The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1899-06-16
PRACTICAL MUNICIPAL RE-
FORMS.
government.

When people talk of municipal reform
they generally connect it with retrench-
ment in expenditures and little better
enforcement of the laws But practical
municipal reform really goes further
than this as is pointed out by writer
in the current number of Gunton's mag
azine on this subject, In reviewing
the question he attributes the present
strong and often radical impulsion to
municipal reform to the ravages of
predatory bossism, which, until a few
years ago, dominated our municipal
ties and defed reform. This reaction
against bossism and plumber is natural,
even if many champions of reform are
somewhat irrational. The social prob
lens are many and they can't be solved
all at once. The trend of public senti-
ment is to separate municipal from
state and national politics, and, concur.
rently, there has come the proposition to
inau gurate municipal socialism or pro-
nounced paternalistic state. The writer
of the article referred to understands
practical municipal reform to mean the
broadening of school and home educa-
ton in the first place, so that there
shall be seating room for all the chill
dren of school age in the cities, even if
it costs much money, the course of in
struction everywhere extending down
to the kindergarten, whose influence is
more far-reaching than the grammar
sc hool, since it beneficially touches the
houses of the poorer classes.
The educational reform should also
include economic and political study for
the great mass of young people who
ave left school to become active citiz-
ems. Clean streets, alleys, public parks,
public gardens, free museums, public
baths and effective public sanitation
come under the head of potential re-
for matory education. The housing of
the poor is subject of serious import,
for good citizens cannot easily be made
of submerged tenement houses, where
by giene and the decencies of life are I'M
known. Sanitary and civilized housing,
it is shown, can best be accomplished
by private capital. Streets, sewerage,
ublic parks, libraries, water supply
a nd lighting are subjects of public own
ership Education comes first. Good
ducation," says the writer in Gunton's,
lis cheap at any price. and poor educa-
tt on is dear at any price; civilization is
cheap at any price" He concludes his
paper thus:
Municipal problems, then, are of
par amount Importance, but their i'm
portance does not consist so much in
transferring functions to the govern
ment as it does in creating a public de-
mand for specific lines of municipal
improvement. Municipal reform will
come when the people demand it
and it will never come before,
whether we have Iublic or private
ownership of any or all OF the
i functions of public service. Reform
means nothing until it is reduced to
specific demand for specific things.
The conditions and character of mum
icipal government in the United States
are no exception to this general rule
Reforms will be accomplished just in
proportion as they are feasible and re-
duced to definite specific demands,
and no faster" All of which is con-
spicuously true, Manifestly there is
an immense amount of public educa.
ton to be accomplished before the
public imperatively demands even
some of the reforms now discussed,
which are really practical.