Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-09
Cities Should Look Ahead.

Foresight should be one of the qualities
In good municipal government. 1t is a
quality esteemed In private business and
one that is almost essential to success in
life. Yet, foresight Is rare in the conduct
of cities. The end of the fiscal year is too
often the boundary of intellectual vision in
city management. The future is too often
left to take care of itself. The expansion
of city and the growth of population may
be we'll enough understood but for all this
city will put up public building which
everybody knows will be too small for the
city's needs few years hence. The town
authorities will put down a sewer which
common seEse assures will have to be dug
up in short time that larger one may
replace it. A water main will be laid that
is capable of conveying the wafer supply
today but not tomorrow. Narrow and twist
ing streets are tolerated till increasing traf-
fic makes the abutting property vaIu-
able that to widen and straighten the
street would bankrupt the town.
Bridges are not built till trade has suf-
fered more loss than the cost of a score of
bridges. There Is great neglect of the park
question. Instead of buying vacant land
and making a park few years In advance
of pressing need for it, the corporation
then condemns rows of buildings and tears
up the foundations to create a park. A city
will often surrender a million dollar park
to hundred thousand dollar building when
more eligible site might have been bought
for a small fraction of a million
Thousands of productive citizens die from
drinking foul water before the surviving
citizens wake up to the fact that supply
of pure water, though 1t cost money would
be good thing Half the town Is allowed
to burn down before it is realized that the
fire department is too small Thieves and
burglars are invited to pillage a town, and
after making off with the booty the police
force is strengthened Sanitation is neg
lected till a scourge directs attention to it,
Building rules are ignored till block COL
lapses and kills more men than would fall
in battle
OF course there is a percentage of moss
back citizens in every place who objected
to kerosene when it came to srlpplant the
pine knot and dip to gas when it out
shone the lamp and to electric lights when
they began to twinkle like man-made stars
There are everywhere citizens who would
Danish the rapid transit car and call back
the bus. but the number of these persons
IS never enough to block improvement if
the persons who believe in Improvement
would insist on having it.
The question of cost is one of the great
drawbacks to city betterments. Most cities
have learned how to finance them. To pay
cash for great and permanent improvements
gives too little consideration to living tax
payers and TOO much consideration to I'M
born taxpayers. 1t is proper that a man
should feel due regard for posterity, but he
does not feel like paying posterity's bills
hundred years in advance. The cost of big
improvements can better be spread over a
long term and the burden of payment
divided between the generations that will
be benefited. Great private and quasi-pub-
lie corporations make their betterments not
on present earnings, but by the sale of
stock or bonds.
Municipal bonds provide investment for
the thrifty citizen or for the banks that
pay interest on the deposits of the thrifty
citizen. The thrifty citizen Is going to buy
stock or bonds In something, and ii is safer
for him to buy them in his own city than
in some boom town a thousand miles away,
some grasshopper county 'tother side of
nowhere or in a foreign railroad or indus
trial concern which some friend has told
him is a good thing. a municipal bond
holder is almost sure to be an advocate OF
honest government for the town to which
he has lent his money.