Unfortunately the splendid example set by the South Park Board of Chicago has not been followed very extensively by other cities. Unquestionably, however, all our cities will soon recognize play as an essential part of an educational system, and healthful recreation for adults as indispensable to the maintenance of a high standard of physical comfort and efficiency.

Cities are also recognizing to some extent the place of personal cleanliness in the general scheme of things and are making provision for public baths. The law of the state of New York makes the construction of free baths obligatory upon cities with over 50,000 inhabitants and permissible for others. In 1908, the investment of the city of New York in municipal baths amounted to $3,000,000, and eight large bathing places were in operation in the borough of Manhattan alone. Boston also has an extensive system of public baths and provides instruction in swimming;

mental lesson of thoughtfulness for others. Keep in mind that we are public servants, employed to serve the public as experts in all that our profession implies, and that we are engaged in a work which, if properly conducted, is perhaps better calculated to raise the standard of good citizenship than any other single agency in the hands of public servants.

"It is of the greatest importance that all work be undertaken in the light of the objects sought, as follows:

"First, to take children from the streets and alleys and give them a better environment and safer place in which to play. This will relieve the parents of care and anxiety -as well as truck drivers, street car men, policemen, and others who are involved in the care of children.

"Second, to encourage working boys and girls and adults to spend the idle hours in a wholesome environment and away from questionable amuse

ments.

'Third, to encourage both children and adults to give attention to personal hygiene - exercise and bathing chiefly.

"Fourth, to furnish wholesome amusement for adults and others who do not participate in the activities of the gymnasium, athletic and play fields. "Plan your work, then, and carry it forward with the well-defined idea that you are striving, first, to attract both children and adults to your gymnasium, play and athletic fields; second, that after you get them there you must interest and hold them until the habit of frequenting your gymnasium is established; third, that you do all you can by means of your gymnasium programme, athletics, plays, and games, to 'set up' the frame, encourage bathing, teach skill, courage, and a wholesome respect for the rights of others." From The American City, October, 1909.

1 New York City has endeavored to attract the people to the water front by building recreational piers above the regular docks so as not to interfere with traffic, and by providing music at these places on summer evenings.

Chicago, Buffalo, Baltimore, and Louisville, and in fact nearly all cities of any importance, have their bath-houses open all the year round. This municipal function has not been developed in the United States to the same extent, however, as in Europe, but this is largely due to the fact that the sanitary arrangements of our tenements and private houses are more advanced.

These various experiments in municipal reform, valuable as they undoubtedly are, by no means solve the most fundamental problems of modern urban life; but these problems are connected with the larger questions of poverty, industry, transportation, agriculture, and the development of our natural resources — questions which fall within the domain of economics rather than of government strictly speaking. Nevertheless, it would give an entirely mistaken notion of the nature and scope of government to pass over without notice some of the more purely municipal issues.

At the outset there is the grave problem of overcrowding, which has reached such an alarming condition, that in New York City the death rate, 16.5 per thousand in 1908, was higher than in Berlin or London, where it was 15.4 and 13.8 per thousand respectively. It is now well established that the death and sickness rates fluctuate with the wages and home conditions of the people. It is authoritatively stated that the "annual economic waste from preventable diseases in New York City ranges from $37,000,000 to $40,000,000," and this is largely due to overcrowding. Furth rmore "the density of population increases with the decrease of wages and overcrowding is greatest where wages are lowest."

The land question of the city takes, therefore, first rank at the present time. It is a well-known fact that the value of ground in our large cities increases with astonishing rapidity not through the effort of the owners or of any single private individual, but through the growth of industry and population. The following figures, showing the appreciation in the value of the land alone in certain New York City blocks, illustrate this statement in a concrete way; and it must be noted that these blocks are not within the very heart of the city where the pressure of the population is greatest:

1 Rowntree, Poverty (London, 1901), and Hunter, Poverty (New York, 1904.)

The recognition of the fact that an enormous annual tribute of "unearned increment" is paid to the owners of city lands without any service in return on their part has led a group of reformers, known as the "single taxers," to advocate the diversion of this money to the public treasury by way of taxation. Mr. Henry George, who was the founder of this movement in America, declared that this single tax absorbing all unearned increment in land values would "raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crimes, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights." Without sharing this generous hope or examining the several objections which may be brought against the rigid application of the single tax doctrine, one may certainly conclude, with Professor Seager, that a gradual increase in the proportion of the municipal taxation that falls on land, as distinguished from improvements and different forms of personal property, is much to

1 H. B. Woolston, A Study of the Population of Manhattanville (Columbia University Studies), p. 155; the table is based on the official assessors' lists. 2 Seager, Economics: Briefer Course, p. 434.

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be desired. "There is reason to think," continues Professor Seager, "that especially in large cities absentee landlordism is becoming more and more the rule for the simple reason that more and more people are coming to live in tenement and apartment houses. If this is the case there may be good ground for the contention that the system of private property in land is ceasing to serve any useful purpose in cities which the system of public ownership would not serve as well, and that the time is ripe for a gradual transition to the latter." 2

The land question is involved in another fundamental problem, - how to plan a city with a view to its future growth, the health, comfort, employment, and standard of life of all of the inhabitants. The use of a little foresight, the adoption of a sound public policy, and a greater disregard for that clamor which would transform every public utility into private property would have saved the lives of countless thousands of city dwellers in the United States and would have made the living conditions to those who survived infinitely more tolerable. Every day that social control over city planning is delayed makes more difficult the problem of securing to the people the social values created by the growth of cities, and of providing proper air, light, and sunshine for the city dwellers in a word, the great problem of making the city a place where the standard of physical efficiency, upon which in the long run the very existence of the nation itself de

1 Table showing the percentage of inhabitants of great cities owning their own homes.

Goodnow, City Government in the United States, p. 15.

Economics: Briefer Course, p. 434.

pends, may be maintained at the highest point. There is no room here to dwell at length upon this important and technical branch of public economy.' Whoever doubts the part that will be played in the future by scientific city planning may compare the broad avenues and streets of Washington with the narrow, dark, dismal, and crooked lanes of the older parts of Boston and New York.2

Municipal Ownership

In connection with the extension of the activities of the municipality, has arisen the question of how far these functions should be given over to private companies and contractors and how far they should be conducted by municipal authorities themselves. Street railways, gas, electric light and water plants, and many other municipal utilities are in the nature of things monopolies, so that competition seldom enters as a factor in regulating prices and services. For example, it is clear that there can only be one street car line on any street and the company which owns any such line, if free from public control, may fix any charge which the "traffic will bear."

In the beginning of our municipal history the nature of municipal monopolies was not understood by state legislators, or, if understood, it did not deter them from bestowing almost priceless public privileges, without restrictions, upon private interests. The story of these franchises and the corruption connected with them makes one of the most sordid pages in the history of our country; but fortunately within the last decade there has come a gradual awakening of public sentiment on the question, and the day of free and uncontrolled exploitation of municipal monopolies seems to be about past.

An examination of the present methods of conducting munici

1 See B. C. Marsh, An Introduction to City Planning, and H. I. Triggs, Town Planning. (London, 1909.)

"A

2 There is now on foot in Boston a "1915 Movement," designed to enlist widespread conscious effort in improving the city. It is described as city movement organizing the coöperation of all agencies which want to do things for industrial and civic improvement; a city plan coördinating the proposals of all agencies which want things done into a programme which the public can understand and carry out; a city calendar setting dates ahead when parts of the programme can and ought to be carried out."