had been to The state capitol ia an en-
deayOr, vain, as 1t proved, to beat I mis-
measure authorized the extension of the
franchise of the street railways 80 years
granted the corporations the right to
combine and permitted each corpora
tiOn to charge cent car fare on every
section of its system. Made law, as it
has been, this measure estops all effort
for reduction of fares, prevents conpe-
&ition and defers Indefinitely any effort
for municipal ownership.
Perhaps it was his recent experience
in opposition TO the power which forced
this bill through that led Mayor Harri-
son to open his conversation by speak
ing of the political effect of municipal
ownership.
THE stock objection to municipal
ownership is that, by immensely in
creasing the number of necessary en-
plOyes of the municipality, it would al
so greatly increase the political power
OF the administration which controlled
them" he said
but I don't hold this position. be-
Heve implicitly that the director, for
example, Of gas works owned and OPP
Grated by Chicago would exercise less
political power than the president of a
private corporation furnishing citizens
with gas.
The effect of a wide expansion of the
functions of the municipal government
would he tWO-f0ld. First the citizen be-
ing Immediately interested, would dis
charge his duties as voter more
thoughtfuIy and more regularly. Sec
Ond. there would result from it a de-
mand for real, honest civil service re-
form which the politicians could not ig-
more and which Wo1ld give the city,
particularly in what might be called its
Industrial departments, trained and
unchanging force of employees.
These men, with the knowledge that
public sentiment would not tolerate
their removal for political reasons, could
not be welded into machine. No, sir;
Z
she political problem harder than now"
Then you unreservedly favor NUM-
cipal ownership
No; don't go too fast. You know my
father established the municipal cleo
tric lighting system here, and I learned
from him to believer the greatest prac-
ticable extension of the useful functions
of city government.
But the limit is touched when you
throw upon the municipality SO many
duties, 50 many responsibilities that the
mayor becomes physically unable to
give personal supeIlntendence to all OF
them"
favorite dogma of the Harrison
family that. I can recall the elder Har-
risOn-who, year after year, ruled Chi
cago against the cutlery of all its news
papers: as the son has begun-laying
down his theory that a city is an arm
ed camp, to be ruled by > single com
mander. speaking through his aides. It
Is theory which naturally cOmmendS
itself most strongly to the man who is
in the commanding post, and.as heard
the son repeat the sturdy, seIf-aEsertiYe
words of the father. hitherto untried in
public place, there are those qualities of
frmness and diplomacy, sound sense,
good fellowship and the slight touch of
the demagOgue essential to political
success. which made his father great.
I mean" he continued, that the
mayor should be the ruler of the city
of all of it; of its every department and
its every interest. He is the electrical
head of the city and his incompetence,
or worse. is punished by the voters. His
department heads are responsible to
him. and stand or fall with him, ac-
cording to the verdict the citizens pass
upon his capacity. In short, the city is
a great stock company, of which the
mayor is the manager"
Wen, and IL so o.
Then you see that the single general
agsr-and I do not not admit the
possibility of divided esponsibility-
must not be given too many diverse and
heterogeneous matters TO manage. The
mayor cannot at once be able to give
intelligent direction to a police force
Rpd gas plant; to a street railway sys-
tern and a fire department. There is
limit to the capacity of one man to sup
ervise the work of others, and when
that limit is reached I think the prac-
ticable limit of the extension OF NUM-
cipal functions is attained as we'll
Doesn't that put rather a sharp stop
70 the possibilities of municipal owner
snip Lhe mayor OF any great city al
ready is bUrdened with about all the
work he is capable of discharging.''
Wei. I think there might be q dis
4inction ORA wn sharply between munich
pal ownership and municipal opera ton,
Of such institutions as street car lines,
for exa mple. Gas works fail normally
within the scope of municipal authority
IT is as natural for a city to own and
operate its lighting plant as it's wa ter
works We, in Chica go, have not done
1t. largely because it was believed that
the electric light would speedily sup
@rsede gas for general lighting purposes
3nQ that the municipal plant eSta bliSh-
ed by my father would naturally de-
veiop into one suitable to meet the
needs Of the entire city.
The street railroads offer a different
proposition. In one sense they, are even
more Mt than a gas plant for public
ownership, for they occupy a great Da1-t
Of the surface of the streets to the ex-
eHlslon Of the public. Not only do they
convey the greater part of our popuIa-
ton to and from their places Of bust
ness, and in so doing levy what is vir-