Bridgeton pioneer., 1909-03-18

duC CITY udS
with various phases of municipal own
ership and is forced to confess disap-
pointment and failure. It's latest I'M
dertaking in this line was the estab4
lishment of a municipal printing Of
fee, which proved to be so expensive
and so altogether unsatisfactory that
it is about to be abandoned. The at
tempt to operate such an establish
ment as a means of freeing the city Of
evils arising from collusion among bid
ders on contract work is admitted to
be dismal failure from every point of
view.
Municipal ownership is very beau
tiful theory in perspective, but in reali-
ty it falls so far short of what is prom
ised by overzealous advocates that
there is small prospect that it will
ever make much substantial headway.
Divorced from politics, it might possi-
bly, he made to serve as an acceptable
substitute for the methods to which
the people have become accustomed
But there is the rub. Experience has
shown that they can be no more eff
fectuaIly separated than it is possible
for human ingenuity to change the
course of the heavenly bodies. Nc
matter how high the ideal at the out
set, politics is certain to creep in by
degrees until eventually the enterprise
thus established in good faith and for
a well intended purpose becomes a
hotbed of extravaganza, mismanage-
ment and scandal.
That has been the rule and result
wherever the experiment has been
tried; that will be the consequence
wherever it may be undertaken here
after Whatever need of popularity
1t has attained as an alternative for
existing forms of municipal govern
ment is doubtless due to the overanx-
iety of taxpayers to be relieved OF
pressing burdens, ignoring the sage
advice that it "were better to bear the
ills we have than flee to others we
know not Of
To say that the government of cities
is unnecessarily expensive and burden
some is but to repeat truism that is
on all hands admitted. New York, be-
ing the largest, is the most conspicu-
Gus offender. Only a few days ago
the comptroller of that city showed
how it had cost the people $1,000 for
viewers and others concerned in con-
demnation proceedings relating to
piece of land valued at $75, and hum
dreds of similar instances are cited in
proof of unbridled extravaganza.
But the metropolis is by no means
the sole offender The trail of the ser
pent is over them all, each hoping to
justify itself by precedent and in 9th
erwise endeavoring to shift RESPONSE
bility for a condition of affairs that is
ineXcusable
Instead of enlarging the present
scheme of municipal government the
thing that is most urgently needed is
simplifcation, which would, of course
mean retrenchment also. There is no
exaggeration in saying that expenses
could be reduced at least one-half and
probably three-fourths without detri-
ment to efficiency by the introduction
of common sense business methods in
the management of municipal affairs,
but the way out of the dilemma is not
through the discredited theory of own
ership of public utilities, but through
the medium of remedial legislation de-
vised in praiseworthy spirit of eco
nomical government, shorn of useless
appendages which tend to thoughtless
or reckless extravagance.-Lafay
Qnd) Courier.