Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/291

Rh and industry. The single-taxers claim that the increasing values of land are made by the community and that the community should take these values through taxation. They furthermore consider the taxation of industry as a hindrance to industrial development and unjust. The single-tax measures have assumed various forms, according to the imagined taste of the voters. Three times they have been voted down; though the election returns show that they were favored by about one third of the voters of Oregon.

Street railways are the public highways of the modern city dweller, as are the streets for the inhabitant of a small town. Hence the opposition to their use for private profit and the insistence on their regulation for the welfare of the citizens who have no other recourse than to use them. The public’s interest in these public utilities is further heightened by the close relationship that has existed between the governments of the cities and the officers of the public utility companies. This relationship is quite natural, but in some cases it has not worked for the best interests of the public. Hence another governmental function has been developed, that of regulating public utilities. California, Oregon and Washington in 1911 passed public utility acts modeled on the Wisconsin law, placing the control and regulation with the state railroad commission. There are a few instances of municipal ownership of street railways on the Pacific coast. Seattle began the operation of a short line in 1914. San Francisco affords the more important instance, being the first large city in the United States to own and operate a municipal street railway. The Geary Street Railway began operation as a municipal road in December, 1912, after a long fight begun in 1896. The line is five and one half miles long. Its operation has been successful and the citizens seem pleased with it. A municipally owned railway is also being run to the fair grounds of the Panama-Pacific Exposition.

In the cleaning up of prisons and the bettering of conditions of prison labor, the Pacific coast states have taken a leading place. The theory of prison reform is to turn prisoners back to society better men and women. To this end the "honor system" has developed. This means that prisoners are permitted to work at their various occupations with no armed guard, bound only by their pledge of honor. Published reports state that there are no more escapes than under the old system. The "honor system" has been developed in Nevada, Colorado and in a few prisons in Ohio and in New York; but Oregon is notable in having proportionately more prisoners working without guard. The "honor system" is more spectacular, but no more important than other features of prison reform, such as farm colonies, treatment of female prisoners, medical aid, manual training shops and the parole system. Progress in these features has been especially marked in California during the last three years. The private leasing of convicts by contract and the