Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/545

Rh All kinds of improvements, the maintenance of good order, the security and protection of life and property, affect them more vitally than they affect other citizens. Would not a fire department which would be satisfactory to the owners of warehouses, banks, hotels, offices, commercial establishments, and costly private residences, be entirely adequate to the needs of those who own no buildings? Would not a police establishment which would serve to protect the public and private property of any large city and all its tax-paying inhabitants, necessarily be sufficient to meet all the necessities of the rest of the community?

In the matters of improving streets, and the laying out and ornamenting of drives and parks, would not the improvements made by the owners of property as a means of enhancing its value, as well as for the purposes of personal enjoyment, be a satisfactory provision for the use and comfort of those citizens who were not asked to contribute toward the expense of making them?

In many cities the cost of all such improvements as sewers, pavements, sidewalks, street-lamps, boulevards, and water-mains is charged directly on the abutting property, and are only constructed when petitioned for by a majority of the property-owners who will be called upon to pay for them. In all such cases the very existence of these improvements is a sufficient answer to the objection that public improvements would be impeded by an administration elected by tax-payers.

Indeed, it is reasonable to expect that the very opposite would be true, and that, with the assurance that public works would be managed with honesty and economy, the sentiment in favor of their construction would constantly increase.

There are two interests which I think it is probable that non-tax-paying citizens would be unwilling should be left entirely in the hands of their tax-paying neighbors. I refer to the provisions to be made for general education, and the proper and sufficient care of the poor.

I do not personally feel that even these interests would thus be in any degree jeopardized. They might, however, be so guarded and protected in the organic act of incorporation as to be placed absolutely beyond any danger.

What would be the result if, in our great railway corporations and large manufacturing companies, the board of directors, instead of being chosen by the stockholders, were to be elected by the employes? What would be the relative probability of securing a competent and efficient management? There could be but one outcome to such a policy: stockholders and employes would soon be involved in one common ruin. Query, Can the municipal corporation, acting under a similar policy, escape a like disaster?

But here, again, I expect to meet the objection once before noticed, viz., that the plan, whatever be its merits, is an impracticable one.