AMERICAN MUNICIPAL PROBLEMS 379 



Portland are financed by bonds. The prices the city can get for them have 

 dropped. This is the price received for the 6-per-cent. ten-year bonds. Long- 

 time bonds, which are used to raise revenue for building public docks, construct- 

 ing additions to the water system and other purposes, have no present market. 

 No bids were received on a recent issue of $150,000, 25-year 4-per-cent. dock 

 bonds. Ordinarily these bonds sell about 90 per cent. Whether or not the war 

 is retarding the development interest of citizens by diverting attention can only 

 be guessed. Eetrenchment in municipal improvements of this kind has been 

 noted, however, for a year or more past. It has been more pronounced since the 

 war, but whether it is the outcome of the war or due to local or national financial 

 conditions, or conditions purely local to the improvement districts affected, can 

 not at this time be definitely ascertained. Apparently the war has no effect on 

 partisan affiliations of citizens, 



Seattle reports that the Eurpoean war " has not appreciably affected 

 municipal conditions in Seattle, unless perhaps it may be in bringing 

 more sober attention to matters of taxation and the like," certainly a 

 most desirable result, and right here it may be pertinent to remark 

 that increasing federal and state expenses are destined to have the same 

 effect. 



So far as the Pacific coast is concerned there is practically but one 



story. The same is true of the central sections. The report from 



Duluth, Minn., reads: 



Apparently the war has had no effect here on municipal conditions. Street 

 work and other improvements are going ahead as if nothing had happened, and 

 the city is now having a very warm debate on the question of purchasing the 

 electric lighting plant or building a new one. 



That from South Bend, Indiana, is to the same effect : 



The European war has produced little or no effect upon municipal condi- 

 tions in South Bend. I do not believe it will interfere with any public im- 

 provements ; 



and Louisville, Ky., likewise: 



We can note no effect whatever of the war conditions in Louisville. 



A well-known editor of Kansas ("William Allen White of The Em- 

 poria Gazette, 



can not see that the European war is having any effect on the smaU cities of the 

 West. 



Another declares that 

 the war is making little difference with politics in Minneapolis. We have the 

 non-partisan city ballot and war and social issues are kept out of the 

 campaigns. 



The northwest generally, being near the wheat-fields, is not much affected 

 by the war at present. 



A Chicago editor in September felt that the war was lil^ely most 

 seriously to divert attention from local politics, and declared that the 

 primary elections showed a distinct falling off, due to the absorption 

 of interest in the war. The November elections, however, do not seem 

 to have been any less hotly contested and their results can hardly be 



