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MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 



this Exposition so magnificently show, the government has come 

 to concern itself with the primitive essential needs of its working- 

 people. In their behalf the government has forced industry, in 

 the person of the large manufacturers, to make an alliance with it, 

 and they are taxed for accident insurance of working-men, for old- 

 age pensions, and for sick benefits; indeed, a project is being formed 

 in which they shall bear the large share of insurance against non- 

 employment, when it has been made clear that non-employment 

 is the result of financial crisis brought about through the malad- 

 ministration of finance. And yet industry in Germany has flour- 

 ished, and this control on behalf of the normal working-man, as he 

 faces life in the pursuit of his daily vocation, has apparently not 

 checked its systematic growth nor limited its place in the world's 

 market. 



Almost every Sunday, in the Italian quarter in which I live, 

 various mutual benefit societies march with fife and drum and 

 with a brave showing of banners, celebrating their achievement in 

 having surrounded themselves by at least a thin wall of protection 

 against disaster, setting up their mutual good will against the day 

 of misfortune. These parades have all the emblems of patriotism; 

 indeed, the associations represent the core of patriotism brothers 

 standing by each other against hostile forces from without. I assure 

 you that no Fourth of July celebration, no rejoicing over the birth 

 of an heir to the Italian throne, equals in heartiness and sincerity 

 these simple celebrations. Again, one longs to pour into the gov- 

 ernment of their adopted country all this affection and zeal, this real 

 patriotism. 



Germany affords, perhaps, the best example of this concern of 

 government for the affairs of the daily living of its wage-earners, 

 although Belgium and France, with their combination of state 

 savings-banks, with life-insurance and building-associations, backed 

 by the state, afford a close second in ingenuity and success. All 

 this would be impossible in America, because it would be hotly 

 resented by the American business man, who will not brook any 

 governmental interference in industrial affairs. Is this due to the 

 inherited instinct that government is naturally oppressive, and that 

 its inroads must be checked? Are we in America retaining this 

 tradition, while Europe is gradually evolving governments logically 

 fitted to cope with the industrial situation? 



Did the founders cling too hard to that which they had won 

 through persecution, hardship, and finally through a war of revolu- 

 tion? Did these doctrines seem so precious to them that they were 

 determined to tie men up to them as long as possible, and allow 

 them no chance to go on to new devices of government, lest they 

 slight these that had been so hardly won? Did they estimate, not 



