The Boise citizen. (Boise, Idaho) 1906-1910, 1907-02-22

the disciple clergyman, who, ceasing to
be a mere preacher, has become min
ister, and minister indeed, and as
director Of charities and corrections has
befriended the poor, the forgotten, the
imprisoned, all that host of city's pop
ulation who are down and out. Mr.
Cooley was appointed by Mayor Johnson
directors of charities and corrections
under the old Cleveland special charter,
and under the new general municipal
act was elected to the board of public
service, which succeeded to the powers
and functions of the old directors. And
here Mr. Cooley has continued to act
as, and even to be called, director of
charities and corrections. He has built
up an amazing system, reformed work
house, with a night school organized
and conducted by the prisoners them
selves, with system of paroles aimed
to keep men out of prison rather than
to keep them in, to help them rather
than to hurt them. He has established
municipal farm of 1000 acres, where
the prisoners work out of doors, where
there is a boys home, an infrmary
and tuberculosis hospital
ooh, Mr. Cooley" cried one of the
boys at this boys home, you ought to
come out here some night and see what
fine stars we havel"
There are no stars in the slums where
that boy came from, not even stars of
hope, or were none until Mr.. Cooley, in
the real spirit of Jesus, began quite lit
orally to preach the gospel to the poor,
x to heal the brokenhearted, to
preach deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty them that are bruised"
Besides, there are Newton D. Baker,
the lawyer in politics, likewise a novelty
because he serves the people instead of
clients who can pay large fees; he is
the youthful city solicitor, with the face
and the ideals of poet, an expert in
municipal law, who has successfully ad-
vised Mayor Johnson in his long legal
battle with the street car corporations;
Edward W. Bemiss, the college pro-
fessor in politics, the superintendent of
the waterworks Carl H Nau, the ac-
countant, now city treasurer, who has
been the mathematician of the traction
problem, and Frederic C. Howe, the
scholar in politics, lawyer, state senator,
and Mayor Johnson's intimate friend
and adviser, appointed by the govern
ment to investigate municipal ownership
in Europe.
Each of these men is a specialist, and
all work together for the advancement
and upbuilding of the city; they really
represent the people, and not some spe-
cial interest; they have the American,
not the European, idea of government
that is, each regards himself as a rep
resentative, a trustee, and not as ruler,
and his office is a responsibility, not as
a privilege. Working thus together they
have accomplished quite as much in a
material way, and it is their achieve
ments that have caused Cleveland to
be called the best governed city in
America.
THE. HANDSPRING OF THE CITY
GOVERNMENT
If Cleveland is the best governed city
in America, it is because the people of
Cleveland understand f-government
the best It is not enough that a city
have honest officials, that it have clean
streets, an economical or even 'busl-
nesslike" administration not enough,
even, that it have good" government.
These things are well enough and requi-
I..G Ill a
feudal despot might so rule a city; and
the boss always promises to give the
people good government" but to do this
he must first wrest the government from
its owners, the people, and they are
then in the frightful danger OF never
getting it back again.
American cities should not be ruled.
America was instituted to do away with
rulers, and to provide in their stead rep
.resentatives. America has not yet ac-
complished this; we still speak an Old
World jargon, still conceive of officials
as rulers. AS if the people should elect
men to put yokes on their necks II
Cleveland is the best governed city in
America, it is because the American idea
of a peoples government is better un-
derstood there than elsewhere; because |
more of the problems of democracy have /
there been worked out; because there
the people have more completely real |
lied themselves as a people, as a mass
But behind and above all these person |
alities looms another personality tre-
mendous, dynamic, magnetic personality, /
the friend, the leader of them all, the
organizer of this immense American
victory. That personality IS Tom L.
johnson, who has been designated as
"the best mayor of the best-governed city
in the United States" First of all, though