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to manage the affairs of the city, but should employ an expert city manager and fix his duties and salary. Under this plan the salaries of the three commissioners, or councilmen, aggregated seven hundred dollars, leaving them to spend two thousand five hundred dollars for a city manager without exceeding the amount allowed for the commission plan. The voters adopted the city manager plan by a large majority. Under it three commissioners of an unusually excellent type were elected, because capable men were willing to stand for office when it did not involve the total abandonment of their private business. The Mayor, or president of the commission, is a lawyer who had previously been Mayor of Sumter, and who had worked actively for the city manager plan. Of the other two commissioners or councilmen one is a farmer and the other is a banker and financier. The commission advertised for applications for the position of city manager last autumn, and were enabled to make their choice from among about one hundred and fifty applications. A practical engineer was finally selected, and he is now the city manager. His work must be satisfactory to the commission, and he holds his office only during the commission's pleasure. But he is free from political influence and political pressure, and is also free, we infer, to discharge inefficient employees, to hire efficient ones, and to adopt new methods or discard old methods, like a manager of a factory acting under a board of directors. In employing their manager the three commissioners of Sumter made no stipulation that he should be a resident of the town or of the State. They required only that he should be familiar with local conditions. The Southern States are showing a remarkably progressive spirit in many fields of activity. Nothing, however, that has been done in the South recently is more pregnant with possibilities for future civic welfare than this co-operation between the State Legislature and the city of Sumter in applying the idea of scientific management to city administration. In this work Sumter is responsible not merely to itself but to the whole country, and we hope the commissioners, the city manager, and the whole body of citizens will co-operate to make a success of the venture. It may mean much to the future history of the United States. It should be added that in its pamphlet, from which we get our information, the Sumter Chamber of Commerce refers to the fact that the city manager

plan is an effective embodiment of the short ballot principle, which is stated by its chief advocate, Mr. Richard S. Childs, as follows: First, only those offices should be elective which are important enough to attract and deserve public examination; second. very few offices should be filled by election at one time, so as to permit adequate and unconfused public examination of the candidates.

NEW YORK CITY'S PROBLEM What is the problem of New York City in the forthcoming municipal campaign?

If you draw on a map a square of which each side represents only seventeen and twothirds miles, you will have graphically expressed a little more than the total area of the city of New York. Into such a minute portion of the globe's surface are compressed an unthinkable number of men, women, and children a number approximately that of the entire population of Ohio, greater than that of Texas, the largest in area of the States of the Union, greater than that of several nations of Europe.

On this spot, where is to be found the most congested of the earth's population, there are people who have come from every portion of the earth. People who have lived apart, in isolation, in one quarter of the globe, have been thrust in with people of every other quarter of the globe. It is as if the Almighty, after developing separately many strains of humanity, were conducting a huge experiment in taking samples of all these strains, putting them all in this small space, and saying to them, "Now learn to live together.”

The problem of New York City is the problem of creating out of these human materials in this circumscribed area on the edge of the sea a self-controlled community of healthful, orderly, efficient, happy people. This is the problem that is before the people of New York in the forthcoming municipal campaign.

Health. These people are so congested, they must eat, sleep, work under such conditions of crowding, that no individual or group of individuals among them can secure self-protection against ill health. Some of the milk of New York City comes from Canada ! Some of it is forty hours old before even it reaches the city! This is part of the food supply

on which the lives of hundreds of thousands of babies depend. In a single block of houses in New York more people live than in

many a small city. Communicable disease in such a place has rich soil. That New York is a healthful place in which to live, as is shown by its low death rate, is one of the great proofs of the possibilities of self-government. In this respect the people-or rather the peoples-of New York are learning to live together. But the problem is a continuing one. The problem of self-government in New York is, in part, one of maintaining an improving conditions of health.

Order. These people live together under such conditions of crowding that there is always present the acute question of order. Anywhere anarchy is destructive-here it would be unimaginable chaos and ruin. The police problem of New York is not merely that of restraining the criminal and the vicious, it is the maintenance of orderly and regulated life. It is not a merely negative but a positively constructive force that is represented by the blue-coated police officer. The problem of self-government in New York is one of maintaining the power of self-regulation and selfdirection.

Efficiency. The people of New York work under conditions which, if left alone, would create unparalleled human waste, oppression, and misery. Against these conditions no individual or group of individuals can contend alone. The whole city must deal with them. The city must provide means by which the people can go to and fro between their homes and their places of work. If the means of transit are inadequate, no benevolence on the part of landlords can prevent the oppression of bad housing, or on the part of employers can prevent the oppression of industrialism, or on the part of parents the invasion of the home by the factory. The city must provide schools by which its children shall learn to be self-supporting, self-reliant citizens who can and will contribute their share to the wealth on which the city's material fabric must rest. This is not the only function of the schools, but it is the function that is related to the working conditions of the people. The city, too, must regulate and restrain those who take advantage of the presence of a massed population to exercise industrial power in disregard of human welfare. Not solely for the sake of competing with other cities, but also for the sake of securing justice for its own people, the city must regulate its own industrial conditions and promote the citizen's efficiency.

Self-Development. The people of New York, moreover, live under such conditions of crowding that individually they cannot secure means of recreation that makes work possible and of self-development that makes existence justifiable. The dwellers on the East Side of New York cannot secure by or for themselves access to the fresh air and the green fields and the open spaces of the country. They cannot individually acquire for themselves great paintings to hang on their walls, or libraries for their own shelves, or familiarity with the works of the great composers. And even if they had access to these lasting products of human use, they cannot of themselves individually cultivate the power to appreciate and value with discrimination the works of art that they might see or read or hear. It is not merely to make producers of wealth out of little children, but to make stronger, betterdeveloped, happier people out of both children and adults that a city like New York should maintain its system of public schools. It is to this end also that it is right for the city to reserve from claims of industry and from the demands of the house-builder areas of land for parks and playgrounds and recreation centers. It is to that end that it is right for the city to maintain museums of art and of natural science, libraries, municipal concerts, municipal theaters, and the like. That city is a failure which is merely a place where people are born, do their work, and die. Only that city approaches success which becomes a good place in which to live, a large household in which the spirit and purpose of the family are extended to include the whole community.

Here lies the problem of the government of New York City. It is this problem of making out of the five million heterogeneous people of New York a healthful, orderly, efficient, happy household, that confronts the city this year in its forthcoming municipal campaign.

That the great majority of the people of New York wish to make it into this sort of city there is no possible question. That the great majority realize that it cannot be so made by trusting to luck or to the mercy of "natural law" there is no doubt. There are in New York selfish, powerful interests that stand in the way of the realization of any such ideal, but they are not all-powerful. The duty that rests upon all who have the welfare of New York at heart is to come together on a common platform which shall

set forth this purpose in concrete form and specific recommendations.

They should consider such questions as the development and in some respects the reorganization of the public school system to make it not merely a means by which the elements of what is called a common education are taught, but a means by which the city's children shall be developed into useful and happy manhood and womanhood. Does this mean the supplying to the children by the city of nutritious and cheap school luncheons at cost? Does this mean the enlargement of the school-houses as places not merely of study but also of recreation? These are questions that might well be answered in such a platform.

Those who unite in this campaign should consider such questions as the extension of the powers and functions of the Department of Health to include not merely the supervision of the work of dealing directly with disease or the conditions that promote disease, but also the direction of work that will promote health and bodily vigor, so that it will no longer be true, as, to the shame of the city, it has been true in the past and is true now, that the physical proportions of a New York City child are determined by the place in which he lives and not by the inherent possibilities of the child himself.

Those who unite on such a platform should consider such questions as the enlargement of the functions of the police, so that the police officer will become more and more not merely an agent of restraint, but an adviser of the stranger, the helper of the unprotected, the embodiment of the people's power of public self-direction. In the light of recent revelations of corruption in the Police Department, it may seem strange and even humorous to suggest the enlargement of its powers. There is no other way, in fact, by which the power of evil, can be cast out except by substituting for it the power of good. One of the surest ways by which to make the Police Department a source of pride to the city is to give it work which will be a source of pride to the police.

And, not least, those who come together on this common platform should consider questions concerning the amelioration of the life of the common people and the provision for larger opportunities for them-not as a gift from a governing class in the city to the unfortunate, but as an attainment of common benefit by a self-governing people through self-government.

Those who come together on such a platform will find a common enemy. A constructive programme along these lines will inevitably lead to an anti-Tammany campaign. If the city's death rate has been year by year reduced, it has been in spite of Tammany Hall. It is Tammany Hall that is responsible for the misgovernment which has meant filthy streets, noisome tenements, unsanitary factories. There has never been a Mayor of the city or a Governor of the State who has sought to improve the health of the people of New York that has not had to fight Tammany. many. It is Tammany Hall, by its system of making city contracts opportunities not for public benefit but for private graft, which has done its best-or rather its worst-to turn the resources of the city away from real public use. It is Tammany Hall that has used the public schools not as a means for developing the children of the city, but as a means for distributing political benefits to favorites. It is Tammany Hall that has provided the Police Department with its "system" by which officers of the law have been in partnership with the breakers of the law, and the protectors of the people have been in partnership with their oppressors and corrupters. It is Tammany Hall that has resisted the movement to make the administration of the city's affairs efficient, and has, by encouraging inefficiency, obstructed the efforts of the people to secure the amelioration of city life and the opportunities for physical, mental, and moral self-development.

The forthcoming campaign will be inevitably. an anti-Tammany campaign if it is built on a great constructive programme for the securing of a great municipal ideal. What such a programme should be we do not here discuss in detail. That it should include a definite plan for the reorganization of the public schools, a definite plan for the municipal ownership of all means of transit, including the railway development and dock improvement of the West Side, a definite plan for the reorganization of the police force with the concentration of power in the head of the police, a definite plan for rendering even more responsible than at present the elected officers of the municipality and its sub-divisions, a definite plan for the selection of candidates responsible to the people and committed to a coherent municipal programme, and a definite plan for the enlargement of municipal functions, and for taking advantage of the recently increased measure of

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DON'T ASK HER

In The Outlook of April 19 was published an editorial entitled "Ask Her." We said that under the Constitution it devolves upon the men of the State to determine whether suffrage shall be conferred upon women, and that the men of the State have the right to know whether the women wish the suffrage; and we proposed a simple plan by which it would be perfectly easy for every woman who wished the suffrage to indicate that wish, so that the people might know whether it was wished by a majority, a large minority, or only a very small minority of women. We have now received five letters from suffragists, and the burden of these letters is, Don't ask her. The arguments which they present against asking women whether they wish the suffrage before the suffrage is conferred upon them may be briefly summarized as follows:

We did not ask the Negroes before we gave them universal suffrage.

We did not wait until the majority of women wished for higher education before higher education was provided for them.

Most men do not care to vote. The high percentage must be persuaded to turn out.

Women will not vote on the school question, but let there be some real issue, then the vote comes out."

Eighty per cent voted in the last November election in Colorado; eighty-four per cent of the men.

Whether a majority of the women wish to vote or not, it is the right of women to vote. "See the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution."

They do not have to vote if they do not want to. Why, then, deny the ballot to those who wish it because there are others who do not wish it?

It is their duty to vote, and both men and women ought to be compelled to vote, and fined if they fail to do so.

All the bad men vote against woman suffrage Is that not proof that we are on the right side?"

Some of the best-educated and most publicspirited men of the country favor woman

suffrage; therefore the question should not be left to the women.

If the women are indifferent, it is because they do not think. Put on them the duty of thinking and they will be compelled to think.

To all of which we reply briefly that the right to vote involves a duty of voting. If the ignorant, the vicious, and the corrupt can vote, the intelligent, the virtuous, and the honest are compelled to vote, not by a law which fines them, but by a conscience which compels them. Before the men determine whether this compulsion shall be put upon the women, they have a right to know how many women wish to assume an obligation from which hitherto the women have been exempt.

Incidentally, we question the statement that eighty per cent of the women of Colorado voted in the November election. No statistics were given by our correspondent to verify this statement. The Supreme Court of the United States has held that "the Fifteenth Amendment does not confer, the right of suffrage upon any one." Suffrage is not a right within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. It must be regarded either as a privilege conferred or as a duty imposed. We resent the implication that the bad men are against woman suffrage and the good men in favor of it, and that the thoughtful women are in favor of the suffrage and thoughtless women are opposed to it. There are many women who have not thought on the subject at all; but the women who are opposed to the suffrage have studied. it quite as carefully as the women who favor it. That many good men are actively opposed to woman suffrage is demonstrated by the letter of Cardinal Gibbons to Mrs. Robert Garrett, who presided over a great anti-suffrage meeting recently in Baltimore. The reasons which lead many thoughtful persons, both men and women, to oppose the suffrage are well expressed by him in this letter, from which we quote two paragraphs:

Equal rights do not imply that both sexes should engage promiscuously in the same pursuit, but rather that each sex should discharge those duties which are adapted to its physical constitution and are sanctioned by the canons of society.

The sad results likely to follow in our own country from an active participation in political strife are foreshadowed by the scenes which are daily occurring in England, where women, many

of them of refined education, are ruthlessly pursued by the mob and are protected from physical violence only by the interposition of the police.

The fact that practically all woman suffragists are opposed to asking women whether they wish the vote or not confirms our belief that only a small minority of women favor this political revolution. And we repeat

what we have often affirmed before-that it is neither democratic nor just to impose on woman the duty of sharing the responsibility involved in active participation in government without first ascertaining whether or not she wishes to assume this responsibility from which hitherto she has been exempt.

JAPANESE FRIENDSHIP

In spite of the apparently irreconcilable conflict in California, we believe that the people and the Government of the United States want the friendship of Japan and that the Japanese desire the friendship of the people of this country. For this reason it seems appropriate to call the attention of our readers again to the plan, already mentioned in these pages, of making St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo (an American institution under the direction of American surgeons and physicians) a really great international hospital.

From a small beginning, made fourteen years ago, St. Luke's has grown to an institution of eighty beds, with a staff of three foreign and ten Japanese doctors, a Nurses' Training School with thirty pupils and a Medical Society of about fifty Japanese members. The professors of the Medical Department of the Imperial University are consultants to the hospital in their several departments; and the foreign embassies and legations of Tokyo regularly avail themselves of the facilities of the institution. With the increasing number of foreign residents, visitors, and trustees, the capacity of the present hospital is inadequate to meet the growing demands being made upon it, and the time is ripe for building in Tokyo, as a development of the present St. Luke's, a much larger institution to be placed on an international basis by a fund to be raised partly in Japan and partly in the United States.

Dr. R. B. Teusler, a native of Virginia, a graduate of Johns Hopkins, and the Director of St. Luke's Hospital, is now in this country for the purpose of interesting

Americans in this international hospital for Tokyo. The present seems a peculiarly fitting time for Americans who are friendly to Japan, and desire to express their friendship, to co-operate in establishing this institution, which would exercise a very wide. influence indeed as a practical working example of American good will, fellowship, and friendly feeling for the Japanese people. The movement has the cordial support of the Prime Minister of Japan and many other public men of the highest rank in the Empire, and they have offered to make generous contributions towards erecting the new hospital, and to further its success in any way in their power.

A Council has been formed in New York City of representative men, who, after thorough investigation, fully indorse the plan for securing $250,000 at once to meet the offer from Japan and assist in establishing this practical Peace Institution. The United States Trust Company, 45 Wall Street, New York, will act as trustee, and will receive subscriptions for this fund to be distributed at the order of the Council, of which the Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom, ex-Minister to Japan, is President.

Japanese sentiment regarding this patriotic and humane plan proposed by Dr. Teusler is expressed as follows by Viscount Chinda, the present Japanese Ambassador to Washington:

I have no doubt that the scheme under consideration will be an inestimable boon to the Japanese and foreigners alike, and will, moreover, serve to promote the cause of international friendship and good will, so dear to all intelligent minds on both sides of the Pacific.

Dr. Teusler and his associate, Dr. Bliss, are giving all the proceeds of their private practice to the support of St. Luke's. These men deserve the support and encouragement of Americans in their effort to solve in a practical way the relation of our people with the Far East; and what has been accomplished in the past fourteen years gives them a right to ask for aid both in Japan and in America. The Japanese people are especially responsive to friendly advances, and the depth and extent of public sentiment aroused by a gift of this kind can hardly be realized by one who has not lived among them. In our judgment, this is one of the most practical and effective plans that have been proposed for the purpose of promoting good personal, political, and commercial relations between

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