BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 fienrs W. Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 A...<i:.g...'rJLo - ^///^/^l 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 arV11743 
 
 The Cosmopolis city club. 
 
 3 1924 031 446 150 
 
 olin,anx 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031446150 
 
THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
THE 
 
 COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. WASHINGTON GLADDEN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1893 
 
Copyriglit, 1893, by 
 The Centdrt Co. 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 How THE Club was Organized 7 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 The Club Gets to "Work 51 
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 What the Club Accomplished 90 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE publication in the " Century Magazine," 
 of the following narrative brought me a 
 great many interesting letters from all parts of 
 the countiy. In several cities, as it appeared 
 from this correspondence, movements not unlike 
 the one here imagined were already in progress. 
 From one of the cities of the Empire State came 
 the report which follows : 
 
 In 1890 a small number of the citizens of this 
 city formed a Law and Order Alliance, having for 
 its object the idea expressed in the Cosmopolis 
 City Club ; but unfortunately there was no one 
 who could outline a practical plan for accom- 
 plishing any good work. There were several 
 members who advocated radical measures, similar 
 to those entertained by Mr. Frambes, but others 
 counseled moderation, deprecating the policy of 
 taking upon themselves the duties of detectives 
 and policemen, and yet unable to suggest any 
 other practical method. The society has drifted 
 along with a small membership, keeping up its 
 organization, and making now and then a spas- 
 modic attempt to influence, if possible, the city 
 
ii THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 officials to a proper fulfilment of their duties. In 
 July of 1892 I was elected Secretary of the Alli- 
 ance, and since then I have been struggling to 
 find the right way to go about the work we need 
 to do. I sincerely believe you have given us the 
 right clue. 
 
 From one of the chief cities of Pennsylvania 
 came another testimony dated January 10, 1893. 
 It is written by Mr. Robert B. Lea, the secretary 
 of the association described: 
 
 The line of thought and the plan suggested 
 in your article, " The Cosmopolis City Club " pub- 
 lished in the " Centmy " of January, 1893, is so much 
 in accord with the objects and work of our Citi- 
 zens' Reform Association, that I feel constrained 
 to write you and say that, coming at this particu- 
 lar time, your article was not only encouraging, 
 but was an exceedingly good campaign document 
 for us. Our city primary elections were held on 
 January 7, and this association was greatly in- 
 terested therein, because one of its originators 
 was the Reform candidate for Mayor, and because 
 we had Reform candidates for City Councils 
 throughout the city. As the " Century Maga- 
 zine " is read, to a great extent, by the people who 
 do not, as a rule, turn out at the primaries, and 
 as many of these called my attention to the ar- 
 ticle, I think I am warranted in saying that it 
 
PEEFACE iii 
 
 had considerable influence with this class of our 
 citizens. 
 
 Perhaps a brief history of our association 
 may prove interesting to you. For some time 
 past the city government of Allegheny has been 
 an exceedingly corrupt one. This state of affairs 
 led several gentlemen to hold a meeting, about 
 a year ago, at the residence of one of their mem- 
 bers, to tali the situation over, and see if some- 
 thing could not be done to stop the loose and 
 dishonest methods then in force. To show how 
 like to our plan is the one suggested by your 
 article, at that meeting were a physician, a bank 
 president, three attorneys, a merchant, a manu- 
 facturer, an insurance agent, and a bookkeeper. 
 After considerable discussion, a temporary organi- 
 zation was effected, which resulted finally in " The 
 Citizens' Reform Association of Allegheny, Penn- 
 sylvania," an organization now strong in numbers, 
 and composed of all classes of citizens. The first 
 important work of this association was the intro- 
 duction into the City Councils of an ordinance call- 
 ing for the appointment of an auditing committee, 
 and instructing this committee to audit aU. the city 
 books. After hard work, and with the assistance 
 of councilmen favorable to reform, the measure 
 was finally passed, and a very good auditing com- 
 mittee appointed. Without going into details, 
 the work of this committee resulted in the arrest, 
 conviction, and imprisonment of the City Market 
 Clerk and the Mayor of the city, in a general 
 
iv THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 pxirging of the city offices, and, last but not least, 
 in the nomination and election of the present Re- 
 form Mayor, whom we have just renominated 
 for another term. 
 
 Many other reform measures have been put in 
 force by this Association, but this was one of the 
 most important. To-night is our first annual elec- 
 tion, so you see we are still young. The organi- 
 zation is permanent, and will in the future look 
 closely after city affairs. 
 
 Another similarity between your plan and ours 
 is the assignment of the different city depart- 
 ments to special committees. Our executive com- 
 mittee, as you will notice from the by-laws in- 
 closed, is composed of nine members, and a certain 
 department of the city government is allotted to 
 each. This work, although very important, has 
 not been followed up as it should have been, but 
 will be in the future, since a knowledge of these 
 departments is absolutely necessary in order to 
 work intelligently and successfully. 
 
 These reform movements are always looked 
 upon as the work of soreheads, or the attempt of 
 one set of men to oust another, so as to get into 
 place and power themselves. But this prejudice 
 can be overcome, and after the confidence of the 
 pubHc has been gained, there is but little difficulty 
 in making the work tell, and in getting the help 
 and sympathy of aU good citizens. 
 
 The appearance of your article at this time, 
 with a plan so similar to ours, I regard as a strik- 
 
PBEFACE V 
 
 ing coincidence. I have no doubt some will say 
 of it "that is very good in theory, but will it 
 work in practice ? " Just refer any such to us for 
 a practical demonstration of its feasibility. 
 
 An ounce of experience is worth a pound of 
 theory, and Mr. Lea's interesting letter will .justly 
 carry more weight with many readers than the 
 imaginary transactions of the Cosmopohs Club. 
 It ought to be said, however, that these transac- 
 tions are not all imaginary. Citizens of Philadel- 
 phia have not failed to recognize in certain reports 
 presented to the Cosmopolis Club by its commit- 
 tees the results of investigations made by their 
 own Municipal League, and quite a nimiber of 
 other passages wiU have a familiar sound to the 
 residents of other cities. 
 
 The responses which have been made to my 
 httle story, not only through private letters, but 
 also through the press, indicate a great awaken- 
 ing of pubUc interest in this subject. The City 
 Club of New York, with its permanent organiza- 
 tion, and its plan of campaign that looks forward 
 to years of persistent agitation, and to the estab- 
 lishment in every part of the city of popular Good 
 Government Clubs, affiliated with itself, is the 
 harbinger, I trust, of a vigorous movement on 
 
vi THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 the part of decent and law-abiding people in all 
 the cities of the land to secure better municipal 
 administration. 
 
 This little book does not exhaust the subject. 
 There is a great deal more to say. Many interest- 
 ing phases of this important question are not 
 touched upon in these discussions. One sugges- 
 tion in particular, recently made by Mr. Charles 
 Francis Adams, looking toward the abolition of 
 the ward as a political division, and the election 
 of councihnen on a general ticket, is worthy of 
 careful consideration. This change would require, 
 of course, a reform in the methods of voting, and 
 the adoption of some scheme of proportionate qr 
 minority representation. But it is imdoubtediy 
 true that the Council is generally the weak point 
 in the municipal government; and that the im- 
 proved methods introduced into the executive de- 
 partments of some of our cities have accomplished 
 less than they would have done if it had not been 
 for the inefficiency and the corruption of the mu- 
 nicipal legislature. That the poor quaUty of mu- 
 nicipal councils is due to an excess of localism 
 Mr. Adams has made plain ; and the attention of 
 all students of city politics should be directed to 
 this phase of the question. 
 
PEEFACB vii 
 
 AU that I have tried to do in the discussions 
 that follow is to present in a simple and concrete 
 form a few suggestions as to the methods in which 
 citizens may cooperate in the study of this sub- 
 ject, and a few hints as to the direction which 
 municipal reforms are likely to take. Nobody 
 can be more fully aware than I am that the con- 
 clusions here reached are not finalities. In the 
 political methods of a progressive people there 
 are no finalities. But I hope that this small book 
 may help to stir up the pure minds of a great 
 many good citizens to think soberly and patiently 
 upon the most important practical question now 
 before the American people. 
 
 Columbus, O., AprU 25, 1893. "W. Gr. 
 
THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 
 
 " IVTO, it is useless to talk ; we shall get nothing 
 X^ out of that council this year. We are not 
 the kind of people whom they delight to honor. 
 If the library were only a gin-miU or a poker-den, 
 its petition would be heard; the effectual fervent 
 prayer of that sort availeth much at the city haU. 
 But there are no ears for our supplications." 
 
 The speaker is resting his hand upon the man- 
 telpiece, and warming his sturdy figure in the 
 rays of a soft-coal fire. A stout, square-built 
 young fellow, with a broad brow crowned by a 
 shock of stiff hair brushed d la pompadour, and 
 lighted with keen gray eyes ; a born fighter, you 
 would say, if you glanced at his firm jaw and well- 
 shut lips. He is evidently the latest arrival of a 
 group of five, the other members of which are 
 gathered about the fireplace. The room is plainly 
 
8 THE C0SM0P0LI8 CITY CLUB 
 
 furnislied with a large offlce-table in the center, 
 and a few leather-covered chairs ; maps and charts 
 are the only decorations of the walls; a head of 
 Homer and a bust of Sophocles look down from 
 the solitary bookcase. It is the directors' room of 
 the Cosmopohs PubUc Library, and the ofiicials to 
 whom it belongs are now in occupation. 
 
 The gentleman who has expressed opinions so 
 dubious respecting the people at the city hall is 
 Mr. Reginald Payne, lawyer. He has been com- 
 missioned by his colleagues to find out what 
 might be the prospects of an increased appro- 
 priation for the purposes of the library, and this 
 is his report. When it is delivered, he turns from 
 the fire, pulls a chair into the circle, seats himself 
 therein with some emphasis, and brings his two 
 fists unequivocally down upon the arms thereof. 
 
 " To spend an hour and a half in that black 
 hole," he continues, " makes a man feel like homi- 
 cide." 
 
 "For a man who spends his days in court- 
 houses, your disgust is somewhat surprising," 
 laughs one of his auditors. 
 
 " Court-houses ! " explodes the lawyer. " Why, 
 parson, the court-house is a sanctuary compared 
 with that councH-chamber. The court-house is 
 not, to be sure, the sweetest place in the world. 
 All sorts of foul and crooked things are gathered 
 into it, but they are there to be cleansed and rec- 
 tified. That, on the whole, is what is going on 
 in the court-house. The methods, indeed, are not 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 9 
 
 always above criticism, and there are miscarriages 
 of justice; but the net result of it all is right- 
 eousness. But your council- chamber — bah! It 
 smells to heaven. Bad tobacco, stale beer, and 
 the incense which always arises from assemblies 
 of the great unwashed perfume the air, and the 
 moral atmosphere is not less tainted." 
 
 " You are growing fastidious, Payne," laughs 
 the other. " You must n't look for the repre- 
 sentatives of cidture in the municipal councils." 
 
 " Why not ? Those are the people you look for 
 and find in the city council of BerUn, of Glasgow, 
 of Manchester, of Birmingham, of London; why 
 should we not expect to see them in the govern- 
 ing bodies of our own cities 1 " 
 
 " Because,'' answers another of the group, " if 
 you do, you 'U. be awfully disappointed." 
 
 " G-et thee behind me, pessimist ! " cries the 
 sturdy advocate. "I teU you what it is, John 
 Tomlinson, this thing has got to stop. Yes, sir ! 
 That infernal horn* and a half over in the councd- 
 chamber has burned some lessons into my soul. 
 "We must take hold of that place, and clean it out." 
 
 " The voice is the voice of Hercules," laughs the 
 parson, " but the hands are the hands of Reginald 
 Payne. I judge that this job wiU task their 
 strength." 
 
 "It will take more than one pair, doubtless," 
 rejoins the lawyer, springing to his feet. " It will 
 call for the soiling of some that Hke to keep them- 
 selves white, Uke yours, Parson Morison; it witL 
 
10 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 need the cooperation of those sleek saints of yours 
 who so cheerfully describe themselves every Sun- 
 day as miserable sinners ; it will need to enlist the 
 money of this town, Tomlinson; and its brains, 
 Harper ; and its muscle, Hathaway," with a shoul- 
 der-hitting gesture in the direction of each of 
 these gentlemen : " but the thing can be done, and 
 it may as well start here as anjrwhere." 
 
 " But you have n't given us much information 
 yet,'' ventures Tomlinson. "We send you off on 
 a reconnaissance, and you come back and proceed 
 to storm our works. Cool off, young man, and 
 teU us what you have found out." 
 
 " Quite right," replies the lawyer ; " it wiU not 
 take long. I found out, as I said, that you wiU 
 get no money from the council for the library. 
 ' Millions for boodle, but not one cent for books,' 
 is the motto of these statesmen." 
 
 " Whom did you see ? " asks Tomlinson. 
 
 "First I saw O'Halloran, the president. He 
 was talking with a base-ball delegation, and of 
 course he could not spare me much of his valua- 
 ble time; he said that our memorial was in the 
 hands of Herr Schwab, of the Ways and Means 
 Committee. I asked him what he thought of 
 the probability of its being favorably acted on. 
 He answered that the case was doubtful ; the ap- 
 propriations were so lai'ge already that it was not 
 thought best to increase them. He advised me 
 to see Schwab. This magnate sat in his com- 
 mittee-room, wreathed in smoke and clothed upon 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 11 
 
 with majesty. A small group surrounded his 
 desk: Smiley, the street contractor; Biirns, his 
 lawyer ; and Mikey Flynn, the small boss of the 
 Nineteenth Ward. From what I overheard, I 
 knew that they were putting up a job to pave 
 that street newly opened through the cow-pasture 
 over on Worthington Heights. At length they 
 withdrew, and I ventured into the august pres- 
 ence. The great man scarcely deigned to notice 
 me at first. When I pressed my business upon 
 his attention, he said, ' Oh, yas ; die Mbarry ; das 
 you call de pook pildin' oop on Fon Buren sdreet, 
 not so "I ' I admitted the accusation, and he went 
 on : 'So you wandt vif e tousand tollars of de beo- 
 ple's money for pooks, not so 1 I shall see, but I 
 bromise not mooch. Die abbrobriations already 
 is sehr heffy. Chim Mulloy he must haf his 
 margot-house at the Nord Ent, and dat gost two 
 hundert tousand toUar ; and Grurnel Schneider he 
 must haf his armory ofer de reefer, and dat gost 
 ein hundert tousand more ; and dar 's shoost biles 
 of sdreet imbrovements dis year — shoost biles of 
 'em. And I don'd see where any money 's gomin' 
 from to puy pooks.' 
 
 " I asked our chancellor of the exchequer if he 
 intended to report favorably on our appropriation, 
 but he was persistently non-committal. It was 
 quite useless to waste words upon him, so I sought 
 the other members of the committee, most of 
 whom were in the council-chamber, and tried to 
 interest them. They listened as patiently as they 
 
12 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 could, and agreed that the library was doing good 
 work, and ought to be encouraged ; but I saw in 
 their eyes that they did not intend to give us any- 
 thing. Some of them would, no doubt, if there 
 had been any hint of a ' divvy,' but they are gen- 
 tlemen who agree with the devil in the opinion 
 that it is a stupid thing to serve Grod for naught ; 
 others who would gladly enough have given us 
 what we ask are so frightened by the enormous 
 extravagance into which the councU. has been 
 rushing that they dare not add another dollar. 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is that our 
 memorial has n't the ghost of a chance to pass 
 the council ; we must get on as best we can with- 
 out aid from the city." 
 
 " It is rather depressing," answers the gentle- 
 man addressed as Harper, after a few moments' 
 silence. " The men who erected this building, and 
 gave this library its liberal endowment, and made 
 it free to the city, expected, and had a right to 
 expect, that the city would replenish its shelves 
 from year to year. We have income enough to 
 pay the other expenses, but not enough to buy 
 books ; a few thousand dollars a year for books 
 would vastly extend its usefulness. We are learn- 
 ing to use the library in our high-school work 
 more and more ; the librarian and the teachers are 
 cooperating very intelligently. We are getting 
 the pupils not only to read good books, but also — 
 which is a thing hardly less important — we are 
 teaching them to use books for pui'poses of refer- 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 13 
 
 enee, — to find things in books, — to know where 
 to -look for the facts which they desire to know. 
 In order that this kind of work may be done in 
 the most serviceable way, the library must be con- 
 stantly enlarged ; not only must we have all the 
 newest and best reference books, but aU the new 
 histories, manuals of literature, works upon politi- 
 cal and social science, and so forth. The library, 
 properly stocked and properly used, is worth more 
 to the city for educational purposes than the five 
 best teachers in our schools ; and it is a melan- 
 choly fact that while Jim Mulloy can get two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars for a market-house out in 
 that suburb, and Colonel Schneider can get a hun- 
 dred thousand dollars for his armory, the library 
 should beg in vain at the door of our council for 
 a paltry gift of five thousand dollars." 
 
 " Melancholy indeed," answers Tomhnson ; " but 
 you know very well that Jim Mulloy and Col- 
 onel Schneider sustain very different relations to 
 this council from those which you and I sus- 
 tain. Several of these men were made councilors 
 by them, and must not the potter have power over 
 the work of his own hands ? Besides, there is a 
 big real-estate job behind each of these enter- 
 prises, and convincing reasons could be shown to 
 many of these gentlemen why the erection of these 
 new buildings could not be deferred for an hour." 
 
 "Quite so," rejoins the lawyer. "And I have 
 been ruminating, while the principal here was 
 talking about the uses of the Ubrary, upon the 
 
14 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 impression which his admirable exposition would 
 make upon the minds of those men down there, 
 if they could hear it. How much do you suppose 
 you could make them understand of the educar 
 tional value of a public library ? " 
 
 " Not much, alas ! " replies the schoolmaster. 
 " And that is the melancholy fact. Why must a 
 fair, prosperous, respectable city like this be gov- 
 erned by men who have no comprehension of its 
 true interests, and no sense of the importance of 
 good government? Take the whole administra^ 
 tion, from top to bottom, and apply to it the 
 ordinary business test. Is there a man in any of 
 the executive departments whom yon, Tomlinson, 
 would trust as the manager of your factory ? " 
 
 " Not one," answers the manufacturer. 
 
 "In the council," continues Harper, "there are 
 a few fairly good men, but they are either too 
 busy to give much careful attention to the affairs 
 of the city, or else too fastidious to grapple with 
 the corrupt elements of the council, and the result 
 is that the men who have gone into city politics 
 for what there is in it have things pretty much 
 their own way. Between inertia and inefficiency 
 on the one hand, and rascahty on the other, the 
 business of our city is horribly mismanaged. Talk 
 about representative government ! Does this gov- 
 ernmental inaction down at the city hall represent 
 the people of CosmopoUs ? " 
 
 " Yes," answers the clergyman, deliberately ; " I 
 rather think it does." 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 15 
 
 "Do you mean to assert," persists the school- 
 master, "that O'Halloran and his crew in the 
 council-chamber, and the heads of the executive 
 departments, are fair exponents of the intelligence 
 and morality of this city f " 
 
 " Well, perhaps not of what may be described 
 as the latent intelligence and conscience of the 
 community. We may admit that there is a great 
 deal of moral energy packed up and stored away 
 in the minds and hearts of our citizens which is 
 wholly inoperative. Its possessors are doing with 
 it precisely what the man in the parable did with 
 his one talent. This latent wisdom and virtue 
 don't count. For all practical purposes they are 
 non-existent. Of course they are not represented 
 in the character of our city government. Why 
 should they be ? But our government fairly rep- 
 resents and expresses the active intelligence and 
 conscience of the community. Potential morahty 
 must be ruled out in all practical estimates of 
 political forces. All the wisdom and all the vir- 
 tue of the community which are actually in motion 
 have found representation in the city hall. The 
 doctrine of causation does not fail us here. We 
 are reaping exactly what we have sown." 
 
 "I suppose so," replies the other. "And what 
 is the remedy for this state of things ? " 
 
 "I should like to tell you, gentlemen, how the 
 matter looks to me, if it was n't past my bedtime," 
 says the one member of the group who has hith- 
 erto listened intently but silently. He is a mus- 
 
16 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 cular man of medium height, with angular features 
 and bright eyes, and the hand with which he but- 
 tons his plain tweed coat bears the signature of 
 severe toil. The eyes of all the group are turned 
 toward him with evident sympathy and respect as 
 he rises to his feet. " I have been thinking pretty 
 hard," he goes on, "while you have been talking, 
 and some things seem very plain to me." 
 
 " Let us hear," says the clergyman. 
 
 " No ; it is too late. You know that we work- 
 ing-men must be up in the morning." 
 
 " Let us meet here again one week from to- 
 night," proposes the manufacturer. "We have 
 raised a great question, and we must not drop it 
 here. I want to hear what Hathaway has been 
 thinking, for he always thinks to some purpose. 
 Possibly a week's reflection will clear all our 
 heads." 
 
 II 
 
 " We are aU here now, and Sam Hathaway has 
 the floor," is the cheery word of Reginald Payne, 
 as the five directors assembled in their sanctum on 
 the next Thursday evening. 
 
 "What I wanted to say last week," says the 
 carpenter, speaking slowly but directly, " has been 
 on my mind ever since, and it is as clear to me 
 now as it was then that we must have organization, 
 the organization of the industrious and respecta- 
 ble people of this city, to secure good government. 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS OEGANIZED 17 
 
 You may say that we have two organizations for 
 this purpose already — the Republican and the 
 Democratic party organizations. I don't wish to 
 use any hard words about these two political ma- 
 chines, but it is clear that they are not intended 
 to do the kind of work that we want done here. 
 Whatever RepubUcanism or Democracy may stand 
 for, it does n't stand for good municipal govern- 
 ment. These parties are organized for other pur- 
 poses ; they have no interest in local affairs beyond 
 carrying elections and dividing spoils. When the 
 Republican party puts a presidential or a con- 
 gressional candidate into the iield, he is supposed 
 to represent certain principles or policies which 
 can be discussed and commended to the people; 
 when the Republican party puts a candidate for 
 mayor or councilman into the field, he represents 
 nothing at aU except the wish of the managers to 
 get possession of the ofQces. And it is precisely 
 so with the other party. Municipal contests un- 
 der these party banners are therefore destitute of 
 meaning. There are no principles on either side 
 that can be defined or advocated ; it is an unprin- 
 cipled scramble for spoils, that 's aU. Now it 
 does n't need to be argued that such a method of 
 managing municipal politics will never give us 
 efiicient government. It 's just hke taking the 
 officers and clerks of a bank, and setting them to 
 work, once a year, to run a laundry. It 's just as 
 if you, Mr. ToraUnson, should try to transform 
 your big establishment for the manufacture of 
 
18 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 harvesters into a watch-factory for one month of 
 every year. It is not less absurd to expect that a 
 big party organization which was made to do one 
 kind of work will do equally as well another and 
 a wholly different kind of work. When the na- 
 tional parties enter the municipal field, they leave 
 all their principles behind them. And a party 
 without principles — a party whose only reason 
 for existence is the spoils — is always an unclean 
 thing, and must pollute everything that it touches. 
 This is, in my judgment, one main reason of the 
 corruption of our municipal politics the country 
 over. We have no organizations for municipal 
 politics that have any relation whatever to muni- 
 cipal affairs. Therefore we have no intelligent 
 or well-considered action upon municipal afi'airs. 
 We must find some way of bringing our people 
 together upon a platform broad enough to include 
 aU well-disposed citizens, and train them to coop- 
 erate for the promotion of good government in 
 the city." 
 
 "Right you are!" cries Reginald Payne. "It 
 takes a carpenter to hit a nail on the head. You 've 
 said exactly what I meant to say, but I forgive 
 you. Grive me your hand, Sam Hathaway ! " 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," says the carpenter, blushing 
 a httle, as he grasps the hand of the impulsive 
 lawyer, " there is one lesson that we working-men 
 have learned, and that 's the value of organization. 
 You can't do much in these days without it. 
 You 've got to stand together if you want to ac- 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS OKGANIZED 19 
 
 complisli anytMng. There must be a great many- 
 people in this city, of all classes, who want good, 
 clean, efficient government. If we can get them 
 all, or even a good share of them, to stand toge- 
 ther for this one thing, we can secure it." 
 
 " ' If,' " says the sententious Tomlinson. 
 
 " Yes, ' if,' " echoes the exuberant lawyer. " The 
 trouble is to get the rank and file to break away 
 from their parties. It will take no httle work to 
 overcome the idolatry of party. It can't be done 
 in one year, nor in half a dozen. It means a long, 
 persistent campaign of agitation and education. 
 And this work cannot begin too soon.'' 
 
 " You are right," says the manufacturer. " I do 
 not wish to be considered as a skeptic or a dissen- 
 ter. I cordially agree with all that Mr. Hatha- 
 way has said. As he was talking, I was reflecting 
 upon the fact that while the average voter in our 
 city is pretty well informed upon national issues, 
 he knows very little about municipal questions. 
 Most of our voters know something — enough to 
 have some sort of opinion — about the tariff, and 
 the silver question, and the Southern question ; 
 how many of them have any, even the remotest, 
 conception of the methods of municipal organiza- 
 tion ! How many of them could tell you how this 
 city is governed ? how its executive force is consti- 
 tuted 1 how its finances are managed 1 I '11 ven- 
 ture that if you go down Jefferson street to-morrow, 
 and put these questions to the heads of all the 
 business houses, you -will not get an intelligent 
 
20 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 answer from one man in twenty. All this confirms 
 what Hathaway has said, that our municipal poli- 
 tics are utterly devoid of educational value. There 
 is no organization whose business it is to bring 
 before the people the serious problems which all 
 the while arise respecting the management of city 
 affairs. We ought to have such an organization, 
 and I agree with Payne that it cannot get to work 
 too soon." 
 
 " "We ought to have it," echoes the schoolmaster ; 
 "but how to get it — there is the rub. Who will 
 set the thing in motion '? Who will undertake to 
 see that the child is reputably born and baptized ? " 
 
 "And who," continues the lawyer, "will sit up 
 nights with it tUl it gets its eye-teeth cut, and 
 nurse it safely through the mumps and the 
 measles 1 Infants of this sort require a great deal 
 of mothering." 
 
 "No doubt of it," rejoins the manufacturer; 
 "and somebody must make up his mind to lose 
 considerable sleep, and to take upon himself no 
 little care, if this thing is to live and grow. But 
 is n't it worth a little labor and sacrifice to rescue 
 our city from its present disgrace, and to put it 
 into clean and competent hands? And is there 
 any reason why we should not start this thing in 
 motion?" 
 
 "But how?" persists the lawyer. "Shall we 
 publish in the newspapers a call for a meeting ? " 
 
 " No, no ! " cries the schoolmaster. " Take any 
 shape but that ! Don't you know who will come ? 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS OEGANIZED 21 
 
 Half the cranks in town, and none of the people 
 whom you want to secure. The intelligent citizen 
 is shy of the aggregations drawn together by such 
 a summons." 
 
 "Let me make a suggestion,'' ventures the par- 
 son. " Let us see if we cannot work out this sum 
 by Mr. Hale's rule of ten-times-one-are-ten. We 
 are a fairly representative little group — business 
 man, lawyer, educator, mechanic, minister. Sup- 
 pose we appoint a meeting two weeks from to- 
 night, and each of us agree to bring with him, if 
 he can, ten of his associates — men with whom he 
 is most intimately connected. Let Tomlinson have 
 free range of the manufacturers, the merchants, 
 and the bankers ; let Payne loose among the law- 
 yers and the judges ; let Harper bring in teachers 
 and editors — we want to have one or two of them; 
 let Hathaway pick out some of the brightest and 
 most sensible of the working-men ; and I will in- 
 vite — ,ten clergymen ? No ; I think that that would 
 be a disproportionate number. But I wUl ask two 
 or three of the other ministers, and two or three 
 doctors, and a few other reputable persons whom 
 I know. If each of us wiU use his best judgment 
 in selecting men who are likely to be in sympathy 
 with our project, I think that we may bring to- 
 gether a company of gentlemen who will give to 
 our organization, at the outset, dignity and influ- 
 ence with all classes." 
 
 "Admirable!" cries the schoolmaster, and the 
 whole company repeats the verdict. 
 
22 THE OOSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 "And yet," ventures Mr. Payne, "I think that 
 this scheme will bear amendment. Would n't it 
 be well to canvass these names here, before we 
 issue our invitations? I, for example, might, in 
 perfect good faith, select some man whom some 
 of you, knowing him a httle better than I do, 
 would know to be an undesirable associate. Let 
 each man make out his list now, and submit it 
 for criticism." 
 
 This suggestion is readily adopted, and the next 
 hour is spent in preparing the hsts and subjecting 
 them to careful scrutiny, with the result of elimi- 
 nating several doubtful names, and substituting 
 for them others whose merit is unquestionable. 
 
 "Now where shall we meet?" demands the 
 schoolmaster, when the final list has been com- 
 pleted. 
 
 " You might come to our chapel," says the rector, 
 dubiously, "but — " 
 
 " I would hke to emphasize that ' but,' " breaks 
 in the manufacturer. " I know what Mr. Morison 
 means. It is n't wise to let this movement be 
 very closely identified with any form of ecclesias- 
 ticism. It ought to be in the largest sense of the 
 word catholic, comprehending all classes, aU sects, 
 and aU parties ; and it must avoid everything that 
 could cast suspicion upon its catholicity." 
 
 " That is precisely the thought that was in my 
 own mind," rejoins the clergyman. "It is evi- 
 dently better that we should find some meeting- 
 place that shall be neutral ground. One of the 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 23 
 
 clergymen whom I shall in^'ite is Father Clancy 
 of St. Patrick's Church ; he would hesitate to at- 
 tend a meeting held in a Protestant church, and 
 we could Ul afford to spare him from our confer- 
 ence. I am sure that if he is properly approached 
 he will cooperate with us heartily." 
 
 " There is a comfortable little room, large enough 
 for our purposes, in the rear of my counting-room," 
 says Tomlinson. " I will see that it is put in order 
 for this meeting, if you desire it. It is better that 
 this company should meet privately. As soon as 
 our plans are matured the public wiU be entitled 
 to know all our purposes, not before." 
 
 m 
 
 The company which gathered in Mr. Tomlin- 
 son's back ofiice represented very fairly aU the 
 best elements of the population. Out of a possi- 
 ble fifty-five, thirty-nine were present ; the mercan- 
 tile and professional classes had responded with 
 some excellent representatives, but Mr. Hathaway 
 was the only man who brought his full quota of 
 ten from the ranks of the wage-workers. There 
 were, of course, some conspicuous vacancies in 
 this group. There was not one saloon-keeper, and 
 not one ward politician. Could it be true that 
 these people expected to govern their city without 
 any aid from the powers that be 1 It must be con- 
 fessed that to the denizens of the city hall the 
 
24 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 aspect of this assembly woiUd have been revolu- 
 tionary in the extreme. 
 
 " If you will come to order, gentlemen," said the 
 clear voice of Mr. Tomlinson^ " I will venture, as 
 your host, to make known the purpose of this 
 gathering. Five men who meet from time to time 
 for quite another purpose were forced to confront 
 the fact that this city is sadly misgoverned. In a 
 general way, I suppose, we all believe this, and 
 we make a great many complaints about it ; yet 
 as to what the defects of our government are, or 
 how they may be corrected, we ma}' have very 
 confused notions. But it seemed to us five men 
 that we, as citizens, had some duties which we had 
 been neglecting, and we determined to call a few 
 of our neighbors together to consult with us, and 
 to take part with us, if they deem it wise, in a sus- 
 tained and patient effort to improve the character 
 of our city government. Perhaps I may say that 
 the one man of the five whose ideas on the sub- 
 ject were most clear and mature was Mi-. Samuel 
 Hathaway ; he represents a class whose interest in 
 good government is as deep as that of any other 
 class, and I am glad to see that it is well repre- 
 sented here to-night. I have the honor to propose 
 that the chair be taken by Mr. Hathaway." 
 
 The proposition was greeted with cheers, and 
 j\Ii-. Hathaway blushingly advanced to the post 
 of honor. 
 
 "I thank you, gentlemen," he said, in manly 
 fashion, but with a little tremor in his voice, "for 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 25 
 
 this expression of your kindness. It was some 
 words of mine upon the value of organization, I 
 suppose, that Mr. Tomlinson referred to. The 
 wage-workers of this generation have learned the 
 power of organization. It is a power that can 
 be abused, of course. Doubtless it is sometimes 
 abused ; but it is only through the cooperation of 
 men that rights are secured and justice is estab- 
 lished. And we are here to-night to try to learn 
 how to cooperate for the promotion of the best 
 interests of the community. As capitalists, as 
 laborers, as professional men, as churchmen, as 
 Democrats, as Republicans, as Prohibitionists, our 
 ideas may be unlike, and our interests diverse; 
 but we are all citizens of this city, and we are all 
 aHke interested in honest, efficient government. 
 Can we not forget all our other differences and 
 work together for this end 1 " 
 
 The carpenter's little speech was well received, 
 and the pride of his fellow- workmen was evidently 
 touched by the honor accorded to him, and by the 
 modest and sensible way in which he bore it. 
 
 " I will ventiire," said the chairman, " in the way 
 of further explaining the project before us, to call 
 upon Mr. Reginald Payne. Perhaps he may be 
 able to give us something definite to consider." 
 
 " We are here," said Mr. Payne, " for conference 
 and consultation. Nobody is authorized to pre- 
 sent any plans to this meeting. Nobody wishes 
 to anticipate or define the action to be taken by 
 this meeting. I have myself no clearly formulated 
 
26 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 scheme, but I will simply throw out a few sugges- 
 tions, with which I hope you will deal frankly. 
 My ideas are briefly these — I have put them down 
 in writing, for clearness and brevity : 
 
 "i. There should be an association of citizens 
 for the improvement of municipal government. 
 
 " II. It should be a permanent organization, with 
 the expectation of indefinite continuance. We 
 should no more contemplate the termination of its 
 work than that of a church or a college. The 
 time will never come when there will not be need 
 of such an organization, through which municipal 
 patriotism may be fostered and expressed. 
 
 "ill. The condition of membership should be 
 the signing of a declaration that in municipal af- 
 fairs party politics should be ignored, and a pledge 
 that the members will, in aU. these matters, act in 
 independence of the claims of party. 
 
 " IV. The work of the association should be : (a) 
 To hold regular meetings for the discussion of 
 topics relating to the welfare of the city, and es- 
 pecially to its government. (&) To collect and 
 publish information upon these topics, including 
 the enforcement or non-enforcement of the laws ; 
 the management of the city's finances ; the man- 
 ner in which contracts are made and fulfilled ; the 
 conduct of elections ; and so forth, (c) To inquire 
 into the methods by which cities are governed, 
 and to see whether it is possible to improve our 
 charter so that our administration shall be more 
 simple and efficient. 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 27 
 
 " Some such scheme as this has been simmering 
 in my mind. The details may be improved ; the 
 whole plan might be improved. I only offer it for 
 consideration." 
 
 A brief silence followed Mr. Payne's statement. 
 Judge Hamlin broke it by the question : " Will Mr. 
 Payne stand up again and let us ask him a few 
 questions? Possibly a colloquy of this sort may 
 bring out the points that need to be made clear." 
 
 "With pleasure," answered the lawyer; "you 
 can soon find out how little I know." 
 
 " WeU, then," continued the judge, " tell us whe- 
 ther you would have this association go into poli- 
 tics by nominating candidates for city offices." 
 
 " No ; my judgment would be against that for 
 the present. I would make it an educational more 
 than a political association. But I would leave it 
 perfectly free to take such action as its members 
 may at any time think wise." 
 
 " The party organizations will remain in the 
 field'?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 " And will present candidates for our suffrages 
 at every city election ? " 
 
 " That may be presumed." 
 
 " How much could this association effect, then, 
 in the way of reforming the government ? Should 
 we not be obliged to vote for such candidates as 
 the gods of the caucus saw fit to give us ! " 
 
 " Certainly. I do not expect, as the fruit of our 
 labors, any immediate and radical change in the 
 
28 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 government of the city. That is the great mis- 
 take of the citizens' movements. They go into 
 this business expecting to do it up in six months 
 or so, and make no provision for a long campaign. 
 Their ideas reach no further than the next elec- 
 tion. If, in the first contest, they are successful, 
 they imagine that the city is redeemed, and dis- 
 band their forces; if they are defeated, they as- 
 sume that the struggle is hopeless, and fling away 
 their weapons. I hope that this enterprise will 
 begin in a different way." 
 
 " Precisely what, then, do you expect to accom- 
 pUsh ? " persisted the catechist. 
 
 "I should hope," replied the lawyer, "that by 
 the constant agitation which we shall keep up, by 
 the facts which we shall bring to light, by the 
 discussion which we shall promote, public opinion 
 would be created and purified, and thus a steady 
 pressure brought to bear upon the managers of 
 both parties, which might induce them to give us 
 better candidates. I have no doubt that we shall 
 be able to present a great many well-attested and 
 undeniable facts which will startle the people of 
 this city, and make them feel that something must 
 be done. I presume that our careful investigation 
 of the methods by which the city's business is 
 managed will show that it is slipshod, wasteful, 
 reckless to the last degree. I believe that we shall 
 be able to suggest important and desirable changes 
 in the form of our municipal organization." 
 
 " The enterprise is educational, then, mainly ? " 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 29 
 
 " Yes, mainly. The work of enlightenment and 
 agitation seems to me to be the first and most im- 
 portant work." 
 
 Mr. Payne sat down, and there was a moment's 
 silence. It was broken by the voice of one of 
 the clerical contingent, the Reverend Fletcher 
 Frambes, a swarthy man with a bushy brow and 
 a heavy jaw. 
 
 " This educational campaign," he said, " may 
 furnish a very interesting amusement to those 
 who take part in it, and it may result in some re- 
 mote benefits ; but I confess that I am somewhat 
 disappointed in the program which has been out- 
 lined to us. I was hoping that we should be in- 
 vited to take hold in a more direct and vigorous 
 way of the existing evils. Everybody knows that 
 our city is terribly misgoverned. The laws for 
 the suppression of vice are practically ignored. 
 In spite of statutes and city ordinances, the sa- 
 loons are open aU night long and aU day Sunday ; 
 the gamblers do business as openly as the drug- 
 gists ; the houses of infamy hang out theu' signs. 
 It seems to me that the first thing to do is to en- 
 force the laws against these social abominations. 
 Over in Steelopolis they have a Law and Order 
 League which is making it hot for these law- 
 breakers. I was in hopes that this conference 
 might be looking toward some such work as this." 
 
 "WeU, gentlemen," said the lawyer, "this is a 
 fair question which my clerical brother has raised: 
 to what extent is it wise to go into the business 
 
30 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 of detecting and punishing crime? What Mr. 
 Prambes has said about the disregard of law is 
 quite true; the question is, whether it is wise for 
 us to organize a volunteer association for the en- 
 forcement of the laws. That was not my idea; 
 but I should like to hear the opinions of others." 
 
 " My opinion," said Judge Hamlin, standing up, 
 and speaking deliberately, " is very clear on this 
 point. Nobody who knows me will doubt that I 
 believe in a strict enforcement of the laws; the 
 classes to which Mr. Frambes refers know where 
 I stand. But I am not in favor of volunteer or- 
 ganizations for the prosecution of lawbreakers. I 
 am aware of what has been done in Steelopolis and 
 in other cities ; in some cases, no doubt, temporary 
 gains for morality have been made by such meth- 
 ods ; but, as a rule, and in the long run, the effect 
 of such measTires will be injuiious. We have 
 police authorities, and a police force, whose sworn 
 duty it is to enforce statutes and ordinances. This 
 is their business — their only business. We make 
 a great mistake when we take it out of their hands. 
 The moment we begin to employ detectives, and 
 to engage in the prosecution of any class of of- 
 fenders, the police will consider themselves dis- 
 charged of responsibility for this portion of their 
 duty. 'You have undertaken this job,' they will 
 say to us ; ' now go ahead with it, and see what 
 you can do.' Of course they will give us no help ; 
 most likely they will obstruct our efforts in many 
 secret ways. There is now, in all probability, a 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 31 
 
 pretty good understanding between the police au- 
 thorities and these classes of lawbreakers. This 
 volunteer detective business is much more likely to 
 strengthen than to weaken this league between the 
 lawbreakers and police. Desultory and spasmodic 
 efforts to prosecute the violators of law will ac- 
 compHsh very little, and when they are abandoned, 
 as they soon will be, we shall be more completely 
 in the hands of the lawless classes than we are to- 
 day. Therefore I put very httle trust in these 
 private organizations for the enforcement of law. 
 I know that many excellent people have taken 
 part in them, from the highest of motives ; I my- 
 self was a member of such an organization in this 
 city several years ago ; it was my experience then 
 which convinced me that it is an unwise method. 
 A law-abiding people must intrust the enforcement 
 of its laws to officials chosen and sworn to perform 
 their duty, and must hold them responsible for its 
 performance. It is weak and childish to permit 
 them to neglect their work, and then to take hold 
 and do it for them. If my hostler neglects to 
 keep my stable clean, I am not in the habit of 
 showing my displeasure with him by doing the 
 work myself, and permitting him to sit and smoke 
 on the sidewalk. That method of dealing with 
 employees is Just as foolish when they are public 
 officials as when they are private workmen. The 
 only way to get the laws enforced in this city is 
 to compel the men to enforce them whose business 
 it is." 
 
32 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 Judge Hamlin's little speeeli was greeted with 
 applause, in wMcli about half of the company 
 joined. The rest looked doubtful. 
 
 " The judge's philosophy is all right," said the 
 minister; "but are we to sit still and see our 
 young men ruined and our homes broken up by 
 these public enemies 1 " 
 
 " No ; we are not to sit still," replied the judge ; 
 " we are to be up and doing ; the only question is, 
 what is the wisest thing to do ? We might adopt 
 measures which would yield some temporary gains, 
 as I have said, but which would tend, eventually, 
 to weaken respect for government, and to lower 
 the standards of our public of&cials. The losses 
 of such a course are greater than the gains. The 
 trouble with most of our attempts at municipal 
 reform has been that we have been content with 
 making a raid, now and then, into the territory of 
 the lawbreakers and the corruptionists ; and when 
 we have cast out one devil, we have gone our ways 
 to our stores and ovx offices, and seven others 
 worse than the first have returned and entered in. 
 We have got to think and plan for radical and 
 permanent reform. We must have a government 
 worthy of respect, and we must respect it. We 
 must have an efificient government, and require it 
 to prove its efficiency. We must have a responsi- 
 ble government, and hold it to its strict responsi- 
 bility. It is our business, as citizens, to select ca- 
 pable employees, and to see that they do their 
 duty. It is not our business to do their duty for 
 
HOW THE CLUB "WAS ORGANIZED 33 
 
 them. The people are the sovereigns, and they 
 must behave themselves sovereignly. They lower 
 their dignity, and cripple their authority, when 
 they palter, after this manner, with perfidious and 
 insubordinate servants." 
 
 The judge spoke with warmth, and the applause 
 was prompt and pretty nearly unanimous. 
 
 " WeU," answered Mr. Prambes, " I wish to do 
 nothing unwise, and Judge Hamlin's words seem 
 to me reasonable, in the main. I am ready to co- 
 operate with any movement that promises to give 
 us better government." 
 
 " But how are we to enlist the people in this en- 
 terprise ? " inquired one of the newcomers. " The 
 reform of this municipality can be wrought only 
 by the cooperation of the majority of its citizens. 
 Here are thirty or forty of us. By what multiplier 
 can we increase our number to ten thousand '? " 
 
 "I do not think," answered Principal Harper, 
 " that we shall do well to be in haste about in- 
 creasing our numbers. The time may come when 
 we shall wish to recruit our ranks, but that is not 
 the first concern. I happen to have in my pocket 
 a pamphlet treating, in a very judicious manner, 
 this whole problem, from which I beg leave to 
 read a paragraph : 
 
 " ' The formation of large citizen reform asso- 
 ciations, certainly, as an opening wedge to reform, 
 is of questionable value. In such energy is apt to 
 be dissipated, and a sense of individual responsi- 
 bility lost. Moreover, the way is then opened for 
 
34 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 the very politicians whom it is designed to dis- 
 courage to capture the organization and use its 
 prestige to shield themselves. The best beginning 
 is made by a few enthusiasts, enrolling as much 
 influence as possible, devoting themselves to the 
 study of evils, and the theories and practice else- 
 where of purifying local politics and regenerating 
 municipalities. This little company should be 
 thoroughly non-partizan, though much of the 
 best work must be done by working through 
 party primaries. When the organization has ac- 
 quired a local standing it may enlarge its member- 
 ship, and declare its indorsement or disapproval 
 of individual candidates for local office. But by 
 agitation, and by education of citizens in the prin- 
 ciples on which local government rests, is the best 
 work done. Needed radical changes in the local 
 constitution may be thus accomplished, and the 
 municipality started afresh on approved lines. 
 This has already been done in a number of cities.' 
 " I am not quite sure," Mr. Harper continued, 
 "about all these suggestions; but the principal 
 contention — that better work can be done in the 
 educational way by a small association than by a 
 large one — appears to be reasonable. When I 
 look round upon this picked company, it seems to 
 me that we have a force fairly adequate to the 
 work in hand. I would urge the attendance of 
 those already invited who are not present; I 
 would not exclude other desirable persons who 
 may wish to join our league; but I would invite 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 35 
 
 no more just now. Most of us have a great deal 
 to learn. If we desire to fit ourselves for wise 
 leadership of this movement, we must know far 
 more than we now do of existing conditions, and 
 of the best methods of improving them ; and this 
 study of the problem will be best prosecuted, not 
 in mass meetings, but in small, select, and man- 
 ageable companies." 
 
 " But how," pursued this interlocutor, " would 
 you get the results of your study into the public 
 mind?" 
 
 " That," answered the schoolmaster, " is a very 
 important matter, and one to which we may well 
 give immediate attention. In the first place, I 
 would have all the meetings of the league public 
 meetings. The reporters should be notified and 
 welcomed. The results of our study should be 
 embodied, so far as possible, not in offhand 
 speeches, but in crisp, condensed, keenly written 
 papers, which the newspapers will be glad to print 
 in full. The discussions following these papers 
 are likely to be fully reported. I think that this 
 company embodies intelligence and wit enough to 
 furnish this community some mighty interesting 
 reading, and character enough to make its pub- 
 lished statements very influential. It will be seen 
 at once that we are not seeking any partizan ad- 
 vantage ; that we are students investigating in a 
 scientific spirit the conditions of our municipal 
 life; that we are public-spirited citizens seeking 
 the welfare of the city, and not looking for office. 
 
36 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 I believe that we can do a great deal in a short 
 time toward correcting and reforming and vital- 
 izing public opinion." 
 
 "What the principal has said about the sci- 
 entific spirit," interposed Mr. Morison, "has put 
 an idea into my mind. Would it not be well 
 to organize our league in sections, as the sci- 
 entific associations are organized, assigning to 
 each section some specific branch of inquiry and 
 investigation?" 
 
 " That was exactly my thought," answered Mr. 
 Payne. "I had put down here on a piece of 
 paper a sketch of such a subdivision. To one 
 section I would assign for study the Police and 
 the Fire Department; to another, Streets and 
 Sewers ; to another, the Schools ; to another. Poor 
 Relief and Sanitation ; to another. Light and Wa- 
 ter; to another. Transportation; and to another, 
 all questions relating to Charter Reform. Let 
 there be a committee of three in charge of each 
 of these sections ; let every member of the league 
 join himself to the section in which he can be 
 most useful ; and let the chairmen of these seven 
 committees be the executive committee of the 
 league." 
 
 " Excellent," responded the rector. " This looks 
 like business. And now, Mr. Chairman, let me 
 propose a committee, consisting of Mr. Payne, 
 Mr. Harper, and yourself, to put this organization 
 into form, nominate officers, and report at a sub- 
 sequent meeting." 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS OEGANIZED 37 
 
 The motion was unanimously agreed to, and 
 underscored with applause. 
 
 " There is one more question," said the lawyer, 
 " on which your committee may need instruction. 
 It is assumed that we shall have regular meetings. 
 How often shall we meet ? " 
 
 " Once a month is often enough for a public 
 meeting," answered Mr. Morison. "The sections 
 will wish to meet more frequently. Let them ar- 
 range that for themselves." 
 
 "I douht," said Mr. Tomlinson, "whether once 
 a month will do the work. I understand why the 
 parson, whose evenings are nearly all occupied, 
 should prefer monthly meetings ; but it seems to 
 me that if we wish to make upon this community 
 the impression that we ought to make, we must 
 meet every week. The parson knows — at any 
 rate, some of his professional brethren know — 
 the value of continuous impression. If you want 
 to heat the iron by hammering, you must not only 
 strike hard, you must strike often. The same 
 thing is true of all efforts to arouse popular -in- 
 terest. The attention of the people must be held 
 to the subject ; you must keep the matter hot 
 in their minds. It seems to me that it would be 
 well to have only one of these sections report 
 at each meeting. That gives each committee 
 seven weeks to prepare its report ; it can be fully 
 digested, and sharply presented, and the people 
 will have one subject to think about for that 
 week." 
 
38 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 "I quite agree with my neighbor," answered 
 Judge Hamlin. " This is no holiday business 
 which we have undertaken. It means hard work, 
 persistent work, self-denying work. It will in- 
 volve sacrifice of leisure, loss of sleep, and the 
 postponement or neglect of other interests that 
 are by no means unimportant. Our friends, the 
 clergymen, have many weekly engagements which 
 they consider sacred and binding; I do not dis- 
 parage their work when I say that they can find 
 no better use for one evening in the week than to 
 devote it to this cause." 
 
 " My friend the manufacturer, and my neighbor 
 the judge," said Mr. Morison, " do me a little less 
 than justice if they intimate that I do not appre- 
 hend the relative importance of the work in which 
 we have enlisted. My parishioners are not likely 
 to make any such mistake. I have harped upon 
 this string until they are weary. Very well do I 
 understand that the one influence which stands 
 in most deadly opposition to all that the church 
 of God is trying to do in the community is that 
 of our city government. By its notorious com- 
 plicity with vice ; by the official indorsement and 
 continuance that it gives to the worst forms of 
 evil; by the shameless dishonesties which are 
 charged against its administration, and of which 
 in the popular judgment it stands convicted ; by 
 the cynical contempt for their oaths of office which 
 many of its officials manifest; by what it does, 
 and by what it faUs to do, this municipal govern- 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 39 
 
 ment of ours is a great foe of morality in this 
 community. It is a hard thing to say, but it is 
 not recklessly said ; after much careful thought I 
 am forced to say it. Our studies and investiga- 
 tions will, I trust, bring home to the people of 
 this city some of the facts on which this judg- 
 ment is based. No one present is likely to estimate 
 more highly than I do the gravity of the interests 
 with which we are dealing. I was thinking of 
 others rather than of myself when I proposed a 
 monthly meeting, and I am more than willing to 
 give one evening in a week to this work." 
 
 " There is one other question," said one of the 
 working-men, "which I will make bold to raise. 
 Some of these municipal clubs, as I happen to 
 know, are rather expensive affairs. We working- 
 men would be glad to bear our part in this one ; 
 but if we are members, we wish to be on an equal- 
 ity with the rest, and we can't stand the fees and 
 dues which are often charged." , 
 
 " That is an important suggestion," answered 
 Mr. Tomlinson ; " I hope that the committee will 
 consider it well. Some expense will necessarily 
 be incurred, but I trust that it will be made as 
 light as possible, so that men with small incomes 
 may, without burdening themselves, be able to 
 meet the obligations of membership." 
 
 " The principal expense," answered Mr. Payne, 
 "will be the rent of a room for our meetings. 
 The committee will endeavor to find a suitable 
 room at the lowest possible rent." 
 
40 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 "If this room will serve your purpose," Mr. Tom- 
 linsoQ ventured, "you are welcome to it." 
 
 The manufacturer's generous offer was greeted 
 with applause, and the meeting adjourned, to. as- 
 semble in the same place on the next Saturday 
 evening. 
 
 rv 
 
 It could hardly be supposed that such a meeting 
 as has now been reported could be kept an entire 
 secret in a city like Cosmopolis. The reporters 
 soon got wind of it, and several of the gentlemen 
 who were present were subjected to interviews, 
 through which the people of the city were pretty 
 well informed of aU that had taken place. The 
 composite character of the assembly, representing 
 as it did both parties and all sorts and conditions 
 of citizens, excited much comment; no similar 
 combination had ever before been effected; peo- 
 ple wondered by what charm such a group had 
 been coUeeted. The denizens of the city hall jeered 
 at it as "Bill Tomlinson's happy family"; but, 
 though they made light of it, they were evidently 
 rather solemnized by the apparition. It was likely 
 that these people would soon be asking disagree- 
 able questions and publishing annoying state- 
 ments, and they were inclined to resent such inter- 
 ference. This was a method of attack to which 
 they were not accustomed, and they were at a loss 
 to know how it could best be met. They had been 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 41 
 
 disturbed now and then by impulsive attempts on 
 the part of reputable people to get possession of 
 the primaries and to control the nominations for 
 city ofB.eers, and by occasional attempts to run a 
 citizens' ticket; and they knew perfectly well how 
 to neutralize or defeat all such political assaults. 
 But these people, who seemed to be bent on get- 
 ting possession of the facts respecting their admin- 
 istration of the city government, and on keeping 
 these facts before the people, were fighting with 
 a weapon which they did not know how to parry. 
 Herr Schwab, the minister of finance at the city 
 hall, was highly iudignant when he heard what was 
 on foot. "Dose infernal sbies!" he vociferated, 
 "let dem come a-sdickin' dere noses into my piz- 
 ness, off dey tare. I '11 gick de first man of dem 
 de sdairs down ! " 
 
 "Betther think twice about that, me hearty," 
 said O'Halloran, blandly. "That w'u'd make a 
 foine thriple-header for our young friend the re- 
 porter. Ye 'd be playin' into their hands quite too 
 cleverlj'. Betther howld yer temper, and circum- 
 vent them by sthrategy." 
 
 Precisely what manner of strategy Mr. O'Hal- 
 loran proposed was not at once divulged; but it 
 was evident that the club would not be furthered 
 in its investigations by the authorities at the city 
 hall. 
 
 The adjourned meeting of the club, on the next 
 Saturday evening, showed an increased atten- 
 dance. The form of organization, substantially 
 
42 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 as agreed upon, was reported and adopted ; Judge 
 Hamlin was made the president of the club, Sam 
 Hathaway its vice-president, and Mr. Tomlinson 
 its treasurer; the seven committees were consti- 
 tuted, and the machinery was declared to be in 
 running order. The president, whose provisional 
 acceptance of the of&ce had evidently been secured 
 beforehand, was ready with a well-prepared in- 
 augural address, which was intended, no doubt, 
 to strike the key-note of this campaign of educa- 
 tion. Some of the points of his speech are worth 
 transferring to this report. It is better to extract 
 them than to condense them : 
 
 " The business before us," said Judge Hamlin, 
 "is perhaps the most serious business which 
 Americans now have upon their hands. The 
 population of our cities is rapidly increasing, and 
 the government of our cities is, as a general rule, 
 inefficient and corrupt — in the words of Mr. 
 James Bryce, ' the one conspicuous failure of the 
 United States.' Ex-President White is not speak- 
 ing too strongly when he asserts that 'the city 
 governments of the United States are the worst 
 in Christendom — the most expensive, the most 
 inefficient, and the most corrupt.' Reasons for 
 this failure may easily be found. We shall find 
 them in the course of these studies. I will only 
 refer to a few of the more important. 
 
 " The rapid growth of our cities has thrown 
 upon us great problems of engineering and physi- 
 cal construction for which we were wholly unpre- 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 43 
 
 pared. Corruption and jobbery have flourished 
 upon our inexperience. 
 
 " The problems of social construction have been 
 complicated in the same way. A form of govern- 
 ment which answered fairly well in a large village, 
 or a city of ten or twenty thousand, becomes ut- 
 terly inadequate when the population rises to 
 scores or hundreds of thousands. You might as 
 well undertake to manage the street traffic of New 
 York with the ancient omnibus as to govern some 
 of our cities under their present charters. 
 
 " The municipal problem has been muddled by 
 legislative interference. The municipal corpora- 
 tion has been defined by the United States Courts 
 as a ' subordinate branch of the governmental 
 power of the State ' ; it is regarded as a creature 
 of the legislature; and what the legislature has 
 made, it may at any time reconstruct or destroy. 
 In many of our States the legislatures have con- 
 stantly interfered with the administration of mu- 
 nicipalities, sometimes with benevolent intention, 
 often with sinister purpose, almost always with 
 mischievous result. The members of the legisla- 
 ture do not understand the problems of municipal 
 organization ; a majority of them have no inter- 
 ests involved, and can be held in no way responsi- 
 ble for their action. It would be putting it too 
 strongly to say that the legislature should have no 
 power to interfere with the government of cities, 
 but it is becoming evident that this power should 
 be sharply restricted by constitutional provisions. 
 
44 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 " The foreign population is often charged with 
 the miscarriages of municipal government. No 
 doubt this cause must be well studied. The social 
 habits of large classes reared in other lands make 
 the enforcenjent of liquor laws and Sunday laws 
 difficult ; and the disregard of these laws weakens 
 in these people, and in natives as well, the whole- 
 some sentiment of respect for law in general. My 
 own opinion is that the people of the United States, 
 native-born and foreign-born, have received an 
 education in lawlessness through the feeble and 
 futile handling of the liquor laws which it will 
 take them a great many years to unlearn. I do not 
 hesitate to say that it would have been infinitely 
 better for this country if there had been, during the 
 last fifty years, no legal restriction at all upon the 
 manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. I do 
 not believe that there would have been any more 
 intemperance than there has been, and I am quite 
 sure that we should see far less of that wide-spread 
 contempt for law which is one of the alarming 
 symptoms of our municipal disorder. This state 
 of things is due, to a considerable extent, to the 
 presence of the foreign elements in our population. 
 It goes without saying, also, that the attempts of 
 these people, who have had very little education 
 under free institutions, to take part in the gov- 
 ernment of our cities must often have resulted 
 disastrously ; while the demagogue finds his oppor- 
 tunity among such ignorant voters. Still, I am not 
 disposed to put quite so much emphasis upon this 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS OKGANIZED 45 
 
 cause as some critics do. The great mass of the 
 foreigners are industrious, thrifty, law-abiding 
 people ; they might be trained to good citizenship 
 if we would give our minds to the business. They 
 need a gi-eat deal of political education, and we 
 have left that task mainly to the ward heelers and 
 the spoilsmen. I do not think that American citizens 
 are entitled to say very much about the failure of 
 the foreigners to bear their part wisely in our pub- 
 lic affairs. "We might have withheld the suffrage 
 from them ; but when we gave it, we ought to have 
 known that we took upon ourselves the responsi- 
 bility of training them to use it. This involves a 
 vast deal of hard work, and we have shirked the 
 work. Why should we blame them for failing in 
 a function for which they have had no preparation ? 
 If you should turn a force of raw hands into a 
 shoe-factory, to run the machinery and to carry on 
 the manufacture with little or no instruction, you 
 would not be greatly surprised if the output were 
 meager and poor and if the machinery were wrecked 
 and ruined. Something like this is what we have 
 done with our foreign voters, and it strikes me that 
 we are rather unjust when we throw upon them, 
 so largely as we are inclined to do, the fault of the 
 failure of our municipal government. 
 
 "The last reason of this failure which I shall 
 mention is the neglect of their duty by those citi- 
 zens who are the natural leaders of society. The 
 educated, men, the professional men, the active 
 business men of our cities, are the men to whom 
 
46 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 the political leadership of the community belongs; 
 we shall never have good government until these 
 men come to the front and take hold of it. You 
 might just as well expect the haman body to be an 
 efficient servant of the mind with its eyes put out 
 and its hands cut off, as to expect the body politic 
 to perform its functions properly when these classes 
 practically exclude themselves from all part in the 
 government. That these classes have neglected 
 their duty as citizens is too palpable to need proof. 
 ' The great mass of so-called " best citizens," ' says 
 a moderate writer, ' have no sympathy with local 
 affairs ; they want no office ; they refuse to take it 
 when offered. They wash their hands of responsi- 
 bility. There were, it is estimated, 100,000 citizens 
 of New York city who in 1890 failed to register, 
 and of those registered about 43,000 failed to vote. 
 Of the 266,000 voters in New York city in 1885 
 but 201,000 voted, and of these but from 20,000 to 
 25,000, it is estimated, went to the primaries. The 
 alarming part of it is that these heedless ones are 
 in great measure the citizens of intelligence and 
 character, whose votes are needed to nuUify the 
 votes of the ignorant and irresponsible, whom po- 
 litical workers never fail to muster at the polls.' 
 
 " How true, also, are these words of Mr. Bryce : 
 ' In America, as everywhere else in the world, the 
 commonwealth suffers more from apathy and short- 
 sightedness in the upper classes, who ought to lead, 
 than from ignorance or recklessness in the humbler 
 classes, who are generally ready to follow when they 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 47 
 
 are wisely and patriotically led.' And the excuses 
 made for their neglect only aggravate the guilt of 
 it. It is the offense which these delicate and fasti- 
 dious gentlemen fear to suffer in their feelings, so 
 they say, which leads them to keep out of the polit- 
 ical arena. They do not enjoy contact with rough, 
 uncultivated, not always savory crowds. They have 
 been jostled in the caucuses; they have been jeered 
 at by persons who do not use good grammar; they 
 feel that their superior intelligence is not propei'ly 
 recognized by the political bosses. Sometimes they 
 have attempted, singly, or in squads of two or three, 
 to take part in the primaries; naturally they have 
 accomplished very little, and they have abandoned 
 politics as a hopeless field of effort. I must say 
 that I regard this excuse as very largely false and 
 hypocritical. I do not believe that these persons 
 have suffered half so much as they pretend to have 
 suffered from the disagreeable incidents of political 
 campaigning. All this unpleasantness is greatly 
 exaggerated. The real reason why these gentle- 
 men neglect their political duties is, in nine cases 
 out of ten, because they are too selfish, too sordid 
 to give attention to them; because they are un- 
 willing to sacrifice their financial and professional 
 interests to the extent which is required in a thor- 
 ough and faithful performance of the duties of citi- 
 zenship. The blight upon our municipal patriotism 
 is what President White calls 'mercantilism.' It is 
 a hard thing to say, but I believe that it is true. 
 It matters not, however, which is the real cause 
 
48 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 of this neglect. Either explanation is sufficiently 
 shameful. It is a despicable soul which can take 
 refuge in either of them. Not for such dainty fin- 
 gers or such itching palms are the great privileges 
 of American citizenship. 
 
 " I trust, gentlemen, that this club may do some- 
 thing to awaken in the minds of our citizens the 
 sentiment of municipal patriotism. These local in- 
 terests with which we are to deal are not less im- 
 portant, not less vital, than those interests of which 
 the National Government is the custodian. Indeed, 
 the very foundation of national welfare is laid in 
 the right ordering of the life of our towns and 
 cities. The nation can no more prosper while its 
 local communities are badly governed than a tree 
 can prosper while its several branches are covered 
 with nests of worms and blight. Our first politi- 
 cal duty is to give this city a good system of 
 government. We must not look to the legislature ; 
 we must give the legislature very distinctly to un- 
 derstand that we insist on governing ourselves ; 
 that it will be dangerous business to impose upon 
 this city a form of government which is not ac- 
 ceptable to its citizens. There is intelligence 
 enough in this city to govern the city, and it must 
 be summoned to the task. The men whose busi- 
 ness it is to govern it, and who have neglected their 
 business, must be made ashamed of their neglect, 
 and must bring forth fruits meet for repentance. 
 
 " One more remark will, I trust, be pardoned. 
 We are to study the municipal problem in all its 
 
HOW THE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED 49 
 
 bearings. We shall be compelled to investigate 
 the current administration. "We are going to find 
 out all the facts, and to publish them. Let this 
 investigation be conducted in a perfectly judicial 
 temper. Let us be careful to make no statements 
 for which we have not abundant proof. Let us 
 content ourselves, for the most part, with point- 
 ing out the facts, and avoiding objurgatory com- 
 ments. The confidence of this community in our 
 conclusions will be secured by cautioiis, moderate, 
 colorless statements. "We shall be brought into 
 constant contact with the city officials. They must 
 be made to understand that our object is to co- 
 operate with them in the discharge of their duty ; 
 to raise no unjust prejudice against them ; to put 
 no hindrances in their way so long as they are en- 
 gaged in the administration of their ofiices. We 
 shall be glad to find, in any case, that these affairs 
 are honestly and efficiently administered. We shall 
 be ready to give the full meed of approval to any 
 official who shows himself mindful of his oath and 
 his honor. We do not propose to meddle with any 
 man who is doing his duty. But we are entitled, 
 as citizens, as the responsible rulers of this com- 
 munity, to know whether our employees are doing 
 their duty or not ; and we are determined to find 
 out. If they are not doing their duty, we mean to 
 know why. It may be that they are crippled or 
 embarrassed by bad forms of organization. It may 
 be that their failure is largely due to the poor tools 
 which we have furnished them. If so, we must 
 
50 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 give them better tools. But whatever the reason 
 may be, we are going to bring it to the light of 
 day. In this effort all right-minded officials will 
 cooperate with us. Prom the sort that is other- 
 wise minded, and from all their political associates, 
 we may expect unstinted abuse and unscrupulous 
 misrepresentation. I trust that we are not so thin- 
 skinned as to flinch from our duty on this account. 
 We have a great work to do, the difficulty and dis- 
 agreeableness of which are largely the fruit of our 
 own neglect. Let us try to make amends for 
 past remissness by the courage, fidelity, and per- 
 sistence with which we prosecute the task which 
 we have all too tardily undertaken." 
 
 The inaugural address of Judge Hamlin was fre- 
 quently punctuated with cheers, and its vigorous 
 conclusion was greeted with prolonged applause. 
 
 After an announcement by the executive com- 
 mittee that the next meeting would be devoted to 
 perfecting the organization, that the committees 
 in charge of the several sections would be expected 
 to report in the order of their appointment, and 
 that the first report would be called for in two 
 weeks from the committee on the Police and the 
 Fire Department, the club adjourned. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 
 
 THE first business meeting of the Cosmopolis 
 City Club was well advertised. The news- 
 papers had published in full the inaugural address 
 of Judge Hamlin, and had discussed it thoroughly; 
 several citizens had joined in the newspaper de- 
 bate in letters addressed to the editors, and the 
 program of the club had been the subject of gen- 
 eral conversation. The newspapers of the party 
 then in possession of the city olSces were, of 
 course, skeptical and querulous; evidently they 
 meant to make the path of the club as thorny as 
 possible ; but inasmuch as Judge Hamlin belonged 
 to their party, and was a man of great influence 
 in its councils, they were constrained to veil their 
 hostility. The opposition journals were, of course, 
 equally ready to make capital for their party out 
 of the investigation; and they gleefully pointed 
 out to the club directions in which its studies could 
 be pushed with profit. 
 
 Meanwhile the committee in charge of the first 
 section had been diligently at work getting at the 
 
52 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 facts respecting the administration of the Police 
 and the Fire Departments, and the ofi&cials of these 
 departments had been considerably stirred up by 
 the knowledge that their affairs were to have an 
 airing. A number of them were present to hear 
 the report of the committee. The room of the club 
 was densely packed with interested auditors, and 
 the reporters' tables were surrounded by a strong 
 force of recording angels with sharpened pencils 
 and expectant countenances. 
 
 The chairman of the first section was our old 
 friend Harper, principal of the Central High 
 School. His report was written with clearness and 
 pith, and was read with the utmost deliberation 
 and calmness of tone; but the suppressed inten- 
 sity of some passages was extremely telling. There 
 was an occasional symptom of applause, but the 
 president promptly checked it, the unrestrained 
 laughter of the audience at some of the keen state- 
 ments being the only audible demonstration. 
 
 According to their report the committee had 
 found that the Fire Department was in good con- 
 dition, well manned, well officered, well adminis- 
 tered; the discipline was excellent, the service ef- 
 fective. The chief had made them welcome, and 
 had giveh them every facility for the prosecution 
 of their inquiries. As a working force the depart- 
 ment was unexcelled, and the men were evidently 
 proud of the record which they had made for 
 themselves. Certain transactions in the purchase 
 of engines, and in the erection of new engine- 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOKK 53 
 
 houses, awaited further investigation; for these, 
 however, the chief and his subordinates were in no 
 way responsible. The committee had only praise 
 for the administration of this important branch of 
 the municipal service. 
 
 With respect to the Police Department, it could 
 be truthfully said that certain classes of crimes — 
 all crimes against property, and the graver of- 
 fenses against the rights of the person — were 
 eagerly detected and sharply prosecuted. Pick- 
 pockets, sneak thieves, and burglars were summa- 
 rily dealt with, and actual or intending murderers 
 were made to feel the force of the law. 
 
 But certain classes of offenses against the law 
 seemed to be whoUy ignored by the oflcers of the 
 law. There was a city ordinance, which the com- 
 mittee recited, by which all the drinking-places 
 of the city were required to close at midnight. 
 This was not a musty ordinance ; it was enacted 
 only two years before, but no attempt was made 
 to enforce it. The committee had spent the best 
 part of several nights in personally investigating 
 the manner of its non-enforcement; they had 
 themselves heard liquor called for, and had seen 
 it sold, after midnight, in ninety-five places, of 
 which they had a list that would be published in 
 the newspapers. The relations of the police to 
 these violators of law appeared to be intimate and 
 cordial. The committee had frequently seen po- 
 licemen standing at the doors of these open sa- 
 loons, and talking with persons passing in and 
 
54 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 out : in four cases they had seen policemen stand- 
 ing at the bar with glasses in their hands ; they 
 had the numbers of these policemen, and would 
 publish them also. 
 
 There was also a city ordinance forbidding the 
 sale of liquors on Sundays. This ordinance was 
 of the same date as the midnight-closing ordi- 
 nance. Behind it was a statute, first enacted by 
 the legislature more than forty years ago, but re- 
 enacted, in one form or another, twice or thrice 
 within the last ten years, by which the selling of 
 intoxicating liquors on the first day of the week, 
 commonly called Sunday, was made a misde- 
 meanor, and all police officers were required to 
 arrest and prosecute such offenders. To this law 
 and this ordinance no respect was paid. All the 
 . drinking-places in the city were wide open on 
 Sunday, with no effort at concealment; the rela- 
 tion of the police to this form of lawlessness was 
 precisely the same as to the other. 
 
 Houses of prostitution and assignation were nu- 
 merous; they had adopted various devices for ad- 
 vertising themselves; some portions of the city 
 had been rendered uninhabitable by their presence, 
 and respectable families had been compelled to 
 sacrifice their homes because of the encroachments 
 of these evil habitations. Now and then one of 
 these places was raided, but it was uniformly the 
 least popular and successful among them which 
 suffered; many of the best known and most fre- 
 quented of these resorts of vice had enjoyed com- 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 65 
 
 plete immunity for a long period. It was, of 
 course, absurd to say that the policemen did not 
 know of these places ; and the committee had seen 
 many indications that they were regarded by the 
 police as under their protection. One or two patrol- 
 men who had manifested an imfriendly disposition 
 toward them had been transferred to other beats. 
 The committee had evidence on these points, which 
 would be furnished if their statement was ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 The State laws forbidding gambling were ex- 
 plicit and stringent. The committee made several 
 quotations from these statutes. One section ex- 
 pressly commanded the superintendent of police 
 in every city, on reasonable suspicion that any 
 place was used for gambling purposes, to raid the 
 premises, to arrest all persons found in them, and 
 to confiscate and destroy all gambling apparatus. 
 In the face of these laws, gambling was carried on 
 with small pretense of concealment. The commit- 
 tee had ascertained the location of eighteen public 
 gambling-rooms; various members of the commit- 
 tee had visited all these rooms, and had found 
 no difficulty in gaining admittance ; they had seen 
 gambling games in progress in every one of them. 
 The position of the poHee authorities with respect 
 to criminals of this class might be inferred from an 
 interview, published in one of the city newspapers, 
 with one of the recently chosen police commission- 
 ers. Being asked what policy he should advocate 
 with respect to gambling, this commissioner was 
 
56 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 reported as saying that he should be in favor of 
 " a conservative policy." His further remarks in- 
 dicated that he was in favor of "conserving" the 
 gambling-places, or at any rate the most popu- 
 lar and successful among them. He said that he 
 doubted whether gambling could be entirely extir- 
 pated, and thought it better to have a few respect- 
 able and well-known places, which could be watched 
 by the police, than to have the business driven 
 into holes and corners. A suit, which had been 
 brought in one of the courts since the commit- 
 tee was appointed, had shown that another of the 
 police commissioners was part owner of a saloon, 
 which was also a notorious gambling-place. An- 
 other incident, fully reported in the newspapers, 
 threw further light upon the relation of the police 
 to the gamblers. One of the most disreputable of 
 the Sunday newspapers undertook to blackmail the 
 proprietor of a gambling-place. The gambler bit 
 at the bait, agreed to submit to the extortion, ap- 
 pointed a meeting in his own room with the editor, 
 and paid over the hush-money demanded. Imme- 
 diately on the editor's receipt of the money, several 
 policemen came forth from their concealment in 
 the gambler's rooms, arrested the editor, and threw 
 him into prison, where he still was languishing. 
 The gambler, of course, had his money restored 
 to him, and his business did not suffer interruption 
 for a single night. These facts, which were beyond 
 questioning, seemed to make it unnecessary for 
 the committee to make any inquiry of the police 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOEK 57 
 
 commissioners, or of the chief of police, respect- 
 ing their purposes or their policy. It seemed to 
 the committee, however, that it might be well for 
 them to ascertain, so far as they could, to what 
 extent public opinion sanctioned these methods 
 of dealing with offenses against the law. They 
 took considerable pains to arrive at safe conclu- 
 sions upon this matter, and then requested an 
 interview with the police authorities. In order 
 that no injustice might be done in the report of 
 this interview, one of their number, who was an 
 expert stenographer, took notes of the conversa- 
 tion, and the committee offered his affidavit that 
 the report submitted was accurate and com- 
 plete. As showing the state of mind of these cus- 
 todians of the public peace, portions of this con- 
 versation were recited. Our narrative would not 
 . be complete without them. 
 
 There were present Messrs. Harper, Paterson, 
 and Hastings of the committee; Commission- 
 ers Dugau, Murphy, Benson, and Schneider, and 
 Superintendent O'Kane. 
 
 Dugan. — Well, gentlemen, what can vfe do for 
 you? 
 
 Harper. — My friends and I are here to ask a 
 few questions, for our own information, with re- 
 spect to the administration of the Police Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 Bugan. — What business have you with the 
 Police Department, and what right have you to be 
 prying into our affairs'? 
 
58 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 Harper. — We are citizens of Cosmopolis, and 
 taxpayers ; we are interested in the efficiency of the 
 Police Department, because our lives and property 
 are insecure if the police are incapable and un- 
 trustworthy. We have heard many complaints 
 against this branch of our municipal government, 
 and we have determined to find out for ourselves 
 whether they are true. We suppose that we have a 
 right to know, and that it is our business to know, 
 whether the men to whom we have intrusted this 
 important service are faithfully performing it. 
 
 Diigan. — You 've heard a lot of lies, of course ; 
 you 'd better not believe all you hear. 
 
 Harper. — We intend to believe nothing for 
 which we have not good evidence. We have taken 
 nothing upon hearsay; it is only that which we 
 have seen with our own eyes which we wish to 
 have you explain to us. 
 
 Hugan.— What 's that? 
 
 Harper. — Tou are aware, doubtless, of the exis- 
 tence of ordinances and laws requiring the closing 
 of liquor-shops after midnight and on Sunday. 
 
 Dugan.— Wea'^ 
 
 Harper. — You are also aware that these places 
 are open all night and all day Sunday. 
 
 Bugan. — Don't admit nothingof thesort. Orders 
 was issued two years ago to have 'em shut up, and 
 they have n't been countermanded. 
 
 Harper. — Do you not know, gentlemen, that 
 these orders are disregarded continually by hun- 
 dreds of liquor-sellers ? 
 
THE CLtfB GETS TO WOEK 59 
 
 Murphy. — No ; we don't know any such thing. 
 
 Harper. — Possibly Superintendent O'Kane can 
 enlighten you ? 
 
 O'Kane. — Well, I suppose that there are a few 
 restaurants that keep open nights and Sundays, 
 but I don't think that there is much violation. 
 
 Harper. — The superintendent is, I suppose, a 
 man of steady habits, and always goes to bed at 
 an early hour. Let me give him a little informa- 
 tion. I have here a list of ninety-five places which 
 we, who are before you, have found open after 
 midnight and on Sunday, and in which we have 
 heard intoxicating liquors called for, and have 
 seen them sold at unlawful hours. 
 
 Benson. — Well, gentlemen, what of it? It is no 
 use beating about the bush ; you know perfectly 
 well that these laws have n't been enforced for 
 many a day, and that they are not going to be. 
 Nobody wants them to he enforced but a small 
 handful of Prohibition cranks. 
 
 Hastings. — Are you quite sure of that? 
 
 Benson. — Of course I am ; every man of com- 
 mon sense knows it. 
 
 Hastings. — I am not a Prohibitionist, nor a total 
 abstainer ; I believe that liquor ought to be sold 
 under proper regulations ; but I do not think that 
 the saloons should be open nights and Sundays. 
 
 Benson. — I don't care what you think. I know 
 that the people of the city, with a very few excep- 
 tions, are in favor of a liberal policy in dealing 
 with this business. 
 
60 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 Harper. — How do you kuow 1 
 
 Benson. — Just as any man knows anything — 
 by the use of my common sense. 
 
 Harper. — I must doubt whether any man can 
 be absolutely sure, by the use of his own common 
 sense, of what his neighbor's opinions would be 
 on a subject of this nature. At any rate, we have 
 not thought it safe to trust our own impressions 
 without putting some foundations of fact under 
 them. Accordingly, we selected two long streets 
 in this city, — Poplar street and South street, — 
 the one mainly occupied with the residences of 
 the wealthier class, the other with the homes of 
 working-men. We sent circulars to all the resi- 
 dents upon these two streets, asking them these 
 three questions: 1. "Are you in favor of closing 
 the saloons at midnight?" 2. "Are you in fa- 
 vor of closing the saloons on Sunday?" 3. "Are 
 you in favor of the suppression of the gambUng- 
 places?" Of the 204 residents of Poplar street 
 176 responded, and of these 158 answered our first 
 question in the aflftrmative. Of the 316 residents 
 of South street 243 responded, and 209 of these 
 answered the same question in the same way. We 
 believe that these are representative localities; 
 and an overwhelming majority of the residents of 
 these localities have expressed themselves as in 
 favor of the enforcement of these laws. Our opin- 
 ion is, that the whole city, if polled, would give 
 substantially the same answer to this question. 
 We can think of no reason why the people of 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 61 
 
 these two streets should differ essentially from 
 the people of other portions of the city. Can you ? 
 
 [No answer.] 
 
 Harper. — We may also claim to know, not by 
 "common sense," but by some careful observa- 
 tion, that the class of people who freqxient the all- 
 night saloon is a very small class, when compared 
 with the population of this city. It is not the 
 business men whom we find there ; it is not the 
 clerks and employees of our business houses, ex- 
 cept an occasional black sheep among them ; it is 
 not, to any great extent, the working-men : it is a 
 small class of idle, dissolute, disorderly persons, 
 who are close upon the borders of crime and pau- 
 perism. These are the principal patrons of the 
 aU-night saloon. Do the police commissioners 
 think it worth while to keep these places open for 
 the benefit of this class ? 
 
 [No answer.] 
 
 Harper. — Have the commissioners undertaken 
 to discover what the saloon-keepers themselves 
 have to say about it 1 
 
 Murphy.— I know that a few of them would be 
 williag to close, if the rest would do so. 
 
 Harper. — We have addressed inquiries to all 
 whose names are found in the city directory ; and 
 of these one third — including nearly all of those 
 which may be considered "respectable" — reply 
 that they would be glad to have the law enforced. 
 
 Bugan. — Well, gentlemen, we are much obliged 
 to you for taking so much pains to enlighten us; 
 
62 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 we '11 think the matter over, and see what can be 
 done. 
 
 Harper. — Thank you. And I wish that the com- 
 missioners, if they are not satisfied, would take 
 pains to inform themselves as to the facts in the 
 case. Permit me also, before we go, to give you 
 the result of our inquiry upon the other questions. 
 With respect to Sunday closing, the majorities are 
 not so large. Of the 419 replies received 250 were 
 in favor of closing, and 169 were opposed to it. 
 With respect to the enforcement of the gambling 
 laws, there was practical unanimity. Of the 419 
 answers 407 were aflrmative. We are sure that 
 there can be no doubt about the wishes of the 
 great mass of the people respecting this class of 
 offenses against the laws. 
 
 Benson. — Well, then, why don't you make com- 
 plaints yourselves ? You say that you have got 
 the names of eighteen men who keep gambling- 
 places. Why don't you go before a justice, and 
 swear out a warrant, and have them arrested? 
 
 Harper. — Because, gentlemen, that is not our 
 business. It is your business. The law expressly 
 commands you to do it. We should be interfering 
 in your business in a very improper manner if we 
 did any such thing. It is perfectly proper for us 
 to bring you information; it is neither good law 
 nor good business policy for us to take your work 
 out of your hands. 
 
 Murphy. — Before you go, gentlemen, let me say 
 that I 'm a good deal astonished at what you 've 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 63 
 
 been telling us. I may as well own up that I did 
 not think things were in just such shape. I 'm a 
 pretty busy man, and I don't know so much as I 
 ought to know about what is going on in the city. 
 Brother Dugan here was a little sarcastic when he 
 said that he was obliged to you ; but I am obliged 
 to you ; that 's honest ; and I '11 do what I can to 
 bring about a better state of things. 
 
 Schneider. — Well, I '11 say the same. I don't 
 know just what to believe. Folks are always say- 
 ing that these laws is just dead letters, and that 
 we 've no call to enforce 'em; but if it is not so, 
 then, I suppose — well, I don't know — I '11 think 
 about it. 
 
 So ended the interview of the committee with 
 the commissioners. The closing words of Mr. 
 Harper's report may as well be reproduced: 
 
 "The mind of the average police commissioner 
 is not easily explored. Doubtless several causes 
 contribute to produce that state of moral inertia 
 in the presence of crime in which we frequently 
 find him. He is not apt to be a person of much 
 intellectual breadth; he is generally subject to the 
 influences that are nearest; and in his immediate 
 surroundings there is not much to quicken his 
 sense of obligation to the community at large. 
 The sentiment of this circle in which he moves is, 
 of course, strongly adverse to restraints of any 
 sort upon vice or disorder. He easily comes to re- 
 gard this as the sentiment of the whole commu- 
 nity; he is unable to keep himself in touch with the 
 
64 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 sober and industrious classes. Sometimes, wlien 
 there is no intention of malfeasance, he is the 
 victim of his own near-sightedness. 
 
 "Sometimes, beyond question, his inaction is 
 determined by more sinister iniluences. The law- 
 less and disorderly classes have votes, and they 
 are not apt to cast them without a definite con- 
 sideration. The men whom they elect — and they 
 generally hold the balance of power — are pledged 
 to grant them immunity. The shrewdest of these 
 men, however, are likely to levy tribute upon 
 them. The committee has no proof to offer and 
 no charges to make; the committee believe that 
 many of the officers and men of our police force 
 are unbribable ; but the language of a careful in- 
 vestigator in another city is probably applicable 
 here: 'There is, and has long been, a suspicion, 
 amounting almost to moral certainty, in the minds 
 of some at least of the citizens engaged in efforts 
 to enforce law by suppressing vice, that one or 
 more police captains, and a considerable number 
 of patrolmen, derive a revenue from shutting their 
 eyes to what it is not to their interest to see.' 
 
 "Another phenomenon to which we are com- 
 pelled to call attention is the singular insensibility, 
 on the part of officers of this class, to the ordinary 
 sentiments of honor, in connection with the taking 
 of an oath. These men swear that they will respect 
 and enforce the laws of the city and of the State. 
 That is the particular business for which they are 
 employed, and for which they are paid. They are 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOEK 65 
 
 not understood to be legislators, with the power 
 to make or repeal law, or judges with the power 
 of determining its constitutionality; they are sim- 
 ply executive officers, whose duty it is to take the 
 laws as they are, and to enforce them without fear 
 or favor. Instead of this we find them, very gen- 
 erally, in this and in other cities, selecting the 
 laws which they will enforce, and exercising a 
 discretion as to how much of their duty they will 
 do, this being a matter with which they are not 
 intrusted, and which their oath of office expressly 
 denies to them. Men who solemnly swear that 
 they will enforce the laws, often turn about, with 
 the words upon their lips, and denounce their 
 neighbors for demanding that the laws be en- 
 forced. A man may refuse to accept an office of 
 this kind ; but when he accepts it, and receives its 
 emoluments, and swears to perform its duties, it is 
 strange that he can so lightly regard his oath of 
 office. A mihtary officer regards himself as in 
 honor bound to obey the rules of the service, and 
 to execute the orders with which he is charged ; a 
 police officer, in the large majority of cases, con- 
 sults his own convenience and his own interest in 
 determining whether or not he will do the things 
 that he has solemnly sworn to do. These remarks 
 do not apply so much to patrolmen as to commis- 
 sioners and superintendents. By what means the 
 moral standards of these men have become so de- 
 graded, it is not needful to consider; but it is well 
 to call the attention of the community to the fact 
 
66 THE C08M0P0LIS CITY CLUB 
 
 that at the very point in our system of laws where 
 honor is most needed honor is most wanting. This 
 is a radical defect which must, at whatever cost, be 
 remedied." 
 
 The reading of this report was followed by a 
 silence which was much more impressive than any 
 comment could have been. Such an unveiling of 
 the methods and sentiments of the custodians of 
 the peace of the city could not fail to awaken re- 
 flection. Mr. Tomlinson was first to speak : 
 
 "It strikes me," he said, "that the situation 
 would be ludicrous if it were not intolerable. An 
 insignificant minority of our population seems to 
 own and control our police authorities, and the 
 rest of us sit and grin. The standards of urban 
 morality are set by the keepers of low dives and 
 gambling-dens. Even the better class of saloon- 
 keepers are not ' in it,' as it would seem. What 
 are we going to do about it?" 
 
 "We are going," said Mr. Harper, "to submit 
 our case to the people. We are going to ask the 
 newspapers to print our report, and we trust that 
 the people will read it. If any man thinks that we 
 have misreported or misrepresented the facts we 
 hope that he will say so, and we shall be more than 
 willing to go over the case with him more fully. 
 If what we have said is true, the people should 
 know how to apply the remedy. We leave it to 
 them." 
 
 The report of this meeting in the newspapers 
 the next day was the talk of the town. There 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 67 
 
 were some querulous and spiteful comments in the 
 newspapers of the party in power, but they made 
 little impression; against such clean, scientific 
 work as that of the committee their diatribes were 
 ridiculously ineffective. The police authorities 
 appeared to be divided ; Dugan and Benson were 
 non-committal. Murphy was inclined to favor a 
 more active policy, and Schneider was in an un- 
 comfortable state of mind. His honor the mayor, 
 who was a member of the police commission, but 
 was absent at the hearing, declined to express any 
 opinion. Rumors of disputes in the board reached 
 the public; but days and weeks passed by, and 
 nothing was done. 
 
 VI 
 
 Meantime the work of the club went steadily 
 forward. The committee on Streets and Sewers 
 made its report at the second regular meeting, and 
 it was full of startling revelations. The paving 
 contracts for the last three years had been care- 
 fully looked into, and the facts and figures pre- 
 sented were clear proof of corruption. It was 
 shown, beyond question, that certain favored con- 
 tractors secured all the work, and that other re- 
 sponsible firms had found it useless to compete. 
 Expert testimony proved that the profit on most 
 of these contracts amounted to fully forty per 
 cent. It was shown that in a neighboring city a 
 far better pavement of the same sort had been laid 
 
68 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 at two thirds of the cost of the Cosmopolis pave- 
 ment. A break in one of the sewers had been 
 repaired during the year, and the committee fur- 
 nished an itemized statement of the cost of the job. 
 As a sample of the neat manner in which this 
 report was written, a few extracts are subjoined: 
 
 " Mr. B. R. Allen was first put in charge, and su- 
 perintended the excavation, shoring up, and prep- 
 aration of the bed for the bricklayers. For some 
 unexplained reason Mr. Allen was relieved on 
 September 14, after completing the preliminary 
 work at a cost of $2444.68. The job was then put 
 into the hands of Mr. P. A. Charles. In his pay- 
 roll, an item of $19,690.62, we find Mr. Charles per- 
 sonally entered for 100 days, Sundays included, as 
 superintendent at $10.00 per day. Some of his 
 men made from two and a half to three days' 
 work on an individual day. Calculating from the 
 pay-roll tbe various proportions of skilled and un- 
 skilled workmen, and averaging their wages at 
 $3.00 per day for 94 days, we find tbat 66 men 
 must have been continuously engaged in or about 
 the portion of the 800 feet which was open at any 
 one time. When we add to these the nine carts, 
 carters, and horses, the workmen of the Highway 
 Department, and those of the "Water Department, 
 below mentioned, the aggregation must have seri- 
 ously incommoded itself. 
 
 "Horses, carts, and carters form an additional 
 item of $2992.50 in Mr. Charles's charge. They 
 performed 855 days' work in 94 days, and must, 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOEK 69 
 
 therefore, have mustered nine each day. As most 
 of the material was stored beside the trench ready 
 for dumping in, these carts must have served 
 chiefly liy standing and waiting. ... In addi- 
 tion to all the above, Assistant Commissioner of 
 Highways S. D. Walter filed a pay-roll amount- 
 ing to $3410.57 for work done from September 1 
 to September 30, 1889. It is important to inquii-e 
 why a city employe should have had men em- 
 ploj-ed in conjunction with the force of a gentleman 
 selected to manage the joli alone. Mr. Walter's 
 men seemed to have caught the infection of activ- 
 ity from Mr. Charles's, as we find here likewise 
 cases of two and thi'ce days' work done by an 
 individual in a single day. 
 
 "Furthermore, the Water Department filed a 
 pay-roll of .$2132,16, and in addition to all these 
 items we must include Highway Commissioner 
 George's items, aggregating $12,375.35 for mate- 
 rials and labor. WaU-paper to the value of $25 
 was among the materials hsted as necessary for 
 this sewer. 
 
 " Scheduling these several bdls, we have : 
 
 Mr. Allen, Aug. 29 to Sept. 14 $ 2,444.68 
 
 Mr. Charles, Sept. 15 to Dee. 21 31,322.56 
 
 Mr. Walter, Sept. 1 to Sept. 30 3,410.57 
 
 Water Department 2,152.16 
 
 Mr. George, Aug. 29 to Dee. 21 12,375.35 
 
 $51,705.32 
 
 Dividing this grand total of $51,705.32 by 800 we 
 find the cost per foot to be $64.63. It is instruc- 
 
70 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 tive to compare with this the cost of $17.50 per 
 foot for original construction of the sewer on 
 Twenty-fifth street, identical in all save being sunk 
 from 18 to 23 feet deeper. We have on file the 
 written opinion of a well-known engineer who 
 went over the ground shortly after the break. 
 He ' would have jumped at ' a contract to do the 
 work in three weeks for $10,000, or $12.50 per 
 foot.'' 
 
 The scientific thoroughness of this report seemed 
 to leave very Httle room for discussion. It was 
 plain as daylight that the city was being plun- 
 dered of hundreds of thousands of dollars every 
 year by corrupt combinations of contractors and 
 officials. Light was thrown, by these disclosures, 
 upon the eagerness with which seats in the city 
 council, to which no salary was attached, were 
 sought by men who could not be suspected of 
 municipal patriotism, and upon the querulous 
 complaint of a member from the Fifteenth Ward, 
 when some question was raised by his fellow-par- 
 tizans as to his renomination : " It cost me two 
 hundred doUars to get elected, and I am a poor 
 man. I think that I am entitled to it for one more 
 term." Many things in the history of municipal 
 politics were explained by this report; and as it 
 was read, dark looks were seen upon many faces, 
 and ominous mutterings were heard from different 
 parts of the hall. 
 
 Wlien it was finished, the reporters glanced 
 quickly about, and grasped their pencils to cateh 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 71 
 
 the response of the auditors. Nobody spoke. At 
 length Mr. Strong, the chairman of the coinmittee, 
 slowly rose again. 
 
 "I ought to state," he said, "that each of the 
 departments whose work has been reviewed to- 
 night was notified two days ago that such a re- 
 port would be read at this place and at this time, 
 and the heads of these departments were re- 
 quested to be present, that any misstatement 
 might be corrected, or any misconception ex- 
 plained. I should be glad to have them called 
 upon at this time." 
 
 "Are any of those gentlemen present?" in- 
 quired the president. 
 
 There was no response. 
 
 " The report wiU be printed in the newspapers 
 of the city," said Mr. Strong, " and I trust that it 
 will be carefully read by every citizen. If any 
 mistakes can be shown, the committee will make 
 haste to rectify them. Our work, let me say, is 
 not yet done. This is the first instalment of our 
 report; we hope to be ready, seven weeks from 
 to-night, with fm-ther facts and figures." 
 
 The next week's meeting was devoted to the 
 report of the committee upon the Public Schools, 
 of which the chairman was our friend the parson. 
 This committee had discovered that the schools 
 were, on the whole, in a fair condition of disci- 
 pline. A vast amount of money had been expend- 
 ed by the city in buildings and apparatus ; there 
 
72 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 were symptoms of jobbery in much of this ex- 
 penditure, but it had been so carefully covered 
 that the committee were not able as yet to expose 
 it, and therefore they made no reference to it. 
 A more palpable mischief was the operation of 
 one or two companies of school-book publishers, 
 whose relations to certain officers were very sus- 
 picious; but this matter was also deferred for 
 further investigation. 
 
 " Our schools,'' said the committee, " are by no 
 means perfect. Certain evils exist which may 
 well be remedied, and of which, after more care- 
 ful study, we intend to speak. But, on the whole, 
 we are inclined to think that no other interest of 
 the city is more efficiently promoted than that of 
 education. The credit of this is due, mainly, far 
 less to good municipal management than to the 
 character and esprit de corps of the class of teach- 
 ers. There are frivolous and incapable teachers, 
 but there are also not a few high-minded, earnest, 
 unselfish men and women engaged in this call- 
 ing : the improvements in methods are wholly 
 due to them, the maintenance of moral standards 
 and influences is their work alone. 
 
 " The contrast between the teachers, as a class, 
 and the men whom we, as citizens, have selected 
 to supervise their work, is sometimes very pain- 
 ful. Here is a matter of which it is unpleasant 
 to speak, but concerning which silence would be 
 inexcusable. The personnel of boards of education 
 in our cities should be carefully studied. Leav- 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 73 
 
 ing out of sight the composition of the present 
 board, the committee has taken pains to make a 
 list of the names of the men who have held this 
 important trust during the past ten years ; it iinds 
 that 113 different individuals have been thus em- 
 ploj'ed ; that of these two were keepers of Uvery- 
 stables, one was a huckster, two were cigar-makers, 
 one was the keeper of a newspaper-stand on 
 which the lowest publications are sold, sixteen 
 were saloon-keepers, and twelve were small poli- 
 ticians without any visible means of support. 
 The committee is of the opinion that about half 
 of the members of the Board of Education are 
 usually men of character and cultivation — men 
 who are competent to have an opinion upon edu- 
 cational matters, and fit to associate with the 
 ladies and gentlemen who teach in our schools; 
 but that a considerable percentage of these offi- 
 cers will be found both in morals and manners 
 to be far below the average of the teachers ; and 
 that, in intelligence, fully half of them are ridicu- 
 lously incapable of discharging the duties which 
 they have assumed. The committee has held in- 
 terviews with all the members of the present 
 Board of Education ; it has conversed with them 
 freely; it has sought to draw out their opinions 
 upon educational subjects and methods; it has 
 found among them some very intelligent men : 
 but it does not hesitate to declare that half of 
 these men are conspicuously out of place in such 
 a body. It is amazing that the people will choose 
 
74 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 such men for suet a serviee. The truth is, of 
 course, that the people do not choose them ; they 
 are persons, as a rule, who have some political 
 ambition, and who hope, by the use of such small 
 patronage as they can manipulate in connection 
 with the school-board, to get themselves advanced 
 to the common council, and finally to the legisla- 
 ture. With such ends in view they secure the 
 nomination through the use of the party ma- 
 chine. There appears to be no sufficient reason, 
 in the present order of poUtics, why men of this 
 type should not go to the legislature ; but we 
 object to their making the school-board the step- 
 ping-stone of their ambition. Conceive of putting 
 a man upon a committee on school-books who 
 could not intelligently read a page in the majority 
 of the books submitted to him for examination; 
 or of making a man a member of the committee 
 on teachers who could not, to save his life, teach 
 a single subject in the primary grade. The com- 
 mittee has undertaken to obtain evidence of the 
 competency of the present school-board which 
 they wiU place before the public as fully as they 
 can. They have requested responses in writing 
 to a few questions from each member of the pres- 
 ent board; they will print copies of these re- 
 sponses, verbatim et literatim, in connection with 
 this report. The names wiU be suppressed, and 
 none but the members of the board themselves 
 shall know who wrote the letters ; but the public 
 will be able to judge, from these responses, of the 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOEK 75 
 
 intellectual qualifications of the men to whom 
 they have intrusted the work of public education. 
 If the chirography could also be exhibited, the 
 impression, in some cases, would be strengthened. 
 The absurdity of putting educational interests 
 into such hands ought to be obvious. The reply 
 in behalf of some of these illiterate members is 
 that they are capable mechanics, and qiialified to 
 give assistance in the work of building. If they 
 could be conlined to interests purely physical, this 
 might be well enough; but the fact is that the 
 most difficult and delicate questions respecting 
 books, teachers, methods of instruction, educa- 
 tional policies, are frequently determined, in com- 
 mittee or in the full board, by the casting vote of 
 these men. We have known several such cases. 
 It must be evident that while some knowledge of 
 mechanical construction and of business methods 
 may increase the fitness of a man for this place, 
 yet the first and the indispensable qualification 
 should be some fair degree of education. The 
 selection of men who are utterly illiterate, or who 
 have only the merest smattering of knowledge, to 
 supervise a work so technical and so difficult as 
 that of pubhc education, is such a monstrous 
 blunder that these ignoramuses themselves, if 
 they had the slightest sense of humor, would feel 
 themselves to be unspeakably ridiculous. The 
 committee has prepared, and will place before 
 the meeting, two or three of these letters." 
 At this point sheets of paper on which portions 
 
76 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 of this correspondence had been copied in large 
 characters were displayed upon, the wall in the 
 rear of the platform. Subjoined are samples: 
 
 Bev Morason dear Sir my opinyun is that wimmin shold 
 not be emploid as principles of seholls exseadin ten rooms 
 mail principles are muteh better for the larger schoUs men 
 are neaded to manege the older schoUars, espeshly the boys. 
 
 Yores truly 
 
 Rev A P Morsen Sir I am not faivorable to the skeem of 
 replaieing feemales by males as prinsipals of the gramer 
 seholes for what we can pay we can higher first elas wommin 
 and seeon clas men Id rnther hev a first clas womman. 
 
 Yours respeckfly 
 
 These letters were greeted with a burst of 
 amusement, which was soon subdued to a mur- 
 mur of disgust and cries of " Shame," while many 
 a flushed and downcast face told of mortification 
 and annoyance too deep for utterance. 
 
 "The committee," concluded the report, "has 
 only one practical recommendation to make. It 
 is that every candidate for the school-board be re- 
 quired, before he enters upon his ofBce, to pass the 
 examination set for pupils of the highest primary 
 grade, and to furnish a certificate from the school 
 examiners that he has successfully sustained this 
 examination. The enactment of a regulation to 
 the effect should be asked of the legislature. We 
 trust that this standard will not be thought too 
 high for the custodians of our public schools, and 
 we are confident that it would exclude a consider- 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO "WOEK; 77 
 
 able percentage of the men who have held this 
 position ia this city within the last two years." 
 Another burst of laughter greeted the sugges- 
 tion of the committee, and the meeting dissolved 
 in a buzz of excited and disgusted comment. 
 
 ATI 
 
 In this veracious and painstaking history room 
 cannot be found for all the reports of the Cos- 
 mopolis City Club. We have sought to give the 
 reader samples of the method by which its work 
 was done, and of the results secured. The other 
 committees made their reports in regular order, 
 exhibiting careful and conscientious study of the 
 various departments, finding some things to com- 
 mend, but bringing to Ught a great deal of slip- 
 shod management, and unearthing a vast amount 
 of dubious financiering. The Saturday evening 
 meetings of the club were crowded with inter- 
 ested listeners; it became necessary to seek a larger 
 room for the meetings ; and the reports became 
 the talk of the town. Such carefully written and 
 meaty reports were eagerly sought by the news- 
 papers, and were read by thousands who could 
 not attend the meetings; newspapers in other 
 cities began to copy portions of them, and to make 
 comments upon the work of the club. 
 
 The utmost pains were taken to make the re- 
 ports accurate and complete; the president's coun- 
 
78 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 sel in his inaugural address was often repeated 
 and emphasized by him; the determination to 
 treat every question judicially and scientifically 
 strengthened as the work proceeded. Several times 
 alleged errors of fact or inference in the state- 
 ments made by the committee had been pointed 
 out by editors or by correspondents ; in every such 
 instance the case was reopened and the evidence 
 was sifted. Most frequently it was found that the 
 committee was right ; but whenever it was wrong, 
 the acknowledgment was promptly and generously 
 made. 
 
 It need not be said that the community was pro- 
 foundly influenced by these publications and dis- 
 cussions. The agitation was bringing forth its 
 legitimate fruit. On the one hand, reputable 
 and thoughtful men were profoundly disturbed 
 and humiliated by the revelations of the club, and 
 were beginning to manifest an uneasy determina- 
 tion to take matters into their own hands ; on the 
 other hand, the contractors and their allies in the 
 municipal offices, the purveyors of vice and their 
 assistants in the police department, were sullen 
 and truculent; while the managers of the two 
 political machines were in great doubt as to what 
 this might lead. The municipal election was ap- 
 proaching, and the feeling that something must 
 be done to improve the administration was pretty 
 general. This was the topic before the executive 
 committee of the club, assembled in Mr. Tomlin- 
 son's private office. 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO "WORK 79 
 
 " The pressure is very strong," said Mr. Payne, 
 "for the nomination of a citizens' ticket. Every 
 day I hear men t alkin g about it. They think that 
 no trust can be put in either of the political ma^ 
 chines, and that the only hope is in the organiza- 
 tion of a new party. Naturally they turn to us 
 to take the lead in this. They say that we have 
 made ourselves masters of the situation ; that the 
 people would follow our lead; that now is the 
 time to strike." 
 
 " That 's my judgment exactly," responded Mr. 
 Frambes. " I believe that we can redeem this city 
 in the next election. My voice is for war, and I 
 am ready to enlist now." 
 
 "Let us see," said Judge Hamlin; "what exec- 
 utive officers do we elect this year ? " 
 
 " A city clerk," answered Mr. Payne, " an audi- 
 tor, one member of the fire and police commission, 
 one member of the board of public works, one 
 member of the board of health, and a justice of 
 the peace." 
 
 "The mayor is not chosen this year?" 
 
 " No ; he has one year longer to serve. But he 
 does n't count for much, anyway, under our sys- 
 tem. He has no executive authority to speak of." 
 
 " How much of a redemption are you going to 
 accomphsh. Brother Frambes ?" inquired the judge, 
 "if you succeed in electing all these officers upon 
 a citizens' ticket ? The real executive power of the 
 city is vested in these boards ; you can put one 
 new man into each of them ; how much will he be 
 
80 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 able to effect? It will take three years, at the 
 shortest, to get a majority of your own men into 
 these boards." 
 
 "Well, supposing we cannot accomplish every- 
 thing this year," rejoined the clergyman, " let us 
 start now, and do what we can. We may as 
 well make a beginning. One man in each of 
 these boards may be able to accomplish some- 
 thing.'' 
 
 " That is true," replied the judge, " and we must 
 often be willing to take a small fraction of a loaf 
 rather than go hungry. Yet I doubt whether it 
 is good policy for us to encourage independent 
 nominations this spring. The results would be 
 meager, and I fear the effect upon the popular 
 mind. Things would go on in the old way, in 
 spite of our apparent poUtical success, and the 
 unthinking would be apt to conclude that we had 
 accomplished nothing, and would lose faith in 
 our leadership." 
 
 "But you agree, Judge Hamlin," persisted the 
 clergyman, " that nothing substantial will ever be 
 done for the reform of our city government, until 
 city politics are divorced from national politics ? " 
 
 " Yes ; that is clear." 
 
 " And that can be done only by the formation 
 of new parties ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; that is the only way." 
 
 "Why, then, should we not immediately orga- 
 nize a new party 1 " 
 
 " Because the time is not ripe." 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOKK 81 
 
 " You mean, I suppose, that we could not elect 
 our ticket. But is it not best to start the organi- 
 zation, — to plapt the seed, — and let it germinate 
 and grow ? Is n't that the way to form a party 1 " 
 
 " Plant your seed — yes, when you 've got a seed 
 to plant. But there 's the rub. Now, parson, let 
 me ask a question or two. Tou agree with me, 
 doubtless, in believing that the parties which we 
 form ought to be permanent organizations. The 
 government of cities, like the government of the 
 State and the nation, must be by parties; and 
 these parties must not be mere temporary aggre- 
 gations of men, but permanent political associa- 
 tions." 
 
 "Well, yes ; I dare say." 
 
 "A party cannot live a healthy life — indeed, 
 has no right to live — unless it stands for some- 
 thing, or has some organic ideas." 
 
 " Agreed. Go on." 
 
 " WeU, then, what wiU. your citizen party, or 
 whatever you call it, stand for in our municipal 
 campaigning ? What will be your organic idea f " 
 
 " It will be a Law and Order party, I trust. It 
 will stand for the enforcement of the law, and the 
 suppression of vice and crime." 
 
 " Do you think that that would be a good and 
 sufficient basis for a municipal party ? " 
 
 " Yes ; the very best. Why not ? " 
 
 " We are looking forward, remember, to a per- 
 manent division of the community. It is neces- 
 sary to the healthful operation of party govern- 
 
82 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 ment that the parties be numerically pretty evenly 
 balanced. Your party would be the Law and Or- 
 der party. What would the party apposed to you 
 be?" 
 
 "The Lawless and Disorderly party, I sup- 
 l)Ose," answered the parson, laughing. 
 
 " Do you think that it would be a good thing 
 to have the community permanently and pretty 
 evenly divided upon that issue — to have about 
 half of the citizens registered as saints and the 
 other half as sinners?" 
 
 "Well, I should be very glad," parried the 
 clergyman, "to get half of them creditably reg- 
 istered as saints." 
 
 " Doubtless ; but would you have two poUtical 
 parties formed upon this line of division ? " 
 
 " N- no ; perhaps not." 
 
 "I should say very decidedly not. I do not 
 think that it would be a salutary condition. Po- 
 Utical discussion between two such parties would 
 not be edifying. The attempt to perpetuate such 
 distinctions would be in every way pernicious. 
 It would make Pharisees of the saints, and fiends 
 of the sinners. But the proposition is not within 
 the range of possibilities. You could not, let us 
 hope, get a moiety of this community to organize 
 in the support of lawlessness and disorder." 
 
 " Well, no ; I suppose not. But, then, I see no 
 reason why the law-abiding citizens should not 
 combine, and take the administration of the af- 
 fairs of the city into their hands. They need not 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 83 
 
 call themselves a Law and Order party ; but they 
 would be a Law and Order party just the same." 
 
 " That is, you would have them combine for the 
 sake of getting the offices. You would have a 
 j)arty destitute of principles, but animated by cer- 
 tain forms and patriotic sentiments. But such a 
 party as that would very quickly degenerate. No ; 
 you cannot organize healthy poHtics on any such 
 basis. I quite agree with the rest of you in be- 
 lieving that municipal poUtics must in some way 
 be divorced from national pohtics, but it must 
 not be divorced from pohtical principles. We 
 must have political organizations in all our cit- 
 ies — organizations based upon ideas, social or 
 economic, which have direct and exclusive refer- 
 ence to the affairs of municipalities. These ideas 
 and principles must be such that there can be 
 honest differences among men concerning them, 
 so that the community can safely sway itself 
 upon opposite sides of them." 
 
 "But I don't see," persisted the parson, "how 
 any such division as that can exist. There 's a 
 right and a wrong in everything, and I cannot un- 
 derstand how you can get away from that fact in 
 pohtics. I take it that in every contest one party 
 must be right, and the other party wrong." 
 
 " That," repUed the judge, " if you will pardon 
 me for saying it, is one of the most mischievous 
 of political errors. The attempt to carry theo- 
 logical, or, perhaps I should say ethical, distinc- 
 tions into party divisions often creates confusion. 
 
84 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 I do not mean to deny that the individual must 
 be governed by ethical principles in his political 
 action ; but the notion that parties must needs di- 
 vide on ethical grounds is a great mistake. It is 
 no more true that there 's a right and a wrong in 
 every social antagonism than that there is a right 
 and a wrong in every physical antagonism. The 
 centripetal and the centrifugal forces in the solar 
 system are opposed to each other ; which is right 
 and which is wrong? Attraction and repulsion 
 resist each other ia the constitution of matter; 
 which is right and which is wrong? The har- 
 mony of the universe results from the balancing 
 of antagonistic forces. All healthy political ac- 
 tion follows the same law. It is just as necessary 
 that there should be two parties in every well- 
 ruled popular government as that the centrifugal 
 force should be balanced by the centripetal. Each 
 party stands for a principle which is essential to 
 the stability and growth of society. The welfare 
 of the State results from the strenuous and effec- 
 tive advocacy of both these antagonistic princi- 
 ples. The average partizan always thinks that 
 his party is all right in its aims and that the 
 other party is all wrong, but this is because the 
 average partizan is not a philosopher. No healthy 
 party division has ever been long maintained, or 
 ever will be, except upon such distinctions as I 
 have indicated. The two great parties of Eng- 
 land have, through aU their history, been divided 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO "WOEK 85 
 
 upon the question of the centralization or the dif- 
 fusion of political power, and that has been sub- 
 stantially the question between the two parties in 
 American poUtics. Here is a legitimate issue. 
 For some purposes power must be centralized, 
 and for other purposes it must be diffused. In 
 some emergencies we need a strong government, 
 but it may become too strong. The party which 
 seeks to strengthen it is right, and the party 
 which seeks to limit its power is also right. Now, 
 if it be possible to find, in municipal poUtics, 
 some such line of division as this, we may be able 
 to organize municipal politics upon a safe and 
 healthy basis. Can you point out any such logi- 
 cal and philosophical division?" 
 
 "Not at a moment's notice, judge. Biit per- 
 haps you can. Yoii have thought the matter over 
 pretty carefully; can you not outline for us the 
 issues on which we may divide in local poHtics ? " 
 
 "No; that is equally absurd. Parties are born, 
 not manufactured. They spring from the needs 
 of the horn-. They are the outcome and expres- 
 sion of social and economic tendencies which civ- 
 ilization produces. I think that I can see a faint 
 seam in our social structure which is to develop, 
 presently, into such a Hue of cleavage ; but I am 
 not going to risk my reputation as a prophet by 
 pointing it out to-night." 
 
 " What, then, would you have us do in the com- 
 ing campaign f Ought we not to try to utilize for 
 
86 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 the improvement of our administration the force 
 of public opinion which has been generated in 
 these discussions?" 
 
 "By all means. But it seems to me that our 
 best course in this crisis is to act through the 
 existing parties. Doubtless there will be a strong 
 disposition in both of them to put the best foot 
 forward. Let us encourage that. Let us try to 
 get decent candidates nominated by both parties ; 
 and when the nominations are made let us ex- 
 ercise our independence in voting for the best 
 without distinction of party. Meantime let us go 
 right on with our work of investigation and dis- 
 cussion, bringing hidden things to light, and sub- 
 jecting all our municipal machinery and its work- 
 ings to the most careful scrutiny.'' 
 
 " The thing that discourages me," said Mr. 
 Harper, "is the fact that, do the best we may, 
 we can achieve only a fractional success at the 
 coming election. As Mr. Payne has told us, only 
 one fourth or one fifth of an executive is to be 
 chosen at this time. I fear that the new members 
 of these boards will have but little influence upon 
 their policy, and that things will go on in the old 
 way. It will take at least three years to elect a 
 majority of these governing boards ; whether we 
 can keep up the public interest through all this long 
 campaigning I do not know. We have managed 
 to hold the public attention for six months ; but 
 unless we are able pretty soon to show some prac- 
 tical gains, I fear that we shall lose our audience." 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WOEK 87 
 
 "That," answered Mr. Payne, "is the precise 
 difficulty. Under the present charter we shall 
 never be able to accomplish very much. The 
 system of government which we are trying to 
 work is one which seems to have been contrived 
 for the dissipation rather than the utilization of 
 the force of public opinion. The first step in the 
 direction of reform is not the organization of new 
 parties, but such a reconstruction of the govern- 
 mental machinery as shall enable the motive 
 power, which is public opinion, to act directly 
 and effectively toward the ends of government. 
 But that is too big a question to raise to-night. 
 As the chairman of the section upon the work- 
 ings of the charter, I hope to have something 
 practical to suggest very soon.'' 
 
 The waiting policy suggested by the president 
 was adopted by the club ia the municipal cam- 
 paign. Those who had been prominent in its 
 discussions soon found themselves possessed of 
 considerable political influence. The gentlemen 
 in charge of the political machines of both parties 
 seemed anxious to consult them respecting nomi- 
 nations, and the candidates presented on each side 
 were rather better than the average. In the words 
 of a modern statesman, the machinists had found 
 it expedient "to pander a little to the moral ele- 
 ment in the community." The victory in the elec- 
 tion was won by the outs, since the public assumed, 
 not very logically, that the abuses exposed were 
 the fault of the party in power. The result of 
 
88 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 tMs victory was not, however, perceptible in tlie 
 administration. The police department did not 
 change its policy ; the favored contractors kept 
 their places at the public crib; the reign of inefii- 
 ciency and rascality was as firm as ever. 
 
 The sentiment of the " powers that were " found 
 forcible expression, now and then, at secret con- 
 claves in the city hall. 
 
 " I suppose," said Dugan, " that those blatherin' 
 Mugwumps think they 've done us up for good, 
 because they 've got a man of their own on our 
 board in place of old Murphy. Much good that '11 
 do them ! If they had had ordinary common sense 
 they would have let Murphy alone. He was a 
 better man for them than the one they 've got. 
 Pact is, I 'm mighty glad to git shet o' Murphy. 
 He was gittin' too many notions in his head." 
 
 " Don't you worry about the new man," rejoiaed 
 Benson. " He is n't going to make lis any trouble. 
 I know how to handle him. He '11 kick, no doubt, 
 for one or two meetings; that 's what he 's paid 
 to do ; but I 've got a lasso to use on him. Keep 
 quiet, and see if I don't bring him round." 
 
 "Ye can rest aisy iu yer minds, gentlemen," 
 said O'Halloran. " This shtorum is mostly wind. 
 It '11 blow over soon. I 've seen too mony of 
 such flurries. These silk-stockinged chaps are up 
 in arrums now and ag'in, but they soon find out 
 that reforrumin' the city is a long and a dirty 
 job, and they drap it as sudden as they tuk it 
 up." 
 
THE CLUB GETS TO WORK 89 
 
 " The only thing that makes me anxious," said 
 Lunley, the contractor, "is a symptom or two 
 that I Ve noticed of a disposition to reconstruct 
 our charter. If they get to work at that, there 's 
 no telling how much mischief they may do. 
 These new-fangled one-man-power governments, 
 Hke the one they 've got over in Oleopolis, are verj- 
 troublesome things for a business man to deal 
 with — so my friends over there tell me. The only 
 safety for us is in maintaining our present con- 
 servative form of government, that cannot be 
 overturned by any sudden movement of popu- 
 lar prejudice. If we had had that kind of a char- 
 ter, what would have become of us in the last 
 election?" 
 
 " Tlirue for ye, my boy," answered O'HaUoran. 
 "That 's the p'int we must be after guardin'. 
 None of yer blanketed municipal despotisms for 
 Cosmopolis ! That 's the very thing that these 
 Mugwumps '11 be foistin' upon us. We must 
 watch them. Eternal veegilance is the pr-r-rice 
 o' leeberty." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 
 
 vin 
 
 IP Mr. Reginald Payne's committee on Charter 
 Reform could have heard the conversation 
 among the authorities at the city hall, reported in 
 our last chapter, they would have been confirmed 
 in their conviction that the first thing to do was 
 to reorganize the city. With that business in 
 hand the committee is now assembled in Mr. 
 Payne's private ofllce. The other members of the 
 committee are Mr. Graves, a retired lawyer who 
 has given much study to municipal questions, and 
 Mr. Davis, a wealthy banker ; the three officers of 
 the society are also present, their wisdom having 
 been sought in this important matter. The meet- 
 ing is purely informal ; it is hoped that talk may 
 help to clear the question of some of its obscurity, 
 and to lead toward some practical plan. 
 
 " We might," said Mr. Tomlinson, " get a new 
 charter with no trouble to ourselves, as they did 
 in Vinopolis last winter. The political "outs" 
 of the city had the majority in the legislature ; so 
 
 90 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 91 
 
 the managers of the municipal machine proceeded 
 to fabricate a new form of government for the 
 city, took it down to the capital, and rushed it 
 through the legislature, changing the entire sys- 
 tem of government, removing all the old ofQcers, 
 and providing for the appointment of the new 
 ofiicials by a local magnate of their own party." 
 
 "Perhaps you have n't heard," answered Mr. 
 Payne, " that since the majority of the legislature 
 was changed at the last election, the ejected Vino- 
 politans are now before that body with a bill 
 simply 'reversing the ripper,' as they call it — 
 pitching the incumbents out of office, and rein- 
 stating their own gang. This is a game that the 
 legislatures of several of our States are learning 
 to play ; it begins to look as though the reorgani- 
 zation of cities for partizan purposes would soon 
 become a large part of the legislative program." 
 
 " They wUl not try that little game on us," said 
 Judge Hamlin. " It is only when the people are 
 utterly apathetic that any such scheme will be at- 
 tempted. The people of this city are too wide 
 awake just now to permit such an imposition. 
 
 " And yet," answered Mr. Payne, " the legal as- 
 sumption is that the corporation of a city is the 
 creature of the legislature. May not the legisla- 
 ture do what it will with its own ? " 
 
 "It is not only a legal assumption," replied Mr. 
 Graves, "it is a constitutional provision. By the 
 constitution of our own State, and of several other 
 States, the legislature has unlimited authority to 
 
92 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 make, unmake, and remake city charters, and the 
 people of the cities have no power whatever to the 
 contrary." 
 
 " That is very true," answered Judge Hamlin. 
 "The legislature has this power. It is, in my 
 judgment, a dangerous power. I hope to see the 
 constitution amended so that the legislature shall 
 have power only to enact a general law, with cer- 
 tain wise limitations, under which all cities must 
 organize. Such a general law is needed, and its 
 provisions and prohibitions shoixld be well studied. 
 But having laid down the general principles on 
 which all local communities should do their busi- 
 ness, the legislature should be compelled to take 
 off its hands, and to permit the people to govern 
 themselves. This means that they shall have the 
 power, by conventions which may be held peri- 
 odically, and for which the general statute shall 
 provide, to frame their own charters ; these char- 
 ters to be submitted to popular vote. The courts 
 of the State could decide whether these charters 
 were in harmony with the general statute. Home 
 rule, to this extent, must be given, as I believe, to 
 American cities." 
 
 "But would not this be dangerous business?" 
 inquired Mr. Davis. " Would you dare to give so 
 much power as this to the hordes of foreigners 
 who crowd our cities'? "Would it not be safer to 
 leave them under the control of the legislature? 
 Is not the morality and intelligence of the State 
 at large rather higher than that of the cities? 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 93 
 
 Has not the State an interest in having the cities 
 well governed ? " 
 
 " One question at a time," answered the judge. 
 " The State at large has an interest in good mu- 
 nicipal government, but the people of the rural 
 districts are not competent to regulate the busi- 
 ness of the cities. Whether the political morality 
 of the country is higher than that of the city, I 
 will not venture to decide ; my experience with 
 country members in the legislature is not alto- 
 gether reassuring. As to the question whether it 
 is not safer to leave the cities under the control 
 of the legislature, there is this to say: we have 
 tried that policy for a good many years, and 
 the result is before us — 'the one conspicuous 
 failure of the United States.' I do not think 
 that our cities could have been in a much worse 
 condition if they had been permitted to govern 
 themselves. It is dangerous, no doubt, to give 
 power to the denizens of our cities. Democracy 
 involves a good deal of risk. I do not pretend 
 to believe that we have yet passed the danger- 
 point in city or nation. I don't know that we 
 shall ever pass it. Jackson was probably nearer 
 right than he knew when he said that the vigi- 
 lance which guards our liberties must be eternal. 
 Home rule in cities is dangerous, but it is the 
 principle on which our institutions rest, and I, 
 for one, am not going to admit that democracy 
 is a failure until it has been fairly and thoroughly 
 tried. It is the American idea — the Anglo-Saxon 
 
94 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 idea, indeed — that local communities shall be re- 
 sponsible for their own order and peace. There 
 is no other way, that I know of, by which local 
 patriotism and public spirit can be aroused and 
 kept active. When the business men of any com- 
 munity know that their salvation from anarchy 
 and financial ruin depends wholly upon them- 
 selves, — that they cannot call upon the legisla- 
 ture to deliver them from the bandits into whose 
 hands they have suffered themselves to fall, but 
 must either bestir themselves or be plundered, — 
 they are likely to take a more serious view of their 
 responsibilities. Therefore, I hope to see the day 
 when such interventions of the State legislature 
 in local affairs as are now practised in many of 
 our States shall be impossible everywhere. We 
 must prepare and push a constitutional amend- 
 ment to this effect. But meantime we must make 
 the legislature understand that it must not inter- 
 fere with our government for party purposes; 
 that we propose, not as partizans, but as citizens, 
 to reshape our own charter ; and that they must 
 give us what we ask for. The power is all theirs, 
 but they must exercise it at our behest. I think 
 that it will be possible to make such a demonstra- 
 tion before them that they will be constrained to 
 yield to our demand. If we have n't the form of 
 home rule, we can get the substance of it, if we 
 stand together and fight for it.'' 
 
 " That is what we are here for," said Mr. Payne. 
 "And now we want to consider, I suppose, in a 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 95 
 
 general way, what form this new charter shall 
 take; what shall be its leading features — its con- 
 structive ideas. Any suggestions along that line 
 are pertinent." 
 
 "What do you say," inquired Mr. Davis, "to 
 the plan of substituting for our present boards of 
 Police, Public Works, Public Health, and so forth, 
 non-partizan boards, with an equal representation 
 of each party on every board ? Would not that 
 do away with some of the worst evils ? " 
 
 "What makes you think so?" inquired Hath- 
 away. 
 
 "Well, it seems that partizanship is the source 
 of many of our miseries, and this ought to muzzle 
 the partizans. I know that some of our cities 
 have non-partizan police boards, and I have heard 
 that they are working well." 
 
 "Possibly," answered the carpenter; "but in 
 Oleopolis, where I lived for ten years, they tried 
 it, and it did n't work at all. Everybody said that 
 the police were more inefiflcient and corrupt under 
 that scheme than they had ever been before. In- 
 stead of shutting partizanship out, it brought it 
 in bodily to control the administration. The bill 
 seemed to recognize the fact that places on the 
 force were spoils to be distributed among the 
 heelers, and they were divided accordingly. No 
 man stood any chance to get a place on the board 
 unless he was an active political worker in one 
 party or the other. It is ridiculous to call such 
 aboard "non-partizan"; its main business is the 
 
96 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 service of party. You might call it bi-partizan — 
 that is the proper name for it." 
 
 "Mr. Hathaway is quite right," responded 
 Graves. " I have studied the history of these bi- 
 partizan boards, and it is, as a rule, precisely 
 what he has described. An additional weakness 
 is the failure to fix responsibility. Neither party 
 is responsible — nobody is responsible — for the 
 administration. It is far better that the party 
 in power should have the entire control of the 
 different departments of the government, and 
 then the people know whom to punish if there is 
 inefficiency or corruption. I trust that we shall 
 have nothing to do with so-called non-partizan 
 machinery." 
 
 "I trust," said Tomlinson, "that we shall have 
 nothing to do with boards of any kind. I be- 
 lieve that the whole scheme of executive boards 
 in municipalities is a device of Satan. In nine 
 cases out of ten the board is the mother of im- 
 becility, the nurse of irresponsibility, and the 
 cradle of rascality. I '11 have none of them ! " 
 
 "You are waxing sententious, Tomlinson," 
 laughed Payne. 
 
 "My mind is clear on this one point, at any 
 rate," replied the manufacturer. " I have watched 
 the operation of these boards in this city and else- 
 where until I have had good ground for my opin- 
 ion. Where they are not corrupt, they are miser- 
 ably inefficient. Partizan or non-partizan, it makes 
 but little difference; they are all abominations." 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 97 
 
 "This brings directly before us," said Payne, 
 " the one important question respecting the 
 form of our charter. I suppose that we shall 
 organize our government after the American 
 plan, with legislative, executive, and judicial de- 
 partments. There is n't anything absolutely 
 binding, perhaps, in this threefold division, but 
 we Americans don't seem to be able to get away 
 from it. We must provide for one or more police 
 justices ; we must have a legislative council, with 
 one or two chambers and with certain powers ; 
 but the main question, probabty, is the distribu- 
 tion of executive functions. At present, as Mr. 
 Tomlinson has reminded us, this power is par- 
 celed out among certain boards — the Board of 
 Public Works, which has the care of streets, sew- 
 ers, markets, and so forth ; the Water Commis- 
 sioners ; the Fire and Police Board, which has the 
 exclusive control of the Fire Department and the 
 Police Department; the Board of Health, possess- 
 ing also certain police powers intrusted to it by 
 the legislature, in which it is independent of all 
 the other boards; and the Board of Education. 
 All these boards are elective ; most of them are 
 composed of five members, one of whom is elected 
 every year to serve five years. Under this ar- 
 rangement the mayor has almost no power at all. 
 He is ex officio a member of the Police Board ; but 
 the statute gives each of the other four members 
 exactly the same power that he possesses, and he 
 is therefore a practical nonentity. Each of these 
 
98 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 boards is independent of all the others; there is 
 no consultation among them; they are often at 
 cross purposes. The Board of Public Works 
 tears up the pavement one year to put down a 
 sewer; the next year the "Water Commissioners 
 tear it up again to put down a new main ; the 
 next year the Board of Public Works authorizes 
 the gas company or the electric light company to 
 rip it up again for its purposes. The pavements, 
 for which the people are heavily taxed, are half de- 
 stroyed by this management, and the streets of the 
 city are kept in constant disorder. No man who 
 watches the operations of these boards can be ig- 
 norant of the deplorable lack of unity which they 
 constantly display. Any private business would 
 be ruined in a year under such a crazy scheme." 
 
 "Yes," answers Tomlinson ; "and there is no 
 more unity in them than there is among them. 
 Bach board is apt to be at loggerheads in its own 
 councils. Take the Police Board. Everybody 
 knows that the inefEiciency of the Police Depart- 
 ment is mainly due to the fact that there are five 
 heads, and that when one is ready to move the 
 others are not. The mayor is nominally the head 
 of the department, and issues orders to the men ; 
 but the board can rescind his orders at any meet- 
 ing. After Harper's scathing exposure of the 
 complicity of the police with crime, the mayor 
 was inclined to make an effort to enforce some of 
 the laws, and he ordered the chief of police to 
 close up the gambltag-places. So the chief went 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 99 
 
 around aud told the gamblers — with his tongue 
 iu his cheek, I suppose — that they had better 
 shut up {sotto voce, 'for a night or two'), which 
 they accordingly did, but within a week were run- 
 ning again full blast. The newspapers of the op- 
 position soon began to score the mayor because 
 his orders were disobeyed, and he called the chief 
 and wanted to know about it. The chief said that 
 he guessed the gambling-places were shut up ; at 
 any rate, that he had ordered them to be, and that 
 he would see about it. But he went his way, like 
 one of those Scripture characters ' who, seeing, 
 see not.' That night I met him at the railway 
 station. O'Kane has always been rather chummy 
 with me, and when I asked him how he was get- 
 ting on in his fight with the gamblei-s, he said, 
 ' Oh, that 's all quiet. The mayor wants to be 
 good just now, and he 's been stirring things up a 
 little ; but the fact is, the mayor 's only one man, 
 and there are three men on that board who have 
 told me to go slow in this business. You see where 
 I am. My hands are tied.' That is the practical 
 working of most of these boards. They are con- 
 trived for the obstruction, not for the despatch, of 
 business. We shall never have efficient govern- 
 ment until they are extirpated and swept away, 
 root and branch." 
 
 " Yet," said Payne, " I have no doubt that the 
 mayor might get those gambling- places closed if 
 he were determined to do it. He might find ways 
 of getting over those obstructions." 
 
100 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 " Yes ; I doubt not," replied Tomlinson. " But 
 it is perfectly easy for him to throw the respon- 
 sibility of his iuaction upon the board ; and the 
 members of the board are jointly and severally 
 responsible, by the terms of the law — that is to 
 say, nobody is responsible. The system destroys 
 responsibility. No one can be held to account for 
 such a frightful neglect of duty as that which we 
 are now confronting." 
 
 " How about that scheme which they are trying 
 in Frumentopolis f " asked Mr. Davis. "There 
 they have abolished the various departmental 
 boards, and have put the whole executive power 
 into the hands of four men, only three of whom 
 can belong to one political party." 
 
 " One board is better than six, no doubt," replied 
 Tomlinson, "just as one boil is less painful than 
 half a dozen, but all that I have said about divided 
 responsibility applies to this four-headed execu- 
 tive. Why, in the name of all that is intelligible, 
 do people insist upon applying to municipal gov- 
 ernment a different standard from that which they 
 apply to all other forms of government ? Why 
 should the executive power of a city be given to 
 a board of four men ? Are there any political 
 analogies for such a proceeding? Is there any 
 experience which warrants the belief that such a 
 scheme would be practicable 1 " 
 
 "I don't know that there is any experience 
 which bears precisely upon this point," answered 
 Graves ; " but there is a good deal of English ex- 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 101 
 
 perieuce to show that a large governing body may 
 govern very well. All English cities are governed 
 by large coimcils. The council is simply a com- 
 mittee of the citizens, and its executive work is 
 divided among subcommittees. The mayor is 
 chosen by the council, and he is only its presiding 
 officer ; he has very little executive power." 
 
 " That is correct," replied Judge Hamlin; " but 
 I believe that the committee in charge of each de- 
 partment generally employs a single superinten- 
 dent, or head clerk, to direct its work, and that 
 this officer is permanent. The committee does 
 not interfere with the details of administration." 
 
 "In some cases that is true," answered Mr. 
 Graves. " But it is hard for us to follow English 
 precedents. England is governed by her Parlia- 
 ment, her executive officers must be members of 
 Parliament, directly and immediately responsible 
 to Parliament for every one of their acts. English 
 municipal government is somewhat analogous to 
 the national government. Englishmen ought to 
 be able to make their machinery work ; they are 
 famOiar with it. I do not think that we could 
 do it, and I find that it is already beginning to 
 be questioned, even among Englishmen, whether 
 their scheme wiU not break down in their hands. 
 I have brought with me a late number of an Eng- 
 lish quarterly, in which it is freely acknowledged 
 ' that the attempt to govern London by means of 
 a committee of one hundred and thirty-seven per- 
 sons is fraught with the gravest possible incon- 
 
102 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 venienee. The scheme of the Local Government 
 Act of 1888/ this reviewer goes on, ' is for London 
 nothing less than administration by public meet- 
 ing, and it was only by means of the most careful 
 manipulation that a complete breakdown of the 
 machinery did not take place during the past three 
 years. The first County Council for London only 
 avoided administrative shipwreck by splitting it- 
 self into a multitude of subcommittees to which 
 special duties were assigned, and in moments of 
 difficult}' by placing itself unreservedly in the 
 hands of such skilful pilots as Lord Rosebery 
 and Sir John Lubbock.' I have the printed docket 
 of business for the London County Council for 
 one day, — July 21, 1891, — with the reports of 
 committees to be considered on that day, compris- 
 ing not less than one hundred and twenty distinct 
 items of business, covering more than forty large 
 folio pages. It was not expected, of course, that 
 all this business could be done on that one day ; 
 but the perusal of this docket is sufficient to indi- 
 cate the enormous complication of interests coming 
 under the supervision of this body. It is as plain 
 as the daylight that no individual in that body 
 could act intelligently upon half of these questions. 
 The London County Coimcil is a magnificent body 
 of men, but its abilities are certainly overtaxed. 
 This seems to be admitted on all hands. The need 
 of an entirely new organization of its business is 
 manifest. And this reviewer says : ' For ourselves, 
 we have no doubt that what London needs is, as 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 103 
 
 has been pointed out by Sir John Lubbock and 
 Lord Rosebery, a responsible executive. To secure 
 this, the County Council must begin by treating 
 itself not as a directly administrative body, but as 
 a local assembly of one hundred and thirty-seven 
 " select " men — chosen to appoint and supervise 
 the actual administration of the metropolis. The 
 council's first business should be to elect from 
 among themselves a chairman, to act as a sort of 
 prime minister ; their next, to select, on his advice, 
 fifteen or sixteen councillors to act with him as 
 heads of the various departments of work under- 
 taken by the council. These heads of departments 
 and the chairman could constitute a sort of met- 
 ropolitan cabinet, and would form the executive 
 of London.' The choice of the heads of the ex- 
 ecutive departments by the city council is, per- 
 haps, a scheme worth considering, though it is 
 probable that the American plan of choosing 
 executives by popular vote would work better with 
 us. But the main idea which these critics of the 
 London system are trying to realize is the defini- 
 tion of responsibility. ' It is one of the chief 
 safe-guards of the Constitution,' says this writer, 
 ' that a minister must be found to take the com- 
 plete responsibility for every act done in the name 
 of the sovereign, in order that, if that act is ill 
 advised, the country may know on which instru- 
 ment of state to impose its censure. The sovereign 
 can do no wrong and bear no blame; therefore, 
 before he acts, some person must be found ready 
 
104 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 to accept any blame tliat may attach to what is 
 done in the sovereign's name. In the same way, 
 though for a different reason, it is impossible to 
 attach blame to a board or a councU. If we are 
 wise, then, we shall insist that no act shall be 
 done in the name of a board or a council so 
 important as the London County Council, for 
 which some definite person is not willing to take 
 the responsibility.' I believe that this principle 
 of concentrating and fixing responsibility is just 
 as sound in America as in England; that it lies 
 at the very foundation of representative govern- 
 ment." 
 
 " Can any man explain,'' demanded Tomlinson, 
 " why this sound principle is constantly set at 
 naught in our municipal machinery ? Why is it 
 that the people of our cities will not see that they 
 cannot have eflcient administration until they 
 wisely subdivide their business, and make some 
 individual responsible for every department of it? 
 Why is it that they are bound to believe that a 
 monster with five heads, five pairs of eyes, five 
 pairs of hands, is more likely to see clearly, judge 
 wisely, and act promptly than a man with one 
 brain, one judgment, and one will ? " 
 
 "Perhaps," said Davis, "it comes from the dem- 
 ocratic notion that in a multitude of councilors 
 there is safety." 
 
 " But that," said Tomlinson, " is not the same as 
 saying that in a multitude of bosses there is effi- 
 ciency." 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 105 
 
 '• Perhaps," said Judge Hamlin, " it is the off- 
 spring of the American tendency to multiply 
 of&cial positions, so that every man may have a 
 public office.'' 
 
 " I am rather inclined to believe," said Hatha- 
 waj', " that there is a pretty large class of persons 
 in oiir cities who have an interest in keeping 
 municipal government inefficient and corrupt, and 
 I think that this arrangement suits them very 
 well." 
 
 "Underneath it all," said Payne, "is a profound 
 distrust of the democratic principle. This system 
 of boards and commissions has sprung — as you 
 will find, if you study its origin — from a fear of 
 the people ; from an uneasy apprehension that if 
 they are permitted to express their will directly in 
 public matters, they may do a great deal of mis- 
 chief. Arrangements are therefore made whereby 
 no very decisive changes can be effected in any 
 election. If you have an executive board of five, 
 whose members can be removed only one at a time, 
 it takes the people three years at least to change 
 the character of the board by annual elections. It 
 is almost impossible to keep the attention of the 
 people fixed upon such a matter for three years, 
 and the consequence is that the people's will is 
 practically nullified." 
 
 " There is also," said Judge Hamlin, " a dim no- 
 tion that the main function of city officials is to do 
 mischief, and that the policy should therefore be 
 to give them as little power as possible. The less 
 
106 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 power they have, the less evil they can do. Muni- 
 cipal governments are adjusted to this estimate of 
 official conduct. It is supposed that by dividing 
 up and parceling out the power the danger will be 
 lessened. A board of five men will act less effi- 
 ciently than a single man, and is therefore less to 
 be feared. Pessimism of this sort underlies a good 
 deal of our municipal structure. But the trouble is 
 that when we take away the power of these officials 
 to do evil, we also deprive them of the power to 
 do good. We tie their hands so effectually that 
 they can do nothing for us. It is high time that 
 we had learned that popular government rests not 
 on a basis of distrust, but on a basis of confidence ; 
 if we cannot find men whom we can trust, our de- 
 mocracy may as weU go into liquidation at once." 
 "We seem," said Payne, "to be pretty well 
 agreed as to principles. And now let me read the 
 outline of my scheme for a reconstructed charter. 
 It provides for — I. A council of one chamber with 
 legislative functions clearly prescribed. II. Two 
 police justices, to be appointed by the mayor, 
 their terms of office not to be less than five 
 years. III. An executive department, the head of 
 which is the mayor, who is elected by the people 
 to serve for two years. The mayor's executive 
 staff to be composed of (1) a superintendent of 
 police ; (2) a chief of the fire department ; (3) a 
 water commissioner ; (4) a superintendent of 
 streets and sewers; (5) a health officer ; (6) a city 
 solicitor, or legal adviser of the administration. 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 107 
 
 All these ofi&eers of the mayor's cabinet to be 
 appointed by the mayor himself, Avithout confir- 
 mation, and to be directly responsible to him, and 
 removable at his pleasure. Their terms of office 
 should expire with his own. The mayor to hold 
 weekly conferences with the members of his staff, 
 requiring each of them to report directly to him 
 the transactions of his department. In addition 
 to these officers of the mayor's staff, a city clerk, a 
 city auditor, and a city treasurer are to be elected 
 by the people, each for the term of two years — not 
 when the mayor is chosen, but in alternate j'ears. 
 As to the Board of Education, I am not clear. My 
 own decided conviction is that it should be ap- 
 pointed by the mayor; that it should consist of 
 not more than nine men ; that three of these 
 should be appointed each j'ear to serve for three 
 years, and that they should not represent districts 
 or wards, but should be the best men obtainable 
 in the city. Whether a measure as radical as this 
 could be carried at present, I doubt ; and I would 
 not endanger the plan by an unpopular feature. 
 About aU the rest my mind is pretty well made 
 up. This scheme gives us, for substance, what we 
 want — a single executive, with a clear definition 
 of responsibility." 
 
 "The subordinates in your six departments — 
 who would appoint them ? " inquired Davis. 
 
 " The head of each department," answered 
 Payne ; "except that I mean to provide for a civil- 
 service commission which shall certify to the Po- 
 
108 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 lice and Fire Departmeuts, and to the city audi- 
 tor and city treasurer, candidates from among 
 whom their appointments must be made." 
 
 "Would n't it be better," asked Davis again, "to 
 give the council the power of confirmation in the 
 cases of heads of departments, and perhaps of 
 some other ofllces ? That is in accordance with 
 our national constitution." 
 
 "Yes; and that is one of the most questionable 
 features of our national constitution," answered 
 Payne. " No harm has resulted from it, so far as 
 cabinet ofl&eers are concerned, because it is an un- 
 written law that these officers shall always be 
 confirmed without questioning. No intelligent 
 man would ever undertake the responsibilities of 
 the Presidency if he could not name the heads of 
 departments without dictation from anybody. In 
 the case of some other offtees, the Senate some- 
 times exercises its veto power ; but it is an open 
 question whether more harm than good has not 
 resulted from this extension of its prerogative. 
 So far, however, as the immediate advisers of the 
 President are concerned, his power to select them 
 is practically absolute. The constitutional pro- 
 vision to the contrary is abortive, and it would be 
 senseless for us to copy that." 
 
 " Your scheme," suggested Graves, " is substan- 
 tially the same as that which is in operation in 
 Kirkopolis and Agapopolis." 
 
 " Yes ; substantially. The principle which they 
 have embodied in their charters is the one that I 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 109 
 
 am after. The details may be varied, but the 
 thing to aim at is a single executive, chosen by 
 the people and directly responsible to them." 
 
 " The millennium has n't come yet to Kirkopolis 
 or Agapopolis," answered Davis. "I have noticed 
 in their newspapers that even under the reformed 
 charters peculation is charged against officials,' 
 and many dubious deeds are done." 
 
 " Of course," answered Payne. " There will be 
 carelessness and rascality under the best system 
 that can be devised. "We are not going to have 
 the millennium in Cosmopolis, reform we our 
 charter never so wisely. But there has been great 
 improvement in both those cities, as every intelli- 
 gent man testifies ; and nobody there wants to go 
 back to the old system. "We can have the same 
 measure of improvement here, and even greater, 
 if we will work for it." 
 
 " "Well," said Judge Hamlin, rising, " you have 
 the general idea. "Work it out carefully. G-et all 
 the light you can from the experience of other 
 cities. Frame your charter in simple, unteehnical 
 language; submit it to the club for their ap- 
 proval ; and when it is perfected we will refer it 
 to a mass-meeting of the citizens." 
 
 IX 
 
 It was a field night at the city hall when the 
 Cosmopolis City Club presented its plan for a re- 
 
110 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 organization of the city government. The charter 
 which Mr. Payne's committee had worked out was 
 as simple and concise in its expression as they 
 could make it; it had been printed in full in all 
 the newspapers, and had been under discussion 
 for more than a week, and the utmost pains had 
 been taken to enlighten the public respecting the 
 organic law which the legislature was to be asked 
 to enact for the government of the city. The 
 members of the ch\b had not been idle. They had 
 personally invited large numbers of the intelli- 
 gent citizens to be present at the mass-meeting; 
 they had determined that the best elements of the 
 population should be represented, and the hall 
 was filled at an early hour. The mayor was in 
 the chair, and Mr. Payne opened the discussion by 
 reading and briefly explaining the sections of the 
 charter. 
 
 It was well known to the club that their scheme 
 would be opposed : some of the newspapers had 
 assailed it, and various elements in the community 
 were bent on defeating it. As a matter of course 
 all the corrupt politicians, the contractors, and the 
 lawless classes generally, were in the opposition. 
 The committee strongly hoped that thej' would 
 reveal their sentiments by open antagonism ; but 
 they had evidently held a council of war, and 
 were determined to fight in ambush, putting for- 
 ward certain puzzle-headed respectabilities to do 
 the talking for them. The main line of opposition 
 was the charge that the proposed system was 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 111 
 
 autocratic and uu- American ; tliat it robbed the 
 people of their liberties. It was a one-man power 
 — that was the phrase which was harped upon 
 continually, in the rooms of the ward committees, 
 in the bar-rooms, in the opposition newspapers. 
 Those who, for personal and unworthy reasons, 
 were resisting the reform were shrewd enough to 
 know that this was the most eifective weapon 
 they could use. A great many well-meaning but 
 unthinking persons were frightened by the phrase 
 " one-man power," and were made to believe that 
 this plan really threatened to impose upon them 
 some kind of despotism. It was evidently hoped 
 that in this popular meeting this particular gong 
 could be beaten with telling effect. Accordingly, 
 after Mr. Payne had finished his exposition of the 
 charter, and before a word could be said in its 
 favor, a shrewd lawyer of the city, Johnsou by 
 name, gained the floor, and was called to the plat- 
 form. Johnson was a man of decent appearance, 
 of some literary pretensions, and of fluent speech. 
 He was not believed to have any selfish reasons 
 for opposing the charter, but his mind was fidl 
 of certain hazy political theories with which this 
 scheme of government was not in harmony. 
 
 " It is evident," said Mr. Johnson, " that some 
 measure of reform is needed in our municipal 
 government, and the thanks of this community 
 are due to the gentlemen who for so many months 
 have been studying the municipal problem with 
 the purpose of giving us a better government." 
 
112 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 The applause at this point was so hearty and so 
 long sustained that Mr. Johnson was somewhat 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "Nevertheless," he persevered, "we must be 
 cautious in making changes. Better to bear the 
 ills we have than fly to worse conditions. And I 
 must own that the plan which these gentlemen 
 have submitted strikes me unfavorably. I do not 
 like the idea of putting so much power into the 
 hands of one man. I do not relish the anticipation 
 of living under a dictator. I know it is sometimes 
 said that when our democracy breaks down we 
 shall rush to the other extreme, and call in a 
 despot to rule us ; but I hope that we have n't yet 
 come to that. Just think of the enormous amount 
 of patronage that we intrust to the mayor under 
 this scheme ! Is there any man here, who knows 
 anything about politics, who cannot see where- 
 unto this will tend? The selfish man who gets 
 this power in his hands will use it, of course, for 
 his own aggrandizement. He can reelect himself 
 as mayor just as often as he pleases ; he can nom- 
 inate himself to any office that he covets ; he can 
 control the nomination of all your legislators, 
 congressmen, judges. It is too much power, I 
 think, to give to one man. We know what kind 
 of men are in city politics, and we know what they 
 are apt to do with such power as this when they 
 get hold of it. I counsel my fellow-citizens to 
 beware how they intrust such enormous political 
 power to one man." 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 113 
 
 Mr. Johnson's speecli was greeted with vigorous 
 cheers from the opposition; but before he had 
 descended from the platform Judge Hamlin arose, 
 and coui'teously asked him to pause a few mo- 
 ments before returning to his seat. 
 
 " Mr. Johnson's objections," said the judge, 
 " are entitled to consideration. Now is the time 
 to consider them. He has stated them briefly, 
 clearly, and forcibly. He is an intelligent and 
 honorable opponent of our plan. I wish, therefore, 
 to beg of him, if his honor the presiding officer 
 will wink at the irregularity, to remain here on 
 the platform for a few minutes, that there may be 
 a little direct conversation between us on the sub- 
 ject. I will ask him a few questions, and he may 
 ask me as many as he chooses. Very likely I shall 
 be obliged to confess my ignorance more than 
 once : that should be no discredit to either of us ; 
 the subject is large, and there are aspects of it 
 that neither of us has considered. But I am 
 convinced that we can get at the truth by such 
 a conversation more expeditiously than by set 
 speeches ; and if your honor please, and if the 
 meeting consent, I should like to try that 
 method." 
 
 The hearty cheers of the assemblage gave full 
 indorsement to the proposition of the judge. 
 
 " "Well, then," said Judge Hamlin, " Mr. Johnson 
 assumes that the city patronage is likely to be 
 dispensed by the mayor for his own interests. It 
 is now dispensed by about forty different officials. 
 
114 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 I suppose that we must therefore assume that the 
 forty are making the same use of it." 
 
 " That may be grauted," answered the lawyer. 
 
 " Is it reasonable to say that forty selfish poli- 
 ticians, scrambling after the city patronage that 
 they may use it for their own aggrandizement, 
 will inflict less injury upon the community than 
 one man who uses it in the same way ? Are forty 
 small bloodsuckers to be preferred to one big 
 bloodsucker ? " 
 
 The audience laughed and cheered, and Mr. 
 Johnson was saved the trouble of answering the 
 question. 
 
 " Each of these forty," said Judge Hamlin, " has 
 his own followers, for whom, on this supposition, he 
 is trying to find places. Suppose that he secures 
 for one of these followers, who is utterly incom- 
 petent and unworthy, a place on the police force or 
 in the Fire Department ; is the public able in any 
 way to hold him responsible for this bad appoint- 
 ment ? Does the public know anything about it." 
 
 " Probably not," answered Mr. Johnson. 
 
 " It is possible, then, for these forty to fill all 
 the public places with dead-beats and bummers, 
 without the public being able to call anybody to 
 account for the outrage ? " 
 
 " Doubtless," assented the lawyer. 
 
 " To what extent is this done ? " 
 
 "To a very considerable extent, undoubtedly. 
 Yet there are a great many very good men now 
 in the service of the city." 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 115 
 
 " Of course ; but that is because the forty are 
 not all thieves, because some of them act with 
 public interests in view. I should hope that we 
 might very often find a mayor who would act 
 upon that principle. I am only speaking upon 
 the assumption that politicians always use patron- 
 age selfishly. On that presumption the present 
 scheme does not seem to be ideal. But suppose 
 that one of these forty should wish to promote 
 the public interest, rather than his own welfare. 
 Take a man on the police commission, or the street 
 commission, who wants to improve the service. 
 How much can he accomplish, standing alone ? " 
 
 " Not much." 
 
 "Suppose that by dint of courage and perse- 
 verance he should succeed in removing some 
 abuses, and in purifying the administration. How 
 much credit would he get for it ? " 
 
 " Very little." 
 
 "So that, as things are now arranged, it is 
 almost impossible for any man, by faithful per- 
 formance of his public duty, to gain any good 
 reputation for himself?" 
 
 " It is much as you say." 
 
 " Our present sj'stem assumes that every official 
 will be selfish and dishonest, and gives him a 
 great many chances to be selfish and dishonest; it 
 assumes that nobody will act purely and honor- 
 ably, or wish to receive any praise for so acting. 
 Do you think that we have any right to look for 
 good administration under such a system ? " 
 
116 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 " It seems that we ai-e not finding it, at any rate." 
 
 "You spoke of the power that the mayor would 
 have under our system to promote his own for- 
 tunes by the use of the city patronage. Whatever 
 he did in this direction would have to be done, 
 would it not, in plain sight of all the people ? He 
 would have the entire responsibility for all his 
 appointments; the people would have their eyes 
 aU the while fixed on him, and would be able to 
 judge of the motives for which they were made." 
 
 Mr. Johnson assented. 
 
 " Do you think that the executive who uses pa- 
 tronage in this way, in full view of the people, 
 is morally certain to aggrandize himself in the 
 process? Have you ever heard of anybody who 
 failed in such an undertaking 1 " 
 
 The hit was palpable, and the audience burst 
 into a roar of laughter, which broke out again and 
 again. Mr. Johnson had been rather conspic- 
 uously allied with a noted machine politician of 
 the State who had only recently met with igno- 
 minious defeat in this very enterprise. The law- 
 yer made the best of his discomfiture by joining in 
 the laugh. 
 
 " I don't think," he said, when the tumult sub- 
 sided, " that a man infallibly succeeds by the use 
 of patronage ; but I think that, as a rule, it gives 
 him an enormous advantage." 
 
 " On the contrary," replied the judge, " I believe 
 that our political history will show that it is an 
 enormous disadvantage to any man to have such 
 
"WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 117 
 
 patronage, and to use it selfishly. When the 
 responsibility for the use of it can be clearly 
 located, the people are pretty sure to punish eon- 
 dignly the man who uses power for his own ag- 
 grandizement. The motive for using this power 
 wisely and patriotically would, I contend, be a 
 thousand times stronger under the system we 
 propose than it is under the present system. But 
 Mr. Johnson referred, also, to the danger of com- 
 mitting so much executive power to one man. 
 The idea seems to be that the people divest them- 
 selves of their liberty, and place themselves in 
 chains, when they intrust to one man so much 
 executive power. It appears to some of our 
 friends that they will no longer be living under a 
 republic, but under a monarchy, if our plan is 
 adopted. But all will admit that under the old 
 system, as well as under the new, the people 
 intrust the executive power to officials ; that they 
 temporarily put it out of their hands. Let me ask 
 Mr. Johnson if it is not as effectually out of the 
 people's control ivhen it is in the hands of forty men 
 as it is when it is in the hands of one man." 
 
 " Doubtless." 
 
 " Under the plan we propose, the people loan 
 the executive power for two years to one man, 
 holding him responsible for the right use of it. If 
 it is not properly used, they know exactly whom 
 to blame. At the end of the two years this man 
 must return the executive power directly to the 
 hands of the people. They get it all back again, 
 
118 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 every shred of it. If it has been abused, they may 
 put it into other hands. If it has been wisely 
 used, they naay return it, if they choose, to the 
 man who has been holding it. Every two years 
 he must settle his account with them, and restore 
 to them the power which they had intrusted to 
 him. That is our plan. Under the scheme which 
 this city has been trying to operate, the executive 
 power is all put out of the people's hands into the 
 hands of forty of&cials, members of various boards 
 and commissions. When wUl the people get it 
 back again?" 
 
 " It comes back by instalments," answered the 
 lawyer. 
 
 " Yes ; it comes back in driblets, in such a way 
 that it is morally impossible for the people to 
 replace it wisely. In the first place, nobody can be 
 very sure whether the driblet that returns this 
 year has been well used or ill used ; in the second 
 place, it is only an infinitesimal fragment of 
 power, anyway, and it seems to make but little 
 difference to whom it is committed. It is utterly 
 impossible for the people in any election to make 
 a thorough improvement in their government, and 
 naturally they do not care to try. Their hands 
 are so tied by the red tape of our complicated 
 executive that they take very little interest in 
 municipal elections. Now I wish to ask every 
 man of common sense who listens to me. Which 
 of these plans gives the greater power to the 
 people? Under which of them can the people 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 119 
 
 bring their power more directly and more effec- 
 tively to bear upon the administration ? Under 
 which of them would the people have the clearer 
 consciousness of their power, the deeper sense of 
 their responsibility ? I affirm, and I challenge any 
 intelligent man in this audience to dispute the 
 affirmation, that the system of government by a 
 manifold series of boards and commissions re- 
 duces the popular power to a minimum, while the 
 system which we propose, of a single responsible 
 executive, exalts, magnifies, and confirms popular 
 power. Your system rests upon distrust of the 
 people ; our system rests upon faith in the people. 
 That is the radical difference between them. I call 
 upon my friend here on the platform to dispute 
 this statement if he can." 
 
 " I am not now prepared to argue the point," 
 said Mr. Johnson. 
 
 " I call upon any opponent of our plan in this 
 house,'' resumed the judge, " to stand up and 
 deny my afflrmation if it is not true. No man 
 answers. Let us have done, then, with this non- 
 sense about the ' one-man power.' Every man 
 who uses this phrase to stigmatize our charter 
 means to convey the notion that its aims are aris- 
 tocratic, or autocratic, rather than democratic. 
 I suppose that some have ignorantly imagined 
 that this might be true. No intelligent man will 
 make any such suggestion unless he is a dema- 
 gogue. A very intelligent business man put the 
 matter in a nutshell, the other day, when he said 
 
120 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 to me, ' What these people call the one-man power 
 is simply the crown of popular sovereignty.' It 
 is that crown, fellow-citizens, which we are try- 
 ing to place upon your heads. We want you to 
 govern this city, and to see and know that you 
 are governing it. We want to enable you to 
 honor and reward those who serve you faithfully, 
 and to depose and punish those who are false to 
 your interests. We claim for our charter that it 
 restores to the people the power of which they 
 have long been robbed." 
 
 The ringing cheer .with which these last sen- 
 tences of Judge Hamlin were greeted showed that 
 the victory of the charter was won already. Mr. 
 Johnson waited until the applause had subsided, 
 and then quietly said : " If his honor the judge 
 will permit, I think I will return to my seat. I 
 believe that I should enjoy his eloquence rather 
 more if I were permitted to share it with the rest 
 of the audience." 
 
 "Very good," answered the judge, laughing 
 with the rest, and extending his hand to the law- 
 yer. " I am greatly obliged to my friend for sub- 
 mitting to my catechism. And I will try to be 
 just as patient and courteous as he has been if he 
 will subject me to the same ordeal." 
 
 " No," answered the lawyer ; " I will waive the 
 cross-examin ation ." 
 
 " Then," continued the judge, " I will take only 
 time to make one more remark. It is objected to 
 our plan that it puts too much power into one 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 121 
 
 man's hands. May I ask whether the power in- 
 trusted to our mayor is any greater than that 
 which by the Constitution of the United States is 
 vested in the national executive? All the enor- 
 mous power of the Federal government, the 
 administration of the civU oflces, the control of 
 the army and navy, is committed to one man. 
 The appointment of his cabinet is left to him ; all 
 vacancies in the national judiciary, and innumer- 
 able other offices, must be filled by him ; he is the 
 one man responsible for the executive department 
 of this whole nation. I should like to ask any 
 gentleman present whether he does not think that 
 it is safer and wiser to commit this power to one 
 man than it would be to give it to a triumvirate, 
 or to a commission of five, with equal powers. 
 Does not the single executive give us a purer 
 and a more efficient administration than any such 
 board would give us? Has any man yet been 
 heard of who would dream of applying the com- 
 plicated method by which our city is ruled to the 
 government of the nation ? Does any one suppose 
 that it would be an improvement to replace the 
 single responsible head of the Treasury Depart- 
 ment or of the Interior Department by a com- 
 mission of five men, one to be elected by the 
 people every year to serve for five years? The 
 preposterousness of such a system when ^applied 
 to the vast affairs of the nation is obvious enough. 
 Why is it not even more preposterous when ap- 
 plied to the smaller affairs of a city? If one man 
 
122 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 can administer tl^e great concerns of the nation 
 more efficiently than three men ; if one man 
 can conduct the enormous business of one of the 
 national departments better than five men, why is 
 it not probable that one man would manage the 
 executive business of our city, or of any one of 
 its departments, more successfully than three men 
 or five men ? The fact is, that while, for counsel, 
 it is sometimes wise to enlist a plurality of judg- 
 ments, for all executive work the principle of a 
 single responsible head is almost uniformly recog- 
 nized as the only sound principle. The reluctance 
 to adopt it in municipal affairs is a phenomenon 
 which needs explaining. I trust, however, that 
 we are nearly ready to adopt it in this city, and 
 unless I am greatly at fault, this representative 
 assembly of our citizens is prepared to say so 
 with no uncertain! sound." 
 
 Judge Hamlin was cheered to the echo when he 
 took his seat, and there were cries for Tomlinson. 
 
 " My speech will be very short," said the manu- 
 facturer, rising. "I wish to reply to one objec- 
 tion which I have heard since I entered the hall. 
 'It is n't better laws that we want,' said the 
 objector, 'but better men to administer them.' I 
 teU you we want both. This is very delicate and 
 difficult business that we give our city officials to 
 do, and we must have the most skilful workmen 
 we can get, and the best tools, too. The ma- 
 chinery of government must be the best that we 
 can find. Don't tell me that it makes no differ- 
 
"WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 123 
 
 ence what kind of machinery you have ; that all 
 that is wanted is good and faithful workmen. The 
 best workmen in this land could not do the work 
 that is now done every day in my factory if they 
 were compelled to work with the tools my men 
 were working with five years ago. So it is with 
 municipal machinery. There are some kinds with 
 which it is difficult to do anything ; there are some 
 kinds with which it is much easier to do good 
 work ; and we are bound to give the men whom 
 we employ the best possible facilities. Of course 
 the need of employing the best men will not be 
 superseded by any sort of machinery, and the 
 people will always be required to exercise their 
 patriotism in selecting the men to conduct the 
 government under the new charter." 
 
 Calls for Hathaway followed the conclusion of 
 Mr. Tomlinson's speech. 
 
 " I want to add one word," said the carpenter, 
 "to the speech that has just been made. "With 
 better machinery you are pretty sure to get better 
 men. If you give an official a chance to win some 
 credit for his work, you will attract to the service 
 of the city men of honorable ambition. If you 
 give him a chance to serve the pubUe efficiently, 
 you wiU call into office men of public spirit. Why 
 should any clean-handed, honorable man take a 
 place in our municipal service to-day? He can 
 do nothing, honorably, for himself, and nothing 
 for the city. Under the plan which we propose a 
 man may make a record for himself; and if he 
 
124 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 has any force in him, he may greatly promote the 
 public welfare. I believe that our plan will result 
 here, as it has resulted elsewhere, in pushing bet- 
 ter men to the front, and in sending the bummers 
 to the rear." 
 
 Hathaway's speech closed the discussion. When 
 he had concluded the house resounded with cries 
 of " Question," and the resolution indorsing the 
 new charter, and calling on the mayor to appoint 
 a committee of fifty men — an equal number from 
 each political party — to present the matter to the 
 legislature on the following week, and to secure 
 immediate action, went through in a storm of 
 enthusiasm. The noes, indeed, were so few and 
 feeble that the audience greeted their protest with 
 an outburst of good-natured laughter. 
 
 The committee of fifty found little trouble in 
 securing from the legislature favorable action 
 upon the charter. Delegations from the classes 
 opposed were present at the capital, and some 
 secret work was done with various members of 
 the legislative committee on municipal affairs; 
 but the representation of the best citizens was so 
 strong, and the popular demand for the charter 
 was a fact so notorious, that the opponents of the 
 scheme made little headway. The bill was rapidly 
 pushed to its third reading, and the new charter 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 125 
 
 went into effect in ample time for the spring 
 election. 
 
 Hathaway's prediction that the new measures 
 would call to the front a better class of men was 
 abundantly fulfilled. For many years the of&ce 
 of mayor had gone begging among the better 
 class of citizens. Whenever there had been a 
 spasm of popular virtue, and a determination to 
 secure good government, the laudable purpose 
 had been defeated by the flat refusal of men of 
 character to accept the nomination. " Why,'' said 
 these gentlemen, " should we soil our hands with 
 the dirty business? The mayor is only a figure- 
 head. Tou have stripped him of power. What 
 can he do to improve the administration? He 
 can gain no reputation; he can accomplish no 
 reform. We have no time to spend upon such a 
 bootless function." 
 
 But now it was clear that the conditions were 
 greatly changed. There was a chance for a man 
 of brains and force to make a record for himself. 
 Men of honorable ambition were not loath to 
 consider the call of their fellow-citizens to this 
 honorable and responsible ofiS.ce. Moreover, it 
 was instinctively felt, even by the party manag- 
 ers, that it would never do to nominate a man for 
 this position whose character was not a guaranty 
 of honest administration. The interests were too 
 important. They knew that if one candidate was 
 more upright and more capable than the other, 
 the mass of the conservative vote of the tax-pay- 
 
126 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 ing and law-abiding citizens would go directly to 
 that candidate. Party lines had been so weakened 
 by the work of the City Club that the reputable 
 classes would be pretty sure to vote for the most 
 reputable man. The only safety for the party 
 managers lay in selecting the best possible can- 
 didate. Hitherto the managers had asked who 
 could carry the saloons and the slums. This year 
 the question was who could carry the tax-paying 
 wards. Accordingly the candidates on both tick- 
 ets were men of good character. It was freely 
 acknowledged on all sides that the interests of 
 the city would be safe, no matter which party 
 might triumph. Another obvious gain was the 
 lessening of the number of places on the ticket. 
 As a rule, there could be no more than four or five 
 persons to be voted for in each municipal election. 
 It was possible, therefore, for the conscientious 
 voter to inform himself respecting the character 
 of each of the candidates presented to him. 
 
 "This simplifies things," said Tomlinson to 
 Payne, one day, as they were looking over the 
 list of nominations printed at the head of the ed- 
 itorial columns in one of the party organs. "I 
 trust that the people will be able to know, ithis 
 time, for whom they are voting. For myself, I 
 must admit that, in an experience of twenty years, 
 I have never yet voted intelligently in a city elec- 
 tion. I always try to iuform myself respecting 
 the record and quaUflcations of every candidate 
 on both tickets ; I have never yet succeeded. A 
 
"WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 127 
 
 good share of my voting has been done in the 
 dark. When the number of candidates is as large 
 as it has been in our elections, very few men, I 
 believe, vote intelligently. Most of us take the 
 goods the gods of the caucus provide for us, and 
 are compelled to be satisfied. Henceforth, with 
 due diligence, a man may be instructed before he 
 votes." 
 
 "Yes," answered Payne; "the popular sover- 
 eign is more likely, under this plan, to rule with 
 wisdom. The task we have been imposing upon 
 him was quite too difficult. We have bidden 
 him, every year, to pick out twenty or thirty men 
 from among his fellow-citizens to whom he would 
 intrust the responsibihties of government. That 
 overtaxes his intelligence. But when we teU him 
 to pick out three or four men, the chances are 
 that he will make fewer blunders." 
 
 It was the evening after the municipal election, 
 and the five directors of the Cosmopolis Public 
 Library had assembled for their weekly meeting. 
 The business was not urgent, and their minds 
 were too full of the events of the day to give 
 much heed to the librarian's report. Payne had 
 picked up Judge Hamlin in the street, and had 
 brought him in, and Harper had similarly intro- 
 duced Mr. Graves. 
 
 "Well, Judge," said Harper, as they seated 
 themselves around the fireplace, " your party is 
 entitled to congi-atulations. You have the chance 
 
128 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 of demonstrating to the city the excellence of 
 the new charter. I would rather it had been 
 my party. I 'm qtiite sure that we would have 
 made a little better job of it ; but you have put 
 it into good hands, and I have no doubt that 
 we shall see a great improvement over past 
 administrations." 
 
 " Let us hope so," responded the judge. " If we 
 do not, we shall go out with a whirl, two years 
 from now ; that 's certain." 
 
 " One thing is to be noted with sincere rejoic- 
 ing," said Mr. Graves. " The vote is the heaviest 
 ever polled in a municipal election. The voters 
 were all out ; and it was intelligent interest that 
 brought them out. I am told that much less 
 money has been expended this year than ever be- 
 fore. Men like Spring and Chapman will not 
 spend money to elect themselves. They held a 
 conference about it as soon as they were nomi- 
 nated, and pledged themselves to each other that 
 they would not do it." 
 
 " Yes," answered Judge Hamlin ; " it is all very 
 cheering. We are sure to have a great deal 
 better government than we have had for a long 
 time. We are on the right track. We have got 
 the right sort of machinery. Our system rests 
 now upon the true democratic optimism, — the be- 
 lief that the people can be trusted, — and not upon 
 the pessimistic notion that they must be pushed 
 as far as possible from the thrones of power, and 
 fenced off, by all manner of complicated checks 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACOOMPLISBED 129 
 
 and restraints, from direct participation in the 
 government. I liope that we shall see onr laws 
 enforced now as they have not been for many a 
 day. Chapman would n't dare to pnt a man into 
 that superintendency who has n't the nerve to en- 
 force them. I hope that we shall see the army of 
 contractors put to rout, and a great improvement 
 in the condition of our streets, and a great reduc- 
 tion in the expenses of every department of the 
 government. But we must not be too sanguine. 
 We have made an important gain, but we have n't 
 solved the municipal problem yet." 
 
 " What is lacking ? " asked Payne. 
 
 " The one thing needful is lacking," replied the 
 judge; "that is, a foundation of principles on 
 which municipal politics can be built. I have 
 said this before, but the experience of this elec- 
 tion has made it clearer. What have we been 
 contending for in this election"? It was simply a 
 question which was the better ticket. The issue 
 with the political managers was of course the 
 spoils of office ; with the rest of us it was a choice 
 of administrators. There was no room for intel- 
 ligent discussion. The campaign has not been in 
 the slightest degree educational. I do not think 
 this good politics. I am siu-e that it will tend to 
 corruption. The practical interest of the spoils- 
 men will overshadow the interest which the rest 
 of us will strive to maintain in the selection of 
 good candidates. So long as our municipal af- 
 fairs remain in the hands of the two national par- 
 
130 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 ties, our municipal elections will strongly tend to 
 become mere make- weights in State and national 
 politics. It is the best we can do now, but muni- 
 cipal politics will never be clean and healthy 
 until we have municipal issues and municipal 
 parties distinct from those of the State and the 
 nation." 
 
 "Where are these issues to come from?" de- 
 manded Morison. 
 
 " I am not sure; but it seems to me that I see 
 them looming upon the horizon," answered the 
 judge. "Have you observed the fight that the 
 people in Oleopolis have been waging against 
 their gas company ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Harper ; " and the people have won 
 the fight. They have forced the price of gas 
 down to eighty cents a thousand feet, and have 
 compelled the company to pay a heavy annual 
 tribute for its franchise." 
 
 " So I read. And have you noticed the sharp 
 questions that the newspapers are beginning to 
 raise respecting the street-railway franchises and 
 the electric-light franchises ? It seems to me that 
 the question of municipal ownership of all these 
 natural monopolies is rushing to the front ; that 
 it wiU be upon us in a very few years. For my 
 own part, I believe that these properties must be- 
 long to the municipality ; that whatever is a prac- 
 tical monopoly the people themselves must own 
 and control. That our cities wiU soon advance in 
 this direction is evident to me. I trust that there 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 131 
 
 will be no spoliation of those who have invested 
 their money in such properties ; that they will be 
 pm-chased by the cities at a fair valuation. Wlat 
 to do about the franchises that have been stolen 
 is a more puzzling question. Our courts of 
 equity will be taxed to unravel that snarl ; let us 
 trust that we shall not be weak enough to wait 
 for the revolutionist with his sword to cut it. 
 But the cities will get possession of the natural 
 monopolies ; of that I feel confid-ent." 
 
 '■ But that," answered Tomlinson, " is the road 
 to Socialism." 
 
 " Yes ; that 's the road. And we are going in 
 that direction — no doubt about it. We shall stop 
 before we get there, I think — a long way short of 
 a complete collectivism, I believe ; but we shall go 
 that way. Our cities will municipalize certain 
 important industries. That will be the begin- 
 ning. Then there will be a strong tendency to 
 extend this movement. It will be extended. The 
 city will not only furnish schools, and parks, and 
 public gardens, and art-galleries ; it will find a 
 number of other things to do for the promotion 
 of the public welfare, which can be done far more 
 cheaply and effectively by the cooperation of the 
 whole people, through their government, than by 
 private enterprise. And yet there will be vast 
 realms of industry with which, as I believe, the 
 municipalities cannot wisely meddle. Individual 
 initiative and private enterprise will still have a 
 large part of the world to themselves, and must 
 
132 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 be confirmed in their possession of it. And here, 
 as it seems to me, must appear the line of divi- 
 sion in municipal politics. It will always be an 
 open question, and a fair question, how far this 
 municipalization of industries shall go, and where 
 it shall stop. Honest men, patriotic men, will 
 differ about this question. You and I, Tomlin- 
 son, would differ about it. You are more of an 
 Individualist than I am ; I am more of a Sociahst 
 than you are. Men of my way of thinking, who 
 see large possibilities in the way of social cooper- 
 ation through the State for economic ends, will 
 have to be restrained by men of your way of 
 thinting, to whom the Hberty of the individual 
 seems the chief good at which legislation should 
 aim. Social progress is to be the result of a wise 
 coordination of these two tendencies. Therefore 
 I expect to see municipal politics based, before 
 long, on this division. There will be a party that 
 tends in the direction of Socialism, and a party 
 that tends in the direction of laissez-faire; each 
 party will have a great deal to say for itself ; the 
 safety of the community will be in keeping the 
 balance between them." 
 
 " Is n't that," said Graves, " substantially the 
 division between the two parties now represented 
 in the London County Council ? " 
 
 " So I understand," answered Judge Hamlin. 
 " The Progressives are Socialists ; their program 
 involves a vigorous interference by the munici- 
 pality with various industries, and an extension 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 133 
 
 of the powers of government in several dii'ections. 
 They propose to ' take over ' the tramways, the 
 street lighting, the water supply, and other mo- 
 nopolies ; they intend to adopt a drastic pohcy 
 ra clearing out the slums, in supervising tene- 
 ment-houses, and in regulating places of amuse- 
 ment ; they are carrjT.ng what some people call 
 ' paternalism ' to lengths which a few years ago 
 woidd have seemed revolutionary. The Moder- 
 ates are Individtiahsts ; they hold to the old no- 
 tion that that State is best governed which is 
 least governed ; they resist the socialistic ten- 
 dency. The Progressives are to-day the popular 
 party; but they are very hkely to overdo the 
 business, and then the reaction will come, and the 
 ^Moderates will return to power. But it seems to 
 me that we see in London to-day the logical di- 
 ^■ision between municipal parties — a division 
 which has naturally emerged in the economic and 
 social evolution, and which will just as surely 
 emerge in our own cities, because the conditions 
 are substantially the same. I shall be glad to 
 see the lines drawn in the same way in Cos- 
 mopoUs and in every American city. Then om- 
 municipal politics will have some significance ; we 
 shall have parties that stand for something ; we 
 shall have poUcies to advocate, and measures to 
 fight for; our discussions will have direct and 
 practical reference to municipal affairs ; and otir 
 campaigns wUl not be a brainless scramble for the 
 spoils of of&ee." 
 
134 THE COSMOPOLIS CITY CLUB 
 
 "What will become of the old parties under 
 this arrangement f " demanded Payne. 
 
 " They wUl confine their attention to their own 
 business," replied the judge. " They will manage 
 the State and the national campaigns, and let 
 city poUtics alone." 
 
 " Do you not think that if this were the case, 
 municipal politics would be apt to overshadow 
 national politics ? " asked Hathaway. 
 
 " In the cities, yes." 
 
 " But is it not quite possible that the issues 
 thus raised in the cities would become national 1 " 
 persisted the carpenter. " Is not the nationalisa- 
 tion of certain industries — railroads, telegraphs, 
 telephones, mines, and so forth (those which, ac- 
 cording to your own definition, are natural mo- 
 nopolies) — quite likely to be the burning question 
 before many years? Is not this question of the 
 extent to which industries can be profitably na^ 
 tionaUzed the one which this country has got to 
 face pretty soon? Do we not find in the nation 
 as well as in the city the necessity of drawing the 
 hne between State action and private enterprise f 
 Might we not have two national parties, divided 
 hy this line, whose discussions and contests would 
 have tenfold more significance than those of the 
 existing political parties ? And is it not pos- 
 sible that the municipal parties whose advent 
 Judge Hamlin predicts wHL gradually become 
 national parties, swallowing up 'the ancient forms 
 
WHAT THE CLUB ACCOMPLISHED 135 
 
 of party strife,' and leading in the issues of a 
 new political dispensation f " 
 
 " It is not only possible, my friend," replied the 
 judge, rising and taking the carpenter by the 
 hand, " it is in every way desirable. I hope that 
 you and I will both live long enough to see your 
 prophecy fulfilled."