The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-14

| that I visited this wonderful city on | the Clyde, for I left behind me a far | better one at nome in the Pan-Ameri- can, as to see the metropolis itself. | second in size only to London and ranking seventh in comparison with
 the cities of Europe.
 While grand old Edinburgh Is really entitled to its designation as the mod ern Athens, with its castellated Aero polls visible from every part of the | city, Glasgow may well be termed an | improved Paris, even renovated New York or Chicago. It may be a thou sand years old, as its residents proudly claim. and yet 1t is throbbing with the life and energies of twentieth cen tury civilization. We of the United States may take a justiflable interest | in 1t because 1t dates its real prosperity l from the beginning of its trade with our country. Not a great many years ago, as the lives of cities are reckoned, Glasgow sat in squalor amid the dank lowlands along the mudrdy Clyde. then | a semistagnant ditch which at times | was easily fordable on foot. Today | the Clyde Is navigable for the largest sea-going steamers or first-class bat | tleships and ranks the world with the productions of its yards. It is spanned by many bridges, lined with magni- ficent quays and Is the center of vast trade, which reaches out to every part of the globe, especially important being it's mercantile traffic with America. As Lord Salisbury once said, Glasgow is the center and crown of the shipbuild- ing business of Great Britain. and its river Is pre-eminent for it's splendid fleets of steamers"
 
 1t as compliment to be told that their beautiful city is more American than 1t is British, for they hold that k has long surpassed the American type of municipality and leads the world in the race for municipal betterinent. And, with all due respect for my fellow countrymen, I cannot but agree with them. for the evidence is here on every hand. The municipal or community of interest idea is what they have been specially strong in developing. They have taken hold of it in that forceful manner peculiar to the Scotch and have developed 1t in a way that com- pels admiration and respect. Their leading motive has not been philan- thropy ab origine, but that was the basis of 1t, or, rather, they have car ried out a vast philanthropic work on sound business principles and. after a manner characteristic of the "can- ny" Scotch, have made 1t pay. They have triumphed over nature. which gave them the worst possible site for city in the first place, and they have triumphed over caste and social pre- judice in furnishing the bulk of their population, the poorer people, with the highest grade of service in every way possible to be attained by wealth and influence. One would not expect to find a truly democratic spirit in a hidebound aristocracy such as domi- mates not alone here. but alf Great Britain and Europe. but such is the case. It exists. is rampant in fact. and has burst the bounds of conven- tionalities.
 Having declared that Glasgow leads the world in the race for municipal su- premacy, I must. of course, prove my assertion. I would be understood as using the term in its larger sense, meaning that this city provides the greater number of utilities for the largest number of citizens at the lowest possible cost. In other words, it seems to have solved the problem of munich pal ownership quite successfully, so far as the average citizen-and he is usually the porer citizen-is concerned. The idea of municipal ownership has long been prevalent in the United States. It Is constantly popping up about election time-every year of late but it has never matched! The idea occurred to the Scotsmen many years ago, and they cogitated upon 1t, with a resultant development that surpass- ed their expectations. About a hun dred years ago, they tell me here, some sagacious merchants organized a sort of trust for the purpose of making their city great. They deepened their river, built docks and farbor basins, furnaces and factories and opened mines of iron that have already pro- duced millions of tons, with billions yet to come, they say. As the trust grew in power, strange to say, it became more philanthropic--that is, the men ness end to philanthropy and they grasped it. Without seeking to detract from their need of credit, this may be said, though the concrete result has been an unqualified benefit to the peo- pie.
 As the city prospered under the guid- ance of the farseeing city fathers 1t attracted to 1t all the poorer laborers and lower class population of the sur rounding country, and Glasgow became noted-as, indeed, it is today-for it's wetched poor. They lived in filth and suualor, in miserable tenements crowd ed together without light and pure air The city streets were dirty. narrow, i'll paved the sewers open and uncleans- ed. Epidemic diseases swept the city from end to end, and the death rate was appalling. The merchants had grown rich and powerful along the lines of improvement and cooperation. They had crushed out the powerful guilds which formerly controlled the city, and they were now trusted and honored by the citizens.
 Thus it was that the corporation of the city of Glasgow was born. In sense the people own it and run 1t, and all it's enormous profits go to swell the sum total of municipal well being Fortunately the city corporation took cogniZance of the terrible conditions prevailing among the poor, and under took to ameliorate them. Having the power to do so, they practically wiped out the pest breeding tenement district. They tore the city wide open by creat- ing breathing spaces where the crowded dwellings, had stood having acquired title to them by purchase. They built wide streets. laid out parks and con verted ill smelling slums into beauty spots More than $l50, 100000, it is said, has been spent by the corporation in its great work of reformation and re- and what is most wonder full about it all is that the work has paid in a pecuniary sense. Private property was condemned and puFchas-