The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-09-29
The New CITY

There died man in Chicago in March, 1907
who the first white child born in the city
At his birth time the town consisted OF Fort
Dearborn and five houses besides. When he died
the city numbered two million
Such was the rapid growth of one town as
measured by one human life of eighty-five years.
And what is true of Chicago is true in varying
proportions of the modern town. Nothing is
more characteristic of the past half century than
this unprecedented growth of urban life. When
the Nineteenth century entered the running only
per cent of American population lived in town
but when the Twentieth got under way no less
than SO per cent of had come to live in the city
1t is this rapid and extraordinary increase IN
the size of towns which has given us the peculiar
ly modern problem of municipal government.
And all troubles may chiefly be traced to
just this, that we are trying to run twenty-five
thousand soul town with an administration sys-
tenn designed for five hundred soul village.
That, is surely the whole matter in a nut shell.
When towns were small and everybody knew
intimately everybody else, town government was
a simple problem. Almost any person of ordin-
airy capacity could take of the affairs of such
a community Almost anybody could handle its
finances it's roads, it's Jail, its poor, and it's
done was simple
The problem at that time was how to avoid
control by one man or one group of men. Every
thing was therefore designed to spread the au-
thority of administration over as big territory
as possible and divide it up among as many citi-
zens possible.
This gave rise to the federal plan of city gov
eminent whereby each little ward or precinct has
it's own representative, whereby the administra-
ton is carried on by cumbersome legislative bod
les and boards. The central theory of this plan
is adequate representation in order to avoid
clique or personal rule.
This worked very we'll in the old town hall
meeting days when everybody was an authority
on town affairs but it is refusing to work for
us now that we no longer meet in town hall gath
erings and have grown so inordinately large.
And in growing large we find all our affairs
grow more and more complex and specialized
Any villager could scrape off dirt road but ii
requires an expert engineer properly to lay an
asphalt street. Any store-keeper could handle
the financial budget of the old fashioned village
but only an expert financier accountant is
equipped to cope with Richmond's three hundred
thousand dollar budget. Public sanitation was
not much of problem when the country broke
through at all points but now that we are living
in flats and narrow lots with houses damned as
close as possible only an experienced and scien
tificaly trained sanitarian hope to us
from plaques and epidemics.
In short, the modern city, like the modern
business, has passed under the law of the divis
ion of labor Where functions become hopelessly
complex and specialized one man must devote al
his time to one portion in order to manage it.
1t is this which must be more keeping
in mind now that we approaching time wher
the city must once more express its will in its Owr
management No longer do we fight over the
question of personalities; no longer is it ques
ton of "our side against yours; it is question
to what system of city administration need
If we placed an angel in office and compelled hin
to use an obsolete and leaky method of admins
tering the city's affairs the waste and incompe
tence and inefficiency which has made city gov
eminent laughing stock among business me1
will go before.
inefficient government is primarily due tt
badness of methods rather than to badness O.
men," so says the nations leading expert in mu
nicipal affairs, William H Allen, of the New Yorl
Bureau of Research, and says truly The com
mon sense business man, the thoughtful citizen
will no longer permit crowd of irresponsible
demagogues to excite him into voting to pu
THIS OR THAT MAN into office, he will vote t.
install an efficient and scientifically planned sys
tenn of city management. And if he finds tn
thing still tied up with national politics he viii
choose the party that gave the most hopes of i
in the prayer that the day will speedily com
when the tariff and the currency question an,
such problems of national life will no longer b
cbtruded into our local affairs.
RIESSEn APE THE MERCIEIu