Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-21
POLITICIANS PLAY THEIR
OLD GAME WITH COUNCILS
Little Improvement In the New Single
Chamber Is Suggested by the List
Of Candidates Named

and explicit recipes for saVory dishes
The cook, not the cookbook, is to blame
In the new charter under which Phila-
delphia is now governed set of sensible
directions for administering the city is
provided. In themselves. however, they
no more guarantee sound and decent civic
rule than the most skillfully compounded
recipes insure a good dinner. Able per-
! formancc is what counts.
Little or nothing of this indispensable
| factor in excellence is visible in the lists
of councilmanic candidates submitted for
the coming primary election. The whole
cXhibit-and this applies almost equally
, to each side in the Republican contest
is dcplorablc, profoundly disCouraging.
The implied promise that the small new
body of paid Councils would differ ma
teriIlly in character from the old un-
weldy hicameral assembly is shamefully
unfulfled.
Where are those eminent citizens and
honest-gifted business administrators
who were to rescue the town from mis-
management and corruption?
Where are those jealous and efficient
entrepreneurs who were to have revealed
how forccfuliy and sanely the new COun-
ellis would work?
They are among us, of course, just as
they always were and just as alOof as
ever from the political arena. The famil-
lar types of gangsters and ward bosses
are sitting tight on the job precisely as
in the past, charter or no charter.
Cynical and conspicuously practical,
they are under no illusions concerning
the City's latest Constitution" The paid
Council of twenty-one has been eXtolled
as more manageable than its predecessor.
Well, so it is and either by high-grade
members with the interests of Philadel-
phia sincerely at heart or machine poll
ticians out for loot and graft.
The most magnificent charter ever
framed is without virtue while public
apathy prevails. Sordid professional
politics is unafrad of new governing
machinery so long as the public con-
science is lax.
With few, woefully few. exceptions,
the slated candidates for Councils of both
the Moore and the Patterson factions
may be divided into two classes. They
are either nOnentities, in which case sub
servicnce to the bosses may be reason
ably promised, or they are politicians of
exactly the stamp that has degraded the
/. city for years.
Some of the names are dshearteningly
familiar. There are Seger and Finley
and McCoach in the Ware camp. Tdenti-
fcaton is less easy on the opposing side,
and right there is one of the most griev-
Gus offenses.
The "big" men who were to have arisen
and saved the city are still in retreat.
| So it would fairly seem is the committee
of one hundred, grown Indifferent at a
| time when viriity and civic courage were
sorely needed.
The sole light in the gloom is the pos
sibilty of Mr.. Moore's success at the pr-
maries Once in the Mayors office, this
vigorous opponent of contractor rule
would be a real city administrator.
| There would be solid protection against
| a ow-grade Councils.
But such a result, despite its advan-
! tages would be Representative of the
| full purposes of the charter. Philadel-
| pha needs a capable Mayor alive to every
! possibility of better municipal govern
| ment. But it also needs capable and
energetic Councils. conducting itself on
| the same lines. Cooperation on that
| basis will prove the worth of the charter
| Nothing else will.
Invectives against the politicians in
the present situation are futile and, in a
| certain sense, even unfair. They play
the game callously and keeny as they
see it, If the public chooses to be a fool,
| so much the worse for the public. That
is the code of the corruptionist 1t is,
in a way, the code of hard common sense.
If the victims of misrule don't care, why
should anybody else?
There is many a citizen of probity,
business ability and intellectual vigor in
! this city, a citizen of the type most
needed for the mayoralty or the council
manic office, who chronically expresses a
nice dsdain of "dirty politics." Very
probably he is one of the many thousands
of high-class men who neglect to register
or never vote at the primaries and almost
invariably his voice is the loudest against
the city plunderers.
1t was his element in the town which
hoped for benefits from the carefully de-
vised charter. A panacea for boss rule
was heralded. 1t passed the Legislature
at Harrisburg. 1t was legal remedy,
a constitution cure-all. Three cheers and
a nap!
The awakening is rude and, by reason
solely of the way in which Philadelphia
as a whole hes used its new key to free
dom, it was inevitable. 1t is altogether
impossible to rear the structure of good
politics upon rickety foundation. Re-
form is futile mockery that does not
begin at the elements of the whole sys-
tenn of representative government.
The professional boss or his humber
henchman rings doorbells to take the po
HticaI temperature of his bailiwick