St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1916-04-05
PRESS COMMENT
One Sample OF Business Management
or Cities.

One Sample OF Business Management
or Cities.
One of the latest achievements of
Springfield, Ohio, under the commits
sion-manager plan is the formation of
comprehensive street and sewer
building program. The fact is more
significant than it appears on the sur
face.
Old-style city governments with
ward aldermen, elected on party tick
cts and a separately elected mayor, do
not go about it in that way. While
the old method has not been in vogue
in Rutland in recent years to the ex-
tent it was formerly it is we'll remem-
bered that the usual procedure was
for a group of property owners to get
their heads together and go around
and see their alderman at his house.
He of course, is anxious to keep solid
with his constituents so he sets to
work pulling wires to get what is
wanted. He promises to vote for what
aldermen in other parts OF the city are
after if they will vote for what he
wants.
1t is the old familiar game of you
scratch my back etc.
The city that pursues this shiftless
changing policy is apt to have dozen
different kinds of pavements on the
same kind of streets, some of them
perhaps very inappropriate to the
type of traffic. Often they are built
not for service. but in the hope that
they will stand up under the strain
until after the next election. Cheap
pavements are popular with politicians
in such cities because they do not
boost taxes unduly, and if the streets
go to pieces in a year, that is some
other fellows funeral.
But Springfield and the other city
manager cities do it differently. There
the paving program is looked at from
the standpoint of the whole city's in
terests, because the city manager, who
formulates the program represents all
the citizens and property owners. The
program, moreover, is not framed
with a view to the next election, for
the city manager is not a politician
dependent upon local favor, but a mu-
nicipal expert whose ambitions lie in
the direction of making a success in
managing cities. His professional
training is likely to be a sufficient pre-
tentative of shoddy work, but the
form of government is such as to hold
him to strict accountability" to the
people. This is the kind of business
management of city affairs that Rut-
land deserves and ought to have, and
will have some day.-Rutland News.
Editors for Defense.
The result of the poll of 500 editors,
situated in every state of the Union,
made by the Literary Digest and pub
lished in a recent issue, shows that
preparedness as a national policy is
firmly established in the sanctums of
the who dirnaf T0IIh1i0ifU fhrnnph-
out the United States.
Taking the estimates of all replies
received and averaging them, the Di-
gest finds an average estimate for the
regular army which reaches the sur
prising figure of 2S5,07S. The esti-
mates for the civilian reserve average
1,215, $50, another figure which is al
most stunning in it's magnitude.
When one considers that these re-
plies are taken as they come, without
regard to political color or leanings,
they are almost startling. even more
so when one notes that the press of
the Atlantic coast calls for an average
force of 323,18 with a reserve of
|97S,S23.
Coming to the navy, SO editors in
the East declare it should be second
only to that of Great Britain, while rs
of them demand a navy as large as
any in the world. Many of these edi-
tors, the majority of those replying, in
fact, favor compulsory military SER
vice and several endorse the motto of
Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood that with
manhood suffrage goes manhood SER
vice."
Quite an astonishing feature of this
great poll is the figure set for the fed
eral army by editors from the Gulf
states the average being 315,263, with
1,575, 900 in the reserves.
Going westward, the average regu-
lar army estimate is 225,246, with
100, 5S8 for the reserve. Editors gen.
orally favor a navy as large as Great
Britain's. and this applies until we
reach the Pacific coast, where, how
ever, there is a louder chorus against
the danger Of militarism, most of the
editors holding that large standing
army is an evil to be avoided under
all conditions.
1t is plain. from a careful reading
Of the suggestive and important docu-
ment that so far as the leading news
papers of the nation are concerned,
Congress may go a great distance and
still be certain of the support of the
press of the nation.
A greatly increased, in fact a prac-
tically doubled standing army, and a
huge civilian reserve, together with
a navy program as great as that pro-
posed by the board, will be endorsed
and supported by the press of the ma
ton, if there is any significance in the
poll which the Digest has made.
1t is more than ordinarily suggestive
at this particular critical period of the
nations history.-Rutland Herald.
CORRESPONDENT for so Years.