Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1910-10-27
Socialists
Administration
Takes Advantage of University of
Wisconsin Resources.
(By Carl D. Thompson.)

On one of the doors of the City
Hall this week there, appeared the
sign. "The University of Wisconsin
Division - Municipal
Bureau"
This sign, modest enough in itself,
is of the most vital and striking sig
nifcance. 1t means that the resources
of one of the greatest universities
in the world are to be drawn upon
by the administration to assist iii the
task of organizing an efficient gov
eminent. ~
AS soon as the present officials
took charge of the affairs of Mil
waukee, they determined to sum
mon to the task before them the very
best talent, expert ability, and con-
structive genius available. Very nat
urally, their minds turned to the
State University. Now, of course,
the State University of Wisconsin is
not Socialist institution; nor is it
any more ready to serve the Socialist
administration than any other. The
difference is that the new administra-
ton in Milwaukee is alive to the OPP
portunities of advantage to the city
Any administration might have called
on the splendid resources in the
state university, but it remained for
the Socialist administration to take
advantage of these resources.
The State University of Wisconsin
is acknowledged by educators
throughout the country to be one OF
the greatest and best universities in
the world. And one of the special
features of it's work is it's particular
attention to social and civic prob
lens. In these lines, as well as in,
it's splendid agricultural department.
it has been doing great work for
the state of Wisconsin. 1t naturally
stands ready, and is logically COM
mitted to render any service it can
to the largest city of the state.
It only remained for that city to
put into power a group Of men who
really wanted to use this kind of
ability.
Not every city has such univer-
sity as Wisconsin to serve it, but
every city has some resources more
or less similar which might be put
at the disposal of the city, if it had
public officials who were genuinely
interested in serving the city. to find
and develop these resources.
One of the first and fundamental
needs in municipal government is
scientific and systematic method of
cost keeping. The purchasing de-
partment of the city, the public
works department, the accounting
all of these things constantly increas-
ing, need above everything else sys-
TEN and order. The cost unit sys-
TEN has become the foundation OF
every modern successful business.
The successful city can be no excep-
ton to this.
So the administration has sought
and secured John R. Commons of the
university to take charge of this
work and prepare for the city this
fundamental requirement of it's gov
eminent.
Furthermore, the city needs a mu-
Enicipal reference library that shall
gather together, for the administra-
ton, information on all municipal
problems from the progressive cities
of the world There is perhaps no.
university in America that has been
more efficient in this particular and
specialized line of work than the
wisconsin University. They will as
sist in developing this library.
And again, the administration is
struggling with one of the greatest
problems that confronts any city, viz.
the question of transportation-the
street car lines, urban and inter
urban. They have been busily at
work for weeks on a model franchise.
But in order to insure the wisest pos.
sible procedure; they sought to gath
Ell, information from other cities, not
only in this, but in foreign countries.