Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-02-10
MANAGING THE CITY
How the Gang Came Back
By Frederic J. Haskin

VXTHEN you see the other fellow
wv throwing trash upon the street
just call up the policeman as
he's rounding out his beat; the judge
will do the balance and the fine must
then be paid, to punish the offender
for the ugly trick he played"
This jingle is running through
every head in New Orleans. Francois
reads it as he idles over hs late coffee
and roll at Antoine's in the old French
quarter. Fernandez and Beatrice
read 1t above the window of the
street car as they rub their sleepy
eyes in the early hours between home
and the cigar factory. Sam Bowie
Houston Crockett jefferson, proud
scion of a migrated Texas family,
reads it on the billboard as he
trudges to the warehouse to check
cotton receipts. Whenever the people
get tired of reading one jingle the
poet laureate of the city hall pro-
duces another one of his vest pocket
odes on civic righteousness. For this
is one of the methods by which the
New Orleans commissioners ;e'e
striving to foster community spirit.
And it works. The rhythmical in
junction about trash has helped to
make New Orleans, which had open
sewers along its streets generation
ago, one of the cleanest cities in the
United States.
In New Orleans the conflict between
city hall politics and civic reform,
which has preceded the. adoption of
commission government in most other
cities, did not happen exactly as the
reformers had intended. 1t was. a
fairy tale in which the villain upset
the plot by Staying the dragorf and
marrying the heroine before the hero
got around to it. Martin Behrman
had been mayor of New Orleans and
head of the city hall ring for a good
many years before commission gov
ernment was adopted. Most surpris-
ingly, he has been mayor of New
Orleans ever since.
1t happened like this. The reform
party, otherwise known as the Outs
started an agitation for commission
government. The Tins" otherwise
known as the city hall gang, saw that
commission government was making
a hit. They quietly went up to Baton
Rouge and induced the State Legis-
lature to pass the law authorizing the
change. So the civic reform party
was out of thunder. 1t had been
talking commission government for
some years, but the city hall gang had
actually produced the thing.
So commission government in New
Orleans is managed by exactly the
same set of men who formed the poll
tical ring of the town hall But they
do not manage it the same way. Hav-
ing undertaken to become reformers,
they have got to make good. Furth-
ermore, each of them is responsible
for a certain part of that good. The
city hall ring has become a halo of
civic righteousness.
The five New Orleans commission
ers have had rather strenuous career.
In the first place, New Orleans with
it's 400, 600 people, is the largest city
in the United States governed by a
commission. Running such town is
rather a large problem in any case,
and several other large things, such
as the Mississippi River, bubonic
plague, and a West Indian hurricane,
have come along to complicate it.
Being so nearly on a level with the
river, the problem of drainage pres
ents some distressing difficulties. 1t
is not the most encouraging thing in
the world to begin digging q founda-
ton for a house and before you get
through have to change your mind
and call 1t a we'll Living in New
Orleans used to be like living on a
great big sponge. If you stuck your
finger in the ground it came out wet.