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Kansas University Weekly.
MISGELLANEOUS.
Review-Tolman's Municipal Reform Movements.
Dr. William Howe Tolman's "Municipal Reform Movements" is a valuable work for two reasons. It gives an account of the reform movements and their success in our larger cities and is especially rich in suggestions of the true sphere of municipal action, enlarging it, far beyond the conception of the average American citizen.
The introductory chapter is by Dr. Parkhurst, and deals with conditions in New York City. The causes of the movement are given as moral; an endeavor to make better citizens, and to develop a hatred of bossism.
In the immediately succeeding pages Dr. Colman defines the functions of the municipality and suggests how the victory may be made permanent. The functions of the municipalare summed up in a word as "provision for the broadest development of the people." The city is not a business corporation but a body politic and in its management this fact must be considered in its evident significance. Life must be given precedence over property.
Dr. Tolman advocates the municipal establishment and control of tenements, baths, wastehouses, and lavatories, calling attention to the presence of these in London and Berlin, and deploring their absence in New York. The essential feature of reform movements, he characterizes as non-partizanship. "Civil officers," he says, "should be selected without regard to party affiliations, just as clerks, butlers, or coachmen."
To insure the continuance of honest administration, there should be a permanent organization something like the Committee of Seventy but representative and officially recognized. There is danger of relapse, and enthusiasm must be kept up by continuous agitation." The material and commercial spirit of civic life must be subordinated to the progressive and social spirit of the times. "Provision should be made to surround the working-class with ennobling influences and to give them access to libraries, art galleries, museums, and manual and technical
training schools. We are cautioned from being led astray from the real issue by a discussion of honest primaries and blanket ballots, and are admonished "to use our efforts in the enforcement of the positive program, because that will at once conduce to the welfare of what should be our city.
The rest of the book is devoted principally to an account of the movements for reform so far undertaken. These he divides into three classes. The first are concerned with municipal reform in its narrower sense, what Dr. Tolman calls the destructive work, checks upon municipal corruption. Of these clubs there are fifty-seven altogether, twelve in New York, twenty-nine in Eastern cities out of New York, fifteen in the West, and one in the South at New Orleans. The second class are those making for reform in its broadest sense, the positive, constructive program. These are thirteen in number, all in the East but one which is in Chicago. The third class comprises organizations among the women devoted to this work, eight in number; one here in Chicago, and the others in the East. The work of these women's clubs is educational and indirect in its influence rather than practical with the one exception of the Civic League of New York which took an active part in the last city campaign.
The book then discusses the City Vigilance League of which the author is the Secretary and which is probably the most perfectly organized and successful reform club in existence. Its objects as stated are to raise the tone of citizenship, to become better acquainted with the machinery of city government, and to obtain facts in regard to the present condition of the city. For the purposes of work, the city is divided into districts; duties are assigned to each district. It is the duty of the supervisor to accumulate facts in regard to every moral, and civic interest of his district. The "City Vigilant," a worthy paper, a bulletin, is issued. This serves the double purpose of obtaining information for the league and imparting it to its members. Besides a summary of work done and anticipated