Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/570

558 stirring up of the latent good citizenship of the communities. We can have business methods in city government with a good charter or without a good charter whenever the citizens who believe in these methods care to take the trouble. It is far easier to accomplish good government with than without a good charter, and with than without the Merit System, and with than without Home Rule; but it is impossible with all these aids and without the aid of the well-intentioned people.

When, therefore, I mentioned the chief features of a good charter and civil service reform and home rule as the features of the programme of reform, however much I valued these things in themselves, I valued them also as the removals of so many obstacles to the activity of the non-machine citizen. These reforms are intended to make it hard for the evil doers and easy for the righteous. But they are not panaceas, for it is not possible to get good city government to work automatically. No machinery possible to be devised will act by itself and produce good city government—or automatically work on the lines of business methods. There is no perpetual motion in city government; and if there should be, it would—with such citizens as we have now—perpetually produce a mass of corruption and incompetency and public disgrace. Somebody will run the government because it cannot run alone. If the "good citizens"—who are in the majority—else free government would be an impossibility—wish to run the city, they can; if they do not run it, citizens not so good will run it. A good system of government will not produce good government without good citizens. It will merely make bad government more difficult for bad citizens. We have, for example, in Chicago, all of these good things except a reformed council, including civil service reform and home rule; but our enemies permit themselves to say that better government than we have is still a possibility of the future.

Now, if the obstacle of obstacles to good city government is the non-participation of the good citizen in city politics and city affairs—and if this is not a mere vague fling at one's neighbors but a scientific fact—let us inquire why this obstacle