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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 82, no. 2126: December 12, 1908

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December 12, 1908 RECORD AND GUTOE Uir ESTABUSHED^fW.CH£LsJ^lB68 "Dev&ieB 10 REA.L Estate.BuiLoiffe ArpKitecttui^.HguseHou)Decqf;^™*^ Bifsn/Ess Ati) Themes of GE|tei^l Ij^iERfsi.; PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE EIGHT DOLLARS Communications should be addressed to C- W. SWEET Published Every Saturday By THB RECOKD AND GUIDE CO. President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W- DODGE Vice-Pres. & Genl. Mgr., H. W- DESMOND Secretary, F- T. MILLER Nos. II to 15 East 24tli Street, New York City (Telepbone, Madison Square, 4480 to 4433.) ••Entered at lhc Post Office at New Tork. N. Y., as sccnnd-rkiss matter." Copyrighted, 1908, by The Record Sc Guide Co, Vol LXXXII. DECEMBER 12, 1908. No. 2126 IN a few weeks the new charter will be published in full and the people of New York will bave an opportunity of reading aud criticizing tbe instnimeut whereby they are likely to be governed for a long time. The work of prepar¬ ing tbis charter has been more carefully and more thoroughly done than on any similar occasion in the history of the city; and before it is accepted it will have the advantage of Lhc revision of one of the most capable constructive lawyers in the United States. One may or may not approve of the reforms which Governor Hughes has introduced into the State government, but no one can question, not merely his ability as a lawyer but his thorough understanding of the principles upon which the efficiency of the American local government must depend. The Public Service Commission act was drawn with the hand of a master for the purpose of fulfilling the political and administrative objects which it was intended to accomplish; and while the same hand has not been engaged upon the details of the new charter, that piece of machinery will have the benefit of detailed criti¬ cism by Mr. Hughes. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that Mr. William I\I. Ivins and his associates on the Charter Commission have been guided in their work by, the same correct principles—among which the principle of con- centrative responsibility, and of making the' power adequate to the responsibility is dominant. The preliminary draft of the new charter published last year has in al! probability not heen changed except in details; but until the flnal scheme is definitely announced, it would be a waste of time to con¬ sider its specific provisions. In the meantime it is good news that the essential provisions of the charter, as an in¬ strument of government, will be comparatively short, and consequently easily understood. On the other hand, the ad¬ ministrative Code will be longer and will remain after the instrument is adopted completely, subject in its details to the judgment of the Board of Estimate, This is as it should be, and if it Is adopted it will Constitute a long step in the direction of genuine home rule. Of course, the Legislature will retain the legal right to change any administrative regu¬ lations which the local authorities may see fit to adopt, but if the Board of Estimate performs its duties well, an un¬ written law against interference may soon come to have the force of a statute; and eventually such an unwritten law might be embodied in a constitutional amendment. It is also announced that the new charter authorizes the creation of a central purchasing department headed by a single chief who can be made responsible for the economical buying of all the city's supplies. This is the reform so ably advocated hy the Bureau of Municipal Research, and it may well be the means of saving the city fully ten or fifteen per cent, of this great item of expenditure. A purchasing department, even if it were not under the control of a very efficient man, could not conceal the traces of extravagance in the use and the buying of supplies. Its operations would be accessible to any investigator and a tendency to extravagance or graft would be immediately discovered and checked. IN the last issue of the Record and Gnide, Mr. Edgar J. Levey made an able and interesting answer to the criticisms which have been made against his assertion that the increase in municipal expenditures should be approxi¬ mately commensurate with the Increase in population. In venturing upon some further discussion, we do not wish to be understood as merely trying to make a point or engage in a controversy. Mr. Levey is unquestionably right in in¬ sisting that the municipal expenditure of New Yorlv is in¬ creasing, not only far more rapidly than it should, but at a rate 'which, if it continues, will amount to the partial con¬ fiscation of real estate in this city; and the essential thing is that the danger should be fuily understood and should provoke aderjuate measures of protection- But one may agree with Mr. Levey in his fundamental contention while at the same time maintaining that the growth in municipal expenditures may exceed in a measure the growth in popula¬ tion without imposing a grievous or a dangerous burden on the taxpayer. When it is asserted that there is a world¬ wide tendeney for municipal expenditures to increase more rapidly than the growth in population, it is scarcely fair to answer, as Mr. Levey does, that this fact, if true, is merely an indication of a pervasive rather than an exceptional guilt. Would it not be more just to conclude that this general ten¬ dency is symptomatic of the necessity of meeting an equally general economic condition and political need? It is as difRcult to draw up an indictment against a practically uni¬ versal economic tendency as it is, in Burke's words, to draw up an indictment against a people. Such indiscriminate methods of condemnation should be left to the Socialists. Among the great numbers of cities, which share with New York the guilt of permitting their increase in expenditures to run ahead of their increase in population, there are some which are examples of municipal extravagance, but there are others which are examples of thrifty and econom¬ ical management- If cities in this class cannot keep their increase in expenditures even approximately commensurate '^V'ith the gro'wth in population, it may be assumed that this policy is the result, not of extravagance, but of the intelli¬ gent adaptation of means to an end- The end which they seek to attain may be the strictly business one of spending more money with the full expectation of getting a larger sum in return, or it may be prompted by a desire to promote the municipal welfare in some indirect but none the less essential way. In the case of any particular city such spe¬ cific cases of expenditure are to be approved or disapproved just in so far as the object is a desirable object, or just in so far as the object being desirable, it is not purchased at too high a cost- Any prejudice against expenditure, pro¬ vided it exceeds a certain proposition, may hamper efficient municipal goverment just as effectually as does any tendency to spend the city's money without the most careful scrutiny of each particular case of expenditure as it arises. The general tendency for municipal expenditures to increase faster than the increase in population is due to the fact that citv government, as a city grows in wealth and in the num¬ ber of its inhabitants, finds an increasing number of respon¬ sibilities thrust upon it, aud anybody who objects radically to the whole tendency must be able to show that these re¬ sponsibilities ought not to be assumed. Such, as a matter of fact, we take to be Mr. Levey's attitude- He objects in principle to the general movement in the direction of what is known as municipal socialism, which at bottom is simply the more or less actual assumption of increasing municipal responsibilities- He may be right or wrong in disapproving this movement, but his disapproval must be based, not on the mere fact that the increase in municipal expenditures are exceeding the increase iu population, but that this propor¬ tionately increasing expenditure is unremunerative to the city and to the individual taxpayer. THE foregoing statement of our reasons for disagreeing to this limited extent with Mr. Levey is necessarily ab¬ stract, but it can be made more concrete by applying the principle involved to the- particular case of New York City. The expenditures of New York are increasing, it is admitted, not only far more rapidly than the increase iu population, but at a rate which may prove to be practically confiscation of real estate values. The questiton immediately arises as to the cause of this condition and its possible cure- Munici¬ pal reformers are universally agreed that the cause ia partly to he traced to a wasteful flnancial system—which in one way or another occasions a loss to the city of many millions of dollars a year, and in the near future their efforts and those of the taxpayers' associations will be devoted chiefly to the task of preventing the occurrence of this waste. Let us assume, however, that this source of municipal extravagance is eradicated and that a condition ■will be created in which the city, whenever it spends five dollars, will get five dollars' worth, either of labor or of supplies. Will the saving ef¬ fected by the doing away with financial aud administrative abuges be sufficient to remove this threat of the confiscation