Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/314

298 Not a very great deal has been accomplisbed by this study. The problem is complicated and many-sided. Its solution depends on careful and extended observation, and on the concurrent action of ise, patient, self-sacrificing, and public-spirited citizens. In this study the conclusions of purely theoretical political economists, and of those men whose thought and experience have been limited to special aspects of the subject, are alike unsafe and misleading: the first, because political communities never afford the proper conditions for the application of abstract principles; and the second, because the entire machinery of government is so interdependent and complicated that successful modifications of any special department imply corresponding changes in all the associated agencies. But whatever difficulties may embarrass the subject, we have good cause for congratulation in the fact that the problem is being studied, and not altogether studied in vain.

The evils growing out of the misgovernment of cities may be grouped in two general divisions: First, those which are the legitimate fruit of systems which are in themselves vicious, and which can only be corrected by a radical change in the governmental machinery; and, second, those which result from the abuse and corrupt use of agencies which in themselves are proper and beneficent, but which, in the hands of designing men, come to be efficient aids of fraud and the most obnoxious forms of wrong-doing. This class of evils can only be corrected by devising some means which shall keep the government in the control of its best citizens. Can this be done, and, if yes, then how?

Let us first note some of the difficulties of the problem, and then ascertain, so far as we may be able, what are the possibilities and methods of its solution.

As a primary proposition it may be stated that the lack of a general and comprehensive act of incorporation has been the cause of endless embarrassment and difficulty in the management of city affairs. In many States the method of municipal incorporation has been by the granting of special charters. These charters possess no uniformity as to the powers conferred, but in each case represent such powers as the persons asking for them deemed it desirable to have, or such as the Legislature could be induced to confer.

Frequently it has happened that neither the incorporators who were seeking charters, nor the legislators who granted them, were persons who had had such experience in municipal affairs as to guarantee that the corporations which were to be created would be possessed of needful powers and restrained by proper limitations. Ordinarily, almost as a matter of course, there would be found but little difficulty in starting off the new municipality, for its most obvious needs would have been recognized and provided for, but as little or no thought had been taken as to the future demands which would be made upon it, and no adequate provision had been made for the needs of a largely increased