Government in the United States, National, State and Local. Garner James Wilford
numbers more than 10,000 men – a body as large as the army of the United States was in the early days of our history. In Chicago there are altogether some 8,000 men in the police service of the city.
Organization.– The management of the police force is usually under the direction of an official called a commissioner, superintendent, or chief, though in some cities it is controlled instead by a board. In a few cities this board is appointed by some state official, usually the governor, for it is believed by many persons that since the police are charged with enforcing state laws as well as municipal ordinances, they should be under state rather than local control. Where they are entirely under local control, it is sometimes difficult to secure the enforcement of such state laws as those requiring saloons to be closed at certain hours during the night and on Sundays, especially when local sentiment is opposed to such restrictions. Below the head of the police force are usually deputy chiefs, inspectors, captains, sergeants, roundsmen, and finally the patrolmen. The city is usually divided into precincts, in each of which there is a police station under the charge of a sergeant or some other official. A number of precincts are grouped together in districts with an inspector in charge of each, and so on. In the large cities there are also usually special detachments of the police force organized for special services. Such are the mounted police, the bicycle squad, the river and harbor police, the sanitary police, and the detective force.
Police Corruption.– The control of the police branch of the city service is very difficult because of the opportunities for corruption which are open to the members of the force. It has not infrequently happened that the police in the large cities have systematically sold the right to violate the law. Gambling houses, saloons, and other places of vice sometimes regularly pay members of the police force for the privilege of violating the law, and the heads of the force have frequently found it impossible to prevent the practice. A recent police commissioner in New York, for example, said that there was an organized system among the police of his city for selling the right to violate the law; that many of the captains and inspectors had grown rich out of the proceeds, and that the system was so thoroughly intrenched that he was powerless to break it up.
Health Protection.– In densely populated districts the danger from the spread of disease is much greater than in rural communities where the conditions which breed disease are less prevalent, and where the spread of epidemics may be more easily prevented. In the smaller cities the chief health authority is a board, but in the large cities there is usually a department of health at the head of which is a single commissioner. Other officials are inspectors of various kinds, analysts, collectors of statistics, superintendents of hospitals, etc.
Work of the Health Department.– Among the principal duties of the health authorities are the inspection and abatement of unsanitary places and the suppression of nuisances; the inspection of public buildings and sometimes of private dwellings with special reference to drainage; the removal of garbage and other refuse (in some cities); the inspection of the city water supply; the inspection of food, particularly milk; the control of certain establishments of an offensive character, such as slaughterhouses, soap factories, and fertilizer factories; the vaccination of school children and often of other persons, as a precaution against smallpox; the isolation and quarantine of persons suffering from contagious diseases; the maintenance of pesthouses and hospitals; and the collection of vital statistics.
One great source of disease in cities is impurity of the food supply, especially of milk, and much of the activity of the health department is directed toward the inspection of milk and other food. Crowded, ill-ventilated, and poorly constructed dwellings are another source of disease, and many cities have undertaken to prevent this evil as far as possible through tenement house laws and building regulations requiring dwellings to be constructed according to plans prescribed by law. The enforcement of these laws often devolves upon the health department, which carries out a rigid system of inspection.
In recent years much more attention than formerly has been given to the problems of health administration, and great improvement has been made. So efficient is the health administration of some of our large cities that the death rate in proportion to the population is actually lower than it is in many small country towns where little or no attention is paid to this important branch of administration.
Fire Protection.– The danger from fire, like that from disease, is obviously greater in crowded cities than in country districts. Therefore, every large city and most small ones maintain an organized fire department. In the days of small cities reliance upon voluntary unpaid fire companies was the rule, and this is true even to-day in many of the smaller towns and cities. In the larger cities, however, there are organized professional companies, the members of which give all their time to the service and are paid regular salaries. New York city has more than 5,000 men in its fire department, some 900 pieces of apparatus including more than a dozen fire boats, and hundreds of thousands of feet of hose. At the head of the department there is usually an official called a fire chief or fire marshal, appointed by the mayor. The rank and file of the department are under civil service rules, the employment is of a permanent character, and many cities have provided a system of pensions for members who have grown old or are disabled from injuries.
Great improvement has been made in the methods of fighting fires and in the character of the apparatus employed, so that the danger from loss by fire has greatly diminished. Furthermore, the more general use of brick and stone for building purposes in the larger cities has made the danger from fire much less than in the old days when most houses were built of wood. Many cities have what are called "fire limits," that is, districts in which it is forbidden to erect wooden buildings.
Municipal Public Utilities.– People crowded together in cities depend largely upon public service companies for their water supply, for electric light and gas, for telephone service, and for the means of transportation. The furnishing of each of these services, from the very nature of the case, tends to become a natural monopoly. Moreover, such companies must use the city streets in serving their patrons. It follows, therefore, that they must be subject to public control, otherwise the public might be charged exorbitant prices and the use of the streets by the citizens unnecessarily interfered with. Before engaging in a service of this kind, therefore, the street railway company must secure permission from the city to lay tracks on the streets and to operate cars thereon. Likewise a telephone or electric light company must have permission to erect its poles on the streets or alleys, and a gas or water company must have authority to tear up pavements and put its pipes and mains under the streets.
Franchises.– The permit thus granted is called a "franchise," and is in the nature of a contract between the city and the company. Public service franchises are often of great value to the companies which receive them, for the business of these companies in a large city is apt to be very profitable. Sometimes the dividends which they pay their stockholders are very large, and not infrequently, to deceive the public as to the real amount, the profits are concealed by "watering" the stock, that is, by increasing it beyond the amount of the capital actually invested. Experience has shown that in granting franchises certain restrictions or conditions should be placed on the companies to whom they are granted.
First of all, the duration of the franchise should be limited. Formerly, it was not uncommon to grant franchises for fifty or one hundred years, and indeed sometimes for an indefinite period. The objection to this practice is that with the growth of the city, the increased value of the franchise resulting from such growth goes entirely to the company, while the city is deprived of the opportunity of making a better bargain with the company. A franchise ought, however, to be for a period sufficiently long to enable the company to derive a reasonable return on its investment. Obviously, no company could afford to establish an electric light plant or gas plant if its franchise were limited to a period as short as five years. The better opinion now is that twenty or twenty-five years is a reasonable period, and the constitution or statutes of a number of states forbid the granting of franchises for a longer period.
Frequently the franchise contains provisions in regard to the rates to be charged and the quality of service to be performed. In many states there are state commissions which have power to supervise the operations of all public service corporations and in some cases even to fix the rates which they shall be allowed to charge. As long as such rates are reasonable,