The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-02
MUNICIPAL REFORM.

The sixth annual conference of mu-
nicipaI reformers is in session at IN
dianapolis. The more radical Of the
reformers favor: "a A separation Of
local from state and national elections.
q The abolition Of the straight party
ticket in municipal campaigns.
Municipal reform is a good thing. So
is any reform. But there are serious
doubts as to whether municipal gov
eminent is improved by non-partisan-
ship.
While it is true that a great deal of
corruption, favoritism and evil gener-
ally crops out in the administration Of
city government. particularly in the
larger places, it does not necessarily
follow that the remedy lies in the elm
ination OF party principles from mu-
nicipal politics. Rather st would seem
to be the better policy to infuse into it
more of those principles and to impose
upon the parties the heaviest RESPONSE
bility for the conduct of municipal Of
ficers.
There is too much of a tendency, and
these so-called reformers are partly re-
sponsible for it, to consider city adj
nlinistrations as different from and but
distantly related to those affairs for
which political parties are held to an
accounting.
To relieve established organizations,
great political parties, of the respon-
sibility, for municipal government
would serve to remove from such gov
eminent any public responsibility
whatever. II citizens are displeased
with the way matters are going, lei
them attend the primaries or help the
other party.
Political degeneracy cannot be cured
by a fusion of disconnected reformers
from both sides. Given success at the
polls and an opposition party will
spring up in time Old party lines may
be ignored, but new lines will be urawn
and the very worst form of partisan
ship, that based upon local or personal
differences, upon petty likes and dis
likes, upon neighborhood quarrels. viii
result
Corruption and favoritism viii -four.
ish under one banner as well as an
other; evils viii continue to exist as
long as men and women shirk the pri.
maries when they feel IL their duty tC
attend.
Party politics cannot be kept out OF
city campaigns. In the cities the poll.
ticians live. The cities present oppor.
tuuities that politicians do not despise
In the very nature OF things this s so
There are appointments to make, plums
to distribute, contracts to let men t.
employ, favors to grant, and it is only
q question Of who is to handle all thi:
machinery; whether it shall be a mar
influenced by a faction or one infiu.
enced by a party; one who is under OBJ
legations to a boss or one who is bound
to a great party whose manifold inter
ests require the best service, and thu
best record to present to the people a
the next campaign.
Reform is always in order. The non
partisan method of bringing it abou
in the larger cities has not proved sue
cessful. It affords those who neglec
their opportunities a chance to protest
and it provides a means by which mel
may obtain an office they could not ge
through a responsible and established
party organization, but the Offices an(
the patronage are generally in tn
vision Of the so-caIeG reformer jus
IS they are in the eyes Of the averag,
marty r,olifiriaD