Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/455

 PROBLEMS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 439

we were really democratic from the modern evolutionary stand- point, and did we but hold our town-meetings upon topics that most concern us.

In point of fact, government ignores industrial questions as the traditional ostrich hides his head in the sand, for no great strike is without its political significance, nor without the attempt of political interference, quite as none of the mammoth business combinations of manufacturers or distributors are without their lobbyists in the city council, unless they are fortunate enough to own aldermen outright. It is merely a question as to whether industry in relation to government is to be discussed as a matter of popular interest and concern at the moment when that relation might be modified and controlled, or whether we prefer to wait a decade and to read about it later in the magazines, horrified that such interference of business with government should have taken place.

Again we see the doctrinaire of the eighteenth century pre- ferring to hold to his theory of government and ignoring the facts, as over against the open-minded scientist of the present day who would scorn to ignore facts because they might disturb his theory.

The two points at which government is developing most rapidly at the present moment are naturally the two in which it genuinely exercises its function in relation to the vicious, and in relation to the poor and dependent.

The juvenile courts which the large cities are inaugurating are supplied with probation officers, whose duty it is to encourage the wavering virtues of the wayward boy, and to keep him out of the police courts with their consequent penal institutions a real recognition of social obligation. In one of the most successful of these courts, that of Denver, the judge, who can point to a remark- able record with the bad boys of the city, plays a veritable game with them against the police force, he and the boys undertaking to be " good " without the help of repression, and in spite of the machinations of the police. For instance, if the boys who have been sentenced to the state reform school at Golden deliver them- selves without the aid of the sheriff, whose duty it is to take them