BULLETIN 



VOL. 21. SALEM: APRIL, MAY, JUNE, 1889. Nos. 4-5-6. 



BERLIN : A STUDY OF MUNICIPAL GOVERN- 

 MENT IN GERMANY. 



BY SYLVESTER BAXTER. 



BERLIN has impressed me as the most smoothly running 

 city that I have ever seen. Professor Richard T. Ely, 

 who has made a masterly study of such subjects, declares 

 that it is the best governed city in the world. My own 

 observations were, at the time of my stay in the German 

 capital, more directed towards results : therefore, before 

 proceeding to an examination of the methods which have 

 made these results possible, let me give you a picture, 

 imperfectly outlined though it must be, of the city as it im- 

 presses a stranger with its most salient external features. 



I must observe, however, that some of these features are 

 the work of the national, rather than the municipal gov- 

 ernment ; but an account of them is appropriate here, as 

 illustrative of German methods. 



We are accustomed to look for rapid growth and strik- 

 ing transformations of aspect in our American cities, but 

 we are hardly prepared for similar phenomena in the slower- 



BSSEX INST. BULLETIN, VOL. XXI 4* (53) 



