Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-10-28

ease; we are inviting loss Of prestige;
we are inviting the destruction of life
as precious TO somebody AS your life
/ is precious 10 you, and as protec-
tion of the great asset imperiled by
this circumstance, we appropriate the
great sum Of $4,000 a year. Now,
this leads me, by rather a natural
course, | think, to the question OF the
city government and finance.
Taxes Too Low.
We are progressive city. We
have a commission form of govern
ment. IL is in the hands of men who
answered my questions openly and
graciously; | think them sincere. |
do not know the first earthly thing
about their capability. but | have this
to say, that they knew why asked
my questions and they did their level
best to answer them for my help. This
dlscloses some interesting compara-
tive statistics. One of them is that
the whole cost of your government is
less than third of that of the aver
age city of the United States for each
persongoverned, and not quite a fifth
of that of the average city of Ger
many. Your average taxes per per-
son are, of courss, overwhelmingly
high. but do not go away if you want
TO get them lowered. We are very
rich city. and yet the per capita as
seSsment upon which taxes are levied
is only half of normal. Our taxes are
high, but they do not represent the
third part of what you must pay if
you would move to Kansas City or
Minneapolis or Cleveland or Detroit
and they are fairly inviting cities,
submit.
Our police and fire departments are
excellent, in spite of the fact that we
give them but two-thirds of an allow
ance each, We do not provide for
anything much; the whole budget for
the public schools is $4,000. and
that is about So per capital. which,
though not low, breaks no records.
Do you not see that one of the great
needs in Tulsa is that we should rec
ognlze the interesting fact that good
government costs money. IL does not
cost as much as bad government. But
u costs money, and we have to realize
the interesting fact still further that
city taxes well administered are the
best investtmen he owner of property
ever made in his lief.
Managerial Government.
The form Of the city government is
very interesting; it is commission
form, which indicates that some time
within the past ten years we moved
into the great out-of-doors and began
TO read the newspapers. But then
we have not read them diligently or
we would not have stopped there, be-
cause it would be possible TO benefit
and advance and better the city gov
eminent of Tulsa by employing a sim
gle manager. (ApplauseD For this
advantage your mayor has, with far
sight, created committee 10 consider
the revising of the charter May |.
in passing, express the personal hope
that he will enlarge his committee of
five to committee of not less than
20; that instead of making il repre-
sentative of particular class, he will
undertake to make it representative.
of all classes. and that particularly
he will include in it representatives
of organized labor, OF low income, OF
the women: and that when this char
ter be reported, it be as short and not
as long as possible.
The city has water supply which
is open TO much question; personally,
/ think it very much better than YOU
seem to think it. like both the smell
and the taste of it. And yet, as I
probed for one thing after another in
a 81 L..
and some of those men will admit the
lob was right well done-as | proted
| came upon new fact after new fact
that these men were looking into the
future with all the enterprise you per-
nit, that the most distant need of
their government was not intelligence
or modernity but money. and that YOU
do not yet comprehend the strange
fact that those who build a new city
must pay twice as much as those who
are in an old city. because in the old
city YOU have only to improve upon
the pond or repair the work which
has been previously done: in the new
city you must break new ground.
| realize that this is most imper-
feet review Of your conditions, but I
am endeavoring, because time is GO
ing more rapidly than I like, to come
to the close
Spiritual Environment.
Now. the last factor in the upbuild-
ing of city to which have referred
is the factor of a spiritual environ
ment. And this is an awfully hard
thing to make people understand, be-
cause they do not comprehend at all
that spiritual environment and denom-
inationalism are not the same | am
an Episcopalian. Well, I know a
great many dear little old ladies who
wear rustling black silks and in the
winter the richest astrakan furs. who
would very much rather be good Epis-
copalians than good Christians. I
knew of superintendent of schools
i helped get him out of his job
in North Carolina. who would not ap-
point anybody else a teacher unless
he could get Baptist. Can you i'm
agine such situation9 Realize,
am not referring to that kind of de-
nominationalism; | am talking of
spiritual environment. Now, we have
been an enormously material people,
but it could not last and the reaction
is coming powerfully. irresistably.