in administration. Whatever the plan of municipal govern-ment, however carefully devised, and by whomsoever attempted to be carried out, it is always and everywhere a failure unless the merit principle obtains in the municipal public service and the measure of the failure is the extent of the violation of this principle.

But while it is true that civil service reform is an administrative reform, the existence or absence of the merit principle in the public service is also a decisive factor indetermining important questions of purely municipal policy. Shall the city own or operate its system of intra mural transit? Shall it provide its own system of lighting? Shall it undertake on an adequate scale the economical and sanitary disposition of the city's waste? Shall it establish museums and libraries? Shall it have an intelligent system of large and small parks? Shall the management and improvement of its water front be a matter of public or private enterprise? The mere aggregation of population within a small area creates innumerable sources of revenue; shall these be utilized for the profit of the public treasury? Shall the city go on indefinitely giving away to private individuals the income its own existence creates and which its own needs require? Must the tax rate go ever higher while the almost exhaustless streams of the city's wealth forever flow into private coffers? These are some of the questions confronting the policy determining authority of every considerable city in this and other countries. Where the merit principle prevails we know what are the answers to these questions. Where the merit principle is absent or is but lamely applied we also know the answers. And in a democratic country these answers are breeding a popular unrest and a political discontent that may well make thoughtful men pause. baleful compact between the political "boss" and the corporation which exists by public favor and lives by or on the public revenue, if it continues, means the sure destruction of our present form of government, and what may then take its place let wiser men than I foretell.

The

The powerful forces underlying modern industrial civilization are driving a larger and larger proportion of the population into the cities. In our older States the city dweller already constitutes the majority in the electorate. The City vote chooses the majority of the State legislature. The boss

of the most populous city in the State aspires to be and often is the boss of the State. What makes this possible? Is there any doubt that not the least important reason is the fact that the merit principle is not rigidly enforced in the municipal civil service? Imagine, if you can, a city boss without patronage or hope of any, with nothing to give and nothing to promise save at his own personal expense. Is it not true that so long as the merit principle is absent in municipal administration a corrupting political force is steadily at work producing the political boss and that not only successful municipal government is impossible but the unclean municipal politics begets unclean state politics and steadily tends to create a national government after its own kind? On the other hand, imagine New York City, Buffalo, Troy, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and the lesser cities of New York State each a city without political patronage within its limits, each a city in whose public service the merit principle wholly prevailed. Municipal government in the State of New York would no longer be a problem.

Civil Service Reform is not by any means the only reform needed, nor will good government be accomplished without the aid of other vital reforms; but every stride forward in Civil Service Reform brings their accomplishment nearer, makes their success more sure; and it is certain that a successful municipal government without the observance of the merit principle in its civil service is unthinkable.

The Municipal Situation in Ohio.

BY RUFUS B. SMITH.

When the forefathers of this republic wrested this country from European and monarchical domination and estab lished the people of the country as its sole rulers, they doubtless believed that no time would arrive when in the slightest degree the people would cease to eagerly and diligently participate in the management of its public affairs.

The country, however, has rapidly developed large cities whose material interests are large, varied and complex, whose government requires the constant employment of thousands of persons, whose annual expenditures run into the millions, but the majority of whose citizens give but little, if any attention to its affairs; either because their private affairs require their almost exclusive attention, or, as said by Mr. Bryce, because "The population is so large that the individual citizen feels himself a drop in the ocean, his power of affecting public affairs seems insignificant, and his pecuniary loss through overtaxation or jobbery or malversation is trivial in comparison with the trouble of trying to prevent such evils."

The result has been what naturally would be expected. The political power of the cities has passed into the control of the few who are willing to make a business of politics, and to devote a large part, and in some cases their entire time and energy to it.

That the citizens of the large cities of the United States are dissatisfied with the government which this few gives them, is a proposition which is so generally conceded that it seems almost unnecessary to affirm it. If denied, one has to read only casually any of the metropolitan journals with the charges and counter charges they contain of maladministration, with the abundant evidence they furnish in most cases to support the charges; to observe the frequency with which legislatures change the form of city governments, in the hope of find

ing some form which will obviate all evils; to observe the apparently fickle and bewildered manner in which the people vote into power first one party and then another party or one set of men under the name of a party and then another set, and again return to those at first voted out and back again, progressing always in a circle and never forward; to note the public expressions of opinion in all assemblies of men that are not partisan in character; or to hear the expressions of opinion on every side in private life.

The large cities of Ohio constitute no exception in the matter of municipal government to the other large cities of the Union. The same conditions surround them that surround the other cities of the country. They are no better and they

are no worse.

It is believed, however, by those who are in sympathy with the purposes of this association that the great, underlying radical cause of the mis-government of American cities, is their failure to recognize and apply the principles for which this association contends; and that if the people of the large cities of Ohio will recognize this fact they will find in it a solution of this vexed and unsettled problem of municipal government.

What is the vital principle of civil service reform ? To what extent has it been applied in the large cities of Ohio? Has the failure to apply it been a potent cause of their misgovernment? Is there any reason why it should not be generally adopted as a part of a permanent municipal policy in Ohio? These and kindred questions are pressing for solu

tion in this State.

The vital principle of civil service reform is simply this: That the person in the community best fitted to discharge the duties of a subordinate non-elective position and who is willing to serve shall be appointed to the same, and that he shall continue to serve until death, old age or other sufficient cause affecting his competency to discharge the duties of the office. disqualify him from longer service.

To what extent has this principle been applied in the municipalities of Ohio?

Generally speaking, it may be stated that it was early recognized by the people of Ohio that the teachers in the public schools and the subordinates in the fire departments must not be changed at every municipal election if the degree of effici

ency which is necessary to make such departments successful is to be secured. Consequently, long before any laws had found their way upon the statute books, permanency of tenure, with removal only for cause, came to be demanded by public opinion, and constituted a sort of unwritten law which officials dared not, at least, openly or generally, violate. Within recent years, however, this public opinion has found partial expression in the statutes, and in 1895 a law was passed which declared that all teachers who shall have served seven successive years in the public schools of cities of the first grade of the first class, whether before or after or partly before or after the passage of the act should when appointed hold their positions until removed by death, resignation or for cause.

This act has placed several hundred of the teachers of this city upon a legal basis of permanent tenure and every year adds many to their number.

It is also provided by law that no teacher shall be employed in any public school of the State who has not shown himself or herself qualified by passing a required examination, and receiving a certificate of competency; but unfortunately the selection from those holding a teacher's certificate is entirely a matter of favor with the appointing power.

As respects the fire departments, it is also now provided by law that in this City and in Cleveland, Toledo and Dayton, no subordinate can be removed except for cause, although the power of removal is with the board that appoints and no examination of competency is required by law before an appointment can be made.

It will thus be seen that the statutory provisions with respect to the public schools and the fire departments are not as complete or as wide in their application as the true principles of civil service reform would demand; yet many of these deficiencies are supplied by an enlightened public opinion which makes a certain unwritten law in regard to the same.

As a result of this written and unwritten law the appointees in these departments abstain from active participation in politics and are never openly, at least, a part of any political machine; and the departments, especially when compared to the other departments of municipal government, may be said to be upon a fairly satisfactory basis, with much to be hoped for, it is true, but with a steady development in the right direc