CHAPTER XIX

A HINT FOR MUNICIPAL POLICY

San Francisco.

MUNICIPAL government in America has an evil
reputation* Lord Bryce described it as the
weakest spot in American democracy—a descrip-
tion quoted to me with emphatic approval by
the Mayor of Detroit in the course of a conver-
sation I had with that enlightened gentleman on
the distressful state of the universe in the year of
grace 1932. But here again we must be careful
not to generalize too hastily. While the govern-
ment of some American cities, great ones, too,
is corrupt and inefficient to a degree which
suggests the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah as a
fitting end to it all, others, like Milwaukee and
Cincinnati, have cleaned out their Augean stables,
set their house in order and put their govern-
ments on a footing that makes them an example
to mankind. And this, I think, may be fairly
said; in spite of the fact that some of these
city governments have fallen into such a condition
that democracy might well be an invention of
the enemy of the human race, most of them show
concern with matters which municipal govern-

O 30!