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 corporations. and social consideration. In return, they are expected to use 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 of purposes 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.

Dogmas in politics.

Politics under

public and private ownership.

The views that one encounters in the United States, which presume to settle all such practical questions in advance by the recital of dogmas touching the nature of government, would be deemed the merest silliness by practical men in Europe. Those men see no possible reason why a modern government which is, after all, nothing but the organization of the people for their own benefit, should not render the public any service which upon careful inquiry it may be agreed that the government can render with actual and permanent advantage to itself and the citizens.

215. Politics and Public Utilities *

Professor John R. Commons, as a member of the Civic Federation's Commission on Public Ownership, made an extensive study of the relation of municipal enterprises to politics, and prepared a number of valuable reports from which a few brief extracts are given here:

I take it that the key to the whole question of municipal or private ownership is the question of politics. For politics is simply the question of getting and keeping the right kind of men to manage and operate the municipal undertakings, or to supervise, regulate and bargain with the private undertakings. The kinds of business that we are dealing with are essentially monopolies performing a public service, and are compelled to make use of the streets which are public property. If their owners are private companies they are compelled to get their franchises and all privileges of doing business, and all terms and conditions of service from the municipal authorities. And in carrying out their contract with the municipality they are dealing continually with municipal officials. Consequently it is absurd to assume that private ownership is nonpolitical. It is just as much a political question to keep and get honest or business-like municipal officials who will drive good bargains with private companies on behalf of the public and then see that the bargains are lived up to, as it is to get similar officials to operate a municipal plant. We do not

escape politics by resorting to private ownership - we only get a different kind of practical politics. . . .

...

This can be tested by the situation of the Wheeling Gas Works. The secretary of the Wheeling Gas Trustees, quoted by my colleague as testifying to the political rottenness of the municipal gas works, is the same man who testified to the political rottenness of the private gas, electricity and street car companies of that locality. Instead of relying on his statements, I interviewed a large number of officials, politicians, business men, employees and others, and checked up his statements respecting both the gas works and the corporations. This shows that while the gas works are in politics, the public-service corporations are also in politics. The gas employees take part in the primaries of the Republican party and the motormen and conductors of the street car companies are given leave of absence on pay to work in the primaries of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Even the officers of the street railway employees' union take part in this kind of traction politics on behalf of their employees. The councilmen and aldermen nominated in this way control the municipal gas works and they control the franchises and contracts of the private companies. The "City Hall Ring" is just as much a ring of the political tools of the private corporations as it is a ring of municipal politicians. To pick out the politics of the gas works and not to see that it is bound up with the politics of the private corporations would be a perverse and one-sided method of investigation.

In cities other than Wheeling the convention system prevails instead of the direct primaries, and consequently it was not found that the wage earners of the private companies took a similar active part in political campaigns. But in Syracuse, Allegheny, Indianapolis and Philadelphia, where municipal employees are named by politicians, it was found also that street car, electric, gas and water companies had employed men on the recommendation of councilmen, mayor or chairman of a political committee. This practice was carried furthest by the street car companies of Syracuse and

The case of the Wheeling

Gas Works.

Politics and

private ownership.

Political appointments.

Organization for conferences.

Allegheny. In Chicago, where a most rigid civil service law is enforced, no evidence of political appointments could be found in the municipal electricity or water departments during recent years, but men were hired on recommendation of aldermen by the private electrical companies at the time when their contracts were before the council for renewal.

There is a distinction which has been found in all of these cases between political appointments in municipal undertakings and political appointments by franchise corporations. The alderman or mayor who secures the appointment of a political supporter on a municipal job exerts himself just as much to retain that man in his job as he did to get the appointment for him. But both he and his supporters take a different view when the appointment is secured with a street railway, gas or electric company. The alderman then says, "I get the job for you, but you must make good; I cannot keep the job for you; the company has the right to discharge you if you don't do your work." It is for this reason that the private company has an advantage over the municipal management under the spoils system, for it can get rid of a political appointee after trying him out and finding him inefficient.

216. The Labor Problem in a City Department

During his remarkable administration of the street cleaning department in the city of New York, Colonel George E. Waring devised this plan to secure harmonious coöperation on the part of the employees:

In order to establish friendly and useful relations between the men in the working-force and the officers of the department, I shall be glad to see an organization formed among the men for the discussion of all matters of interest. This organization will be represented by five spokesmen in a "board of conference,” in which the commissioner will be represented by the general superintendent, the chief clerk, one district superintendent, one section foreman, and one stable foreman. It is suggested that the men who gather at each section station and the men at each stable (with

the boardmen from the nearest dumps) each elect one of their number to represent them in a general committee of forty-one (thirty-two from section stations and nine from stables), and that this general committee elect the five spokesmen by whom it is to be represented in the Board of Conference.

representatives.

The general committee will meet in a room, to be provided for Meetings of it, at 2 P.M. every Thursday, except the third Thursday of each month. The members will not have their time docked for this. Their meetings will be secret, and they will be expected to discuss with perfect freedom everything connected with their work, their relations with the commissioner and his subordinates, and all questions of discipline, duties, pay, etc., in which they are interested, or which their sections, stables, and dumps may have submitted to them.

ferences.

The Board of Conference will meet at 2 P.M. on the third Thurs- Conference for adjustday of each month, or as near to this date as the exigencies of the ment of difwork will allow. The ten members of the Board of Conference will be on a perfect equality. It will establish its own organization and rules of procedure, and will elect one of its members permanent chairman and another permanent secretary, one of these to be chosen from the five officers, and another from the five spokesmen. It is hoped that this board will be able to settle every question that may come up to the satisfaction of all concerned, because most differences can be adjusted by discussions in which both sides are fairly represented. Should any matter arise as to which the board cannot come to a substantial agreement, the permanent chairman and the permanent secretary will argue the case before the commissioner, who will try to reach a fair conclusion upon it.