Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-09-05
FIGHT FOR NEW COUNCIL
MUST NOT BE OVERLOOKED
Something About Bosses in General and
Survey Of the Method by Which
They Keep Control

They Keep Control
TIME spent in pious denunciation of
L political bosses might better be en-
ployed in rational effort to find the
reasons for their existence. Without the
aid and the active sympathy of large
element in the population a political ma
chine of any sort could not survive for
a day.
As the next election goes so govern
ment is likely to go in this city for
good many years. An extremely power
full organization is intent on using the
new charter-an instrument conceived
for its destruction-to get a surer con-
troll over municipal affairs. 1t is plain
that the people have only an imperfect
acquaintance with the thing they are
fighting. That much has been made
clear by the methods of reformers in
every election heretofore. Their chief
weapon was a slogan. They cried out
for what they called civic righteousness.
But the phrase is indefinite. 1t means
nothing. 1t couldn't get even so strong
a man as Mr. Blankenburg anywhere.
SPpOoiIlOI4 W NOi upJ pOlIIlCldHS OuSHIt
not to be founded in mere emotionalism,
nor ought it to be limited to a vague
phrase expressive of nothing tangible to
befuddled voters. 1t ought to be based
upon the obvious fact that all their
gestures of patronage are rank and >shal-
low and abominable limitations of friend
ship The modern habit of likening a
machine boss to Robin Hood, who plum
dercd the rich and gave to the poor,
springs from a romantic delusion.
A division leader is always glad to
spring to the aid of a partisan in trou-
ble. But the system that he represents
is the system that maintained dives and
the sort of lax police method in which too
many troubles of the ordinary sort have
an origin. be will pay the rent for
poor family in crisis-but it is his own
system Of spoils that keeps that same
rent at a maximum figure.
The people who hold allegiance to
corrupt political machine pay in a thou
sand ways-through unclean streets and
consequent illness; through waste of
revenues which must be met by taxes
applied even to the tiniest house and
IdSSGu uO"H ny JiS HOuSGUNlST. Inc
system which they support perverts and
debases every law made for the protec-
ton of workers. 1t turns factory inspec-
ton into farce and laughs at laws made
to insure health by providing against the
adulteration of food. Once in a while
division leader will send a doctor to an
afflicted family. He is the one who
should do so, certainly. Robin Hood
robbed the rich. SO does the modern boss
and his aides. But they rob the poor,
too.
Those who know how things go in the
inner sanctuaries of bossism know that
the Ware leaders are not seriously con-
cerned about the abstract legal terms of
the new charter. The trend of events
shows that they are devoting their ener-
gies to obtain complete control of the
new Council, which, with its restricted
membership, may easily be made a close
corporation devoted not to the general
welfare of the city but to the policies of
a controlling boss.
A regime like that of the Wares can be
defeated only when the light penetrates
the minds of its supporters of the rank
and file. And it is because the new
Council may be boss controlled and be-
cause political control and general negli-
gence have made it possible for machine
interests virtually to monopolize the
councilmanic campaign that the fight for
the mayoralty takes on the aspect of an
actual crisis in municipal affairs.
Within the next four years, while the
experiment with a small Council is in
progress, the people ought to have at
least one conspicuous, powerful and inde-
pendent representative on the inside.
Such a man the Mayor ought to be- If
the city did not take advantage of the
terms of the new charter in advancing
candidates of the right sort at this cleo
ton, that is not proof that it will not do
so later along after it has been awak-
ened to the possibilities of salared and
restricted Council.
What we shall need meanwhile is fear
less and intelligent criticism of municipal
methods from some one in authority. The
next Mayor might see all his policies de-
feated, his plans wrecked by an antago-
nistic Council, yet he could feel that his
administration was success if he could
but perform the service of an inexorable
critic and good reporter of the new sys-
tenn as he finds it. The possibility of
Ware control in Council is the greatest
conceivable argument for the election of
Congressman Moore.
Political bossismt survives wherever