in this state, the administration of public outdoor relief is not in the hands of the city authorities and the method of the charity organization society would not have an immediate practical application. Nevertheless the charity organization society has developed a method which will probably be utilized sometime by some public agency, if not by the city.

The second by-product of the leadership of private agencies in launching new civic enterprises is research-the securing of organized facts upon which social policies can be based. An excellent example of this is the so-called community survey, a number of which have already been made in this state. Some of these surveys are made under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation, of New York City. The survey of Springfield, Illinois, is an example of one supervised by the Sage Foundation. However, there is no reason why these surveys should not be made or at least begun by local private organizations. These surveys aim to present a scientific arrangement of the actual conditions of the city life along the various lines of municipal activity, such as health, character of the population, the correctional system, pauperism, housing and recreation. On the basis of these facts a community may know what its assets and liabilities are and evolve a social and economic policy definitely suited to its needs. Nothing could be more valuable to a city, for example, than to know the exact facts regarding its health conditions, the death rate from different diseases, the population not supplied with city water, the number of wells and privies, the disposal of sewage, the extent of venereal disease, the extent of prostitution, the prevalence of infant mortality, and the efficiency of food inspection. These facts may be utilized to establish a sound basis for a comprehensive health program. In a negative way they enlighten a community in regard to its dangers.

In many instances private organizations are procuring facts which public agencies may utilize to establish sound social policies in regard to health, morals, pauperism, crime and housing. The securing of valuable facts by private organizations

and their later utilization by public agencies form one of the most fruitful ways in which private and public agencies can cooperate in promoting civic interests. This possible utilization of laboratory facts derived by private agencies tends to be neglected by many American municipalities. In speaking of the matter of health, the American Journal of Public Health says: "Some students of public health administration have occasionally called attention to the tardiness with which administrative health officials put into practice measures for the control of disease based upon the result of research into their cause and method of transmission. This applies not only to the control of diseases after they have assumed undue prevalence in a community but to the prevention of the entrance of diseases into a hitherto non-infected locality. Examples of this delay in the application of laboratory results to practical public health procedures are numerous, as shown by the history of the control of yellow fever, malaria, bubonic plague, typhus fever, cholera, and even of typhoid fever, the most studied and still one of the most prevalent of our endemic infectious diseases. It has been known for at least fifteen years that bubonic plague is primarily a disease of rodents, and only secondarily of man, and that the disease is carried to man by infected fleas. While these facts have been common knowledge even to the laity, they have been practically disregarded by every city in the United States, except sporadically, so far as concerns the putting into effect of measures for the destruction of rats and even of the exclusion of possibly infected rats from places in the United States in which bubonic plague is present. New Orleans in all probability would have avoided the loss of life and the great financial loss to the city and its citizens if it had applied, previous to 1914, those measures known to be effective in plague prevention. What has happened in New Orleans may happen to other cities." Our

"Nov. 1916.

cities have far to go before they will have utilized efficiently the laboratory facts derived by the research of private agencies.

Most of the concrete examples of the co-ordination of public and private agencies have been drawn from the field of social problems, with which the writer is more familiar than the forms of municipal activity along economic and financial lines. However, there seems to be no good reason why these principles of cooperation should not apply in nearly all fields of municipal activity. Taxation, street-cleaning, charter amendment, and budget reform appear to be very fruitful fields for cooperation between public and private agencies. At any rate, the field of social problems offers an undisputed opportunity for co-ordinated activity between public and private agencies.

The ex

Nothing has been said regarding the dangers and pitfalls involved in the problem of the co-ordination of public and private organizations. That the dangers are real in certain ways there can be no doubt. Graft and mismanagement are definitely possible and in many cases actually occur. penditure of public funds, under the supervision of private organizations, for example, is as a rule undesirable and may result in wasteful and useless expense. Wherever there is expenditure of public funds by private organizations there should be rigid public supervision. In some cases this method may be practically feasible and may constitute a good beginning toward better things. In many ways, the ideal would be to have public agencies assume charge of all those activities which are important enough to affect the whole community. But this is not always possible under actual conditions. At the present time the co-ordination of public and private agencies is a necessity in municipal life and it has the possibilities of becoming a very effective agent for the promotion of community interests.

AS A SUGGESTED PARTIAL RELIEF FOR SOME OF OUR

ELECTION ILLS

MAYO FESLER

Secretary of the Civic League of Cleveland

The best method of nominating and electing candidates for public office has been a perennial subject for discussion throughout the political history of this country. In the early years, we elected very few officials. Most of them were appointive. This appointive function was so seriously abused that we turned to the elective system, and decided to let the people choose directly every official from constable to chief executive. They were nominated in party conventions and elected by popular vote.

But this method of selecting proved to be unsatisfactory and was just as seriously abused as was the old appointive plan. The party convention proved especially objectionable; so we turned for relief to the party primary. That method, in many sections of the country, is proving to be fully as unsatisfactory as was the convention plan, and public-spirited citizens and newspapers are clamoring for still another change in the method of determining who shall be candidates for public office.

The trouble with all of this well-meaning effort is that it has not sought governmental changes in the right order. When we adopted the primary with a long list of elective officials, we put the cart before the horse. We should first have reduced the long list to a minimum and then adopted the primary. In other words, the short ballot should have preceded the primary.

It is my firm belief that we are not going to find any permanent relief, especially in our municipal elections, until we learn to do as they do in English cities: elect one or two officials--policy determining officials-and appoint all others.

When we reach that conclusion and modify our elective system in this fundamental way, most of our election ills will of themselves disappear.

We are trying to force the electors to perform more duties than they should be called upon to perform and more than they can perform with any degree of ease. We must reduce the voter's task to its simplest form and give him only the most important function to perform.

In some six states and more than thirty cities, a new plan is being tried out, which seeks to reduce the voter's task and at the same time to give him the fullest opportunity of expressing his opinion on the candidates who seek public office. I refer to the non-partisan, preferential system of voting.

Most of you have lived long enough to remember how the old party convention operated in nominating candidates for public office. Whatever criticism may be made of the convention plan, it had some good features, and one of its best was the opportunity it gave the delegates chosen by the voters to come together in convention, talk over the merits of the respective candidates, and after much maneuvering and many ballots, finally to reach an agreement—this agreement being reached, of course, by many of the delegates voting for candidates of their second, third or fourth choice.

Each county or district delegation, you will remember, went to the convention definitely pledged to some one candidate, usually a favorite son. They were instructed by the voters who selected them to vote for the favorite son as long as he had a chance for the nomination, or at least for the first five or ten ballots. If their favorite showed no signs of winning, then they were permitted to throw their strength to some other candidate of their second choice. If the second choice indicated signs of weakness as the balloting proceeded, then they were authorized to vote as they pleased. In other words, they went to the convention ready to vote for a first, a second, a third, and possibly other choices.