Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
December 12, 1908
RECORD AND GUTOE
Uir
ESTABUSHED^fW.CH£LsJ^lB68
"Dev&ieB 10 REA.L Estate.BuiLoiffe ArpKitecttui^.HguseHou)Decqf;^™*^
Bifsn/Ess Ati) Themes of GE|tei^l Ij^iERfsi.;
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS
Communications should be addressed to
C- W. SWEET
Published Every Saturday
By THB RECOKD AND GUIDE CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W- DODGE
Vice-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W- DESMOND Secretary, F- T. MILLER
Nos. II to 15 East 24tli Street, New York City
(Telepbone, Madison Square, 4480 to 4433.)
••Entered at lhc Post Office at New Tork. N. Y., as sccnnd-rkiss matter."
Copyrighted, 1908, by The Record Sc Guide Co,
Vol LXXXII.
DECEMBER 12, 1908.
No. 2126
IN a few weeks the new charter will be published in full
and the people of New York will bave an opportunity
of reading aud criticizing tbe instnimeut whereby they are
likely to be governed for a long time. The work of prepar¬
ing tbis charter has been more carefully and more thoroughly
done than on any similar occasion in the history of the city;
and before it is accepted it will have the advantage of Lhc
revision of one of the most capable constructive lawyers in
the United States. One may or may not approve of the
reforms which Governor Hughes has introduced into the
State government, but no one can question, not merely his
ability as a lawyer but his thorough understanding of the
principles upon which the efficiency of the American local
government must depend. The Public Service Commission
act was drawn with the hand of a master for the purpose of
fulfilling the political and administrative objects which it
was intended to accomplish; and while the same hand has
not been engaged upon the details of the new charter, that
piece of machinery will have the benefit of detailed criti¬
cism by Mr. Hughes. Moreover, there is every reason to
believe that Mr. William I\I. Ivins and his associates on the
Charter Commission have been guided in their work by, the
same correct principles—among which the principle of con-
centrative responsibility, and of making the' power adequate
to the responsibility is dominant. The preliminary draft of
the new charter published last year has in al! probability not
heen changed except in details; but until the flnal scheme
is definitely announced, it would be a waste of time to con¬
sider its specific provisions. In the meantime it is good
news that the essential provisions of the charter, as an in¬
strument of government, will be comparatively short, and
consequently easily understood. On the other hand, the ad¬
ministrative Code will be longer and will remain after the
instrument is adopted completely, subject in its details to
the judgment of the Board of Estimate, This is as it should
be, and if it Is adopted it will Constitute a long step in the
direction of genuine home rule. Of course, the Legislature
will retain the legal right to change any administrative regu¬
lations which the local authorities may see fit to adopt, but
if the Board of Estimate performs its duties well, an un¬
written law against interference may soon come to have the
force of a statute; and eventually such an unwritten law
might be embodied in a constitutional amendment. It is
also announced that the new charter authorizes the creation
of a central purchasing department headed by a single chief
who can be made responsible for the economical buying of all
the city's supplies. This is the reform so ably advocated
hy the Bureau of Municipal Research, and it may well be
the means of saving the city fully ten or fifteen per cent, of
this great item of expenditure. A purchasing department,
even if it were not under the control of a very efficient man,
could not conceal the traces of extravagance in the use and
the buying of supplies. Its operations would be accessible
to any investigator and a tendency to extravagance or graft
would be immediately discovered and checked.
IN the last issue of the Record and Gnide, Mr. Edgar J.
Levey made an able and interesting answer to the
criticisms which have been made against his assertion that
the increase in municipal expenditures should be approxi¬
mately commensurate with the Increase in population. In
venturing upon some further discussion, we do not wish to
be understood as merely trying to make a point or engage
in a controversy. Mr. Levey is unquestionably right in in¬
sisting that the municipal expenditure of New Yorlv is in¬
creasing, not only far more rapidly than it should, but at a
rate 'which, if it continues, will amount to the partial con¬
fiscation of real estate in this city; and the essential thing
is that the danger should be fuily understood and should
provoke aderjuate measures of protection- But one may
agree with Mr. Levey in his fundamental contention while
at the same time maintaining that the growth in municipal
expenditures may exceed in a measure the growth in popula¬
tion without imposing a grievous or a dangerous burden on
the taxpayer. When it is asserted that there is a world¬
wide tendeney for municipal expenditures to increase more
rapidly than the growth in population, it is scarcely fair to
answer, as Mr. Levey does, that this fact, if true, is merely
an indication of a pervasive rather than an exceptional guilt.
Would it not be more just to conclude that this general ten¬
dency is symptomatic of the necessity of meeting an equally
general economic condition and political need? It is as
difRcult to draw up an indictment against a practically uni¬
versal economic tendency as it is, in Burke's words, to draw
up an indictment against a people. Such indiscriminate
methods of condemnation should be left to the Socialists.
Among the great numbers of cities, which share with New
York the guilt of permitting their increase in expenditures
to run ahead of their increase in population, there are
some which are examples of municipal extravagance, but
there are others which are examples of thrifty and econom¬
ical management- If cities in this class cannot keep their
increase in expenditures even approximately commensurate
'^V'ith the gro'wth in population, it may be assumed that this
policy is the result, not of extravagance, but of the intelli¬
gent adaptation of means to an end- The end which they
seek to attain may be the strictly business one of spending
more money with the full expectation of getting a larger
sum in return, or it may be prompted by a desire to promote
the municipal welfare in some indirect but none the less
essential way. In the case of any particular city such spe¬
cific cases of expenditure are to be approved or disapproved
just in so far as the object is a desirable object, or just in
so far as the object being desirable, it is not purchased at
too high a cost- Any prejudice against expenditure, pro¬
vided it exceeds a certain proposition, may hamper efficient
municipal goverment just as effectually as does any tendency
to spend the city's money without the most careful scrutiny
of each particular case of expenditure as it arises. The
general tendency for municipal expenditures to increase
faster than the increase in population is due to the fact that
citv government, as a city grows in wealth and in the num¬
ber of its inhabitants, finds an increasing number of respon¬
sibilities thrust upon it, aud anybody who objects radically
to the whole tendency must be able to show that these re¬
sponsibilities ought not to be assumed. Such, as a matter
of fact, we take to be Mr. Levey's attitude- He objects in
principle to the general movement in the direction of what
is known as municipal socialism, which at bottom is simply
the more or less actual assumption of increasing municipal
responsibilities- He may be right or wrong in disapproving
this movement, but his disapproval must be based, not on
the mere fact that the increase in municipal expenditures are
exceeding the increase iu population, but that this propor¬
tionately increasing expenditure is unremunerative to the
city and to the individual taxpayer.
THE foregoing statement of our reasons for disagreeing
to this limited extent with Mr. Levey is necessarily ab¬
stract, but it can be made more concrete by applying the
principle involved to the- particular case of New York City.
The expenditures of New York are increasing, it is admitted,
not only far more rapidly than the increase iu population,
but at a rate which may prove to be practically confiscation
of real estate values. The questiton immediately arises as
to the cause of this condition and its possible cure- Munici¬
pal reformers are universally agreed that the cause ia partly
to he traced to a wasteful flnancial system—which in one way
or another occasions a loss to the city of many millions of
dollars a year, and in the near future their efforts and those
of the taxpayers' associations will be devoted chiefly to the
task of preventing the occurrence of this waste. Let us
assume, however, that this source of municipal extravagance
is eradicated and that a condition â– will be created in which
the city, whenever it spends five dollars, will get five dollars'
worth, either of labor or of supplies. Will the saving ef¬
fected by the doing away with financial aud administrative
abuges be sufficient to remove this threat of the confiscation