Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1914-03-11


prestige and, chiefly, from a high
sense Of civic patriotism.
In some of the larger cities of Ger
many citizen deputies are appointed
by the council to advise and aid it.
In Berlin are about hundred, serv-
ing without pay, drawn from all ranks,
assisting in various important func-
tons of government, particularly
those having to do with city social
and plilanthropic work. This unusual
feature OF municipal government has
brought to the service of the city
many experts who have contributed
much to the development on right
lines of the modern German city.
Mayor a Business Director.
Distinguishing features of German
city administrations are their perma-
nency and the business method on
which they are conducted The town
councillors are elected for six years,
one-third every two years. The bur-
gomaster or mayor is chosen for
twelve years. In nearly every city
are public officials who have been re-
elected for twenty or more years. City
administration has become a business
in which the German does not wish
amateurs. The mayor is chosen as
the business director of a great cor
poration. 1t is not unusual to find
in German newspaper an advertise
ment for mayor! Some German
city, having lost it's mayor, wishes the
best to be had in the empire and adj
vertises for one with experience as
mayor. Frequently as mayor of
large city is chosen a man who is
serving with conspicuous success as
mayor in smaller town. The Ger
man system secures a continuous pol
in which business rather than poll
tics rules. That the system is too
often controlled by big business is a
result Of the electoral plan under
which 1t is chosen rather than of the
system itself This electoral plan is
sixteenth-century German feudalism
brought down to date.
Housing Conditions Bad.
The German city, despite the benev-
client bureaucracy of it's highly organ
lied administration, has left much to
be desired in actual municipal life.
Upon looking within we find oppres-
sive restrictions, high rents, crowded
quarters, the slum and the German
"barrack-house." The average Ger
man, laborer, mechanic, clerk or small
merchant, does not live on the boule-
wards or near the open places. His
home is in small rooms, with outlook
upon a dark courtyard where innu-
merable carpets are beaten twice a
week. Flats, with congested quarters,
take the place of the detached dwell
ling houses which are familiar in
American cities. Clean streets but
gloomy and dark interiors, lacking air
but not lacking dust and noise, are
the rule in the larger German cities.
1t may be questioned whether the
bright boulevards and the red gera-
NUNS in the balcony windows COM
pensate to the city as whole for the
dullness, STIFFNESS and worse of the
average citizens actual living rooms.
How far all this could be prevented
by municipal effort, it is impossible
to say.
When the outside of the German
city is commended, however, and the
admirable features of its municipal
administration, the unsolved problem
of the "barraek-fat" makes a consid-
cradle Offset to the merited praise.
In London six per cent of the popu-
lation live in dwellings" or one room,
in Berlin Il per cent. The declining
birth rate in the German cities-a few
babies are more to be desired than
many boulevards-is, to degree, the
result of the iamentable housing con.
ditions.
Municipal Land Ownership.
A striking feature of the German
city is it's ownership of land. Within
ten years Frankfort has expended $780,
100000 in buying real estate and now
owns more than half of the land on
which the city stands. Berlin owns
$4,000 acres, Munich $4,000, and other
cities own large tracts. 1t is urged
in favor of municipal investment in
land that it enables the municipality
to carry out adequate plans for town
building, keeping factories together,
opening desirable streets and parks,
providing better conditions and pre-
venting the land speculation which
deforms and disfgures so many
towns, small as well as large. An
other argument urged in it's favor is
that in this way the municipality, not
private individuals, who usually have
done little or nothing to bring it about,
gets the benefit of the unearned in
crement which comes with the city's
growth. This ownership of land with
the financial profit therefrom has in
many German cities reduced or elimi-
mated taxation and made the munich.
palities rich.
Must improve Living Conditions.
In any view of the German city to-
day it will be found that the outside
Of the platter has been made scrupu-
lousy clean, but within there are yet