These statistics are now consulted more or less in the preparation of the budget in over one-half of our large cities, and the great mass of city officers begin to see that the scheme of uniform reports is not wholly an iridescent dream of the visionary, as was the case five or ten years ago. In summing up the results of these seven years' use of the census schedules, I think I can best state the same by making use of some of the terms of the old religious revivalists of a half century ago. They employed three words to express the different changes in the minds and acts of the sinners as the result of the efforts of the churches and Christians to reform the evildoers. Those words, or phrases, were "conviction of sin,” “conversion," and "regeneration.' Men were said to have been convicted when they were satisfied that they were sinners; but such conviction amounted to but little unless the mental impression led to some action by which the one convicted was turned sharp around from an evil course and began to walk in a correct one. Such a turning around was spoken of as conversion; but starting on such a good road, though commendable, was not enough; the converted must walk sufficiently in that road to become changed in all his vital relations with the world. Such a change was called regeneration. Officials Employing these old religious terms, I will begin my summary of results by saying that as one of the general results of the use of the census schedules, reinforced by all of the other factors working for municipal reform, city officials as a whole have become "convicted" of the folly of diverse accounts without system and without uniformity. They have become convinced of the value of accounts uniform for all cities, and arranged in a form that will permit of using accounts as a test and measure of the governmental economy and efficiency as well as of fiscal honesty. So far as I know, every national civic organization has placed itself on record in favor of uniform accounts and reports arranged substantially on the basis of the census schedule, and a very large number of state organizations are on record to the same effect. Laws have been passed in a number of states calling for uniform reports of city officials to certain state officers; and in Ohio, Iowa, and New York these uniform reports are accompanied with a supervision on the part of state officials, and uniform accounts on the part of cities. This is a great change for seven years, and yet I must say that the officials of the smaller municipalities have as yet been touched but little by the spirit of change and modern progress, and there is still need of using all the energies of reform organization to show state, county, and local officials the true place of accounts in the management of governmental business. The campaign is still on, and no friend of efficient government can rest content until every government official is aroused— "convicted," if you please-to the value of accounts as the measure and test of efficiency as well as of honesty. We must press home the good work, and if, to hide dishonesty or graft in their administration, city officials are in the way of introducing this modern use of accounts. we must see to it that the courts make use of another sort of conviction, at once to correct their wrong and to displace such officials by better ones. In this connection, permit me to say that I believe the work of the Bureau of the Census in the compilation of financial and general statistics of cities gives to its agents in some respects the most agreeable and congenial work in which government employees are engaged. The city officers with whom our agents come in contact have all been "convicted," in the preachers' use of that word, but not in the terminology of the courts. They see the value in the statistics, and hence extend to the agents of the Census all the possible courtesies of official life. To this custom there have been in the last few years but few exceptions, and they were in the case of fiscal officers whose actions were crooked and otherwise defective. These exceptions are so few that they are hardly worth mentioning. I note this phase of the census work to show how fully the city fiscal officers have experienced the first change indicated in the old preachers' category of reformation. I am glad that I can report more than the foregoing; I can say not only that all city fiscal officers have been convicted, but convinced, of the desirability of uniform accounts and reports for the purpose of making such reports the measure of official economy and efficiency. A very large proportion of the fiscal officers of our larger cities have become converted; they are Officials facing in another direction from what they were ten years ago. They are introducing in varying degrees the census classification of payments and receipts, and introducing accounts that are arranged for the purpose of making such accounts, in one way and another, the measure of efficiency of public service as well as a test of honesty. Of the cities containing over 30,000 inhabitants, over one-third have attempted in some large degree to make use of the census classification, and the other two-thirds, with few exceptions, have made some changes at least, to show that the officials are turning their feet as well as their faces in the right direction. They have been converted, turned 'round, and are walking in the right direction, even though they have not gone as far as we could wish, or as far as the situation demands. The action of the city officials is in many cases modified by the advice and practice of local accountants whom they call in to assist them in improving their accounts. The subject of municipal accounts, and the uses of the same, are not very familiar to the average commercial accountant, and hence it is not strange that the cities fail to reach uniformity by a single step. Conversion is an individual change; it is a facing about, from one direction to another. American city financial accounts are now facing another way from what they were five or ten years ago. It will take a long time to adjust them to the new orientation, but that adjustment will take place in time. It is already taking place. The changes required fully to introduce accounts which will be tests and measures of and aids for efficient municipal government are many, but they are coming. Prior to the discovery of America, all commerce and all civilization fronted upon the Mediterranean; Europe faced south, and along her southern shores were gathered all the large cities and the seats of empire. But with the rising of a new continent to the consciousness of the world, Europe began to change front; new centers of trade sprang up on the west, and to those centers shifted the supremacy of trade, commerce, literature, and art. London, Paris, and Berlin took the places of Constantinople, Venice, and Florence. As Columbus discovered the new world, so the science of accounting has disclosed new uses for accounts and reports. In the days preceding our generation all governmental and private accounts dealt with personal problems; their main purpose was to show the amounts owing to different persons, and the amounts owing to themselves, and the extent of fiscal honesty. In our day, business men have discovered that efficiency is a virtue as well as an honesty; that waste is a sin as well as robbery; and the world of accounts must face this new world of efficiency. The changes of modern accounting in private as well as in public business, to take recognition of this fact, have begun, and governments as well as private enterprises must as surely adjust themselves to them as the commerce of the world had to shift from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic with the rise of the new world to the west of Europe. Changes in To change the character of the accounts and reports of the cities of a nation is a great undertaking; it is one which, in its magnitude, can only be likened to the reformation of the governments of the same city, and the placing of all municipal life upon a higher level. To accomplish one of these changes requires the services of all the friends of reform and of good government. If made, it must be brought about through the activity of a vast army working towards the same end. The modern reformer here must not allow his egotism to lead him to the conclusion that he is the only friend of good government whom God has left in the world; he must recognize that all about him are hosts of good people who have never bowed the knee to any of the Baals of unrighteousness. The movement for making accounts the measure and test of and aids for efficiency of city administration is now being carried forward by accountants, by citizens associations, by students of municipal conditions, by reformers generally; and that movement in the city of New York, and in the country at large, is being greatly reinforced through the active agency of the Bureau of Municipal Research, of which Dr. Allen is to give us an account this day. Mr. Chase is to tell you what the accountants have accomplished in the way of introducing uniform reports and accounts in Massachusetts and throughout the country, and Dr. Allen is to set forth at length the work of the Bureau of Municipal Research in advancing the movement for improved accounts as measures and tests of and aids for increasing governmental efficiency. For all the agencies mentioned and for all the workers to whom attention has been called as making improved accounts aids for increasing the efficiency of the democracy of cities, the schedules and reports of the Bureau of the Census have for seven years been of the most vital assistance. By comparative figures these reports have demonstrated to every doubting Thomas the fact that municipal accounts can be arranged on a common basis, the same as can those of private enterprises of the same type. Those reports, though confessedly far from perfect, as they will be when cities have introduced common systems of accounts, provide the basis for comparisons of efficiency and point the way for hosts of future comparisons to every one now made. These object lessons have been of priceless assistance to every earnest worker in the field of improved accounts and reports. They point the way to the new world of better city government, of more efficient city government, which is surely rising in this Western world. This better government is not a matter of party government, but of popular aspiration and popular need, and with the world's face set in that direction, the current and activities of city life, of city hopes aud aspirations, will substitute efficiency for incompetency, and economy for waste. When this is done we shall not only have city governments the leaders in honest administration, but also in economical and efficient administration; and I trust that the Bureau of the Census may continue to make its reports in the coming years as much an inspiration and guide and assistance to all these various workers as it has in the last few years. In so saying, I wish to emphasize my belief that the city is the hope and not the despair of democracy. In the city must be wrought out the best civilization, the highest moral and intellectual life a life that shall touch, and bless, and ennoble |