A Handbook of Civic Improvement

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A HANDBOOK

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CIVIC IMPROVEMENT

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HERMAN G. JAMES, J. D., Ph. D.

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A HA^DBOOK

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CIVIC IMPROVEMENT

BY

HERMAN G. JAMES, J. D., Ph. D.

Associate Professor of Government and Director of the

Bureau of Municipal Research and Reference,

University of Texas.

Author of Principles of Pncssian Administration, Applied
City Government, A Model Charter for Texas Cities,
A Model Civic Service Code for Texas Cities, What is
the City Manager-Plan'f etc.

THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY

734051

A8TOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDAtlOMA

R 1916 L

COPYRIGHT 1915

BY

HERMAN G. JAMES

• • ••

PREFACE.

This little book is intendend to do three things. In the
first place it is meant to show the average citizen and city
official alike what is to be expected of city government.
Thus, by setting up an ideal to strive after, it aims to edu-
cate the general public up to a higher expectation of results
from its city, with a corresponding willingness on the part
of the tax payers to furnish the necessary means for accom-
plishing those results. In the second place it is intended to
furnish to civic organizations a handy guide book for a com-
munity survey which shall set forth by convincing evi-
dence the short comings of their own community. It was
this aspect of the city government problem which first
suggested the present undertaking, because the author had
on various occasions been requested for assistance in direct-
ing the work of civic associations and clubs along effective
lines. The willingness and devotion were present for ac-
complishing great things, but the efforts lacked direction
and therefore largely came to naught. It is particularly
with the growing civic activity of womens' clubs in mind,
and to aid them in their work that this book is written,
though mens' organizations, and collegiate civic associations
can of course profit equally and use the book to the same
Vy" advantage. In the third place it is intended for use as a
laboratory guide in municipal science for college classes.

H. G. J.
*• University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 1915.

V

I

t

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter. Page.

I. What Is Good City Government? 7

II. Public Health — Food Supply 11

III. Public Health — Abatement of Nuisances. Col-
lection and Disposal of Garbage, Sewage, and
Other Wastes. School Hygiene 27

IV. Public Health — Treatment of Contagious Dis-
eases. Care of the Sick. Organization and
Powers of the Health Department..^ 39

V. Public Safety 49

VI. Public Education 60

VII. Public Morals ^ 73

VIII. Social Welfare 88

IX. City Planning 103

What is Good City Government?

"For forms of government let fools contest! Whatever
is best administered is best," wrote Pope many years ago.
As in the case of most epigrams the truth contained in the
saying is somewhat obscured by the evident exaggeration
involved, and yet it cannot be denied that there is a very
important fact expressed in the quotation. That the author
believes that forms of city government are of importance,
and of very considerable importance is evidenced else-
where.* That he believes the test of good city government in
actual practice to be the manner in which it is administered
is the underlying thesis of this work. In other words while
there are, in the author's opinion, very great differences in
the possibilities of good administration offered by different
forms of municipal organization, the quality of the gov-
ernment actually possessed by any city must be measured
by its activities. There have been and there are now cities
with forms of organization that are evidently defective,
viewed from a scientific point of view, and yet the admin-
istration of those cities surpasses in quality that found
elsewhere. On the other hand, instances are not lacking of
cities with admirable machinery and organization, whose
accomplishments are nevertheless of very inferior calibre.
The test of good city government in the concrete case is,

^Applied City Government; the Principles and Practice of City Charter Making:,
by Herman G. James. Harper & Brothers, New York, 1914.

7

8 What Is Good City Government?

therefore, that of actual accomplishment. Does the city
successfully meet the problems it has to solve, and does 4t
provide for the welfare of its inhabitants to the fullest pos-
sible extent? These are the important questions to be asked,
and it is one of the purposes of this book to facilitate the
answering of those questions in every city in which there
is an intelligent energetic group of persons interested in
having that question answered.

This leads us from the conception of good city govem-
men to that of good citizenship. What members of the
community are good citizens? The concept is evidently a
wider one than merely that of obedience to the laws, though
even this fundamental characteristic of good citizenship is
sometimes lacking among some of the so-called leading citi-
zens. Nor is the exercise of the electoral franchise the test
of good citizenship, for many men may vote regularly with-
out coming up to the standard, and conversely many women
may prove themselves good citizens without possessing the
vote. In fact for many women the problem of playing the
part of good citizens is a simpler one than for the ordinary
man because of the greater leisure they enjoy. For the
test of good citizenship lies in the existence of an intelligent,
continuing interest in the questions of good city government,
and that means the consecration of a certain amount of time
and energy to the study and investigation of the city's prob-
lefns and the way in which they are met. For this kind of
work organization is necessary, and that is another point
where women have the advantage over men, for the former
possess some readily adaptible form of organization in their
social or church clubs, while men usually find it necessary

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 9

especially to organize a civic club of some sort in order
to make the advantages of organization and co-operation
available. It is a promising development of recent years,
however, that so-called commercial clubs are actively in-
terested in improving the government of their city.

We have seen so far that good city government in a par-
ticular community is a government that properly performs
its functions, while good citizens from this point of view
are those who are actively interested in determining what
those functions are, in seeing if they are being performed,
and in insisting that if they are not matters should be im-
proved. Evidently the first step to be taken is the deter-
mination of what activities the city should engage in if it
claims to be a good instrument for the satisfaction of social,
that is, in this case, municipal needs. Now to a certain ex-
tent, of course, the importance and the very nature of the
community needs will vary with the size of the city. On
the other hand certain fundamental needs exist in every
city which has grown beyond the village stage and the
corresponding functions of the city government will vary
in magnitude rather than in quality according to the size
of the city. These fundamental municipal concerns will be
considered under the following heads; health, safety, mor-
als, education, social welfare, and civic beauty. These as-
X)ects of municipal life are not only the most important to
the average citizen as well as to the community as a whole,
but they are also the ones which are most easily subjected to
the inspection and control of the average lay citizen who is
not in a position to judge so easily of the efficiency of the le-
gal, engineering and financial aspects of the city adminis-

10 What Is Good City Government?

tration. After pointing out the various subjects that arise in
connection with these different fields of municipal activity
and showing what may be expected of a good city govern-
ment in their regard, there will follow in each chapter a set
of definite questions to be answered by actual investigation
of the city in which the reader lives, tending to facilitate
the answering of the question how far short the given city
government falls of what it should accomplish. With these
two fundamental inquiries answered, the good citizenship
of a community may be counted on to see to it that the defi-
ciencies are remedied as rapidly as resources will permit.

II.

Public Health.

Food Supply.

One of the most important of the municipal functions
to be considered, and the one perhaps that touches the av-
erage citizen most closely in his every day life, is the care
of the sanitary conditions of the community. It is in large
part owing to the conditions created by city life that the
public health problem becomes a serious one and therefore
it is an evident duty of the city to guard its inhabitants
against the dangers inherent in the congested conditions of
urban life. Municipal activities in the interest of public
health date back a long time in the history of cities, but
it is only in recent times that really effective measures for
safeguarding the health of urban communities have been
developed and applied. In former times the chief and fre-
quently the only phase of public health activities in the
cities was that of fighting epidemics of contagious diseases
and preventing their spread. To-day the main emphasis
in the work of an efficient city health department is placed
on preventing disease by eliminating insanitary conditions,
and so in reducing the necessity for curative measures.

We may consider the proper health activities of the city
therefore under two general heads, those which are pre-
ventive and those which deal with disease when it has al-
ready developed though of course in actual practice the two

12 Public Health — Food Supply

phases are not and cannot be absolutely separated. Under
the first head we may group the purity of the food supply,
the abatement of nuisances, the disposal of garbage and
sewage, and school hygiene. Under the second head we
may consider separately the protection against the spread
of contagious diseases, and the care of the indigent sick,
completing the consideration of the public health functions
of the city by a discussion of the proper* form of organiza-
tion and powers of the department of health.

Food Supply. Chief among the preventive hygienic meas-
ures a city should adopt is the regulation and inspection of
the food supply of its citizens, for it is through improper
food that much of the city's sickness is caused. Under this
head must come in the first place the water supply, for of
all articles of food it is the most generally used and there-
fore the most dangerous if polluted. For years it has been
known that an impure water supply inevitably introduces
such diseases as typhoid fever and many cities therefore
have realized the need of providing pure water at any cost.
Unfortunately, however, in a great many cities even this
fundamental matter of a pure water supply has been neg-
lected to the great detriment of the city's health. The first
consideration with regard to the city's water supply is its
source. The purity of that source can easily be determined
by bacteriological and chemical examination and a continual
watch should be exercised by those means through the city's
health department in order to make sure that the source re-
mains pure. So far as the city has jurisdiction over the
source of supply it should prevent all possibility of pollu-
tion, and so far as it is exposed to pollution of the supply

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 13

by agencies over which it has no control, it should appeal
to the state for protection against such agencies and safe-
guard itself by the installation of an adequate filtration
plant. Deep wells are usually likely to offer a source of pure
water, while, water courses will seldom yield a pure supply,
unless there are no sources of contamination located along
the stream above the place where it is used. This is of
course not usually the case. The intimate relation between
the purity of the city's water supply and the health of its
inhabitants and the need of absolute control as well as the
important uses of water by the city itself for street cleaning
and fire protection make it of the greatest importance for a
city to own and operate its water works. The first care of a
city in acquiring public services should therefore be to es-
tablish and maintain its own water works.

Having secured for itself an adequate supply of pure
water, and that is unquestionably the matter of chiefest
concern to a city from the public health stand point, the
next care should be the elimination of other sources of
water likely to be dangerous to the public health. Such
sources are commonly found in surface wells and in cisterns,
and if the city performs it's duty by providing an adequate
supply of pure water at small cost to consumers, there is
no need for permitting these other sources of drinking
water to exist, especially as they may constitute a menace
to public health even when not used as sources of drinking
water, as will be noted later on. Of c6urse the city itself
must store and distribute its water in such a way as not to
permit of pollution in reservoirs and conduit pipes which

14 Public Health — Food Supply

problem presents no great difficulties, though even this point
is not infrequently neglected.

Adequacy of supply is an important item in the inter-
ests of public health, because water is not merely a necessity
of life as an article of bodily consumption, but also as the
most efficient cleansing medium, and the relation between
cleanliness and good health is a matter of common knowl-
edge. It is not necessary to point out here that the city itself
needs a copious source of water for cleaning its streets, to
say nothing of the importance of a high pressure water sup-
ply for fire protection, but it is well to emphasize the need
of supplying a reasonable minimum of water to every in-
habitant of the city at a cost which even the poorest will be
able to pay, that is, free if need be. Beyond this minimum
requirement for drinking and cleansing purposes, the city
might properly make a graduated consumption or meter
charge, to prevent waste in one of the most important of the
city's possessions.

Next in importance to a pure water supply for the
city is the provision of a pure milk supply, for while impure
water is responsible for a large part of the high death rate
of cities impure milk causes that most disgraceful of
the city's short comings, a high infant mortality. It is,
therefore, the duty of the city to exercise the most rigid
inspection and control over all milk sold in the city, and to
insure a pure milk supply for babies at reasonable rates
to the persons unable to pay what the dealers demand.
Indeed in view of the universality of milk consumption (it
being of course a necessity for infants), the serious conse-
quences of carelessness in the sanitary conditions surround-

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 15

ing the production and distribution of milk, and the diffi-
culty of adequate inspection, there would appear to be al-
most the same reason for regarding the city's milk supply
as a proper municipal undertaking as exists in the case
of the water supply, which is in nearly all cities a munici-
pally owned utility. At any rate municipal milk stations
for pure baby's milk should be maintained. Whether owned
by the city or not, the business of supplying milk should be
carried on under certain safeguards well recognized as
essential to the proper protection of the public health. At
the very outset there should be a careful and repeated in-
spection of the herds from which the milk is secured. This
will, in large cities, usually necessitate inspection by city
officials outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the city, and
so far as not adequately performed by state or county offi-
cials, could be enforced only by making submissions to such
inspection a condition of granting the license to sell milk
in the city. This inspection of cattle used for milking
should be directed towards the detection of diseases in the
cattle likely to affect injuriously the milk supplied. The
most common and dangerous of such diseases is tuberculosis^
which can readily be detected by the common tuberculin
test. The proper feeding and housing of cows is essential
to keeping them in the best condition for giving wholesome
milk.

After ensuring that the milk comes from healthy cows
the next consideration is to see that it does not become
contaminated with filth and with disease microbes in the
process of milking and handling in the dairies. To this end
the washing of the cows' udders, the cleaning of milkers'

16 Public Health — Food Supply

hands, the cleansing of the bam floors, the screening of the
milking bams against flies, the sterilization of the recepta-
cles, the protection of the milk from dust and dirt, and the
cooling of the milk are all essential operations. These sani-
tary measures are almost obvious, except perhaps the re-
quirement with regard to the cooling process which is meant
to retard the multiplication of germs, which increase at
an incredible rate in warm milk. If milk is to be shipped
or carried for any distance it must in the same way be kept
at a low temperature by the use of ice if it is to be in fit
condition for delivery. As the important period to test
milk from the public health point of view is when it is
delivered to the customer there should be continuous careful
inspection by means of samples taken from wagons on their
delivery route, and in milk stations from the receptacles
from which the milk is taken upon being sold. The milk
should be bottled in tightly closed, thoroughly sterilized
bottles, and in no case should there be any pouring of milk
from one receptacle to another after bottling. The practice
of watering milk, which can also easily be controlled by fre-
quent inspection of samples, is not merely a fraud upon
customers, but is also a frequent source of disease when
the water used for that purpose is impure, as is frequently
the case. Another abuse to be guarded against by inspec-
tion is the use of preservatives, which apparently keep the
milk from spoiling, but in fact make it most injurious to
health. Finally, it may be mentioned that the inspection
of the employees engaged in handling the milk to guard
against their having contagious diseases that might be
communicated through the milk is an important considers-

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 17

tion. Obviously the effectiveness of all this inspection de-
pends upon the existence of an adequate corps of inspectors
so that violations of the milk ordinances cannot occur with-
out a considerable risk of detection. That the ordinances
themselves should cover all of the points mentioned and
have penalties of a sufficient severity attached so that it
could not possibly be profitable to violate the ordinances
and pay the small fines is obvious.

Closely connected with both the water supply and the
milk supply, as indeed in other connections also with the
food supply in general, is the condition of the city's ice sup-
ply. The ice supply is connected with the water supply in
that ice is largely used, in the summer especially, to cool
water and other drinks, by placing it in the water or bever-
age where it melts and becomes part of the same. Obviously
it is of no use under those conditions to have the water
pure and the ice impure, for the resulting mixture will be
impure. The purity of the ice sold becomes, therefore, a
matter of proper and necessary control by the city. The
supply of ice and its sale at reasonable prices is, however,
also of importance because ice is a necessity in the summer
for the preservation of foods, especially milk, and the ina-
bility of the city's population particularly in the crowded
districts to obtain ice at reasonable rates shows itself in-
evitably in the increase in a great variety of diseases.

The next portion of the city's food supply which is com-
monly exposed to insanitary treatment and therefore be-
comes a frequent source of disease among consumers is
the meat supply. The protection of the public health against
danger from impure meat must begin before the animals

18 Public Health — Food Supply

are slaughtered and in the case of slaughter establishments
in or near the city this can be accomplished without great
difficulty. Where meat is dressed at a great distance it
becomes impossible to inspect the animals themselves and
is therefore of even greater importance to provide a rigid
inspection of the carcases before sale to the public. There
are many diseases common to cattle and other slaughter
animals which make their meat unfit for human consump-
tion, and many of these can easily be detected in the ani-
mals before slaughter and so lead to their rejection. Others
cannot be discovered until after killing, and inspection at
both times is therefore important, and at the latter time in-
dispensable. But the condition of the animals is by no means
the only point of importance that requires careful watching
in the interests of public health. The sanitary conditions
at the slaughter houses, the health of the employees, the
treatment of the carcases and offal are all matters of con-
cern from a sanitary point of view.

As in the case of milk, so in the case of meat, it is a com-
mon practice to employ harmful chemicals for the preserva-
tion of the meat. This can readily be detected by sanitary
inspectors and the improper meat be destroyed. Even more
dangerous, however, than the ordinary "doctored" meat is
decayed meat in all stages of decomposition. The sale of
such meat can readily be prevented if the ordinances pro-
vide a sufficient penalty and the health department provides
an adequate force of inspectors. The serious consequences
of a failure to enforce such ordinances and the difficulty of
a continuous inspection lead one, however, almost inevita-
bly, to the conclusion that it is the proper function of the

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 19

city to build and operate its own slaughter house and require
all meat sold in the city to be slaughtered under the sanitary
conditions provided there. This is a municipal operation
in countless European cities and is coming to be more and
more so in this country also. After the meat leaves the
slaughter house and goes to the meat market it must still
be protected against contamination and decay. In the trans-
port itself the meat should be kept cool and protected from
flies and dust and the same is true of its manipulation in
the market. It is in the markets, furthermore, that almost
continuous inspection is necessary to prevent the sale of de-
cayed or partially decayed meat, especially of fish. Here
again the requirements of public health as well as economic
considerations have led many cities of Europe to establish
municipal markets, a movement which is gaining ground in
this country also and is full of promise for improved health
conditions.

Among the other agencies of distribution of the food
supply in the city the most important are the groceries,
which, therefore, must be brought under the supervision
of the health authorities. The cleanliness of the store itself
and its surroundings, as well as of its employees has an
immediate effect on the sanitary character of the wares
that are sold there. Protection against flies by screening
and against dust by closed receptacles are elementary meas-
ures and should be observed in the delivery of the groceries
as well. Even in the case of groceries there is need of pro-
tection against articles injurious to health because of being
in a state of partial decomposition, tho the danger is not as

20 Public Health — Food Supply

great and is more easily guarded against than in the case
of meat.

Bakeries are the source of an important part of the
city's food supply which is very frequently prepared under
the most insanitary and dangerous conditions. The ease
with which the ingredients used for baking take up dust
and dirt, and the close contact of the materials with the per-
sons employed in bakeries makes the sanitary condition
and surroundings of the bake shops and the cleanliness of
the bakers matters of special importance. Here again the
screening against flies and the protection of the wares
against dust and unnecessary handling are of the greatest
importance. Delivery of bread and other wares should
be required in securely closed paper coverings.

Ice cream parlors and soda fountains are rightly charged
with a considerable portion of the sickness caused in a city
by the consumption of unhygienic milk products. Even
when the milk delivered to these places is pure, the treat-
ment it receives there frequently exposes it to contamination.
Lack of cleanliness in the receptacles .used for storing and
handling the ice cream leads to contamination, and the keep-
ing of ice cream for too long a period is also a menace to the
public health. The same may be said of the practice of mak-
ing over ice cream after it has once stood a while and melted.
All these practices can be controlled only by a rigid system
of inspection to carry out comprehensive ordinances en-
forceable by adequate penalties.

Finally, there remain to be considered in connection with
the city's food supply hotels, restaurants and other public
eating places, for while it is true that hotels serve in large

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 21

part transients in the city rather than residents, yet in-
sanitary handling of food in such places is bound to affect
the health of the permanent community as well. For that
reason there should be effective inspection of kitchens and
store rooms with a view to sanitary conditions, in such
matters as screening from flies, cleanliness of employees,
and state of preservation of the food served.

22 Public Health — Food Supply

Question Sheet on the Food Supply.

Water Supply.

What is the city's death rate from typhoid fever? How
many cases are reported each year?

Does the city own its water works?

What is the source of the water supply; wells, surface
water?

What danger of pollution of the sources exists; shallow-
wells, habitations or factories on the water shed?

How is the water protected against pollution in the res-
ervoirs and pipes? How often are these inspected with
this in view?

How often are bacteriological and chemical tests made
of the water to determine the presence of injurious
substances or bacteria?

Are private wells and cisterns permitted as sources of
drinking water? In what condition are such wells and
cisterns? How often are they inspected?

What is the capacity in gallons of the water works? How
many gallons per capita can they supply a day?

How many families and houses are without service from
the water works?

What is. the minimum charge for water? Are there any
families unable to pay this charge?

How does the city prevent water waste ; by meters, by in-
spection for leakage?

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 23

Milk Supply.

What is the infant mortality rate in the city?

What is the condition of the dairy herds? How often are
they inspected? Is the tuberculin test given regularly?
Is the food for the cows wholesome and in good condi-
tion?

What is the condition of the barns? Are they well ven-
tilated, dry, well screened, and generally kept clean?
What is done with the manure and sweepings from the
bam? How often inspected?

Under what conditions is milking done? Are cows' ud-
ders washed before milking? Are milkers' hands
thoroughly cleaned? Do the milkers wear clean
clothes? Are they inspected regularly for contagious
diseases, particularly as carriers thereof? Are they
forbidden to expectorate in the barns and is that en-
forced?

How is milk protected against dust, dirt, and animals?
Are all utensils kept clean and sterilized by steam be-
fore using? Is the milk properly cooled? How soon
after milking, to what temperature and by what means
is it cooled?

Is the milk bottled for delivery? How, by hand or ma-
chine?

Is milk kept cool until delivery? How long is milk kept
between milking and delivery?

24 Public Health — Food Supply

How of ten are samples taken from wagons for tests?
What tests are made; for water, dirt, quality of milk,
preservatives, bacteria?

Does the city have a milk ordinance? What are its pro-
visions, what its omissions ? Is the ordinance enforced ?
Does city provide pure milk for babies at small cost
to the poor?

Are dairies and milk dealers licensed by the city?

Ice Supply.

Is the ice sold artificial or natural? If natural is the
body of water from which it is taken pure? Is ice in-
spected regularly? How is it stored and how handled?

What is the price charged? Does the city provide cheap
ice in the summer to the poor?

Meat Supply.

What are conditions under which meat is slaughtered
in or near the city? Are the slaughter houses well
lighted, properly ventilated, clean and dry? Is meat
inspected before and after slaughtering by competent
inspectors? Are all employees clean in body, habits and
dress? Is meat kept in cold storage, and screened
from flies? What is done with the ofFal?

How is meat protected in transportation to the markets?
Is it tightly covered and protected from dust and flies
and kept cold?

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 25

Are markets sanitary, i. e., clean, well screened and pro-
tected from dust and do they have cold storage facili-
ties?

Is the meat kept for sale in the markets regularly in-
spected as to state of preservation, as to presence of
preservatives? How often?

How is meat delivered, well wrapped?

Does the city provide by ordinance for the regulation and
inspection of slaughter houses and meat shops? Is the
ordinance enforced?

Groceries.

Are the groceries and surroundings kept clean? Are the
stores screened and the articles of food kept in covered
receptacles or otherwise protected from dust?

Are the goods regularly inspected to guard against the
sale of unfit food?

What regulation does the city impose on the grocery
business?

What regulations and inspection for fruit and vege-
table vendors who sell from the wagon?

Ice Cream Parlors and Soda Fountains.

Is the ice cream made in sanitary surroundings? Is fresh
milk used? Is ice cream ever made over? How long
is ice cream kept before sale or destruction?

26 Public Health — Food Supply

Are all receptacles thoroughly washed and sterilized be-
fore using?

Are the flavorings used without harmful ingredients?

What regulation does the city impose on soda fountains
and ice cream parlors, and on vendors of ice cream
and ices from wagons?

Hotels and Restaurants.

Are all public eating places subjected to license?

Are the kitchens in which food is prepared kept clean?
Are they screened against flies? Are the employees re-
quired to keep clean in body and habits? Are they
inspected for contagious diseases?

Are all utensils and dishes thoroughly cleaned after
using?

Are examinations made of the food served to guard
against the use of decomposed or spoiled food?

What regulation and inspection of eating places does the
city provide by ordinance and how well are the regula-
tions enforced?

Bakeries.

Are bake shops kept clean, free from flies and dust? Are
employees clean in person and habits? Are loaves pro-
tected against handling?

III.

Public Health (Continued.)

Abatement of Nuisances. Collection and Disposal of Garb-
age, Sewage and Other Wastes. School Hygiene.

Abatement of Nuisances.

The abatement of nuisances has been the traditional police
activity of our cities in the domain of public health and is
still an important part of the health activities of American
cities to-day. But, as we have seen before, greater empha-
sis is being placed to-day on preventive rather than cura-
tive measures and the proper function of the city is there-
fore to prevent nuisances. If that is done effectively there
will be little or nothing in the way of nuisances to abate.

Cities are generally given a rather broad power of defin-
ing and prohibiting nuisances, and although it is a matter
of some difficulty to determine just what the legal limits of
this power may be, it is safe to say that any act or omis-
sion which has a detrimental effect on the health of the
community may be forbidden as a nuisance. We may there-
fore regard as nuisances all practices and conditions which
may injuriously affect the public health and which are not
specially considered under any of the other topics presented
in the discussion of the public health of the city. Nor is it
necessary for our purposes that we restrict ourselves to

28 Public Health

acts or omissions of individuals, for the city itself may cre-
ate nuisances through carelessness or ignorance.

If we consider first the duties of the city with regard to
its own acts which may be injurious to public health, we
find that the chief concern is the treatment of its property.
So all publjc buildings should be kept in a sanitary condition
and the care of the streets properly looked after. The proper
paving of streets is not merely a matter that affects the
beauty of the city and the convenience of traffic and trans-
portation, it has also an important bearing on public health.
Streets that are not properly paved cannot be kept clean,
and streets that are not kept clean constitute a menace to
public health because dirt and dust are breeding places for
flies and carriers of disease germs. For that reason all
streets should be well paved and thoroughly cleaned by the
city if it is not to be guilty of itself permitting the existence
of a nuisance. In this connection it may be well to mention
that the city must guard its property, both buildings and
streets, from being made the depositories of disease germs
by expectoration. Finally public comfort stations are both
a convenience to the public and an aid in keeping the city
clean and sanitary.

After the buildings and property of the city itself, the
next most important premises to be kept in a sanitary con-
dition are those of persons or corporations that serve the
general public. Among these would be included public
carriers, theaters, churches, and stores. The most import-
ant public carriers are ordinarily the street railways. They
should be required to keep the cars in clean condition and

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 29

should be protected by ordinances forbidding expectoration.
Overcrowding of cars is not merely an inconvenience but
a menace to public health and the companies should there-
fore be forbidden to permit it. The proper ventilation of
cars and adequate heating in winter should be insisted upon
also in the interests of public health. Other owattrs of car-
riers such as hacks, cabs, and jitneys should be required to
keep the vehicles in sanitary condition by regular and thor-
ough cleaning. Theaters are in need of regulation both in
the interests of public safety as regards strength of con-
struction and safeguards against fire, and in the interests
of public morals as regards the character of exhibitions.
But it is also important that they be regulated in the inter-
ests of public health, for ill ventilated, overcrowded theaters
are sure places for spreading contagions diseases. Condi-
tions are likely to be especially bad in the moving picture
shows which are usually merely converted stores without
either adequate light or air. Churches should also be con-
trolled in the matter of ventilation, though they are not as
frequently offenders against the requirements of public
hygiene in this regard as are theaters. Stores are places of
public resort and as such should be required to provide
proper ventilation and sanitary conveniences not only for
the employees but for the public as well.

In addition to these public and quasi public properties
which may, if not properly regulated, constitute dangers
to the public health there are many private properties and
undertakings which are likely to become nuisances unless
carefully watched. Factories may easily constitute a health

30 Public Health

menace through their smoke, noise, and waste products.
To guard against these dangers, factories should in the
first place be restricted to definite districts, should be re-
quired to install smoke consuming devices if they use smoky
fuel, and should be forbidden to make unnecessary noises
in their business. Certain kinds of manufacturing process-
es, those which emit dangerous gases and vile odors, should
not be permitted within the limits of the city at all. Another
common source of unnecessary smoke and noise in the city
are the railroads. These should be compelled to minimize
both kinds of nuisances to the greatest possible extent.

Every property owner in the city whether it be used for
residence or business purposes should be compelled to keep
that property in such a condition that it cannot be the
source of danger to the public health through the existence of
nuisances thereon. So dirt and trash should not be allowed
to accumulate. The keeping of animals should be subjected
to strict regulations of a sanitary kind. Certain kinds of
animals should not be permitted at all, such as pigs for
instance, and others should be kept only in definite kinds
of enclosures. The keeping of horses and cows must be
carefully controlled in the interests of sanitary disposition
of stable wastes, and the keeping of dogs and chickens
should be regulated with particular reference to unnecessary
noises, which are a common source of danger to health in
the city. Rats, mice and vermin generally are carriers of
disease and it should be made the duty of every house own-
er to take steps for their extermination. Mosquitoes are
also carriers of disease and can be eliminated by the com-

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 31

bined effort 'of citizens and the public authorities. As mos-
quitoes can breed only in stagnant or quiet water the first
care should be the destruction of breeding places by properly
draining streets and lots. Where water pools cannot be
drained they should be oiled during the mosquito breeding
season. Cisterns should be covered and all receptacles in
which water can collect, including rain pipes, should be
kept dry. Finally vacant lots should be kept free from
weeds which may become sources of danger to the public
health. It is apparent, therefore, that for the effective care
of the public health in the city it is necessary that every
citizen become the guardian of the public health by avoid-
ing acts on his part and conditions on his property which
may threaten the public health. But it is the duty of the
city to insist on such action by the citizens and to provide
penalties for and enforce them against those persons who
are neglectful of their obligations in this regard.

Collection and Disposal of Sewage, Garbage, and Waste.
No city can be said to be properly caring for the health of
its inhabitants if it does not provide a proper sewerage
system. The days of nasty and dangerous dry closets and
cess pools should be past for every city, no matter what its
size, and the first care of the community which is develop-
ing from a village to a town or city should, after a proper
water supply has been secured, be the building of a sewer
system and the prohibition on any other form of sewage
treatment. A good index therefore of the state of develop-
ment of a city in sanitary matters may be found in the
number of dry closets and cess pools to be found therein.

32 Public Health

A sewerage system to be a good one should serve every
house and building, should furnish free and compulsory ser-
ice, should be adequate in size and proper in construction.
Among the more important engineering aspects of the sew-
erage systems are the sufficiency of the grade for carrying
off the sewage freely, and the proper ventilation of the
sewers to get rid of the sewer gas without danger and an-
noyance to the inhabitants. The city should see that all
plumbing in the houses is sanitary, especially in the matter
of preventing gas from the sewer from entering the houses.
The disposal of the sewage by the city offers another im-
portant health problem. The mere dumping of the raw sew-
age into the nearest water stream which used to be the
commonest method of getting rid of the city's waste, is or
should be no longer permissible, in the interests of the
health of other communities. Each city must therefore
make proper disposal of its sewage in or near its own ter-
ritory. The most satisfactory manner seems to be the use
of septic tanks, separating out the sludge or solid matter
to be dried and used in one of several ways, and the puri-
fication of the effluent or liquid matter by means of chemi-
cals before turning it into water streams. The sewer system
should not receive factory wastes, hospital sewage or sew-
age from houses where there are patients with typhoid
fever or other communicable diseases of that nature, nor
surface water. Factory wastes present special difficulties
because of the chemicals contained, and manufacturing
plants should therefore be required to make proper dis-
position of their own wastes. The sewage from contagious

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 33

wards in hospitals and from patients suffering from conta-
gious diseases presents special danger. It should be re-
quired that such sewage be thoroughly disinfected before
being turned into the sewer system. Surface drainage
from the streets should be taken care of by special storm
sewers distinct from the sewerage system proper. Other-
wise in time of heavy rains the sewers will be unable to
carry off the surface drainage and will back up the sewage
into the houses, causing a serious menace to public health.

Garbage collection and disposal is another function of the
city which has an important bearing on the public health.
Property owners should be required to place the garbage
from their premises in tightly closed receptacles convenient
for collection by the city. The city should collect this garb-
age at least twice a week in order to prevent the decompo-
sition of the food remains from becoming obnoxious. The
collection should occur by means of covered wagons or carts
so handled as to prevent the falling off of any garbage dur-
ing transportation. As the dumping of garbage in open
lots constitutes a serious nuisance to all surrounding prop-
erty the garbage must be reduced to an innocuous condition.
This can easily be done by means of modem reduction plants
which permit some saleable products to be secured in the re-
duction process, such as oils and fuel bricks. Closely con-
nected with garbage collection is the matter of collection of
trash and other wastes, which like garbage become the
breeding place for flies and centers of germ infection if al-
lowed to accumulate.

34 Public Health

School Hygiene.

School hygiene constitutes one of the most important of
the proper hearth activities of the city for it devotes atten-
tion to the sanitary conditions under which the children of
the community spend the greatest number of their waking
hours. School hygiene therefore looks to the future health
of the city as well as the present, for many children are in-
jured in health by insanitary conditions in the schools and
their vitality is weakened and with it their power of resist-
ance to disease. The first point of importance is the provis-
ion of sanitary buildings. Many school buildings are insuf-
ficiently heated, poorly ventilated, without proper light and
over crowded. Schools should furthermore be provided with
proper play grounds, and with sanitaiy washing and toilet
facilities. An important phase of school hygiene is the
medical inspection of children. This is not merely to guard
against the spread of contagious diseases which are almost
always present in a body of school children, but chiefly to
prevent the children from being injured by their school
work. A large number of the children in our schools suffer
from weak eyes without knowing it, and often cause irre-
parable damage to their eyesight by subjecting their eyes
to undue strain. A medical examination of the children at
regular intervals would prevent this as well as other ills
of which the parents may know nothing. Defective hear-
ing, extreme nervousness, adenoids, poor teeth, are all han-
dicaps under which many children suffer without their par-
ents knowing of it. The school inspection presents a con-
venient and valuable way of subjecting children to proper

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 35

examination and prescribing for their cure at the most fa-
vorable time. Instruction in personal hygiene should play
an important part in the school curriculum from the earli-
est days, for the value of cleanliness is a lesson which can-
not be too often instilled and which is too often neglected
even in what are ordinarily called the better homes. It is
generally felt, for instance, that sex hygiene, though emi-
nently a subject to be taught the children by their parents,
is in the great majority of cases not dealt with properly
or at all and must therefore be handled in the school because
of its fundamental relation to the future health of the child-
ren.

36 Public Health

Question Sheet on Chapter III.

General Sanitary Conditions.

Are the public buildings of the city kept in a sanitary
condition? Is the rule against expectoration enforced?
How often are rooms and corridors swept and scrub-
bed?

What proportion of streets are paved? How often are
the paved streets cleaned. Are they swept, flushed?
Are paved streets kept in good repair or are they full
of holes where filth may accumulate? Are the unpaved
streets sprinkled? Are they regularly leveled to pre-
vent holes and ruts from forming?

Are side-walks kept clean? Is the rule against expectora-
tion enforced? Are persons forbidden to throw trash
on side walks? Are walks washed by city or property

owners

?

Does the city provide public comfort stations?

Are street cars kept clean, well ventilated, and heated in
winter? Is the rule against expectoration enforced?
Are other public conveyances required to be regularly
and thoroughly cleansed? Are cars overcrowded?

What regulations exist with regard to ventilation of
theaters and other public halls? Are they enforced?

Are factories required to provide smoke consumers? Do
any factories in the city produce disagreeable or dan-
gerous fumes or odors? Do they make noise audible
to any distance from the grounds? Do factory whistles
make unnecessary noise?

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 37

Do railway trains in the city emit considerable amounts
of smoke? Do their bells and whistles seem to make
undue noise?

What other noises disturb the quiet of the city unneces-
sarily; church bells, hucksters, newsboys, musicians,
dogs, chickens or other animals?

Are other animals besides horses and cows kept in stables
or bams in the city? How often is the manure re-
moved? Is it screened against flies? Does the keep-
ing of any such animals cause disagreeable odors in
the vicinity?

Are house owners required to keep their premises free
from rats, mice and filth eating vermin?

Are mosquitoes abundant? What steps are taken for
their extermination? Does the city permit marshy
undrained land in or near its territory? Are wells and
cisterns required to be screened or oiled?

Are vacant lots kept free from rank weeds, trash and
filth?

What provision do city ordinances make for the pre-
vention of the above named nuisances and how effec-
tively are they enforced?

Collection and Disposal of Sewage, Garbage and Waste.

Does the city own its sewerage system? What rates are
charged? Is connection compulsory? How many hous-
es are not served by the sewer system? Do they have
dry closets or cess pools? What regulations does the
city impose with regard to such closets and pools?

38 Public Health

Does the city have a plumbing inspector? Must all

plumbing be inspected by him before it is approved?
Do the sewers back up and overflow during heavy rains?

Is there any complaint of sewer gas? Are sewers

flushed at regular intervals?
How does city dispose of its sewage?
What is done with wastes from contagious wards and

infected persons elsewhere?
How often is garbage collected in the city? Is it placed

in tightly covered receptacles by residents? Is it taken

away in covered wagons?
What is done with garbage? Does it become obnoxious

through being dumped on lots or burned in the open?
What provision does the city make for the collection and

disposal of trash?

School Hygiene,

What is the condition of the school buildings as to light

and air, heat in winter, playground facilities, toilet and

wash roms?
Are school rooms overcrowded?
Are children examined for contagious diseases? Are they

examined as to eye sight, hearing, adenoids and other

defects?
Is a school nurse provided for the treatment of injuries

and accidents occurring on the school grounds?
How much time is devoted to the teaching of personal

hygiene?
What attempt is made to give instruction in sex hygiene?

IV.

Public Health (Continued.)

Treatment of Contagious Diseases, Care of the Sick. Or-
ganization and Powers of the Health Department.

Treatment of Contagious Diseases.

The protection of the community against the spread of
contagious diseases was the first development in public
health work of cities, for the cities of the middle ages and
the centuries following suffered incredibly from the rav-
ages of the plague, cholera and other diseases of a like na-
ture. To-day also the first care of the community after
looking to the sanitary conditions within its territory is to
prevent the introduction of contagious diseases from with-
out. This is done by the establishment of a proper quaran-
tine. As regards the protection in sea port cities against
diseases brought by ship from other ports the matter of
quarantine presents no great difficulties. But in the case
of inland cities it is a much more difficult task to prevent
the introduction of dangerous diseases by passengers who
come by rail or other conveyances. The most that can be
done in such cases is to keep careful note of the appearance
of epidemics of dangerous diseases in nearby cities or in
places located on the main lines of travel and to institute
inspection and quarantine with regard to persons coming

39

40 Public Health

from centers of infection. Adequate protection against
such dangers can, however, be secured only through the ef-
ficient work of the state and federal health authorities co-
operating to prevent the carrying of communicable diseases
from one portion of the state to another, or from one state
into another.

If it is true that the establishment of adequate protection
against the introduction of contagious diseases from with-
out presents problems that are beyond the power of the
city to solve alone, the prevention of the spread of such dis-
eases within the city is quite within the possibilities of mu-
nicipal achievement. The first step in such prevention
must be the establishment and enforcement of a duty of no-
tification. Every case of a communicable disease or of
death from such a disease, or of a suspected case should be
notified to the health authorities of the city. The primary
duty of notification should of course rest on the physician
in attendance. If there is no physician in attendance then
the head of the house and every person engaged in the
treatment and care of the patient should be charged with
the duty of notification. The list of diseases concerning
which notification should be required should be published
by the health department and should include among others
typhoid fever, typhus, cholera, plague, yellow fever, small
pox, dyptheria, scarlet fever, measles, mumps, chicken pox,
whooping cough, tuberculosis, etc.

Upon receiving the required notification the health de-
partment should at once investigate the case and if it finds
a case of contagious disease exists or that there is reasona-

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 41

ble suspicion of its existence, the proper protective meas-
ures should be instituted. These would, of course, vary with
the nature of the disease but would usually comprise the
isolation of the patient either in a contagious ward of a hos-
pital or in a room if treated at home with a proper placard
on the house to prevent the admission and exposure of other
persons. In certain cases the protective measures would
include the isolation and treatment by vaccination or other
serum of all persons known to have been exposed to infec-
tion by the patient. It is not possible to enter into the de-
tails of procedure demanded by each of the various dis-
eases that were enumerated and others that might be men-
tioned. Those are matters of a technical nature which the
health department must handle, but it is important to point
out here that the health authorities must be given large pow-
ers of immediate action even to the extent of abridging the
individual's liberty of motion and of destroying clothing
and other property when necessary to prevent spread of a
disease. Obviously also it is the duty of the health depart-
ment to make careful investigation into the history of each
case in order to determine if possible the original source
of infection.

Some of the commonest means whereby contagious dis-
eases are spread about in a city have already been mentioned,
such as contaminated water, milk, and other articles of
food, as well as schools, ill ventilated theaters and halls,
expectoration in public places, etc. Certain others should
be enumerated here because they would not come under
any of the other topics under the head of public health.

42 Public Health

Perhaps most important among these others should be
mentioned barber shops, laundries, and public drinking and
washing places. Barber shops, as is well known, are fre-
quently the means of spreading various kinds of skin dis-
eases and even more loathsome diseases if proper sanitary
precautions are not observed. Such precautions should in-
clude the sterilization of all materials brought in direct con-
tact with the skin, particularly razors, brushes and towels
and the shaving mugs used, as well as the barbers' hands,
after serving each customer. The barbers themselves
should be subjected to regular examination for the detec-
tion of diseases capable of being communicated by the touch
or the breath. Laundries are frequently centers of infec-
tion for contagious diseases as clothes from diseased persons
or employees affected with communicable diseases can
easily be transmitted to all the patrons of the laundry
through contact with clothes washed under improper con-
ditions. Disinfection of the receptacles, separate treatment
of each customer's clothes, and the medical inspection of
the employees will eliminate much of the danger from this
source. Finally the use of common towels in public wash
places and the use of common drinking cups in public drink-
ing places is responsible for the spread of some of the
most dangerous and loathsome of communicable diseases.
No such towels or drinking cups should be permitted within
the city, for it is a simple matter to provide both individual
towels and individual drinking cups wherever either of the
articles are used.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 43

Care of the Sick,

Closely connected with the matter of handling contagious
diseases is the problem of providing medical care for the
poor and indigent. In one respect such action by the city
could better be considered from the point of view of social
welfare activities, but as the failure to provide proper medi-
cal care in the case of communicable diseases is certain to
defeat in a measure the safeguards provided against the
spread of such diseases, and as in any event the lack of
proper medical treatment in the case of other diseases in-
creases the amount of sickness in the community and raises
the death rate, it is not illogical to treat of these matters
also under the head of public health. There should, there-
fore, be a city hospital with a contagious ward in which all
cases that cannot be properly treated in the home and are
unable to go to a private hospital can be taken care of at
a minimum of expense, or if 'need be free. One or more
city physicians should be provided for the treatment of
such indigent cases whether at home or in the hospital
and visiting nurses should be provided who could go into
the homes where ignorance and dirt interfere with proper
living and the treatment of minor ills, particularly childrens'
diseases, and eradicate much sickness and suffering by a
little welltimed information and help. Particularly is it
true in the case of childbirth that ignorance of the funda-
mentals of proper action result in misery and loss of life
to mothers and babies alike. Much of the blindness in the
world could be prevented by a simple precaution taken at
child birth in the matter of washing the infants' eyes with
a proper solution. Midwives should not be permitted to

44 Public Health

practice their profession without a proper certificate of
competence, as much suffering is caused through their lack
of scientific training. The production of strong healthy
children and the preservation of the health of the mothers
is obviously a most fundamental if not the most fundamen-
tal concern of the community and no money wisely spent in
that direction can be considered as diverted from a better
use.

Organization and Powers of the City Health Department

The brief survey in this and the preceeding chapters of
the proper scope of the health activities of the city, though
inadequate to show the full content and importance of that
function has been extensive enough to make clear that a well
developed and directed health department is a fundamental
need of every city. The size and to some extent the structure
of the health department will vary with the size and some-
what also with the character of each particular city, but the
fundamental needs are the same everywhere. These fun-
damentals may be briefly stated as including a separate
department of the city administration under the direction
of an expert in pubfic health with full executive powers.
Associated with him in an advisory capacity there should
be a board consisting of physicians and laymen for the dis-
cussion of the general policies and plans of the health de-
partment, but having neither legislative nor executive au-
thority. The whole subject of the public health should be
regulated by a comprehensive code imposing duties and pro-
viding penalties, but large powers of discretion to act in
emergency cases must be left to the health officers. Under

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 45

the health officer there should be bureau chiefs in charge of
the various branches of the public health work, the number
of bureaus depending on the size of the city. Below these
bureau chiefs should be the city physician or physicians and
the corps of inspectors and other employees all appointed
governed and removed by the health officer under proper
civil service merit rules and regulations. The number of
employees should of course depend also on the size of the
city in population and area, but that number should be ade-
quate to permit of a rigid system of inspection in all mat-
ters enumerated in the code.

A full time professional health officer is so important a
need for every city that only the very smallest cities could
afford to be without one, and every incorporated urban
community no matter how small has important health prob-
lems which should receive the attention of some responsible
person, even if it be only a physician who devotes a portion
of his time to the work. In this connection it is important
to point out that the successful solution of the health prob-
lems of the city can be hoped for in complete measure only
when and to the extent that each citizen considers hinaself
a vital part of the health department both in bringing to the
attention of the health authorities violations of the rules
and principles of public hygiene by others and also in avoid-
ing such violations himself and doing all he can irrespective
of laws to aid in the preservation of the public health. It
must be remembered, however, that a large portion of the
danger to public health arises not through conscious viola-
tion of the law, nor even through inadvertance or careless-
ness, but rather through downright ignorance of the

46 Public Health

underlying principles of public health. It becomes,
therefore, one of the most important of the duties
of the health department to disseminate as widely as possi-
ble among the inhabitants of the city information on such
matters. This can be effectively done through bulletins
and pamphlet literature, through public health exhibits, and
through public illustrated lectures, as well as by proper in-
struction in the schools already referred to in another place.
This work is of course in its nature educative in a general
way also, but because of its intimate connection with the
preservation and improvement of sanitary conditions in
the city.it belongs to the scope of work of the health de-
partment rather than to that of the education department
whose activities will be considered in a later chapter.

Of the greatest importance for the proper examination
of the sanitary conditions of every city are the vital sta-
tistics including records of births, marriages, deaths, with
causes, age of deceased, etc., and records of all contagious
diseases. Without such statistics the health department is
wholly unable to know where unnecessary loss of life oc-
curs or avoidable dangers to health exist. It is therefore
the duty of the city to insist that all such records shall be
accurately kept, either by the police or health departments.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 47

QUESTION SHEET ON CHAPTER IV.

Treatment of Contagiovs Diseases.

What provisions are made for notification of contagious
diseases or of suspicious cases, and are they enforced?

What measures are adopted for protecting other i)ersons
from danger of contracting such diseases ; vaccination,
other anti-toxins? Must infected houses bear official
placards of the existence of a dangerous disease? How
is such a regulation enforced?

Have health authorities adequate power to compel iso-
lation?

Have health authorities power to compel fumigation of
rooms and dwellings and to destroy infected clothing
when necessary?

Must barber shops procure a license based on evidence
of a knowledge of the sanitary requirements of the
trade?

Is compliance with such sanitary principles insisted
upon by means of regular inspection?

Are laundries subjected to any sanitary regulations?
Are these enforced? What is the sanitary condition
in laundries with regard to the possibility of transmit-
ting contagious diseases brought in by other clothes
or from which the employees suffer?

48 Public Health

Are common towels permitted in public wash fooms of

hotels, theaters, saloons, and stores?
Are public drinking cups permitted in these same or

other places?

Care of the Sick.

Has the city a hospital with a contagious ward? What
care is furnished there and at what prices?

Is there a city physician to respond to calls from homes
which cannot pay a private physician? How many
such calls does each physician answer per day or week?

Does the city provide visiting nurses to look after expect-
ant mothers among the poorer people?

Is the practice of mid-wives conditioned upon a proper
amount of training? Is there a lying-in ward in the
city hospital?

Organization of the Health Department.

Is there a full time professional health officer in charge
of a separate department of health in the city?

Does he have broad executive powers and powers of sum-
mary action in emergency cases?

Is there a comprehensive health code for the city? When
was it enacted and how often has it been amended
within recent years?

What educative measures does the health department
adopt for the diffusion of sanitary science?

Are vital statistics, that is, birth, death and marriage re-
cords, records of all contagious and infectious diseases
kept by the city?

Public Safety.

One of the most fundamental obligations of every gov-
ernment, whether state or local, is the protection of its
citizens against danger to their persons and property, either
from persons, animals or inanimate objects. This general
function is commonly called the police function of govern-
ment, and the power of the government to perform this
function is known as the police power. This police func-
tion in its largest sense includes a good many activities
which are not in this country ordinarily entrusted to that
branch of the administrative service in cities known as the
police force, for in its wider sense it includes the protection
of the public safety, health and morals, and the general so-
cial welfare. As the activities under the police function
which deal with public health, morals, and social welfare
respectively are important enough to warrant individual
consideration in other chapters, this chapter will deal only
with the two aspects of public safety included in the terms
police protection and fire protection.

The police function, in its narrower sense, that is, the
function of the police force of the city in preventing and de-
tecting violations of the law and bringing the offenders to
justice, presents one of the most difficult problems of city
administration. Inefficiency and corruption are probably

49

50 Public Safety

more common in connection with the police department of
our American cities, large and small alike, though to a
more noticeable degree in the large cities, than in any-
other department. Various causes might be assigned for
this condition of affairs, chief among them perhaps the
general disrespect for the law and its enforcement, which
is characteristic of Americans as a whole, as also the ten-
dency of a portion of our inhabitants to impose their own
moral standards with regard to Sunday activities, saloons,
and the social evil on the community as a whole, and to
expect the police department to enforce such enactments
when a large portion of the community is not in sympathy,
or at least not in active sympathy, with the enactments in
question. Whatever the influence of these and other causes,
may be, the situation undoubtedly reflects great discredit on
our American city police as a whole. But there are certain
considerations to be kept in mind with regard to any po-
lice force by which may be judged the efficiency of that
force.

In the first place, since the primary duty of the police
force is to prevent violations of the law and particularly
the more serious crimes against the person and property,
the patrol force must be large enough to cover the territory
of the city with sufficient thoroughness to make the com-
mission of serious crimes like murder, robbery, burglary,
arson and others of a like nature extremely difficult with-
out great danger of detection. For that purpose the city
should be divided up into districts or beats, for each of
which there should be provided an officer to do continuous
patrol duty covering the entire beat at frequent intervals.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 51

say every half hour. Of course, during the night the force
should be larger and the beats smaller, as the need of pro-
tection is greater. In order to insure the performance of
the patrol duty by the policemen they should be required to
report regularly from various points on their beat to head-
quarters. This primary function of the police force can
best be checked up by an examination of the number of
crimes that are committed in the city and the number in
which the criminals escape. Any considerable number of
such unapprehended crimes would show either that the
force was inadequate in number or inefficient in the per-
formance of their duty, or both. The inadequacy in num-
ber could easily be discovered by an examination of the
amount of territory to be covered by each policeman, ineffi-
ciency in the performance of the patrol duty could be easily
determined by observing whether or not the policemen in
the various beats cover the territory assigned to them reg-
ularly in the time allowed. The presence of policmen in
saloons, pool rooms and other amusement places, except in
the performance of some assigned duty, could also easily
be discovered by observation.

The importance of adequate street lighting as a factor
in making police protection adequate at night would seem to
be too obvious for mention were it not for the fact that in
many places the prime function of street lighting seems to
be regarded as ornamental rather than as protective. It is
for this reason that the tendency of many cities, particularly
the smaller ones, to have a few of the main business streets
brilliantly lighted in imitation of the "great white way,"
while the great majority of the streets are but imperfectly

52 Public Safety

lighted, if at all, is greatly to be deplored from the point of
view of public safety, at any rate. The first care of a city
in the matter of lighting should be to make all streets rea-
sonably light at night from the point of view of detecting
and apprehending wrongdoers, as well as to guard against
danger from missteps or collisions with objects or persons
in the dark. When that is accomplished it is time enough
to plan for brilliant illumination along the main thorough-
fares where the protective feature of lighting is not nearly
as important as it is in the less frequented portions of
the city.

Aside from the prevention of crimes and the apprehen-
sion of criminals the police force has other duties to per-
form in the interests of public safety. Among these may
be mentioned the dispersion of mobs and suppression of
riots, the enforcement of traffic regulations, particularly as
to the speed of vehicles and the ordering of traffic at street
crossings, preventing injury to bystanders at fires, first aid
to the injured, and emergency measures in case of flood or
other calamity. In all these cases the efficiency of the po-
lice in the performance of these functions can best be meas-
ured by the number of accidents and injuries resulting from
inadequate regulations and provisions for these various
contingencies.

It is of particular importance in connection with the po-
lice department that the selection and government of the
personnel of the force be put on a merit basis and taken
out of politics. For not only is the character of the duties
to be performed by the police force such as to demand men
of high character and sterling merit due not merely to the

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 53

dangerous nature of their work, but also to the inevitable
temptations in the way of bribes offered to acquire im-
munity from interference with illegal activities or to avoid
arrest or prosecution. But proper selection is of great im-
portance also because the parties that profit by immunity
from punishment for violating the laws can bring enormous
political pressure to bear on the department heads in their
interest, and these in turn can instruct their subordinates
on pain of dismissal to follow instructions with regard to
the immunity of such parties. An honest policeman under
such circumstances is in the dilemma of either acting ille-
gally himself under instructions from above or of being
ousted from the service. Security of tenure and protec-
tion against removal except for neglect of duty become,
therefore, absolute essentials to an efficient police force.

Fire protection in the city presents two pretty distinct
phases. One is the matter of fire prevention, the other the
problem of fighting fires when they do occur. In both of
these aspects the function of fire protection is one branch
of the police activity of the city in protecting its citizens ^
against loss of life and property, though the primary source
of danger in this latter case is not conscious human action
as in the other case, but rather of elements which may or
may not be let loose by human acts. In discussing the pre-
vention of crime, it was seen, the only measures that were
considered among the functions of the police department
were the actual interference with criminal acts about to be
performed, with, of course, also the consequent deterrent
effect of almost certain apprehension in case of attempted
or accomplished crime. The prevention of crime in an

)

54 Public Safety

ulterior sense, that is the remedying of conditions that lead
to the production of criminals and the commission of crimes
are matters for sociological and economic legislation, not
for the police department of the city. In the case of fire
prevention, however, the remedying of conditions that are
dangerous from the ^oint of view of the origin and spread
of fire and the injury to persons and destruction of life
when fire does occur are much simpler problems and can
very well be entrusted to the department of public safety,
either in the regular police division or in the fire division.

Every city should therefore have a fire code for the pur-
pose of prohibiting conditions that are dangerous from this
point of view. For many purposes this would be in the
building code, covering such matters as the determination
of fire limits within which the buildings must not be of
wood and must have certain kinds of roofing, the fireproof
construction of all theaters, factories and other public or
quasi-public buildings, provisions for fire escapes on all such
buildings, as well as requirements that doors open outward,
aisles be not obstructed, etc. The inspection and approval
of electric wiring in all buildings should be among the re-
quirements of such a code and the provision of fire extin-
guishers in all buildings intended to be used for assemblies
of considerable numbers of people. Prohibitions on the man-
ufacture of dangerous explosives within city limits, special
regulations concerning the storing of explosives, particu-
larly of gasolene and of fireworks, and the exclusion of
garage and other wastes comprising explosive materials
from the city's sewers should all be demanded by the fire
code. Finally may be mentioned regulations concerning the

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 55

accumulation of inflammable wastes in or near stores or
other buildings, such as paper, excelsior, and boxes. The
enforcement of all these regulations may be entrusted to
the regular police branch of the public safety forces, or
better still, to special fire inspectors under the supervision
of the fire protection branch.

The work of fire prevention is an important part of the
work of fire protection, for it has frequently been shown
that the great majority of fires that occur in this country
are easily preventable and would not have occurred if such
regulations as those enumerated above had been enacted
and enforced. The economic waste from preventable fires
runs into millions of dollars each year, not even counting
the high insurance rates which are the result of the big
fire risk caused by the neglect of our cities to enact and en-
force proper fire codes. But even when fire regulations
have been properly passed and enforced there will still be a
need of fire fighting forces to deal with unpreventable fires.
To do this effectively a city fire department needs a sufficient
number of men and adequate apparatus to answer all calls
rapidly and to work to the best advantage when on the
ground. Small cities frequently make the mistake of trying
to save money by relying on volunteer fire departments in-
stead of having full time paid forces. Every city that feels it
cannot afford to pay for a professional force would do well to
make an examination of the annual fire loss due to the inevi-
table delay and general inefficiency of a volunteer depart-
ment and add to that the higher insurance rates paid as a re.
suit of the inefficient service. Then on comparing the totals
so obtained with the annual cost of a good professional do-

56 Public Safety

partment many cities that now are content with the old
method in the thought that it is cheaper will be inclined to
change to the modem and only apparently more expensive
method.

The number of stations and the number of men required
in each station will of course vary with the size of the
city and the effectiveness of its preventive measures, but
the number and character of the fires in an average year
will give a good indication of the number of men and sta-
tions needed for adequate fire fighting. A volunteer force
supplementary to the regular force for use in case of emer-
gencies or where a fire had spread beyond the possibility
of control would of course be a good precautionary meas-
ure, though the regular police force should be available for
such service and indeed every citizen in the community
be liable to service when an emergency arises as he is in
the case of the hue and cry being raised or in the ordinary
apprehension of criminals. But for all ordinary service the
regular paid department should be adequate.

In the matter of fire fighting equipment technical im-
provements are continually being made of which cities
should take advantage. Just as the steam fire engine drawn
by horses supplanted the hand chemical engines, drawn by
men which had themselves superseded the bucket brigades,
so today the motor power engine is ever3rwhere superseding
the horse drawn vehicles. These motor engines are superior
in every way to the old system of horse drawn vehicles for
they are more rapidly got into motion when an alarm is
received, make better time on the way to the fire and yet
are less dangerous to traffic, and present a simpler problem

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 57

of upkeep. Of course a fundamental need of an efficient fire
department is a plentiful supply of water under sufficient
pressure to reach the highest buildings in the city and for
ready availability the city should have fire hydrants at
frequent intervals. These water facilities are also desira-
ble and available for street flushing purposes, which we have
already seen to be a part of the city's proper function in the
preservation of the public health. Finally, a system of
electric fire alarm boxes is a necessary part of an efficient
fire fighting equipment as soon as a city is of sufficient size
to result in serious loss of time in the process of conveying
the information of the location of a fire to the department.

58 Public Safety

QUESTION SHEET ON PUBLIC SAFETY.

Police Protection.

How many policemen are there on the city's force ? How
many are on duty during the day, how many at night?

How many miles of streets are there in the city?

Do the patrolmen have regular beats? How large are the
beats? How long does it take to cover them?

How effectively do the policemen cover their beats?
What method is provided for inspecting the perform-
ance of this duty?

How many crimes against person and property were re-
ported during the last six months or year? In how
many cases were criminals apprehended?

How many accidents occurred as a result of careless or
reckless driving of vehicles during the last six months?
In how many cases were the offenders arrested and per-
secuted?

How are the members of the police force appointed, how
removed?

What records of police activity are kept by the city?

Are the streets sufficiently well lighted to make the de-
tection and apprehension of criminals reasonably pos-
sible by the policeman on his beat?

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 59

Does the city have a paid fire department? How many
men does it include?

Does the city have a building or fire code? Does it pro-
vide fire limits, regulations governing the construction
of buildings, especially public halls, factories and work
shops, inspection and approval of wiring, storing of ex-
plosive and inflammable material?

How many fires were reported during the last month?
How many of these were due to defective construction
or careless handling of inflammable products?

How long does it take the department to respond to an
alarm?

What kind of equipment does the department use?

How many fires occurred in which the loss was total in-
stead of partial because of delay in responding to the
alarm or because the force or apparatus was not ade-
quate to meet the situation?

What is the fire insurance rate in the city and how does it
compare with that in other cities?

VI.

Public Education.

The obligation of the body politic to provide public means
of education for its citizens, both for their welfare and for
its own preservation and advancement has long been rec-
ognized. That this function was properly one to be ful-
filled by units of local government corresponding to the
areas to be served by the educational opportunities offered
has also long been accepted, and in the urban districts this
unit was naturally the city government. So for a good
many generations back, both in this country and abroad, we
find the city governments charged with the duty of provid-
ing at least an elementary education for its inhabitants out
of the public treasury. It is true that in this country, be-
cause of the generally unsatisfactory conditions of muni-
cipal politics and because of the immediate personal interest
of a large portion of the community in as good a public
school system as possible, it has been customary to entrust
the management of the public schools to special boards
separate from the governing body of the city. But even
where that is the case the local school area corresponds
in the case of cities to the area of the city itself, includes
the same persons and imposes burdens on the same property
in the way of taxation, the function of raising the neces-
sary funds indeed being usually in the hands of the city
government even when the management of the funds rais-

60

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 61

ed is not within the jurisdiction of the city governmental
authorities. However that may be, the fact remains that
the provision of adequate educational facilities is a local
problem for which the inhabitants of the city have a right
to demand a satisfactory solution, whether they happen
to address that demand to the city council, to the mayor,
or to the school board.

The provision of elementary education is unquestionably
the fundamental educational need of the community and
if conditions were as they should be every child in the com-
munity would be assured of the opportunity of receiving
free of charge a thorough schooling for at least eight years
under the best possible conditions. These conditions in-
clude an adequate and efficient teaching staff, a proper
course of training, and buildings properly adapted to their
purposes. The number of teachers should be sufficiently
large to permit of individual attention to the pupils in small
classes, preferably not over twenty to twenty-five in a
room. The qualifications of teachers in the way of general
education and special training for their particular kind of
work should be of the highest standard and the salaries
should be sufficient to attract teachers of first rate ability.
The course of study should be modeled along the approved
modem lines seeking as far as possible not merely to train
the memory powers of the child, but also and more especial-
ly its powers of observation and reasoning. In addition,
moreover, to developing the child's mental faculties, equal
importance should be attached to developing his body and his
moral nature. For both of these purposes the scientific
direction of the child's play becomes as important as the

62 Public Education

proper cultivation of his mind. Exercise strengthens the
body and games should be used to teach him self control
and ideals of sportsmanship. Simultaneously with the de-
velopment of the child in learning to appreciate the beauti-
ful in nature, art, and music, should occur the realization
of the good. Of particular importance to the community
are the inculcation of proper civic ideals and the awaken-
ing of a social consciousness in the child during his early
years. It is a matter of common knowledge that many of
the evils of our American political life are due directly to
a lack of such social consciousness on the part of a very
large proportion of the citizenship. A system of education
by the body politic which fails to teach its youth proper
respect and regard for that body politic and a willingness
to subject the individual interest to the community interest
is obviously a short sighted and unfortunate policy.

The most important considerations with regard to the
school buildings themselves have already been mentioned
in connection with the question of public health, for their
most usual defects are in that regard, particularly over-
crowding and poor ventilation, light, and heating. The
importance of proper play grounds, indoor gymnasium fa-
cilities, wash rooms and lunch room facilities are among
the more important things to be kept in mind with regard
to the physical plant of the public school system.

One important consideration with regard to the general
problem of the curriculum or course of study is the matter
of vocational education. The ordinary elementary educa-
tion as now offered in the public schools is intended to be
liberal or cultural in character, that is, to increase the gen-

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 63

eral level of information and intelligence of the child to
enable him to get more out of life and to become a more
valuable member of society. It does not look, however, to
the training of the children for following some specific
means of getting a livelihood when they cease to be merely
consumers and become also producers in the economy of
the state. It is now generally recognized, however, that the
government ( and we have seen that in matters of elemen-
tary public education this means the community comprising
the city) should even in the first eight years of schooling
offer opportunities for training in some particular trade,
that is, vocational training in conjunction with the liberal
or cultural training offered. The need for training arises
from the fact that the very great majority of children after
having received the eight years of elementary training,
and that should be compulsory by state law, do not go on
with further schooling, but instead enter into the world's
producing activities in some form or another, frequently, it
is true, from choice, but more often from economic neces-
sity. Now these children, though better equipped for the
struggle for existence by reason of their eight years of
general or cultural training, are nevertheless not as well
fitted for productive work as they would be under a system
of vocational education. In this respect European coun-
tries, especially Germany, are far in advance of the United
States, tho educators in this country are favoring this de-
velopment here and some progress has already been made.
A modern public school system should therefore give care-
ful attention to this problem.
We have seen that the provision of elementary education

64 Public Education

is the primary duty of the city and that all children should
be required to take advantage of such opportunities. But
the community should not stop there. Secondary or high
school education should be bfFered also for all those who
are able and willing to continue their schooling beyond the
required period. Here again two distinct purposes should
be kept in mind, namely the general cultural purpose and
preparation for college, and the vocational purpose or train-
ing for earning a livelihood in some trade or business upon
leaving the high school. It is not essential and perhaps not
even desirable that the two kinds of training be made ab-
solutely distinct and carried on in different buildings. In-
deed, considerations of economy and expediency rather point
in certain circumstances to the advisability of a strong cor-
relation and interrelation of the two kinds of training. But
in any case every city should have one or more high schools
sufficient in size and equipment to extend to all the youth
of the city who care to take advantage of the opportunities,
either or both kinds of courses. It may be said in passing
that cities have not even stopped with secondary education
in their efforts to afford to their inhabitants the best pos-
sible educational facilities. There are instances already,
and the number seems to be increasing, of cities offering
college and professional courses in municipal institutions.
But as the cost of such institutions and the relatively small
proportion of the citizens who can take advantage of such
opportunities when offered makes the expense to the city
a very large one, it is a field of educational activity that none
but the larger and wealthier cities can hope to undertake.
One mistake in the usual arrangement of the school year

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 65

is the long summer vacation. This plan of a three months'
break during the summer has little except tradition to re-
commend it. From the childrens' point of view it is too
long because it results in their forgetting a great part of
what they have learned before the opening of the new year
whereas a shorter vacation would enable them to refresh
their memories by connecting up their new studies with
what has gone before, before the lapse of time had let it
all but completely escape. Furthermore, the children do
not need such a long rest and are likely to become a nui-
sance to their parents and the community and a bore to
themselves before the vacation is half over. From the point
of view of economy in school administration it is of course
unwise to have the school plant lie idle for one fourth of
the year when it might be fulfilling its valuable purpose for
much more of the time. The teachers, it is true, would suf-
fer from a change in this regard but they should receive
proportionately greater compensation for the additional
time required. A month during the hottest part of the
summer would seem to be all the vacation that should be
given at one time, though the Christmas and spring va-
cations could then be advantageously lengthened a certain
amount.

We have considered so far merely the provision of educa-
tional facilities for the city's children, and that is of course
the logical and sensible place to begin. At the same time
it will not do to forget that of the large working popula-
tion of each city, including not only men and women but
also children beyond the primary school age, there are a
great many who never had in their early childhood the op-

66 Public Education

portunities which we have described as being the city's duty
to offer. The education of this large class of persons is of
even more immediate importance to the city than is the
training of the children whose influence in the city's life
will not be felt until the following generation. But these
unfortunate adults and youths are wage earners and are
therefore unable to take advantage of the regular day school.
Their only chance for educational advancement is in the
possibility of attending night classes. Obviously too, the
methods of teaching and the educational problem presented
in dealing with adults who are at work all day and have no
time for study except during a few hours at night must
be different from the general problem of primary education
considered above. A different corps of teachers would there-
fore be required as well as different text books and other
means of instruction. In fact about the only facilities that
could be used in both cases are the school buildings them-
selves. A system of night classes for adults, therefore,
requires the expenditure of considerable additional money,
but it is unquestionably worth while. Theoretically it is
true that if beginning with the present generation of child-
ren every child in the city were compelled to receive the
elementary education provided, and if there were no immi-
gration to the city of illiterate and uneducated persons from
outside the city, the need for adult training would last only
one generation. But these are big "ifs" and do not affect
the present problem an3rway.

So far we have been considering the commonest methods
of education namely the schools, elementary and secondary,
day and night. There are however other important edu-

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 67

cational agencies which are too often neglected in our
cities even when the schools are pretty well taken care of.
Chief among these may be mentioned public libraries and
reading rooms. It is true that in recent years the Carnegie
library movement has enormously increased the facilities
in this regard in American cities, and that in this particular
the cities of this country are distinctly in advance of the
average European city. At the same time the full possibili-
ties of these libraries as educational factors have in a great
many cases not been adequately realized. In many places
their chief function has apparently been to furnish free op-
portunities for reading light fiction to the more or less well
to do element in the community. The persons most in need
of the educational opportunities, namely the working classes,
have not profited as they should. This has been true some-
times because the libraries were kept open during the work-
ing day and closed at night the only time when workmen
could use them, sometimes because no conscious effort was
made to induce poorer people to use the reading rooms is-
respective of the shabbiness of the clothes they might have
to wear, and sometimes because no effort has been made to
direct the reading of persons of that class who were desirous
of reading books of direct bearing on their activities and
conditions of life. Furthermore, the location of the public
library near the business center of the city and a considera-
ble distance from the workingmen's quarter has discouraged
the use of the building even when kept open at night be-
cause the effort of walking to the library and the expense
of riding were alike too great. It is true that this difficulty
has in many places been met by the establishment of branch

68 Public Education

libraries and reading rooms in various sections of the city.
But this increases the expense of the library very consid-
erably by necessitating the building or renting of other
buildings and in the smaller cities would for that reason
seem impossible. There is, however, an obvious solution
of the difficulty which is now being resorted to in various
places with considerable success. That is the plan of mak-
ing every public school building at the same time a public
library. The advantages of this scheme are many and ob-
vious. In the first place, school buildings are or should be
conveniently accessible to all and would therefore bring
the public library within reach of every citizen. In the
second place the expense of building new buildings or rent-
ing rooms would be done away with and the costly school
plants ordinarily in use but a third of the twenty-four
hours in the day would be engaged in serving educational
ends a much longer time. The money which it costs to
erect and maintain and manage an elaborate public library
building with branch libraries and reading rooms could
then be used to much better advantage from an educational
point of view in equipping and running these public school
libraries.

In addition to public libraries we may mention as im-
portant educational and also recreational agencies museums
and botanical and zo-ological gardens. Natural history and
art museums can be made to have a very significant func-
tion in training the scientific and aesthetic tastes of the
public and every city should make use of them even if it
be only on a very small scale. Zoological and botanical gar-
dens are especially valuable as they combine with the educa-

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 69

tional features the advantages of public parks in a recrea-
tional way. Here also it would be well to make use so far
as possible of facilities in the way of buildings and grounds
offered by the school plant, particularly in the matter of
museums, though small botanical gardens might ad-
vantageously be maintained adjacent to some of the
school buildings. Finally the value of free public lectures
in the field of education should not be overlooked.
Here again a happy combination of education and
recreation can be effected, for especially by the use of mov-
ing pictures it is now possible to teach a great deal of geog-
raphy, natural history, and science in general in a most in-
teresting and valuable manner. The school buildings here
also offer the most advantageous and natural localities for
such lectures and thus we see that almost the entire educa-
tional activity of the city in all its varied aspects can be
centered about the permanent school plant with relatively
little additional cost and with greater effect. The reflex
effect in the willingness of the tax payers to support the
school system when they see how fully and effectively its
equipment is employed must also be reckoned among the
educational gains to be realized by such a plan.

Closely related to public lectures in purpose is the pro-
vision of free concerts in the parks during fair weather or
in municipal auditoriums in separate buildings or better
still in the various school buildings. Such concerts should
be conducted with a view to the educational value of the
music offered as well as to its popularity.

70 Public Education

QUESTION SHEET ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

How many children between the ages of six and fourteen
years are not in the public schools? Is attendance com-
pulsory and if so how is it enforced?

Is the school board a separate body or is it responsible to
the mayor or council of the city? Does the school board
have independent taxing power?

How many chcildren can properly be taken care of in the
primary or grade schools? How large are the classes?

How many hours of work are expected of the teachers?
What training is demanded ? How are they appointed ?
What salary do they receive? How do the salaries com-
pare with what such teachers could earn in business?

What attempts are made to adapt the instruction to indi-
vidual needs of the children? Are the children ex-
amined as to their normality? What is done with or
for abnormal or subnormal children?

Are children given regular instruction in physical train-
ing? How much time is allowed for intervals of play?
Is there a supervisor or director of athletics?

What instruction is offered in ethics, that is in the prin-
ciples of right and wrong? What training is offered in
citizenship or social ethics?

What attention is paid to music and art in the course
of study?

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 71

Are the school buildings made as attractive as possible
in architecture, interior facilities and general beauty
and cleanliness of surroundings?

Is any vocational instruction offered in the primary or
grade schools?

Does the city support an adequate number of secondary or
high schools?

What is the condition in these schools as to overcrowd-
ing, condition of buildings and grounds, training and
salary of teachers, etc.?

What vocational training is offered in the secondary
schools?

Are night classes conducted in the city schools offering in-
struction to adults and others unable to attend the day
schools? What effort is made to induce the persons
who might profit thereby to come to these classes?

What facilities are offered in the city in the way of pub-
lic libraries and reading rooms?

During what hours of the day is the library open? To
what extent do working men and women use the libra-
ry? Are special facilities in the way of appropriate
books for that class of readers provided and what steps
are taken to acquaint them with such facilities? How
are the library and reading rooms located with regard
to the homes of the laboring class?

72 Public Education

Would the school buildings offer conveniently located
reading rooms for that class of readers?

What natural history or art exhibits does the city main-
tain ? Does it use its parks as botanical gardens ? Does
it maintain a zoological garden?

Does the city or the school authority offer free public
lectures on subjects of interest and value?

Does the city provide for free concerts in parks or pub-
lic buildings?

VII.

Public Morals.

The city is frequently denounced as a hot bed of sin and
iniquity where the morally deficient are confirmed in wrong
doing and where the innocent are led astray. This whole-
sale denunciation of the morality of city dwellers is grossly
exaggerated and not in accordance with the real facts. In-
deed it has been suggested that the supposed inferiority of
the city as compared with the country in this respect has its
basis if not wholly at least largely in prejudice and that the
morality of the city dweller is as high as that of his country
cousin, or even higher if this latter is to be judged from the
way he acts when he comes to the city away from embar-
rassing acquaintances. However that may be as matter of
relative morality, it needs little proof to show that moral
conditions in the city are not all that they might be and that
in many respects they are little short of scandalous. An ex-
amination into the reason for this condition of things would
seem to show that the chief explanation for the open violation
of morality, used here in the sense of ordinary decency, lies
in the fact that its encouragement and promotion prove
very profitable sources of income to persons who want to
use them. In fact if we consider the places of worst repute
in the matter of offending against the public morals such
as cheap theatres and other exhibitions, saloons, dance halls
and houses of prostitution they are all most profitable kinds

73

74 Public Morals

of investments from a pecuniary point of view. As the
element of profit from all these sources arises, moreover,
out of the congestion of population in the city it not only
gives the city the right but imposes upon it the duty of pre-
venting as far as possible the pursuit of these undertakings
to the detriment of the general moral tone of the com-
munity.

Now the question as to how far the city, or any other
governmental agency should attempt to impress and enforce
moral standards upon its citizens is a most difficult one. A
very practical consideration arises immediately from the
fact that any attempt to set up a standard of right and
wrong by law which does not appeal to the moral sense of
a considerable portion of the community is simply unen-
forceable. Not only, however, is such a law unenforceed
and therefore useless but its reflex moral effect on the com-
munity is worse than if it had never been passed, for it paves
the way for corruption in the police force in the way of sell-
ing exemptions and leads to that general contempt for
all law which is said to be characteristic of the average
American. Careful students of this subject have attributed
both the wide spread corruption in our police and prosecut-
ing machinery and the general disregard for law to this at-
tempt on the part of active minorities or even small ma-
jorities to impose their moral standards on a large
passive or hostile portion of the community. The first
consideration then to be kept in mind with regard
to morals legislation is that there should be a strong
general sentiment in the community against the evil
attacked by law. Obviously this does not mean that

A Handbook op Civic Improvement , 75

every citizen should be convinced of the evil in question or
even that only a very few should be of different opinion.
It does mean, however, that there should be a very substan-
tial agreement on the part of the higher and more influen-
tial class of the' citizens, amounting to a strong majority of
the effective community opinion as a whole that the evil in
question is an evil and should be remedied. Now it may be
asked how is the moral condition of our cities to be improved
if legislation is always to lag behind active public opinion.
To this it must be answered that it is the function of moral
teaching in the homes the schools and the churches to raise
the moral standards of the community to the point that there
be a strong majority sentiment against a given evil. Then
and only then should legislation be attempted, for to at-
tempt it before such a stage has been reached does more
harm than good, as experience has repeatedly demonstrated.
It is clear that the question of morals legislation must in
large measure be a purely local question to be determined
by the state of local public opinion, for communities vary
enormously in the standards of conduct to which they ad-
here. A good illustration may be seen in the matter of Sun-
day quiet. Laws enforcing the quiet observance of the
Sabbath which are successfully enforced in many a New
England town and village break down when tried in a cos-
mopolitan city like New York or Chicago. It is for this rea-
son also that state legislation with regard to many moral
or quasi-moral questions is so dangerous and largely un-
successful. It is a matter of common knowledge for in-
stance that a state prohibition law is almost sure to be a dead
letter in a city in which a majority of the community do not

76 Public Morals

believe in prohibition. Must we then say that since the
standards of public morals vary for each city there are no
tests to determine whether a city is doing its duty in this
regard except by an examination of local opinion? No.
There are certain questions about which there is such a gen-
eral if not indeed universal consensus of opinion that we
may set them down as proper fields of governmental action.
So for instance all the offences against person and property
such as murder, theft, arson, etc., are all acts that are for-
bidden by moral standards long since set up and accepted
by the great majority of the people in every community. In
fact these offences are not even regarded under the head
of offences against the public morals, but as crimes against
society about which there can be no difference of opinion.
Public morals in the sense in which we are here using it
means in effect public decency and usually connotes some
phase of sexual morality. Even in this field it is possible to
find a common ground on which to base an obligation on the
public authorities of every city, which would be approved
by the great majority of the community. This common
ground is that immorality particularly in matters of sex
should not be exhibited publicly and should not be used for
the temptation of the young and innocent. In this connec-
tion we may take up the chief offenders against public de-
cency in this regard in the movies, theaters, and other public
exhibitions, in prints and pictures including advertisements,
and in public dance halls. Saloons and houses of prostitu-
tion present peculiar conditions and will be considered sepa-
rately.

First then with regard to public exhibitions of all

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 77

kinds it is obviously the duty of the city to prevent the
production of exhibitions which are lewd, obscene, vulgar
or suggestive. Here again a difficulty arises in that
people have different ideas as to what these terms mean
and what productions could be so termed. On the one
hand there are people who claim that to the pure all things
are pure and who would therefore bar virtually no kind of
exhibition. At the other extreme there are people with an
excess of prudishness who would rule out our masterpieces
of literature and art on the ground that they offended their
moral sensibilities and modesty. Between these two ex-
tremes somewhere lies the mean that would represent the
generally accepted opinion of the community. The best way
to secure this general opinion would seem to be to have
a committee of censors composed of various elements in the
community, but most largely of mothers with children in
their early teens. They would be more likely to reflect a
general conservative opinion than would a chief of police, a
mayor, a single censor or a committee of men married or un-
married, while elderly unmarried ladies of the better ele-
ment in the community would probably evidence a severity
beyond that demanded by the fair average in the communi-
ty. Such a board of censors should be required to pass on
every questionable production that might be exhibited in
the city before a license or permit to produce it be issued.
A board of that kind would be a necessity with regard to
exhibitions such as moving pictures even though they are
passed by a national board of censorship for the reason that
the local standard of decency may be much stricter in a
given city than that represented by such a national board,

78 Public Morals

and we have seen that such questions should be determined
according to local standards.

Not only should the regular places of entertainment be
subjected to this scrutiny but especially also traveling exhi-
bitions such as those that come with the circus or the street
or county fair, for these exhibitions are frequent offenders
against public decency. A distinction might very properly
be made between productions that might not offend adults
but would be very improper for children, and productions
that are objectionable from both points of view. Another
common source of danger in the field of sexual morals is ob-
scene printed material of all kinds including pictures and ad-
vertisements. Every place of sale of printed matter should
be licensed and subject to supervision by a board of censors
with power to order the discontinuance of the exhibition or
sale of such matter as is considered unfit for public dissem-
ination. Medical advertisements in papers and periodicals
are among the most common offenders against common de-
cency. Of course all public bill boards and street car adver-
tisements can easily be controlled by the city in this regard.

Among the commonest sources of danger to the youth
of the city and very general offenders against the public de-
cency are public dance halls. The public dance hall exerts a
powerful attraction over the young of both sexes and seems
to supply a very real want in a recreational way. But the
usual concomitants of the public dance hall, namely drunken-
ness and sexual immorality have brought these places into
such disrepute that it is not uncommon to find them virtually
forbidden. A better method of dealing with them, however,
would seem to be to regulate them in the interests of de-

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 79

cency rather than to destroy them as possibilities of recrea-
tion. In fact in a number of cities the proposition has been
made and in some cases adopted to provide municipal dance
halls under proper supervision for the purpose of providing
a popular but safe form of amusement and recreation. That
would seem to be a very sensible way to deal with the prob-
lem and can be recommended to all cities for trial. In any
case, however, the unregulated dance hall should not be per-
mitted to exist for it is responsible for a good part of the
sexual immorality that exists in the city. Among the regula-
tions that should be insisted upon for such places of resort
should be the absolute prohibition of the sale of intoxicants
and the prevention of indecent dances or positions on the
dance floor, as well as the exclusion of all persons guilty of
indecent behavior in the hall or known to be of bad moral
character.

Saloons present one of the most controverted problems in
our American politics, municipal and state, and in recent
times it is even being emphasized in national politics. It is
of course not our purpose here to enter into a discussion of
the relative merits of unrestricted consumption of alcohol,
temperance, and total abstinence, as rules of personal con-
duct. It is only as a question of governmental interference
that it falls within the purview of such a work as this. But
even the question of license or prohibition is not one that
can be discussed to advantage here. The prohibition ques-
tion has become one of the most burning and bitter of all
controversies and as a question of controversial politics
cannot be taken up here. But from the point of view of
governmental administration it is necessary to point out

80 Public Morals

as:ain that whatever may be the wisdom as a matter of pub-
lic policy to prohibit to the fullest possible extent the con-
sumption of alcohol, such prohibition cannot be successful
and therefore wise unless a very substantial majority of the
inhabitants of the community in which and by which it is
to be enforced are actively convinced of its wisdom and aid
in its enforcement. For reasons that have already been
mentioned it is undoubtedly a mistake to attempt to en-
force such prohibition in a city where a respectable pro-
portion, not necessarily a numerical majority however, of
the community do not believe in such restrictions on indi-
vidual freedom of action. The question of prohibition or
no prohibition becomes therefore again a local question to
be settled in each community according to the state of pub-
lic consciousness on the matter in that community. But as
in the case of some other of the questions of public morals
considered above there are some principles on which it is
safe to say that a substantial majority of good citizens in
all communities are agreed even with regard to the liquor
question.

The most fundamental of these is that if the sale of liquor
is not to be prohibited it is at least to be subjected to the
most careful and effective kind of supervision for the pro-
tection of minors and the preservation of order. It is true
that there is not by any means entire agreement as to just
how to make these regulations most effective. So for in-
stance let us take the question of publicity. In some places
saloons are forbidden to have curtains in the windows in
order that everyone may see who is patronizing the saloon.
In other cases the opposite rule has been adopted and saloons

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 81

are required to have screens or curtains. Again some per-
sons maintain that the chief evil of drinking in the Amer-
can saloon is the fact that the alcohol is consumed with such
rapidity instead of drinking a little slowly and making it
last over a considerable length of time as is the custom in
European cafes. Accordingly they would favor making the
saloon a real workingman's club by providing it with tables
and music and other attractions to induce him to take his
liquor more moderat0ly»iaii»**iiir4^sS'^a^te. Other people,
however, contend that the saloon should be made as unat-
tractive as possible and would forbid music and tables and
even the meagre comfort of a foot rail. So there are many
matters connected with the problem of regulation on which
honest people would disagree or question the expediency
of efficacy of such regulatory measures.

On the other hand there are some regulations which
would probably receive general approval as most necessary
measures. Among these may be mentioned the limitation
of the number of saloons, the granting of a non-transfera-
ble license only to applicants whose personal character has
been investigated and vouched for by responsible citizens,
the requirement of a heavy bond to be forfeited for failure
to comply with all the requirements of the law in addition
to revocation of the license, the exclusion of saloons from
the neighborhood of schools and churches, the right of prop-
erty owners in any block to exclude by majority vote sa-
loons from that block, the absolute prohibition of sale to
minors and drunkards at the entire risk of the saloon keep-
er under civil and criminal liability, the closing of the sa-
loons at an early hour in the evening, the exclusion of women

82 Public Morals

and the prohibition of rented sleepinfi: apartments and pri-
vate rooms in connection with or in the same building as
the saloon. Under a system of rigid regulation of that kind
most of the evils of the saloon on which all or at least most
people are agreed could be eliminated, leaving only the in-
herent evils of alcohol consumption, the proper treatment
of which as we have seen is a controverted question of policy
at the present time. Whenever the time comes that the
general community opinion demands with sufficient force
the abolition of the saloon instead of its regulation, the
problem becomes of course much simpler.

The problem of the social evil is one of the oldest and
most difficult of municipal problems. Prostitution seems to
have been a feature of city life as long as we have any defi-
nite knowledge of city life at all. It is essentially a muni-
cipal problem both because commercialized vice can flourish
only under urban conditions and because its successful
regulation depends on the state of community feeling with
regard to the matter. The problem of prostitution in the
cities is a more serious and difficult one even than the liquor
problem. More serious because the injurious moral and
physical effects of the evil do not as in the case of the con-
sumption of alcohol depend for their seriousness largely on
the immoderate indulgence in the physical appetite, more
difficult because its existence is based on the most funda-
mental of human appetites and passions, namely, the sex in-
stinct, stronger and more universal by far than the desire
for drink. It is like the drink evil, however, in that its
ravages and curses fall almost inevitably not only on the
actual participants themselves but on countless innocent

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 83

persons and unborn generations. In fact it is this feature
of the social evil, that is, its effect on public health, which
seems to offer the most hopeful ground for its successful
ultimate eradication, for as to this feature of the evil, facts
and statistics are abundant and conclusive and leave no
room for individual opinion.

In its purely moral or religious aspects the eradication
of the social evil meets with the same difficulty as is encoun-
tered in the case of the liquor problem, namely the fact
that a large portion of every community, at least of the
male portion of every community, is either unconvinced as
to its being morally wrong, or is certain that because of its
fundamental appeal to the strongest animal instinct, it is
hopeless to try to combat it. Under such conditions it may
safely be said that the attempt to legislate the social evil
out of existence is bound to be a failure and worse than
a failure. It is interesting to compare in this regard the
situation in continental European countries with that in this
country. It is probably true that there is not as general a
condemnation by the so-called better classes in Europe of
the social evil as there is in this country among a very con-
siderable portion of the population. At the same time there
is not usually any hypocritical attempt to satisfy any such
feeling that may exist by forbidding the existence of pros-
titution on paper but permitting it in fact, as is the normal
case in American cities. Instead of that there is a frank re-
alization of its existence in laws which provide rigid inspec-
tion and regulation and are rigidly enforced.

It is believed therefore that until a community has come
to have a sufficiently general and powerful opposition to the

84 Public Morals

continuance of the evil as a result of a realization of its
moral and physical dangers to enable it really to eradicate it
from the city, the wiser course to pursue from every point
of view is to face the facts as they are and to combat their
unfortunate consequences as well as can be by regulation,
rather than to rest in a sham security bom of having pro-
hibitory enactments in the statute books which are freely
violated with impunity. The task of instructing the com-
munity in the terrible consequences of the continuance of
prostitution, at least on its public health side, may very
properly be attacked by the health authorities of the city,
while the moral and social aspects are treated by the parents,
teachers, and preachers of the community.

The proper regulation of the social evil until such time
as the community is ready and able to eliminate it either
wholly or at least in large part, presents some more or less
obvious features and others that are more difficult and to
a certain extent controversial. Among the fundamental
regulatory measures which practically every community
would be ready to insist upon and which, therefore, could
be effectively enforced are the prevention of solicitation in
all forms both on the part of prostitutes and even more on
the part of keepers of resorts for the purpose of securing
prostitutes, all forms of street walking and public adver-
tising. It is not necessary of course to mention the need
of penal measures for the punishment of compulsion or in-
voluntary detention for inmioral purposes commonly known
as "white slavery." The registration of all prostitutes,
compulsory medical examination, treatment, and isolation,
and the strictest supervision of all houses of ill fame are

ATJ ^

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 85

among the measures which have been commonly adopted,
though not, it must be said, with the results that might
have been desired. One troublesome and much disputed
question in the regulation of the social evil has been the
question of seggregation. There are many considerations
involved in the determination of the advisability of a seg-
gregated vice district with restriction of all prostitution to
such a district. Some of these considerations are economic,
some social, some administrative, and some refer to the
effect of such a measure on the ultimate problem of eradica-
tion. There is, furthermore, neither a consensus of opinion
by theorists nor a correspondence in the testimony secured
from places where the system of segregation has beeen
tried. Viewed from the point of view of the possibility of
effective police and sanitary supervision and regulation the
segregated district has much to recommend it. It may be
said also that a good deal of the opposition encountered
against segregation proposals comes from persons whose
moral sense is shocked by the apparent official recognition of
the social evil involved in this and all other regulation, but
whose conscience is not disturbed by the flagrant violations
of a law purporting to prohibit prostitution, although such
violations with a corresponding freedom from desirable
regulation and restriction may be much more dangerous
from every point of view than is the recognition of the ex-
istence of the evil and insistence on the fullest possible reg-
ulation.

86 Public Morals

QUESTION SHEET ON PUBLIC MORALS

Does, the city have a censor for passing on public pro-
ductions and exhibitions? What powers does he pos-
sess? Are all places of exhibit licensed for the purpose
of control in the interest of public morals and decency?

What supervision, if any, is exercised by the city over the
character of printed matter and pictures exhibited for
sale in the city?

Are bill boards and other public advertisements controll-
ed in the interests of decency?

Are there public dance halls or pavillions in the city?
How are they supervised? Are there any restrictions
as to the sale of liquor, the exclusion of children, the
prevention of indecent dances and acts, the removal and
restriction on attendance of persons known to have a
bad moral character, or to be present for immoral pur-
poses?

Are saloons permitted in the city? If forbidden by law
are they eradicated in fact? If not forbidden, how are
they regulated as to manner of obtaining a license,
hours of closing, exclusion of minors and drunkards,
location, exclusion from districts by vote of the prop-
erty owners?

Are the saloons a center of public disturbance? Do they
require special police supervision?

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 87

What provision do city ordinances make with regard to
prostitution? Is it effectively suppressed? If not to
what extent is it regulated in the interests of public
health and morals?

Are street walking and public solicitation effectually pre-
vented?

Is there a restricted district and if so what seems to be its
effect on the evil, especially as regards publicity and at-
tractiveness to boys under age?

VIII.

Social Welfare

The preventive or negative side of governmental activity
as exemplified in the protection of person and property
against violation by others and the securing of each in the
enjo5mient of his life, liberty, and property was the earliest
function to develop in cities as well as in all other units of
government. This was of course natural as the first condi-
tion of a civilized society is the preservation of order and the
elimination of persons and conditions conducive to disorder.
There is, however, another side to governmental activity
which has attained a general recognition only in compara-
tively recent times, but which is now coming rightly to be re-
garded as of equal importance for the preservation and im-
provement of society with the mere protection of life, liberty
and property against invasion by act of individual members.
This new activity may best be termed the furtherance of the
social welfare by means of positive measures intended pri-
marily for the benefit of the laboring classes in the com-
munity. It is true that an important part of this activity
also presents a negative aspect in the necessity of prohib-
iting certain kinds of actions and imposing restrictions on
certain others which formerly had not been regarded as
properly subject to governmental regulation. But even
these measures have a positive aspect in that they are in-
tended to further the economic and social welfare of a par-
se

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 89

ticular class in the community who are not sufficiently pro-
tected in their economic interests by the general prohibitory
or restrictive measures of the state mentioned above and
who by reason of their economic and social condition are un-^
able to secure by themselves that minimum of the necessi-
ties and comforts of life which is now coming to be con-
sidered as the right of every honest, industrious and produc-
tive citizen as well as of those who by misfortune are in-
capacitated from earning a livelihood by their own efforts.
Closely related to the problem of the care of the dependants
and generally unfit is the treatment of the criminals and
other persons who are considered dangerous to society and
cannot be permitted to remain at large. Under the general
head of the social welfare activities of the city we may there-
fore consider briefly the following topics : Housing condi-
tions; working conditions; recreation facilities; poor re-
lief; corrections.

The importance of proper housing regulations has been
touched on in its public health aspect under the discussion
of that branch of municipal activity. Undue congestion,
lack of proper amount of light, and a want of proper sanitary
conveniences all have a direct bearing on the public health
problem, not only because such conditions are in themselves
destructive of the health of the inhabitants but also because
the check of contagious diseases in such tenements is next
to impossible and the health of the whole community is
thereby seriously jeopardized. But public health considera-
tions are not the only ones that demand municipal regula-
tion of housing conditions, though they are sufficient in
themselves to require a housing code. Crowded conditions

90 Social Welfare

and excessive rent play their important part in lowering the
morality of the inhabitants. Where whole families are
crowded into one room the natural sense of shame which is
an effective protector of common decency between the sexes
becomes dull and blunted. Where, further, as is not rarely
the case, a night lodger is taken in under such conditions for
a few cents to help meet the expenses, the way is paved, as
abundant testimony shows, for leading the young girls of
the family into lives of shame. Furthermore the cheap
crowded tenements are often the abodes of pickpockets,
petty thieves and other members of the criminal classes
daily contact with whom destroys all moral sense of the
children and tends to make them also outcasts of society.
From a social point of view furthermore the destruction of
all possibility of a sane and helpful family life is not without
serious effect on the character of the children born and
reared in such tenements. This therefore is an instance
where social considerations demand that the city interfere
and prevent by means of a housing code the shamefully
crowded living conditions which landlords find it profita-
ble to encourage and which the poor families are financi-
ally compelled to resort to, for the rent demanded comes
within the possibilities of their means, although it yields
enormous profits to the owners of the property.

Social welfare demands the elimination of insanitary, in-
decent tenements and the establishment of minimum stan-
dards of living conditions as regards light, air, sanitary
conveniences, number of people per room, and general at-
tractiveness of surroundings. Individual desire for maxi-
mum returns are not to be taken into consideration when

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 91

weighed against such social consequences as the satisfac-
tion of those desires entails in the matter of the housing
conditions. If private enterprise is unwilling or unable to
erect decent and comfortable dwellings for the poorer
classes then it is the function of the city to do so, and not
permit their exploitation for private gain. In this mat-
ter of the housing situation American cities are as a rule
behind many European cities which have pretty generally
recognized the vast importance of solving this problem.
Of course the fundamental problem of securing to the la-
boring class a return in wages which will enable them to
satisfy decently their fundamental wants in the matter
of housing conditions as well as regards education recrea-
tion, etc., involves economic considerations that lie in large
part outside the boundaries and jurisdiction of the city
and for which therefore the city cannot be held responsi-
ble. But to the extent that the city can secure for the
laboring class the essentials of decent living which their
wages may be unable to procure them such action is dic-
tated by considerations both of justice and wisdom.

A consideration of considerable significance as regards
the whole matter of congestion in the living districts of
the wage earners is the transportation problem. Workmen
cannot live at a distance from their place of employment
unless transportation is rapid and cheap. Hence if there
are no street cars that connect the outlying districts of
the city with its industrial sections it means that the work-
men are compelled to live in miserably congested condi-
tions because the rent value of land in the center of the
city is so high that they must get along with an absolute

92 Social Welfare

minimum of space. Furthermore, the cost of transporta-
tion even when it exists is a very considerable item in the
wage earners' budget and may prevent the reduction of
congestion which is so desirable from a sanitary and social
point of view. The city should therefore require reduced
rates for persons who use the street railways daily as a
means of getting to and from their place of labor.

Somewhat the same considerations apply to the question
of decent working conditions. The hours of labor and the
wages paid are ordinarily not within the power of the city
to alter or determine, though the city itself as an employ-
er of labor can offer an instructive example of what just
and decent treatment of employees means. But in the
matter of sanitary and moral conditions surrounding the
places of work the city can exert a considerable influence
and by attacking the problem of unemplo5mient as well
as by providing social centers and other means of recrea-
tion and social intercourse can do much toward making
the life of the working classes more bearable. The most
important considerations concerning the sanitary aspects
of the places of work are much the same as those that
affect proper living conditions, namely plenty of light and
air, warmth in winter, and as much coolness as possible
in summer, as well as decent sanitary conveniences, with
dressing and rest rooms, separate for the sexes. Cities
should be given large powers to deal with these matters, for
they are of the greatest importance to the large laboring
population of every city, and through them to the city
as a whole.

Not only should the conditions under which the work.

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 93

particularly factory work and clerking in the shops, is
done be as healthful and as pleasant as possible but fa-
cilities for recreation should be as ample and as attractive
as can be furnished. Private employees are beginning to
realize that the working efficiency of the individual is
greatly affected by the opportunities enjoyed by the em-
ployees for rest and recreation and for that reason many
of them are not only voluntarily shortening the hours of
work in many cases below the legal requirement or in the
absence of legal requirement but are furnishing at their
own expense libraries, gymnasiums and social rooms and
conducting picnics and other outings on holidays for their
benefit But this far sighted attitude is not by any means
sufficiently general to eliminate the need of community ac-
tivity in this regard and it is therefore the business of the
city to see that the laboring element which is unable to do
more than barely provide for the necessities of life should
have at least that minimum of recreation and enjojmaent
without expense which is necessary to prevent their lives
from being a dull round of routine drudgery without the
relief which the members of the propertied classes consider
essential to real living. Under this head would come some
activities that have been touched on before, some that will
be mentioned in connection with the city plan, and some
that do not present other than purely recreational and so-
cial aspects. Among these should be mentioned public
libraries, museums and gardens, parks and playgrounds
so situated as to be accessible to the wage earning classes
without transportation costs, baths, gymnasiums, and swim-
ming pools, public exhibitions and concerts, and neighbor-

94 Social Welfare

hood clubs or social centers to encourage gatherings for the
cultivation of social intercourse.

A problem of grave difficulty connected with the con-
dition of the working classes that confronts every mu-
nicipality to a greater or less extent is the problem of
unemployment. In one sense this is of course not a mu-
nicipal problem in that the economic conditions which re-
sult in the throwing of numbers of wage earners out of
work are either wholly or in large part at any rate not
controllable by any municipal action, or by any governmen-
tal action for that matter. But if the causes of unemploy-
ment are not municipal, the consequences are in a very
real sense so, for the want and suffering that result must
be taken care of by the city and its inhabitants in some
way or other. Considerations of public safety to say noth-
ing of humanitarian considerations require that every-
thing that can be done to avoid and remedy such a condi-
tion should be done by the city.

There are two phases of unemplojmaent that should be
kept in mind and be dealt with differently by the city.
First there is the continual unemployment due to lack
of proper facilities for bringing together those that seek
employment and those that seek employees. Private
agencies for that purpose are expensive and frequently
take advantage of the wage earner to his detriment. Ex-
perience has shown that an employment bureau conducted
by the city without desire of profit can do much toward
eliminating loss of wages due to a failure to bring the
seekers for work into touch with those desiring workers.
Then there is the serious case of large numbers of per-

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 95

sons, normally engaged in work, thrown out of employment
because of a panic or other accompaniment of business de-
pression. It would frequently be possible for a city itself
to provide work for the ordinary number of unemployed in
normal times by assigning them to day labor in some of the
city public service departments. But the extraordinary
numbers of unemployed that result from a period of busi-
ness depression can be taken care of only by extraordinary
measures demanding an increased number of employees
engaged directly or indirectly in work for the city. Such
an increased demand can result only from a timely increase
in the building undertakings of the city. But as such in-
creased activity can result usually only from a bond issue
and it is not always possible to issue bonds in sufficient
amounts just at such times and it is furthermore always
more difficult to sell them in times of financial disturbance,
the city must, to accomplish the purpose, act in anticipa-
tion of such emergencies. This could best be done by
creating a sinking fund out of the general revenues or by
special tax and letting it accumulate for the purposes men-
tioned until needed, or until large enough to take care also
of some of the ordinary sources of expenditure.

The problem of poor relief presents one of the most per-
plexing of the city's difficulties because while the proper
solution of the question is greatly affected by the variety
of factors involved, the failure to deal with it properly is
certain to be of the gravest consequence to the city. Pov-
erty and crime are close companions, for necessity knows
no law and the jails have no horror for starving persons.
As in the case of the specific problem of unemployment so

96 Social Welfare

in the larger problem of the city's indigent and pauper
element the cause is only slightly traceable to conditions
which the city itself can prevent. But the consequences,
social and political, of pauperism, are consequences which
the city primarily has to bear and it therefore becomes
a prime duty of the city to take such steps as it can to
avoid those consequences. Public charity or poor relief is
a relatively late development of municipal activity, for
until comparatively recent times that matter was left
largely to private initiative particularly that of religious
organizations. To-day, however, the governmental sig-
nificance of a systematic treatment of the poor relief ac-
tivity has come to be pretty generally recognized and all
progressive cities are devoting an increasing amount of
attention to the problem.

In general it may be said that the problem consists in
determining who are really in need of public support and
in aiding them to the extent and in a manner that will
not tend to induce them to cease their own efforts for eco-
nomic improvement by relying upon public aid. The pau-
perizing effect of indiscriminate giving to those who seek
assistance is too well known to require comment. But
discriminating giving can rarely ever be attained unless
there is centralization of the charitable activities in a
municipal department with which all private agencies co-
operate for the more effective accomplishment of the com-
mon purpose. Every city therefore should have a profes-
sionally trained director for the charitable work of the
city who should approach the problem from a scientific
point of view instead of from the point of view of ignorant

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 97

sentimentalism. Street begging and begging from house
to house should then be forbidden and every citizen should
be informed that there is a department of the city to which
all applicants for assistance can be sent with the knowl-
edge that they will receive the treatment their case de-
mands and which the public interest may sanction. Such an
arrangement would serve the double purpose of discourag-
ing impositions on the charitable impulses of the citizens and
of increasing the willingness of these citizens to contribute
towards the cause of public charity who by reason of repeat-
ed frauds upon their sjmapathy had come to turn away all
cases of appeals, worthy and unworthy alike. The munici-
palization and systematic organization of poor relief work
need not mean the elimination of the personal contact and
touch of the individuals with cases of hardship and suffering
which tends to make the more fortunate members of the
community willing and anxious to help those less fortunate,
for the character of the proper kind of poor relief is such
as to demand the active assistance and co-operation of
large numbers of lay citizens working for the department.
The last subject to be considered under the head of
social welfare activities of the city is that of corrections.
The whole subject of penology and criminology is one
which must in its larger aspects be handled by the state, for
it is the state that defines and punishes the more serious
offences against society. At the same time the city ordina-
rily has a considerable penal jurisdiction of its own enforced
by its own police officers and by its own courts and penal in-
stitutions. It is important, therefore, that within its
sphere the city should act in accordance with the right

98 Social Welfare

principles in dealing with offenders. Recent times have
seen a marked change in the attitude of society towards
criminals and lesser offenders. Formerly the basic idea of the
system of public punishment seems to have been that of re-
venge, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Indeed
in times past the punishment of the criminal was consid-
ered to be primarily the business of the person injured, the
government rendering him aid in the process. But even
after that stage was passed the concept at the basis of the
treatment of the criminal was that society had been injur-
ed by his action and should therefore be avenged by in-
flicting a punishment upon him commensurate with the
crime. Besides this fundamental idea of revenge there
was also and still is to-day to a considerable extent the idea
that the function of society in dealing with offenders
against the law should be preventive in that criminals
should receive such treatment as would discourage all
others from attempting like crimes. Accordingly it was
thought that the more severe the punishment the greater
the deterrent effect on others and the greater the security
of society. In former centuries therefore it was the rule
that even petty offences were punishable by death, usually
in some diabolical way. To heighten this deterrent influ-
ence executions were held in public and were popular spec-
tacles. The absurdity of such a system of punishment was
a long time in receiving recognition and though we have to-
day generally abandoned the practice of punishing small
offences as if they were capital crimes and have ceased to
make public spectacles of executions, we still adhere to

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 99

some rather mediaeval conceptions and practices in our
punishment of criminals.

In the first place we may state that city jails are fre-
quently not kept in the condition in which they should
be. However much the security of society may demand the
imprisonment of offenders against the law it cannot and
does not demand inhuman treatment of the offenders. It
has no right to undermine the health of its wards, and jails
should therefore be kept in a sanitary condition. In the
next place modern sociology recognizes that the chief if
not the only function which society can properly assume
with regard to the treatment of offenders against its laws
is to reform the offender to the end that he may be re-
leased at the earliest possible date as a useful member of
society again. All efforts of the so-called penal activity of
government should therefore have in mind primarily the
reform of the offender rather than his punishment. If the
treatment accorded to the criminal is therefore such as
merely to confirm him in his hostile attitude toward so-
ciety so that when his term is up he straightway begins
again upon a career of crime, the fundamental purpose of
our penal system has been perverted. Furthermore, if he
is turned out after serving his term without any equipment
for earning his livelihood, perhaps because of his health
being impaired by sanitary conditions in the jail, he is
also very likely to return to illegitimate undertakings.

The penal institutions should therefore offer not only
healthful living conditions but also opportunities for im-
proving the body, mind, and morals to the end that the so-
cial efficiency of the individual be greater if possible after

734051

100 Social Welfare

his release than before, or at any rate not less. A valua-
ble experiment in this direction is the establishment of mu-
nicipal farms on which the city prisoners can be engaged
in a useful and healthful occupation and at the same time
acquire knowledge which will be of economic benefit to
them after they are released. For many cases the parole
system is a valuable instrument of improvement. Segre-
gation according to age and sex as well as to the character
of the offense committed and on the basis of first or re-
peated offenders is also essential to successful reform
work. Finally may be mentioned the importance of deal-
ing with juvenile delinquency not as crime but as a dis-
tinct phenomenon to be dealt with in a different way. It
is now commonly agreed that to treat children who com-
mit crimes and misdemeanors like ordinary criminals re-
sults in a great many cases in turning into confirmed of-
fenders many persons who with proper watching and su-
pervision could be led to see the error of their ways, ways
which are frequently the result rather of bad home influ-
ences, training and surrounding than of any innate perver-
sity. Probation officers can in most cases do more toward
reforming a youthful first offender who is permitted to
carry on his ordinary activities than can a jailer even un-
der the most favorable conditions. So far therefore as the
city has judicial jurisdiction over offenders it should con-
duct its penal system on the principles recognized as more
effective in the fundamental problem of preventing crime
rather than on the time honored but erroneous doctrines
that have usually governed the penal activity of govern-
ments in the past.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 101

QUESTION SHEET ON SOCIAL WELFARE

Does the city have a housing code regulating the con-
struction of tenements and rent houses, as to light and
air, sanitary conveniences, number of persons who
may be permitted to live in one room, etc.?

What is the condition of the poorer classes as to dwell-
ing places, what rents are charged, and what returns
do houses in the congested and poorer districts yield?

Could the congestion be relieved by better and cheaper
transportation facilities? Is land now reached by
street railways held at high prices for speculation?

What are the sanitary conditions under which wage
earners in the city, particularly women, work?

What opportunities for recreation and rest are offered
by the employers?

How does the city as an employer of labor compare with
other employers as to wages paid, hours of labor, sani-
tary condition of work places, recreational facilities,
etc?

What recreational facilities does the city offer for the
laboring classes particularly, such as playgrounds for
the children, accessible parks, public baths, gymna-
siums, neighborhood houses, etc.

What measures does the city adopt to deal with unem^
ployment? Is there a free employment agency? Does

102 Social Welfare

the city enlarge or diminish the extent of its public
works, undertakings and construction in time of finan-
cial stringency?

Is there a special authority to deal with poor relief and
charity in the city? How is private charity correlated
with the work of the city? How does the city deal with
street and house begging?

What is the condition of the city jail? Are the living
conditions sanitary?

What treatment is accorded to the inmates? What ef-
forts are made to reform them? Are offenders seg-
gregated in the jails according to age, sex, and crimin-
al records?

Is there a special method of dealing with juvenile of-
fenders?

IX.

City Planning.

City planning is one of the most recent of municipal
functions to receive recognition in this country, though its
importance is rapidly coming to be realized. In general
it may be said that the purposes of systematic city
planning are or should be two fold, esthetic and social.
It is the first of these which has usually been emphasized
by those interested in city planning, too often to the mini-
mizing if not indeed to the exclusion of the other feature.
In point of fact, however, the social value of a proper city
plan or program of physical development is of much more
fundamental importance to the welfare of the city than is
the mere matter of physical beauty, tho fortunately the two
objects are not only easily united in one program but na-
turally have a very intimate relation with each other.

Taking up first the possibilities that lie in a systematic
plan of city development for the improvement of social con-
ditions we may touch briefly on such matters as provisions
for parks and playgrounds, proper transportation facili-
ties and housing regulations. The greatest social ailment
of the city is congestion and any attempt at city planning
which leaves out of consideration remedial measures di-
rected at that ailment fails at the most important point.
The fundamental causes of congestion it is true are again,
like those of unemployment and pauperism, with which

103

104 City Planning

congestion and slums are intimately connected, to be found
in conditions which unfortunately are not under the con-
trol of or subject to reflation by the city. These condi-
tions are long hours of labor and poor wages and it has
been shown that normally the intensity of congestion will
vary directly with the length of the working day and in-
versely with the wages paid. But while the remedying of
these fundamental causal conditions is outside the juris-
diction of the city, there are many measures which the city
can and should adopt for minimizing the unfortunate re-
sults of congestion and in some measure for counteracting
the effect of the conditions named.

First among these may be considered the city parks
and playgrounds. The value from an esthetic point
of view of beautiful city parks is of course obvious
and has indeed been frequently appreciated at least in
our larger American cities. But the sanitary and social
significance have too often been lost sight of, in that
beautiful and expensive parks have been located at a dis-
tance from the congested portion of the city where they
neither served to furnish fresh air for the crowded tene-
ment dwellings nor could be used for outings by the tene-
ment dwellers because of the distance, requiring an outlay
in street car fare which the wage earning head of a num-
erous family could not afford to expend. In realization
of this feature of the city's open places the practice of
having a large number of small and easily accessible parks
instead of one or two splendid but from this point of view
largely useless parks is coming to be more and more wide-
ly adopted. Of equal significance is the playground move-

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 105

ment which at relatively small expense and on very small
plots of ground causes playgrounds for the children to be
located in the congested districts, furnishing both breath-
ing places and wholesome recreation places to take the
place of the dirty, noisy, dangerous, and morally harmful
streets and back alleys. In this connection should be men-
tioned also the value of properly located and conducted
swimming pools and bath houses which serve both a sani-
tary and recreational object of considei:|i(b|e^ importance.

The importance of rapid and cheap transportation facili-
ties as one means of attacking the problem of congestion
has already been touched upon in discussing the social wel-
fare activities of the city. It is only necessary to point out
here, therefore, that the laying out of proper lines of trans-
portation leading from the industrial portions of the city
to outlying sections suitable for workmens' dwellings
should form an important part of every city planning un-
dertaking and the city itself should see to it that such out-
lying sections are made available for the purpose at reas-
onable, prices. The transportation problem of course pre-
sents other matters affecting the city planning activity,
such as the minimum of interference with other traffic, the
sightliness of the right of way, by requiring underground
wiring and parking along the tracks, the proper architec-
tural treatment of elevated railway structures if required,
and the beauty of all transportation stations and terminals.

Building regulations and their significance from a sani-
tary and social point of view have already been considered
in connection with the discussion of housing conditions and
their improvement by the city. These regulations dealt chief-

106 City Planning

ly with the conditions prevailing as to light and air, sani-
tary conveniences, and insanitary and indecent crowding
into rooms and apartments. They were concerned, there-
fore, with such questions as the height of buildings in re-
lation to the width of the street, the proportion of the
area of each lot that should be left unbuilt on, the size and
location of windows, etc., all of which of course has also
an effect on the appearance of the building, although ad-
ditional requirements should be made in the interests of a
general pleasing appearance for tenements from the out-
side as well as proper arrangments on the inside. But
there is another important point to be kept in mind by the
city planning body which has a bearing on the social as well
as the esthetic side of building regulations. This is the
matter of zoning or of determining distinct districts of
the city for different kinds of building purposes. So all
factories and other industrial establishments should be re-
quired to locate in certain defined zones or areas, other
areas should be designated as business districts, still others
as tenement and apartment house districts, and finally
others as single family dwelling districts. In this way
the residence sections could be protected against the noise,
dirt, and congestion existing in the business and industri-
al districts and an important blow struck at the problem
of congestion, or at least of future congestion. This zon-
ing plan is not a new thing for cities, as German cities
particularly have adopted such plans of development for a
number of years back and the best city plans now being
adopted in this country make provisions for the same gen-
eral kind of scheme.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 107

Leaving now the social objects to be attained by city
planning we may consider briefly the more purely esthetic
or artistic objects to be sought after, though here again
other considerations must be taken into account, such as
convenience and cost if a valuable and practicable plan is
to be involved. First we may take up what is sometimes
regarded as the principal problem of the city plan, namely
the arrangement of the streets. In this regard utility and
convenience should be the prime considerations and beauty
next. The prime purpose of streets is not to furnish beauty
but to afford facilities for intercommunication and traffic,
therefore a good city plan must attempt to offer the most
convenient arrangement of streets for that purpose, con-
sistent with other considerations, including esthetic ones
also. Here, again, fortunately, the most useful arrange-
ments proves to be also the most pleasing from an artistic
standpoint, hence the problem is relatively simple. The
characteristic plan of laying out streets in American cities
is the regular rectangular plan which makes the city look
like an immense checkerboard. This plan is most objec-
tionable from the point of view of traffic and transporta-
tion for it makes it very inconvenient to go diagonally
across the city, requiring one to travel along the two sides
of a right angle triangle instead of along the hypothenuse.
The plan has the advantage of making it easy to find ones
way because all streets are straight and houses can be
numbered conveniently with reference to intersecting
streets. Furthermore it permits of the most complete use
for building purposes of the land not used for streets, al-
though we shall see that one of the advantages of the plan

108 City Planning

suggested later on is that it results in the creation of many
small plots of land unsuitable for buildings which can be
turned into small parklets or flower gardens to great ad-
vantage.

But the disadvantages of the pure checker board plan
outweigh all possible advantages from the point of view of
facility of intercommunication and in addition to that are
by reason of the monotony of the effect produced little
adapted to effective landscape architecture. But it may
well be retained as the ground work of the city plan be-
cause of its economical use of the street areas and because
of the ease of numbering and finding of streets and houses.
The defect of not affording diagonal passage way across
the city can easily be overcome by providing for a series of
diagonal thoroughfares to serve as main highways for
getting across the city in diagonal directions. Such a plan
of diagonal streets radiating out from one or more centers
of traffic would also serve to relieve the monotony of the
checker board and would result in the creation of little
triangular areas at the street intersections which would af-
ford splendid opportunities for little parks with sculpture,
ornamental fountains and flower beds. Another variation
in the checker board plan which serves convenience of in-
tercourse also but has chiefly artistic merit is the use of
one or more circle boulevards whose center would be the
principal civic center, that is, group of public buildings
of the community. This feature of street planning orig-
ated in continental European cities where the lines of the
old city walls and fortifications offered convenient lines for
broad streets because the land in question had not been

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 109

built up in -business blocks. The architectural effects ob-
tainable by such a system of concentric circular boule-
vards are splendid.

These suggestions with regard to the laying out of city
streets are based on the implied assumption that city plan-
ning had been given attention prior to the growth of the
city and that its development could be directed along these
lines. This is not true of course of any of the older and larg-
er cities. They all developed, with very few exceptions, be-
fore the importance of city planning even from an esthetic
point of view had been realized and the plan of the streets
shows therefore few or none of the desirable features men-
tioned. The same thing is true of the points to be noted
a little later with regard to width of streets, location of
public buildings, etc. The introduction of all these feat-
ures now into the built up portions of these cities would
therefore involve a very considerable if not a prohibitive
expense. A city planning program for the established
business and residence sections of a city should therefore
attempt to improve the situation as far as possible without
involving the tearing down of too many valuable buildings
or the undue disturbances of established routes of com-
munication. For all such portions of cities a study of the
natural arteries of communication should be made, these
should be widened as much as need be and all traffic de-
flected as far as possible to such streets while other streets
be limited to pleasure travel. This would serve not only
to afford opportunities for street beautification and im-
provement, but would relieve congestion of traffic and
simplify the paving problem which is affected primarily

110 City Planning

by considerations of the kind and amount of traffic to be
borne by the streets.

At the same time while it is true that it is niuch more ex-
pensive to replan a city than to plan it in the first place
and the possibility of a systematic comprehensive plan is
greatly diminished if it is not adopted until after the city
has attained a considerable growth, yet it must not be for-
gotten that some aspects of city planning are so important
to the welfare of the city, particularly the social aspects,
that the question of expense takes a subordinate place com-
pared with the need of making the required changes. Many
cities in this country as well in Europe have found it
economical to spend millions of dollars in replanning
their streets for the purpose of improving housing and liv-
ing conditions and for beautifying the city. The very
costliness of such improvement may furthermore prove
a helpful lesson for smaller cities in attacking the problem
of planning their development early while it is yet a simple
matter, and for the larger cities in controlling the plan-
ning of new additions in the unbuilt territory near the city
which will later become a part thereof. It should also be
emphasized here that while the general considerations
mentioned with regard to the laying out of streets and the
other problems of city planning have in a sense a universal
application, their local application in a given city will be
greatly affected not only by the past development of the
city as above shown, but also by the topography and the cli-
matic conditions of the individual city. A local study by a
competent city planner should therefore always precede any

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 111

action to be taken with regard to the adoption of a gen-
eral line of development.

The width of streets is another important considera-
tion to be kept in mind in connection with the adoption
of a city plan. It is a not uncommon notion that wide streets
are necessarily desirable both from the point of view of
convenience and of beauty, and that therefore all streets
should be made as wide as possible. This is a mistaken
notion. Streets are, as has been said, primarily arteries
of traffic. They should therefore be wide enough to ac-
commodate conveniently the traffic that is likely to use
them, and that width will vary with different streets. If
streets are made any wider than is necessary for their
fundamental purpose it results in unnecessary expense to
the abutting property for paving and to the city for repair-
ing and cleaning, while at the same time it unnecessarily
diminishes the amount of space available for building pur-
poses. Of course, the street should be wide enough in any
case to admit enough light and air to the houses likely to
be built on it and certain of the main streets and boule-
vards should, for architectural effects, be made wider than
is absolutely necessary for traffic purposes, but it is well
to point out that streets can and not infrequently are too
wide as well as too narrow. A convenient and artistic way
of securing width in the street without the resulting incon-
venience of a wide expanse to be paved and kept in repair
and clean, is to park the center third of the street with lawn
and flowers, leaving a traffic way on either side wide enough
to accommodate the normal travel.

There are many other considerations that might be men-

112 City Planning

tioned with regard to the beauty of the streets, such as the
need of shade trees, ornamental lighting, harmony of ar-
chitecture, etc., but it is not necessary here to go into further
detail. One very important matter, however, should be
mentioned because it is one in which almost all American
cities, even the largest and the most progressive, fail. That
is the matter of bill boards and other street advertisements.
Many a beautiful street or boulevard and many places of
natural beauty in or near our cities are marred by the ill-
advised advertising mania. Cities should be given the wid-
est possible powers to remedy this evil, for it makes civic
beauty almost an impossibility. Offenses to the eye are
just as objectionable, and to many people more so, as are
offenses to the ear and nose. Objectionable sounds and
smells can usually be eliminated at least to the extent that
they are unnecessary, and in that sense this mania of street
advertising is certainly unnecessary. So long as a few
manufacturers or sellers make use of it others feel com-
pelled by competition to do the same, but if it were for-
bidden to all none would suffer except the persons who sell
or rent the space for commercial gain to the destruction of
the beauty of their city.

Finally, we may touch briefly on the importance of lo-
cating public buildings in such a way as to serve artistic
purposes as well as to be conveniently accessible. "Civic
center" has come to be used to designate the collection or
grouping of the public buildings of the city for architectural
effects. This plan, like the other features of civic beauty,
has in mind also the development of civic pride which comes
from seeing public buildings of effective architecture

A Handbook op Civic Improvement 113

grouped in an artistic way to exemplify the spirit of the
city and its importance and achievements. In the style of
architecture and location of its own buildings the city, of
course, has entire say, but it should also make every effort
to secure the co-operation of the federal government in the
erection of its postoffices and other buildings, and of the
state and county in the erection of their buildings within
the city. With such co-operation between the various gov-
ernmental agencies it would be possible for every city, even
the smallest, to have a civic center proportionate to its size
and importance which could be made a beauty spot to which
citizens would point with pride. If then, in addition, an-
other common sore spot in the city, the railway station,
were required to be made as attractive as possible, the im-
provement in the physical aspect of the ordinary city would
be phenomenal. For this purpose every city should have an
art commission, composed of lay citizens, serving without
pay, to pass on and approve every building erected by the
city or by public service corporations in the city, and to
approve all monuments erected in public squares by or for
the city, which commission could act in the general capacity
of a city planning commission, assisted in both functions by
a professional man who had made a special study of land-
scape architecture and city planning

114 City Planning

QUESTION SHEET ON CITY PLANNING

How many acres of parks are in the city? Are they with-
in easy walking distance of the tenement or congested
working districts of the city?

What provision does the city make for playgrounds, bath
houses and swimming pools, or gymnasiums?

Has the city established zones for the different kinds of
structures in the city? Are workmen's dwellings
crowded in among industrial plants, factories and sweat
shops?

Have any steps been taken toward the adoption and fol-
lowing of a systematic city plan? Is there a city plan-
ning or city art commission?

Are the streets as now laid out best adapted to the exist-
ing and future traffic conditions? Are shade trees pro-
vided by the city or required of property owners?

What abuses exist with regard to the bill board evil?
What steps if any are taken to remedy this evil?

What is the artistic value of the public buildings in the
city ; city hall, jail, schools, etc., and of the federal and
county buildings?

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 115

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON MUNICIPAL
FUNCTIONS.*

General.

Beard, Charles A., American City Government (New York,

The Century Company, 112) , $2.00.
Bruere, Henry, The New City Government (New York,

D. Appleton & Co., 1912), $1.50.
Zueblin, Charles, American Municipal Progress (New

York, The Macmillan Company, new and revised edition,

1914), $1.25.

Public Health.

Blair, Thomas S., Public Hygiene (Boston, Richard G.

Badger, 2 volumes, 1911), $10.00.
Godfrey, Hollis, The Health of the City (Boston, Houghton

Mifflin Co., 1910), $1.25.
Jensen, Carl Oluf, Essentials of Milk Hygiene, translated

by Leonard Pearson (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co.,

second edition, 1909) , $2.00.
Spargo, John, The Common Sense of the Milk Question

(New York, The Macmillan Co., 1908), $1.50.
SOPER, George A., Modern Methods of Street Cleaning

(New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., formerly Engineer-
ing News Publishing Co., 1909), $3.00.

•Prepared by Edward T. Paxton, Assistant in the Bureau of Municipal Research
and Reference.

116 A Handbook of Civic Improvement

Howard, L. O., The House Fly — Disease Carrier (New
York, F. A. Stokes Co., 1911), $1.60.

Doty, Alvah H., The Mosquito — Its Relation to Disease
and Its Extermination (New York, D. Appleton & Co.,
1912), 75s.

AiNGE, Thomas S., The Sanitary Sewerage of Buildings
(Chicago, Domestic Engineering, 1908), $1.50.

Morse, William F., The Collection and Disposal of Mu-
nicipal Waste (New York, Municipal Journal and Engi-
neer, 1909), $5.00.

Fuller, George W., Sewage Disposal (New York, McGraw-
Hill Book Co., 1912), $6.00.

KiNNECUT (L. P.), WiNSLOW (C.-E. A.), and Pratt
(R. W.), Sewage Disposal (New York, John Wiley &
Sons, 1910), $3.00.

Cornell, Walter S., Health and Medical Inspection of
School Children (Philadelphia, F. A. Davis Co., 1912),
$3.00.

GULICK (L. H.) and Ayres (L. P.), Medica\ Inspection of
. .Schools (New York, Survey Associates, revised edition,
1913), $1.50.

Kerr (J. W. and Moll (A. A.), Organization, Powers, and
Duties of Health Authorities (Washington, Government
Printing Office; U. S. Public Health Bulletin No. 54;
sold from the office of the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington, D. C; 1912), 25c.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 117

Public Safety.

FuLD, Leonard Felix, Police Administration (New York,
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1910), $3.00.

McAdoo, William, Guarding a Great City (New York,
Harper & Brothers, 1906) , $2.00.

Public Education.

Monroe, Paul, Text Book in the History of Education
(New York, The Macmillan Company, 1905), $1.90.

Perry, Clarence Arthur, Wider Use of the School Plant
(New York, Survey Associates, formerly Charities Publi-
cation Committee, 1910) , $1.25.

Snedden, David S., The Problem of Vocational Education
(Boston, Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1910), 35c.

Public Morals.

Seligman, Edwin R. A., The Social Evil (New York, G. P.
Putnam's Sons; report on conditions in New York City,
prepared in 1902 under the direction of the Committee of
Fifteen, second edition, revised and enlarged; 1912),
$1.75.

Vice Commission op Chicago, The Social evil in Chicago
(Chicago, republished by the Vice Commission of Chicago
for distribution by the American Vigilance Association,
1911).

118 A Handbook of Civic Improvement

Social Welfare.

Veiller, Lawrence, Hottsing Reform (New York, Survey
Associates, 1914), $1.25.

, A Model Housing Law (New York.

Survey Associates, 1914) , $2.00.

National Conference on Housing, Housing Problems in
America (Cincinnati; published by the Conference; com-
prises the proceedings of the annual conference or con-
vention; a volume is issued each year, beginning 1911),
$2.00 each.

Butler, Elizabeth Beardsley, Women and the Trades
(New York, Survey Associates, 1909), $1.50.

Kellog, Paul U. (editor), Wage-Earning Pittsburgh (New
York, Survey Associates, 1914) , $2.50.

Ward, Edward J., The Social Center (New York, D. Apple-
ton & Co., 1913), $1.50.

Hunter, Robert, Poverty (New York, The Macmillan
Company, 1912), $1.25.

Henderson, Charles R., Preventive Agencies and Methods
(New York, Survey Associates, formerly Charities Publi-
cation Committee ; volume 3 of the Correction and Preven-
tion Series, prepared for the Eighth International Prison
Congress; 1910), $2.50.

A Handbook of Civic Improvement 119

City Planning and Recreation.

Robinson, Charles Mulpord, Improvement of Towns and
Cities (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, new edition, re-
vised and enlarged, 1913), $1.25.

, Modern Civic Art (New York, G. P. Put-

nam's Sons) , $3.00.

yThe Width and Arrangement of Streets

(New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1911), $2.00.

NOLEN, John, Replanning Small Cities (New York, B. W.
Huebsch, 1911), $2.50.

National Conference on City Planning, Proceedings of
the Annual Conference (Boston; published by the Confer-
ence ; a volume is issued each year, beginning 1909) . $1.50
each.

Leland, Arthur and Lorna, Playground Technique and
Playcraft (New York, Doubleday Page & Co., 1910),
$2.50.

Mero, Everett B., American Playgrounds (New York,
Baker & Taylor Co., second edition, 1910), $2.00.

In keeping abreast of current progress in municipal func-
tions. The American City (New York; monthly; $2.00 a
year), is just as indispensable as is the National Municipal
Review (Philadelphia; quarterly; $5.00 a year), in keeping
abreast of current thought in municipal government.

/| ^^ri

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THE NBW YORK PUBUC LIBRARY
REFtSRKNCE DfiPARTMENJ

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