Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-04-30
SMITH, HYLAN AND COMPANY

SMl LNAN 1hA''1
TN NEW YORK they are not any hap
L pier with their Mayor than we here
are with ours. John Purroy Mitchell LEFT
the Wicked City with an admirable sys'
tenn Of municipal service. Mr.. Hylan, his
successor is a politician of the sort ac-
customed to regard any community prl'
marily as an adjunct to political machine
So, heartened by the applause OF his
friends from Tammany, he is behaving as
If the civil service were a cathedral and
he a kaiser out upon a bllthe holiday
The laughter, ribald and shrill, that New
York has been turning on us lately might
now be echoed at the expense OF the clih-
dwellers in Mr.. Hylan's town. And it
would be easy to indulge in the sort of
sarcasm. which frightened idle hours for
New York journalists when they first dis
covered that we were corrupt and con-
tented. But the present situation IL 100
broadly suggestive, too generally inclusive
for that.
Surgeon General Gorgas, it appears, has
interviewed in New York on grounds of
general welfare, just as Secretary Daniels
intervened recently in Philadelphia. Cen
eral Gorgas wishes to stop a demoralizing
process instituted by Mayor Hylan in the
Department Of Health. The army, you
might suppose. hasn't enough to do in
training millions of new soldiers and fight
ing the Germans and caring for its wound.
ed. 1t must find time to go about the
country dragging the Smiths and the
Hylans out of their mudholes and teaching
them TO walk straight and to be at leest
temporarily decent.
These new responsibilities that we are
! Crowding on the military establishment are
profoundly suggestive. The .merican peo.
pie are sending their sons ou. in countless
| thousands to fight and die for a theory
of government which they themselves con.
sstently disregard and de5loe in their per.
sonal practice every election day.
German propaganda is not permitted in
America. But party propaganda, intended
| to defeat and degrade every principle of
free government is taken for granted and
| systematically encouraged.
| The Tammany system in New York, like
the system upon which the Wares are build
ing their machine in Philadelphia, is the
result Of a secret organization, which in
| cludes ward workers, division leaders
newspapers, neghborhood physicians, job
| holders, business men and contractors, all
of whom are grouped to prevent the eX
preston of community opinion in local
| government. They are enlisted for their
own purposes and not for the interests
of the municipality.
II is the habit of writer's nowadays tc
say that political bosses are necessary. Po
litical bosses may be said to be necessary
when the people finally admit that they
themselves are not fitted for self-govern.
ment.
The Smiths and the Hylans are not pc
cular to New York. They are every.
! where. And they are not accidental. Mayor
| Smith represents the civic consciousness
of Philadelphia Just as truly as Mayor
| Hylan represents the civic consciousness
| of New York. The one, shamed by the
Secretary of the Navy into a performance
| of his duty, and the other, who must be
| stopped by Federal authority from imperil.
| ing the health of the citizens and the mill.
| tary organizations for the sake of his lob.
| hungry friends, are fairly representative OF
what we often produce in the way OF
| municipal administration after more thar
hundred years of experience with free
government.