BUSINESS tional activities. Under the plan proposed by the charter bill all of these activities are to be placed under a department of public welfare. This department may be authorized by council to take over other welfare activities also. The creation of this department is in line with modern practice in many cities, notably Kansas City and Dayton. In all of these cities very beneficial results have followed the establishment of welfare departments. Bureau of Health Becomes a Department The creation of the department of public welfare leaves the bureau of health as the only bureau in the present department of public health and charities. The bureau is a very large one, containing several divisions-medical inspection, housing and sanitation, dispensaries, vital statistics, child hygiene, food inspection laboratories, and contagious disease hospitals-and is of sufficient importance to be a separate department. The bill accomplishes this, at the same time. abolishing the present department of public health and charities. An Appointive City Solicitor About election time there is always a great 10 CITIZENS' Ideal of criticism of our blanket ballot and the great number of offices our voters are called on to fill. To help remedy this generally admitted evil the charter bill provides that the city solicitor, heretofore an elected officer, shall be appointed by the mayor, subject to confirmation by council. In addition to shortening the ballot this change makes for closer cooperation between the city solicitor and the mayor, whose confidential legal adviser he is. The separate election of the city solicitor might easily prevent an effective administration of the city's business, by making it possible to have a city solicitor not in harmony with the mayor, or perhaps even politically opposed to him. City Treasurer to be Receiver of Taxes A study of the office of the receiver of taxes makes it clear that there is no real need for its existence as a separate department. It has no discretionary or custodial responsibilities and serves merely as a sort of conduit through which the money received flows daily to the city treasury. And a great deal of money (in 1917 over $8,000,000 exclusive of loan funds) does not go to the receiver of taxes at all but is paid directly to the city treasurer. Under the charter bill the CITI "COUNCILS" ROGRESS in Philadelphia for many has been retarded by the city's unwieldy chambered system of councils. Philadelph day shares with Baltimore the doubtful di tion of being the only large American* cit clinging to that system, and even in Balti where the system is prescribed by the state stitution, the total number of councilmen in branches is only 37 as compared with Phi phia's 145. Acting often as a check and obstructi meritorious measures but never preventing passage of iniquities such as the gas ste 1905, the two-chambered system has long demonstrated its absolute uselessness as fa municipal affairs are concerned. Recogn this fact, the authors of the new charter bill pose to abolish the present councils and set single city legislative body with a greatly red membership. The new council is to be el from the existing state senatorial districts o basis of one councilman for every 20,000 sessed voters in each district. Based on figures this will give us a council of 21 mem *To the best of our knowledge, the two-chambered council is unknown in any other nation of the world. BUSINESS OF PUBLIC WELFARE the Public Schools, and the Dayton Playgrounds and Gardens Association. In 1914 the public schools maintained eight playgrounds in their school yards; the city maintained six playgrounds; and the Playgrounds and Gardens Association twelve, each organization paying the supervisor of its playgrounds. The attendance for ten weeks was 200,000. The division also provided two life-savers, one beach guard, and one swimming instructor at the bathing beach on Island Park. The other park functions are in charge of the Division of Parks. The Division of Corrections has established a municipal lodging house for men and its equivalent in the "Door of Hope" for women. It has transformed the workhouse, eliminating contract work and employing men on public works, including work on parks, levees, streets, municipal buildings, and workhouse gardens. The entire installation of the municipal lodging house was done by workhouse inmates. The food of the police station is prepared by them. It is selfsupporting. There are also Divisions of Poor Relief and Municipal Employment. The Public Welfare Department has followed the example of Kansas City in organizing a Division of Legal Aid, which takes care of seventy-two cases a month. In 1914 of those aided 535 were white Americans, 96 negroes, and 93 foreign born. -Charles Zueblin in American Municipal Progress. Published by Macmillan Co. |