The San Francisco call., 1897-01-05
Proper City Control Would Mean
Work for the Unem.
ployed.
DR.. sTALLARD CRITICIZED.
Dobrmann Says Allowing Supervisors
Executive Powers Encourages
EooilerS.

The Rev. Mr.. Bliss presentation of the
problem of municipal reform has met
with considerable favorable comment by
prominent laymen who heard his discus
sions at st. Luke's Church on Sunday.
Business men particularly expressed
themselves as heartily in accord with the
ideas he advanced.
One large merchant yesterday sent a
check for a contribution to the work the
league may undertake along the lines
suggested by the clerical sociologist
Next Monday forenoon the Rev. Mr..
Bliss, at the conclusion of his visit here,
will deliver a special address before the
meeting of the clericus, which is the regu-
lar gathering of all the clergy of the Epis-
copal church in this City. 1t is expected
that he will suggest plans for municipal
reforms to be advocated from the pul pit !;
for the intelligent presentation and eluci-
dation of sociological principles by cul-
tured men to persons constituting church
congregations with their associations OF
dignifed tboughtfulness as opposed to
the smaller bands of dissatisfied individ-
uaIs that alter having little themselves
contend for any change that may bring to
them what they might never get by de-
serving and superior effort.
The Rev. Mr.. Moreland, speaking of the
matter discussed by the Rev. Mr.. Bliss,
declared yesterday that he believes that
municipal reform will be the vital, the
general issue throughout the United
States during the next four years. Those
impressed with a strong belief in socio-
logical principles of City government
are, he thinks, quiet and undemonstrative
only because they are hopeful of the time
when their mum berS may naturally become
large enough to be effective at the polls.
The president of the Merchants Asso-
citation, in criticiZing the means for
municipal reform recently advocated by
DR.. Stallard of Merlo Park, thinks that
the Board of Supervisors should be de-
priYed of executive powers and the oppor-
tunity to control positions and handle
Doodle. He would model the manage
ment of the City after the business meth
eds of large and successful private con-
Germs, in which the boards cf directors
advise and Iegislate, while the executive
officers do the real work of managing the
business. He thinks that DIR. Slallard' s
views, while generally apt and thoughtful,
are based partly upon European models
that are not completely applicable TO con-
ditions here
The following is a copy of a letter writ
ten yesterday by F. w. Dohrmann, presi-
dent Of the Merchants Association. 10 DR..
Stallard, in reply to his published plans
for municipal government:
JANUARY 4, 1897.
DR.. J. II. iStdldrd-DEAR SIR: 1 have carefully
read your article published in the Overland
Monthly, and the manuscript for an addi-
tonal one TO follow, and am greatly obliged to
you for submitting the latter to me now.
You have evidently made the su bject of mu-
nicipal government a life study, anu your criti-
cism OF existing evils proves that you have
given close attention to present conditions in
San Francisco.
The conclusion which you evidently arrive
at is that enange is absolutely necessary. In
this fully concur.
The remedy you suggest is that in remodel
ing our fundamental laws the legislative as
we'll as the executive powers be placed in q
council and that the executive function be
placed in the hands of committees.
Your principal reason for this system seems
TO be that it is successful in England and
more democratic than to give legislative pow
ers to a council and executive powers to q
Mayor.
nj am not convinced in the first place that
the reasons for improvements in European
cities are chiefly that a council had charge of
them.
Did not Paris become the leading and model
of all modern improved cities through the
efforts of Baron Haussmann. and was not Wash
ington made new through Boss Shepard
And if it is undemocratic to divide the powers
to legislate and the duty to administrate, then
the United States and all our State governments
are on a wrong and undemocratlc foundation.