PROBLEMS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 443 



an extreme case, brought about by the unusual and peculiar type 

 of the imported strike-breakers, of which there is much trustworthy 

 evidence, incorporated in affidavits submitted to the mayor of 

 Chicago. 



It was hard for a patriot not to feel jealous of the trades-unions 

 and of the enthusiasm of those newly arrived citizens. They poured 

 out their gratitude and affection upon this first big, friendly force 

 which had offered them help in their desperate struggle in a new 

 world. This devotion, this comradeship and fine esprit de corps, 

 should have been won by the government itself from these scared 

 and untrained citizens. The union was that which had concerned 

 itself with real life, shelter, a chance to work, and bread for their 

 children. It had come to them in a language they could under- 

 stand, and through men with interests akin to their own, and it 

 gave them their first chance to express themselves through a demo- 

 cratic vote, to register by a ballot their real opinion upon a very 

 important matter. 



They used the referendum vote, the latest and perhaps most clever 

 device of democratic government, and yet they were using it to 

 decide a question which the government presupposed to be quite 

 outside its realm. When they left the old country, the govern- 

 ment of America held their deepest hopes and represented that 

 which they believed would obtain for them an opportunity for that 

 fullness of life which had been denied them in the lands of oppressive 

 government. 



It is a curious commentary on the fact that we have not yet at- 

 tained self-government, when the real and legitimate objects of 

 men's desires must still be incorporated in those voluntary groups, 

 for which the government, when it does its best, can afford only 

 protection from interference. As the religious revivalist looks with 

 longing upon the fervor of a single-tax meeting, and as the 

 orthodox Jew sees his son staying away from Yom Kippur, but to 

 pour all his religious fervor, his precious zeal for righteousness which 

 has been gathered through the centuries, into the Socialist Labor 

 party, so a patriot finds himself exclaiming, like Browning's Andrea 

 del Sarto: " Ah, but what do they, what do they, to please you 

 more? " 



So timid are American cities in dealing with this perfectly reason- 

 able subject of wages in its relation to municipal employees that 

 when they do prescribe a minimum wage for city contract work, 

 they allow it to fall into the hands of the petty politician and to 

 become part of a political game, making no effort to give it a digni- 

 fied treatment in relation to cost of living and to margin of leisure. 

 In this the English cities have anticipated us, both as to time and 

 legitimate procedure. Have Americans formed a sort of " impe- 



