cises were also held on this day in the Public Square by the Old Settlers' Association. "Orphans' Day" was conducted on August 7th under the auspices of the Cleveland Automobile Club. The hundreds of inmates of the Cleveland Orphan Asylums were given a ride through the city's parks and treated to a lunch at Gordon Park. ... On account of the mildness of the weather, the main events in Winter sports. the winter sports program had to be abandoned. However, a number of carnivals were held on the small corner lot skating rinks. Besides the seven park lakes, 35 of these made-ponds were in operation during the winter of 1905-1906. During the present winter there are four rinks less than last year in operation, due to the fact that some of the lots formerly used have been built upon and that it is becoming harder to secure suitable locations adjacent to water facilities. athletics. During last summer 20 baseball diamonds were maintained in Provision for the parks and 30 on vacant lots in different parts of the city. Seven leagues were accommodated almost entirely on these grounds each Saturday afternoon, while the demands from independent teams for grounds by far exceeded the number available, notwithstanding the fact that the afternoon was divided so as to provide for two games being played on each diamond. Eight foot-ball gridirons were laid out in the parks. Two of these were exclusively for socker football. The golf links of 43 acres in Gordon Park were largely used during the golf season. On account of the proximity of the new shelter house to the links, and the consequent danger of injury being inflicted on the spectators and park visitors, the links will be established in Woodland Hills Park the coming season, where the space for playing this game is larger and more suitable. A cricket ground is located in Gordon Park. This is cared for and the materials furnished by the Cleveland Cricket Club. Three tennis courts were equipped in the parks last sumtwo at Garfield Park and one at Edgewater. mer During the past summer this department maintained public Playplaygrounds in four of the parks, - Clinton, Fairview, Lincoln grounds. Competition Sanitary undertakings. Revenueproducing utilities. and Washington, and on four vacant lots in congested sections of the city. These grounds are equipped with basket ball courts, travelling and flying rings, sliding bars, swings, giant strides, turning poles, horizontal and parallel bars, trapezes, teeter-boards and ladders and sand piles. Each ground is in charge of an instructor, who improvises games for the entertainment of the children. The instructors are young men with college training, who are familiar with athletic work. 213. The Question of Municipal Ownership In 1907 the National Civic Federation appointed a Commission on Public Ownership which made a careful and exhaustive investigation into municipal utilities in Great Britain and the United States. At the conclusion of the work the Commission agreed on the following general principles: First, we wish to emphasize the fact that the public utilities studied are so constituted that it is impossible for them to be regulated by competition. Therefore, they must be controlled and regulated by the government; or they must be left to do as they please; or they must be operated by the public. There is no other course. None of us is in favor of leaving them to their own will, and the question is whether it is better to regulate or to operate. There are no particular reasons why the financial results from private or public operation should be different if the conditions are the same. In each case it is a question of the proper man in charge of the business and of local conditions. We are of the opinion that a public utility which concerns the health of the citizens should not be left to individuals, where the temptation of profit might produce disastrous results, and therefore it is our judgment that undertakings in which the sanitary motive largely enters should be operated by the public. We have come to the conclusion that municipal ownership of public utilities should not be extended to revenue-producing industries which do not involve the public health, the public safety, public transportation, or the permanent occupation of public streets or grounds, and that municipal operation should not be undertaken solely for profit. We are also of opinion that all future grants to private companies for the construction and operation of public utilities should be terminable after a certain fixed period, and that meanwhile cities should have the right to purchase property for operation, lease, or sale, paying its fair value. Terminable franchises. States should give certain cities. To carry out these recommendations effectively and to protect the rights of the people, we recommend that the various states should give their municipalities the authority, upon popular vote powers to under reasonable regulations, to build and operate public utilities, or to build and lease the same, or to take over works already constructed. In no other way can the people be put upon a fair trading basis and obtain from the individual companies such rights as they ought to have. We believe that this provision will tend to make it to the enlightened self-interest of the public utility companies to furnish adequate services upon fair terms, and to this extent will tend to render it unnecessary for the public to take over the existing utilities or to acquire new ones. Our investigations teach us that no municipal operation is likely Conditions to be highly successful that does not provide for: First-An executive manager with full responsibility, holding his position during good behavior. Second-Exclusion of political influence and personal favoritism from the management of the undertaking. Third Separation of the finances of the undertaking from those of the rest of the city. Fourth-Exemption from the debt limit of the necessary bond issues for revenue-producing utilities, which shall be a first charge upon the property and revenues of such undertaking. 214. The Case for Municipal Ownership Dr. Albert Shaw, a distinguished student of municipal government, has succinctly summed up the case for public ownership as follows: of successful operation. Monopolies should belong to the community. Politics and public utilities. Municipal legal advisers. All the monopolies of service, such as gas, water, trams and the like, should belong to the community. Simplify the administration, trust the people, give the municipality plenty to do, so as to bring the best men to the work, keep all the monopolies of service in the hands of the municipality, and use the authority and influence of the municipality in order to secure for the poorest advantages in the shape of cheap trams, healthy and clean lodgings, baths, wash-houses, hospitals, reading rooms, etc. The pressure that would be brought to bear on the government to produce corruption under municipal ownership of monopolies like gas, electric light, transit, etc., would be incomparably less than the pressure that is now brought to bear by the corporations. The wear and tear upon the morals of a weak municipal government are greater by far when it comes to the task of granting franchises that is to say, of making bargains with private corporations than when it is attempted to carry out a business undertaking directly on the public account. Thus jobbery and rascality, wastefulness of public money, and bad results in the end, are more likely to be the outcome when the contract system is used in street cleaning, paving and various other public works, than when the municipality employs its own men to clean its own streets, lay its own pavements, and do its own public work on direct municipal account. Our municipal officials are elected or appointed for short terms. The city's legal advisers draw small salaries, and have no expectation of remaining in the public employ for more than a few brief years at most. They hope and expect after leaving the public employ to find lucrative private practice. Such practice can hardly be obtained except through the favor of the rich corporations. What motive, therefore, could impel the legal advisers of an American municipal government to fight desperately for the public interest as against the great array of legal talent representing those corporations that seek to gain, to enlarge or to renew franchises, on terms prescribed by themselves? In studying German contracts one is always impressed with a sense of the first-class legal, financial and technical ability that the public is able to command, while American contracts always impress one with the unlimited astuteness and ability of the gentlemen representing the private corporations. The ablest lawyers retained The ablest lawyers in all our cities are retained by these private corporations. They are given fat fees, directorships, stocks and bonds, and all sorts of pecuniary emoluments, besides political by corand social consideration. In return, they are expected to use porations. their sharp wits, their technical knowledge of corporation law, and their training in the practical art of politics, to get the better of the community at large, and thus to retain or obtain for the benefit of their respective corporations very valuable public privileges, which ought not to be granted at all except upon the payment of their full value, with their exercise always subject to full public control. When municipal franchises and privileges are to be granted, it is not the municipal authorities that make the terms, but the private companies. The laws and ordinances that have to do with the granting of these privileges are carefully prepared by the attorneys of the corporations. They are never drafted by the legal representatives of the state or the city. The enormous sums of money contributed for purposes of political control by the corporations enjoying municipal supply privileges, have given us the boss system in its present form. And the boss system, which, in fact, knows no distinction of political party, is fast destroying state and municipal government as the steadfast and loyal servitor, defender and promoter of the public interest. We find public and municipal authority and prestige weak and low; while the authority and prestige of private corporations engaged in such services of municipal supply as public illumination and street transit are enormously active and strong, No such relative disparity as that between the prestige and strength of municipal government and the prestige and strength of private corporate influence, exists anywhere in the world. Direct ownership and operation would at least tend to build up the municipal government on the side of its dignity and prestige. The source of boss rule. |