Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/563

 A PROGRAMME OF MUNICIPAL REFORM.

the Civil War the deterioration of city government in America has kept pace with several marked phenomena of the nation which may be taken as explanation of this deterioration. The first of these phenomena is the sudden vast growth of city populations. The second is the greatly increased diversity of American city populations, due partly to the rapid drain of rural communities and partly to the great increase in immigration from widening foreign origins. The third phenomenon is the almost wild scramble for wealth-producing occupations, which set in before the war was quite over, and quickly grew into a great national movement as the new and varied business opportunities opened wide. It was like the fever created by the discovery of gold in California, but on a national scale; so that men turned from an interest in public affairs to new and more intense interest in private affairs.

It is a mistake, however, to consider bad city government the only bad government which grew up after the war. As could not fail to be the case, when public interest became centered in private fortunes, all government deteriorated and the average man in all spheres of public life gradually lowered, and the standards of public life of course went down. National government fell off—state government fell off—county government fell off. City government fell off more than any other, however; but that was because there were more reasons against it—including the reason that there is less personal distinction to be gained in city politics than in national or in state politics, so that city politics were more easily abandoned and neglected. Many writers and speakers treat bad city government not only as a wholly isolated, abnormal development but as the most hopeless of all our political or social conditions. It is more true to say, however, that, while it is only one feature of a