The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-05-16

is it only in the West that municipal
CROWN has been so rapid. In New
York City proper $4,000 people are added
annually to it's population. Only hun
lied years ago Brooklyn, now a part of
Greater New York, was a little village of
only l,5OO Inhabitants; today it has close
upon million. And then consider the
marvellous growth of such cities as Chi
cago, St. Louis, San Francisco Mime
apolis and many others that might be
mentioned. Nor is this enormous increase
in city population confined to our own
land. 1t is said that every night $50
more people go to bed in London than
got up there in the morning. And the
growth of Glasgow is even more rapid
than that of Chicago. / have not the
time to enter into the consideration of
the forces which have tended to produce
this rapid growth. | simply say that
The Sc same forces are at work today,
and will continue 10 give an ever in
creasing impetus to our municipal CEN
ters of population. The cities that hold
great populations today are destined to
hole greater populations tomorrow,
while hundreds of other cities yet unborn
will have place and power under our flag
Nor is it difficult to understand the
causes that make American cities
such prolific fields of crime and corrup-
ticn. Take the fact that more than one
half of their population is either for
eigE-born or the children of foreign-b born
parents. They have not had that train
ing in the school of liberty which we ma
tye-born Americans have enjoyed. They
do not know what liberty means They
have come with that natural reaction
against law which Inevitably leads to
lawLessness But more than that, the
poor flock to the great cities under the
mistaken impression that they have only
TO come in order to find employment
The incompetent come to find somebody
who Will give them something to do. And
along with the poor and the incompetent
have come the criminals. the men who
wish to prey upon society. They come to
the city because there is the greatest op-
ha
greatest wealth. and because, strange as
1t may appear, there is the safest hiding
place. 1t is a great deal safer for a
criminal to hide in city than in a
rural district. Then in the city are the
low theaters, the liquor shops, the
looms, the gambling holes, and worst
their fellowmen into vice, who appeal
to their appetities, their lusts. to the
animal that is in them, gather in the
city because the temptible gather there
also The tempter and the temptible both
gather in the great city.
And, then add TO these considerations
another: We are living in an age of
thrift in an age not only of great in
crease of wealth. but of great increase
in the division of wealth. Not only are
there few men who have become mill
honaires-that is a fact with which we
are all famliar-but also there is a great
strata of society that has begun to have
the appetite for wealth. They want bet
ter houses, better furniture better food
but in all our American cities-Honolulu
included-you will find men thrifty be-
yond the point of virtue, and to TIE point
of greed, and they are divided ul two
sides of the line. On one side men
so absorbed in business that they Sould
rather attend to that than to public af-
fairs: they would rather maxi money
and pay bigger tax than take the
trouble the reduce the taxes. The desire
to make money makes them politically
Indifferent. on the other side are men
who want an opportunity to make money
out of the Government AS soon as We
have municipal government in Homo
lulu some hundreds of thousands of dol
lars will be expended annually by the
city authorities, and there are a great
many men in Honolulu who would like a
share in the expenditure of those hun
dreds of thousands, partly desiring to
give honest service therefor and partly
desiring an illegitimate and dishonest
share in what they term public plunder
Ard so this greed, this fever for larger
wealth and greater prosperity, produces
these two classes in the community. In
the best citizens it produces political in
(('OQfiDtJod N