Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-01-17
LANE PLEADS
FOR PURITY IN
CIVIC AFFAIRS
COMMISSIONER MAKES ADJ
DRESS AT CITY CLUB II
PRAISES WORK BEING DONE BY
REFORM LEAGUES
Interstate Commerce Official Guest of
Honor at Weekly Luncheon.
Charter Amendments
Discussed

discussed
An unexpected treat for the City clut
at its weekly luncheon at the Westmin-
ster hotel was an address by Franklin
K. Lane of San Francisco, member OF
the Interstate commerce commission.
Mr.. Lane was guest of honor, and
when President w. j. Husaker intro
duced him he was greeted with an
ovation.
His address was directed along the
lines of municipal reform and the work
the City club is doing.
He said:
Il have accepted this invitation, the
only one of public or a Quasi-public
character that l have accepted in your
city. not that I might have an oppor-
tunity of addressing you, but that
might have an opportunity of seeing
you; because the movement in which
you are engaged is a movement to
which for a great many years l devoted
myself-long before l had any idea that
my interest in municipal affairs would
lead to my holding municipal office or
any other office.
when l was a boy at college at the
University of California l was one Of
band of five men who organized a
municipal reform league in San Fran
cisco to supervise and overlook the af-
fairs of the municipality. And it has
been satisfaction to me, as I have
met the reform leagues, the city clubs
and such organizations throughout the
United States, to find that the great
proportion Of our young university men
are entering these movements with en-
ehuSiasm.
Last month 1 had the pleasure of
meeting the City club of Chicago, a
large organization, in which I heard
most appreciative words of the City
club of Los Angeles. Several months
ago 1 met the City club of Philadel-
phia, and there again L heard of the
existence, of the progress and the
power of your organization. The work
that you are doing is known, not only
to yourselves, but it gives stimulus and
support to men engaged in similar
work throughout the United States.
And so long as we can get our young
men, the boys fresh from the universe
ties, to become interested in our mu-
nicipal affairs, we may be assured
that their interest will last throughout
their lives and that we will have a
nucleus, a foundation upon which TO
build for good government of all
kinds.
Likes Young Men
1.-THE administration of President
Roosevelt is about to come to an end;
and 1 know from my talks with him
that there has been no satisfaction
that he has had so great as that of his
ability to draw around him and to in
duce to come into the public service
the young men Of the country.
Twenty years ago they tell me that
it was almost an unknown thing for a
university man, or a man who had not
been connected with practical politics,
TO hold any kind of high class place
under the federal government in Wash
ington excepting by some rare stroke
of fortune-for the government. Today
I think most of such places are occu-
pied by men, not old; comparatively
young; who are giving work for the
government at practically one-quarter,
and sometimes not that, of the return
that they could get if they devoted the
same energy to outside work.
I'VE are becoming more democratic.
Your club is an evidence of that. You
are fighting to introduce democracy
into the affairs of the municipality.
They are fighting for that not only
in California and in municipal affairs,
but they are fighting for that same
result in Oregon, in the election of a
United States senator; and there is no
doubt in my mind but that Governor
Chamberlain will succeed, as he should.
'They are fighting for that in twen-
ty other states in the United States,
where they are making an effort along
one line or another; to introduce direct
primary; to introduce the initiative and
the referendum and the recall. CAP
plause.)
I'VE are going to see in our country
the greatest kind of change within the
next few years, not only in the charac-
ter of men we induce to take office, but
in the character of laws that are placed
upon our statute books, by which you
and / may be able directly to control
the conduct of our own business af-
fairs.
81 helped to draft the charter of San
Francisco a few years ago. We thought
then that that charter was the most
radical instrument that had yet been
presented to the United Sttaes, and l
think that that was true. The body
that drafted that instrument, COM
posed of a hundred men, was made up
of representatives of all classes of
from labor unions and many being
from the professions and from the bust
ness classes; so that we got a consen-
sus of opinion, and we incorporated
the best of that opinion into our fun
damental law.
THAT instrument has been outgrown
today. We adopted the initiative then.
We did not realize the power of that
instrument, and I think San Francisco
has failed to realize it yet. But that
instrument today by you, and I fancy
by the most Of the men in the United
States who are interested in the solu-
ton Of municipal problems, is regarded
as an extremely conservative and not