ESTATE







BUILDERS





AND







NEW YORK, MAY 24, 1913





■■■■■■■■■■■■■■^^^





■   PROGRAM VS. PROTEST IN CITY ECONOMY

I                                         ---------------------------                                          I





Only After the Public Knows What Specific Things it Wants to Have Done
in the Next Four Years Will it Know How to Judge Candidates for Office.





-Article III, Part I-





B—tei.





By HENRY BRUERE, Director, Bureau of Municipal Research.





ON APRIL 8, 1913, a group of prom¬
inent citizens, who are also large
taxpayers or the representatives of large
taxpaying interests, issued a demand for
economy in city government. Year
after year, particularly in seasons when
thoughts of election arise, taxpayers
have  issued  similar  statements.

Taxpayers' Interest in Government.
To one who stops to think about it,
it is a remarkable thing that govern¬
ments are able to take by power of
taxation the large sums that they do
t?.ke from private property owners.
Think of it! In 1913, New York City
will collect out of the surplus earnings
of taxpayers $151,607,084.85. The econo¬
mist will say, and with justification, that
many of these taxpayers are only givina;
back to the city that which the city has
bestowed upon them through its growth.
The fact remains that they do give it
back, and each year in increasing sums.
Taxpayers' Interest in Efficiency.
Titne after time the suggestion has
been made that if taxpayers would con¬
tribute a small sum, a fraction of one
per cent, of their annual tax bills for
continuous observation of city business,
many times their contributions would be
saved to them in reduced tax bills. This
may be true, but it is also true that
taxpayers do not look upon the problem
of city expenditures with a single mind.
What is an imposition to one taxpayer
is a benefit to another. City expendi¬
tures are a complexity of balancing detri¬
ments and benefits. Taxpayer .\, who
prefers bottled water to the water which
the city supplies, because sometimes
Croton water is discolored and looks in¬
jurious, is in favor of spending $8,000.-
000 on a filtration plant. Taxpayer B.
to whom the cost of bottled water is of
no consequence, and who is assured that
discoloration does not mean danger in
the city's supply, looks with hostility
on an $8,000,000 filtration proposal.
Taxpayer A, whose children attend pri¬
vate schools, accepts as a burden of
citizenship or a duty of patriotism in¬
creasing taxes for schools. Taxpayer
B, whose children attend public school
will vote blinndfolded for any increase
in tax bills, if the increase is to be used
for public education.

Do All Taxpayers 'Want Economy?
The problem of economy in municipal
expenditures is a problem of ferreting
out those expenditures which benefit no
one and which work to the injury of all
ta.xpayers. Even when such expendi¬
tures are found, it is quite a diflferent
thing to arouse sufficient interest in tax¬
payers to lead them to take the neces¬
sary steps to compel economy. The fact
of being a taxpayer does not make a
man unwilling to tolerate and sometimes
to    participate    in    municipal    grafting.





Taxpayers own disorderly houses and
connive at police corruption; taxpayers
own saloons and connive at violation of
the excise law; taxpayers cause needless
expense to the city by failing to take
simple precautions against fire. These
conflicts between greed and law cost
taxpayers money for police salaries,
courts and jails. In no class of ex¬
penditure has the city been more wan¬
tonly exploited than in expenditures for
the purchase of land, but all real estate
bought in New York City for city pur¬
poses is bought from taxpayers. I have
yet to hear of a single case, although,
doubtless, it may have occurred, where
a taxpayer oflfered to sell his land to
the   city  at  assessed  valuation.

■Where Taxpayers are Blamable.

Taxpayers object to over-assessment,
but taxpayers have not made right as¬
sessment easy through the registration
of the true consideration rn sales. Tax¬
payers own the tenement houses of the
city, and taxpayers know or might eas¬
ily know the provisions of the tenement
house law and the sanitary code with
which they are required to comply; but
it costs the city hundreds of thousands
of dollars to make taxpayers comply with
these simple precautions against disease
and immorality.

Taxpayers as a class, therefore, are
neither for nor against efficient govern¬
ment, except at the moment when the
tax bill must be paid and eflficient gov¬
ernment promises a lower bill next time,

.\s a first step in obtaining real econo¬
my in city government I commend to
taxpayers in New York City considera¬
tion of those things which taxpayers
themselves can do to eflfect economy.

Welfare  vs.   Retrenchment.

My conviction is that it will continue
futile for taxpayers, as taxpayers, to pro¬
test against the increasing cost of gov¬
ernment, until the public is convinced
that better conditions of living can be
established as a result of city govern¬
ment activity, if the work of city govern¬
ment is made efficient, and waste is
eliminated.

The humblest citizen paying his taxes
in the diluted form of rent or increased
cost of food, but realizing that extrava¬
gance and corruption in city government
means less education for his children
and less health and protection for his
family, has a stronger motive and wider
potential influence for economy than can
be exercised by the .\stor estate with
all its  millions of taxable  property.

Two Things to Be Done.

Taxpayers, if they want lower taxes
and more service must do two things:

1. They must organize upon a posi¬
tive program of activity instead of a
negative  program   of   retrenchment.





2. They must continue day after day
to interpret waste and ineflficiency in
terms of deprivation of beneficial ser¬
vice.

The Bureau of Municipal Research,
whatever may have been its accomplish¬
ments, is unquestionably the only agency
ever established in any American city
that has worked consecutively for eight
years with the single purpose of obtain¬
ing efficiency in city government. Many
taxpayers contribute to the support of
the Bureau of Municipal Research. But
the Bureau never would have been estab¬
lished, nor would it ever have been able
to conduct its work on its present scope
had it not been able to obtain support
from men and women who want govern¬
ment to be efficient, not to lower tax
bills, but to save lives, improve the com¬
fort and convenience, and advance the
welfare of all the people of the city of
New York, and not merely those who
directly pay taxes,

A  Motive  Is  Necessary.

What is true in New York is true the
country over. So long as cities relied
upon the expected but rarely realized
eflfective protest of taxpayers to keep
down the cost of government or to make
government efficient, government con¬
tinued wasteful and ineflficient. But any
city, such as Des Moines, that comes to
realize that efficient city government
means advantageous commercial adver¬
tisement, and that wasteful city govern¬
ment means forfeiture of ability to
obtain improvements and satisfaction of
pressing demands for city betterment,
immediately acquires a motive that is
enduring for city efficiency.. The
whole commission government move¬
ment sprang out of Galveston's sudden
realization, as a result of its flood, that
every citizen of Galveston had a vital
interest in the efficiency of its city gov¬
ernment. The city government at that
juncture was the only agency competent
to relieve the needs of all citizens, and
in a position to undertake the work of
the town's reconstruction. This dra¬
matic episode has helped more than 250
cities now under the commission plan
to realize the relation of eflficient gov¬
ernment to  general  community  welfare.

The present administration of the city
government went into office pledged to
economy and efficiency, but it probably
never would have gone into oflfice had it
not been pledged to municipal owner¬
ship of rapid transit lines. The next
mayor will probably go iiito office
pledged to economy and eflficiency, but
from present appearances his election
will be aided more by his advocacy of
police reform than by his pledges to
economize. This will be true, despite
thfe fact that the most important steps
necessary to bring about efficiency in
the police are the same as those neces-