'o5S.6 74 
 
 ■ M 
 
 | 
 
 : 
 
 Wl 
 
 4fcJ! 
 
 %fNS!w 
 
 - .••■■ !•»’ .vv- >1, 
 
 MADK BY 
 
 on. JOHN PlIRROY MITCH®! 
 
 Mayor of the City of New York 
 
 Wsshsaw®.*.^ ‘'rf-cllr. > - >■ 
 
 
 * “Sft& "*■■■ ' 
 
 
 • " -• • 1 : *1 
 
 m 
 

 
 $061 '12 NVf IV d 
 AN ‘osnoBjAg 
 
 sjs^bim 
 
 ■BOjg PJOiAbo 
 
HMw>rpgrrv of ff \ mrM«« » w*** 1 
 
 AUG 2 6 1915 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 MADE BY 
 
 Hon. JOHN PURROY MITCHEL 
 
 Mayor of the City of New York 
 
 AT THE DINNER OF THE 
 
 COMMITTEE OF 107 
 
 AT THE ALDINE CLUB 
 
 Monday, April 12, 1915 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/speechmadebyhonjOOmitc 
 

 REMOTE STORAGE 
 B00K3TACKS OFFICE 
 
 Speech made by Hon. John Purroy 
 Mitchel, Mayor of The City of New 
 York, at the dinner of the Com- 
 mittee of 107 at the Aidine Club, 
 Monday, April 12, 1915. 
 
 Fifteen months ago the administration elected 
 upon the city ticket put in nomination by your 
 committee assumed the reins of government in this 
 city. The citizen movement of which your com- 
 mittee was the expression was unique. It was 
 predicated upon the theory that the people of New 
 York were so disgusted with corrupt, machine-con- 
 trolled, extravagant and inefficient government in 
 state and city in the past, that the force of their 
 opinion would compel all those parties opposed to 
 autocratic boss government to accept a citizens’ 
 ticket nominated by a representative committee, 
 irrespective and in spite of immediate partisan in- 
 terests and desires. The result established the 
 soundness of the theory. 
 
 Not one of the parties contributory to the Fusion 
 movement of 1913 would have nominated the ticket 
 which your committee put in the field had it been 
 left to its own initiative. I doubt if any one of 
 the parties would have nominated at the utmost 
 more than one or two of those candidates. No two 
 parties would have nominated any one of them. The 
 fusion was a genuine citizen movement pressed 
 upon the parties by the force of public opinion and 
 the ticket was selected by the general citizenship 
 through a representative committee and not by the 
 parties. 
 
 It follows that the present city administration 
 through its fifteen months of life lias had to look 
 for its support not to any party or parties, but to 
 
 3 
 
the citizenship of the city. It must look only to 
 the same source for support for the remainder of 
 its term. This administration is without a part} 7 . 
 It is responsible to no party, and no party feels 
 responsible for it. 
 
 Theory of Fusion. 
 
 There are two theories on which a fusion may 
 be based, the non-partisan and the multi-partisan. 
 The multi-partisan theory contemplates a par- 
 celing out of patronage to the parties in 
 proportion to the value of their support. 
 The non-partisan theory demands fitness, quali- 
 fications and experience first and a recogni- 
 tion of party service only when the party 
 can produce candidates who conform to the highest 
 standards of efficient government. This difference 
 is what distinguishes the mere temporary federa- 
 tion of political elements effected for the capturing 
 of a number of public offices, from a genuine citi- 
 zens movement inspired by a determination to im- 
 prove the character and standards of government. 
 The interests of the citizenship in city affairs are 
 often opposed to the interests of party, and an ad- 
 ministration which is pledged to observe only the 
 former must often find itself compelled to disre- 
 gard the latter. 
 
 It is inevitable that, following such a movement 
 as that of 1913, there should develop among the 
 parties considerable discontent and irritation 
 when the demands for recognition which they re- 
 gard as fair are disregarded by the administration 
 in fulfillment of its first duty to the citizenship to 
 provide the most efficient service that it can pro- 
 cure. Furthermore, the natural selfishness of 
 men leads each party to request far more than its 
 fair share even upon the theory of a distribution of 
 patronage based on service, and so each party 
 feels aggrieved and badly used when the list of ap- 
 pointments has been completed. 
 
 4 
 
Direct Responsibility. 
 
 The present administration recognizes its direct 
 responsibility to the citizenship. It has sought to 
 deal equitably with the parties under the prin- 
 ciple that I have laid down, but it is not responsible 
 to them nor they for it. Its accounting will not be 
 to them, but to the people of the city, and after the 
 first fifteen months of its life it welcomes the op- 
 portunity to account for its stewardship to you, a 
 representative body of the citizenship of New York, 
 which called it into being, and which alone stands 
 responsible for its existence. 
 
 Criticism — Attacks. 
 
 Every administration, like every individual, that 
 undertakes to do things, develops opposition and 
 enemies. This one has been no exception. We have 
 had some bitter critics who have not hesitated de- 
 liberately to lie about the acts of this administra- 
 tion. We have had some other critics who, through 
 mistake or a lack of understanding of the facts, 
 have charged extravagance and a failure to protect 
 the interests of the taxpayer. We have been com- 
 pelled to repel the insidious attacks of those who 
 are constantly on the alert to break down the ef- 
 fectiveness of the laws framed to protect the people 
 in their health, their safety, their comfort and the 
 conditions under which they live. In framing new 
 and sound financial policies to protect the tax- 
 payer and the credit of the city, we have been 
 charged by some with responsibility for conditions 
 created by our remote predecessors, and great con- 
 structive plans for the development of the re- 
 sources of the city and its commerce have been at- 
 tacked through a misunderstanding of their details 
 and their purposes. 
 
 It is essential, therefore, to the success of this 
 experiment in city government for which your Com- 
 mittee of 107 is responsible, that the citizenship of 
 
 5 
 
the City should learn from time to time from us 
 and through the authoritative medium of your com- 
 mittee, what this administration has done and what 
 it proposes still to do in discharging the obliga- 
 tions assumed at the election of November, 1913. 
 
 Appointments. 
 
 The first duty that devolves upon the Mayor is 
 the selection and appointment of the heads of his 
 departments. I have already stated the principle 
 upon which this was done. The field was canvassed 
 to find men not only of capacity and personal 
 ability, but men peculiarly qualified by specialized 
 training for the discharge of the duties of each re- 
 spective department. When private business 
 organizes itself, it will not select a railroad man 
 to run an industrial enterprise, or a civil engineer 
 for the presidency of a trust company. It regards 
 specialized training as essential to success in a 
 specialized field. This principle I recognized as 
 Mayor in selecting the heads of my departments. 
 When men of the caliber and training I desired 
 were found within the ranks of a party contributory 
 to fusion, they were appointed, and I was glad of 
 the opportunity to select them. When, however, 
 men better qualified and better trained were found 
 outside the lines of party organizations, they were 
 appointed despite that fact. The result has been, 
 I think, that the present commissioners of the city 
 departments comprise as able and qualified a group 
 of administrators and specialists in the problems of 
 their respective departments as has ever been 
 brought together in any governmental enterprise. 
 These men, whether they have been drawn from 
 the ranks of party organizations or from non- 
 political civil life, have strictly and conscientiously 
 excluded partisan influences from their depart- 
 ments, and have been inspired by a high ideal of 
 civic duty and by a determined purpose to give to 
 the City of New York the best and cleanest admin- 
 
 6 
 
istration of its public affairs that it has ever known. 
 
 Mistakes are inevitable in the conduct of human 
 affairs. Some mistakes have been and some will 
 be made in the departments of the City under this 
 administration. None of them, I am thankful to 
 say, has been serious. They have all beeu of that 
 minor nature inevitably incident to complex admin- 
 istration, but on the w T hole the result attained in the 
 departments, I submit, is to-day the justification of 
 your committee for its labors in the establishment 
 of the present non-partisan business government of 
 this City. 
 
 Police Department. 
 
 Every preceding administration has been ship- 
 wrecked on the rocks of the police department. We 
 have weathered fifteen months of storms, and 
 the police department is better organized, more 
 efficient, better disciplined, and with a spirit more 
 responsive to the commissioner and the adminis- 
 tration than ever before. We have had no scandal 
 and no breakdown of police work. We have effected 
 a broad reorganization of the department and have 
 inspired the men with a confidence in their com- 
 missioner and in their officers, based on the assur- 
 ance of a square deal and support in the discharge 
 of their duties. The results speak loudly for them- 
 selves. Convictions for arrests of all kinds have in- 
 creased from 72% per cent, for the first quarter of 
 1914 to 78 per cent, for the first quarter of 1915, 
 while convictions for felonies have increased from 
 36% p er cent, to 42 per cent. The department has 
 addressed itself vigorously to the suppression and 
 detection of crimes of violence. Gangs and gang- 
 sters have been unremittingly pursued. Gunmen 
 have been catalogued throughout the Greater City. 
 Each known gang is assigned to particular detec- 
 tives who are responsible if the gang commits crime. 
 The work of detecting crime has been reorganized 
 and enormously improved. It is in this field that 
 results in crime prevention can be especially 
 
 7 
 
attained. The best example of effective work done 
 in this field was the arrest of the anarchists in 
 St. Patrick's Cathedral as they were about to ex- 
 plode a bomb. This was achieved only after months 
 of painstaking surveillance at great personal risk 
 to the detectives assigned. It demonstrates the 
 kind of work that the Police Department can do 
 when it has the support and confidence of the 
 people. 
 
 The system of patrol has been remodelled and 
 modern devices such as signal flashlights, the 
 motorcycle, the automobile patrol and frequent sub- 
 stations in outlying districts for bicycle policemen 
 have been adopted or extended. The detective bu- 
 reau lias been increased and reorganized, and 
 specialized squads have 'been established. The 
 line-up has been restored, and a better co-operation 
 between the detective force and the uniformed force 
 established. The training school has been de- 
 veloped, and men of all ranks brought within the 
 scope of its work. No man is promoted without 
 going through a course for officers. 
 
 But most important in the achievements of the 
 present police commissioner is his establishment of 
 a new morale among the men, with an increased 
 respect for their own duties and increased loyalty 
 to the commissioner and to the administration. The 
 men are to-day inspired by a desire to perform 
 effective police work for its own sake, and because 
 they know that reward or punishment depend 
 solely upon the character of service rendered and 
 are to-day divorced absolutely from influence, po- 
 litical or personal. 
 
 In the matter of broader police policies, we have 
 remembered that this is a great cosmopolitan and 
 metropolitan community with highly complex 
 problems and with every shade of opinion. The 
 duty of the police is to administer the law given 
 bv the legislature of the state without unnecessary 
 harassment of the people or unnecessary interfer- 
 
 8 
 
ence with their personal liberties. One matter 
 t hat has given preceding administrations much con- 
 cern was the one o’clock closing law and its in- 
 fringement, together with application for the issue 
 of all-night licenses. This problem we have solved 
 by issuing to orderly resorts all-night licenses upon 
 the condition that they agree voluntarily to close 
 at two o’clock, and with the understanding that, in 
 the event of a breach of the agreement, the all-night 
 license will be revoked and the one o’clock closing 
 law strictly enforced. The plan has worked very 
 satisfactorily, and 1 believe that the results in added 
 comfort and convenience to the people, and the pre- 
 vention of petty breaches of an over-rigorous rule 
 have fully justified our plan. 
 
 Every administration is confronted with the ex- 
 cise problem. In this matter we have pursued in 
 part the policy of Mayor Gaynor, and have kept 
 the police force out of the liquor saloons except 
 when investigating specific complaints, or on the 
 direct order of a superior officer. It was this policy 
 which dissolved the dishonest partnership between 
 certain policemen and the saloon keepers, and has 
 resulted in the raising of the morale of the force. 
 W e are persistently endeavoring to secure effective 
 enforcement of the law, and are progressively secur- 
 ing better and better enforcement. Our policy is to 
 go slowly and surely, carrying out measures of 
 enforcement just as far as we possibly can without 
 corrupting and weakening the human machine with 
 which we have to work. 
 
 Health Department. 
 
 In no department have greater constructive re- 
 sults been attained than in the department of 
 health. Dr. Goldwater is the first commissioner 
 to realize and avail himself of the extraordinary 
 powers conferred by the Charter upon that de- 
 partment, and while broadening the work of the 
 department and carrying it to a higher plane, he 
 
 9 
 
lias inaugurated a great campaign of public edu- 
 cation in health matters. As an aide to liis own 
 judgment, lie has established an advisory council 
 of one hundred and seventy-five representatives of 
 science, and of the business and social life of the 
 city, and has associated with himself this commit- 
 tee in the consideration of questions of department 
 policy. The department had modernized the 
 Sanitary Code; it has reclaimed the field of in- 
 dustrial hygiene, and its work here will reflect 
 itself in the improvement of the health of industrial 
 workers. It has laid the foundation for an ade- 
 quate system of isolation hospitals. Two sites 
 were approved in 1914, and the first of the new 
 buildings is nearing completion. The principle of 
 full time service has been established. It has 
 notably increased the protection of the city’s food 
 supply, for example, by the pasteurization of 90 
 per cent, of the cit 3 ^s milk supply and by the sup- 
 ervision of food manufacturing establishments. 
 Its general work is reflected in the lowest general 
 death rate and lowest infant mortality rate of any 
 city in the United States. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting of the undertakings 
 of this department has been that to secure better 
 conditions of transit for the people of the city. 
 Everyone has known for years that our surface and 
 subway cars have been crowded to a point danger- 
 ous to the public health. Every agency supplied by 
 State and City has unavailingly attempted to better 
 these conditions. The Health Department, by the 
 simple expedient of notifying the transit companies 
 that the operation of overcrowded cars is a menace 
 to public health, and by the promulgation of an 
 order of the Board of Health forbidding overcrowd- 
 ing in the cars, has compelled these companies to 
 increase their service and decrease congestion. This 
 order is issued under power conferred by the Char- 
 ter and its breach is punishable by heavy fine. Iu 
 the successful use of this power has been found the 
 
 10 
 
only effective means of attacking tlie overcrowding 
 problem in the surface and subways cars of this 
 city. Dr. Goldwater told me only two days ago 
 that the operator of the subway will be compelled, 
 under his regulations to maintain during the 
 summer a full winter schedule, and thus afford 
 thousands of additional seats to the traveling 
 public. 
 
 Street Cleaning* Department. 
 
 The work of street cleaning is technical and 
 specialized. For that reason, I appointed a special- 
 ist, a man who had developed his specialty by years 
 of training. The work of the department has been 
 reorganized and systematized, with the result that 
 the streets of the city, even under the great handi- 
 cap of construction work proceeding at so many 
 points, are cleaner than at any time since Colonel 
 Waring’ s day. A general system of street flushing 
 has been put into force, and the equipment for 
 street scrubbing has been doubled. The equipment 
 of the department is being gradually modernized. 
 Five hundred of the two thousand ash and garbage 
 carts of the department have been covered, and 
 arrangements completed to cover eight hundred 
 more within a very short time. A model district 
 has been organized and laid out, in which thor- 
 oughly modern and scientific equipment will be 
 used. On the basis of the results obtained here, the 
 city will be able to determine the value in results 
 and the cost of modernizing the equipment of the 
 department throughout. If, as the commissioner 
 predicts, a reduced expense of operation demon- 
 strates the economy of the application of this plan 
 to the whole city, we may look forward to the day 
 when ash and garbage carts will be covered, and the 
 city’s refuse will be conveyed to its point of dispo- 
 sition in odorless, dustless, motor driven vehicles, 
 and when the streets, by scientific sweeping and 
 
 11 
 
flushing, Avill be kept constantly in a state of real 
 cleanliness. 
 
 This winter a new plan of snow removal was put 
 into force. The department organized a great force 
 of emergency men subject to call in the event of 
 snow. These men were put into the field within a 
 few hours after the beginning of a snow storm and 
 either swept the snow into the sewers where they 
 were of a character to permit it, or piled the snow 
 for removal later by the carts and trucks of the 
 department. While weather conditions favored 
 the department much more this year than last, the 
 new system has demonstrated its worth, and the 
 streets of the city were open to traffic and the snow 
 removed more quickly than ever in the history of 
 the department. 
 
 The department planned this year to translate 
 the present annual deficit of $1, 400, 000 incurred 
 in the final disposition of city refuse into a profit. 
 To that end it asked of the legislature a bill to 
 enable it to make a long term contract in place of 
 the present 5-year contract, or, in the alternative, 
 to build a plant and secure a private operator to 
 equip and run it on a profit-sharing basis. Here 
 we encountered much misrepresentation and mis- 
 taken criticism. It was charged that this bill 
 would give to the prospective contractor the oppor- 
 tunity to make an undue profit at the expense of 
 the city. As the city now pays its contractors $1,- 
 400,000 annually, which under the bill would have 
 been saved net to the city, the plan certainly would 
 have profited him $1, 400, 000 less than a continua- 
 tion of the present method. Furthermore, the very 
 essence of the plan was a profit sharing with the 
 city on the basis of the investment of each. It 
 seems to me that if the city is not in a financial 
 position to erect and equip the entire plant — a mat- 
 ter of a |9,000,000 investment — it would not be 
 unfair to allow private capital a profit upon the in- 
 vestment which the city invites it to make in the 
 
 12 
 
enterprise. However that may be, these argu- 
 ments, though the bill passed the legislature, led 
 the Governor to veto it, and the city must go on 
 paying out $1,400,000 annually until some time in 
 the future another bill conferring the necessary 
 power can become law. 
 
 Dock Department. 
 
 The largest physical constructive problems which 
 this administration is called upon to solve falls 
 within the jurisdiction of the dock department. 
 They are also the most important to commerce and 
 to the business interests of New York. In 1914 
 the department constructed 134,000, square feet of 
 new piers as against 59,000 in 1913. It has nego- 
 tiated a great number of new leases at increased 
 rentals, and lias secured the extension and recon- 
 struction by private capital of piers upon city 
 owned land at increased rentals to the city. It has 
 readjusted leaseholds and provided better facilities 
 for the marine commerce of the city, and in 1914 it 
 transacted its business with a decreased adminis- 
 trative expense of $312,000 under that of the pre- 
 ceding year. Furthermore, it has translated a de- 
 ficit on the Staten Island Division of the Municipal 
 Ferry, which in 1912 was $189,000 into an operat- 
 ing profit of slightly over $15,000. 
 
 The three most important constructive projects 
 of the department are : 
 
 First, the building of a terminal freight railway 
 along the waterfront of Brooklyn from the Brook- 
 lyn Bridge to 65th Street. The plans have been 
 completed; the funds have been set aside; the 
 scheme of operation has been worked out. The 
 project is waiting only on the signature of the 
 Governor to the enabling act which permits the 
 city to get, as joint operators of the enterprise, 
 all of the eastern trunk line railroads with termini 
 in this port. The bill was heard by me this fore- 
 noon and will, I have every confidence, be signed bv 
 
 13 
 
the Governor next week. That enterprise will add 
 $100,000,000 to the taxable values of the city and 
 bring countless millions to our people through the 
 development of our commerce and our industries. 
 
 The second great constructive project is the ad- 
 justment with the New York Central of its termi- 
 nal facilities upon the west side of Manhattan Is- 
 land. Plans for a complete adjustment which will 
 put the railroad off the surface of the city streets 
 and under cover through the city’s parks have been 
 long in process of preparation by the department, 
 and are now in the hands of the terminal commit- 
 tee of the board of estimate for consideration. 
 
 The third great project is for the construction of 
 an immense dry dock on the Brooklyn waterfront. 
 This port is without a commercial dry dock that 
 will accommodate thousand-foot ships. There is 
 every reason why the port of New York should not 
 go longer without that facility. While plans for 
 these works are either completed or in process 
 of preparation, the department is rapidly progress- 
 ing the building of the thousand-foot piers at Forty- 
 fourth street for the accommodation of the largest 
 trans-Atlantic liners. 
 
 Fire Department. 
 
 The fire department, upon a budget lower by 
 $55,000 than in 1914, has organized a series of new 
 companies which, by July, will equal a fire depart- 
 ment of a city the size of Rochester or Buffalo. It 
 lias done this by the exercise of strict business 
 economy, and by a reorganization and redistribu- 
 tion of its personnel. The work of fire prevention 
 has been carried forward and improved, with the 
 result that the fire loss was kept to a figure lower 
 than that of any year since 1907, with the excep- 
 tion of two years, and in this field the power of the 
 department has been materially increased by the 
 action brought by the Commissioner which has 
 established his right, for the first time in the City’s 
 
 14 
 
history, to collect the expense of fighting a fire 
 caused by culpable and willful negligence. 
 
 The department plans, before the expiration of 
 this administration, to construct a new and modern 
 fire alarm telegraph system for all boroughs; the 
 complete motorization of the department through- 
 out; to inaugurate and operate for revenue fire 
 alarm systems in buildings. It is estimated that 
 by this plan sufficient revenue can be collected to 
 defray the entire cost of the fire alarm signal sys- 
 tem. By a careful study of the organization of the 
 force, and by taking full advantage of motorization, 
 it is hoped that no increase will be necessary in 
 the uniform force. 
 
 Department of Correction. 
 
 The achievements of the department of correc- 
 tion have been both administrative and in the field 
 of constructive planning. Effective discipline in all 
 institutions has been established; some twelve or 
 fifteen dishonest employees have been arrested and 
 convicted. Effective checks have been placed upon 
 the drug traffic in the institutions, and broad im- 
 provements in the medical service have been 
 made. The institutions under the department of 
 correction have hitherto been corruptive rather 
 than correctional. Almost every condition existing 
 within them combined to degrade and vitiate the 
 prisoners, and to send them back into the com- 
 munity worse equipped for participation in its so- 
 cial life than before. The great work of the present 
 administration has been to change the spirit and 
 character of these institutions and to make them 
 correctional in fact. In furtherance of this, Miss 
 Davis has established a new reformatory at Hamp- 
 ton Farms, where correct reformatory principles 
 are applied. She has developed plans for a rebuild- 
 ing of the department’s plant with the correctional 
 idea in view at an estimated cost of $2,000,000 in 
 place of the $10,000,000 heretofore estimated as the 
 
 15 
 
cost of this undertaking, and has outlined a scheme 
 whereby the department may be made self-support- 
 ing within the next ten or fifteen years instead of 
 costing the taxpayers $1,300,000 per year as at 
 present. 
 
 Commissioner Davis lias established a calendar 
 for the remainder of her administration which, if 
 funds can be found, the city should certainly carry 
 out. It contemplates the removal of the entire re- 
 formatory population from Hart's Island to New 
 Hampton within the next year and a half; the re- 
 moval of the workhouse men from Blackwell’s Isl- 
 and to Biker’s Island ; the quartering of at least 
 1,200 penitentiary prisoners at Hart's Island 
 within a year ; the erection of a new detention home 
 for women within the next year and a half; the 
 purchase of a two-hundred-acre farm for women in 
 the country; a careful reorganization of the in- 
 dustries of the department within the next two 
 years; the establishment of a hospital for drug 
 users accommodating 125 patients at Hart’s Island, 
 and the utilization of the Hoff-Mills Parole Bill to 
 make the department self-supporting through the 
 use of the labor of its wards. 
 
 Most important of the contributions of Miss Davis 
 is her establishment of the true principle of correc- 
 tion. Her administration recognizes that useful 
 employment, decent sanitary conditions and proper 
 treatment are necessary to make these institutions 
 curative as well as punitive. 
 
 Department of Charities. 
 
 A heavy burden has fallen upon the Department 
 of Charities this year. Probably never before in 
 the history of the city has there been so severe a 
 demand upon the generosity and good will of the 
 community. During the year 1914 the Commis- 
 sioner of Charities has been pressed on the one 
 hand by the consequences of war abroad, and by 
 
 16 
 
abnormal industrial conditions at home, and on the 
 other hand by the activity of a host of detractors 
 and enemies, who have had special interests or 
 prejudices to serve. Despite these conditions, the 
 department has been able to add no small number 
 of constructive achievements to its credit. 
 
 By quiet, careful work in improving methods of 
 purchasing, handling, preparation and distribution, 
 the City has been able to feed in 1914 a total aver- 
 age of 2,400 more people per day than in 1913, 
 without the expenditure of a single additional dol- 
 lar. -Most significant of all, this has been accom- 
 plished simultaneously with an improvement of the 
 quality and an extension of the variety and quan- 
 tity of tlie food supplied to the poor. 
 
 Commissioner Kingsbury lias established a 
 Bureau of Social Investigations, which undertakes 
 for the first time to do family rehabilitation work 
 in the homes of the poor and which in its first six 
 months of existence returned 1,300 children from 
 institutions to their homes, effecting a total saving 
 to the City of |200,000. 
 
 We have for the first time exercised the power 
 inevitably incident to the control of the purse- 
 strings to try to establish and maintain in the pri- 
 vate subsidized institutions of the city the same 
 high standards and ideals which we are endeavor- 
 ing to set for the institutions directly conducted by 
 the city. 
 
 We have completed the organization of a modern 
 hospital, which in form of medical service will rank 
 with Johns Hopkins and Massachusetts General as 
 one of the best hospitals of its kind in the country. 
 
 We have done away for all time with that grue- 
 some chamber of horrors popularly known as The 
 Morgue, and substituted in its place a well-ap- 
 pointed modern mortuary. 
 
 We have established a winter annex in connec- 
 tion with the Municipal Lodging House, equipped 
 to take care of 1,500 homeless men who hitherto had 
 
 17 
 
been compelled to sleep on the bare boards of the 
 prison pen and the pillowless floor of the Morgue. 
 
 At the outset of this administration I expressly 
 directed Commissioner Kingsbury to turn his ef- 
 forts not only toward the proper housing, feeding 
 and clothing of the poor, but toward an examination 
 into the conditions which create poverty and toward 
 the elimination and prevention of those conditions. 
 A beginning has been made in this direction. It 
 is our hope that we may be able to take substantial 
 forward strides during the next three years. 
 
 We want to make the Municipal Lodging House 
 something more than mere sleeping quarters for 
 tired, hungry men, out of work; we want to make 
 it a great human repair shop, manned and equipped 
 to rebuild the broken lives of those who enter its 
 doors for help. Through our Bureau of Social In- 
 vestigations we want to carry on preventive social 
 service work in the houses of the poor. We want 
 to make the institution for feeble-minded children 
 at Randalls Island one of the most celebrated 
 rather than one of the most notorious institutions 
 in the country. We want to elevate the standards 
 and ideals of all our public institutions to such a 
 position that they may become models of their kind 
 throughout the world, and at the same time to com- 
 pel the private institutions which receive money 
 from the city to live up to the same standards and 
 ideals. We want to introduce into the work of the 
 department the most approved modern method of 
 efficiency and economy, and what is even more im- 
 portant, to humanize the machinery of this branch 
 of the city government. 
 
 This department will inevitably need additions 
 to its physical plant in the near future. The City 
 must care for its dependents, and the institutions 
 are already crowded beyond capacity. 
 
 18 
 
Other Departments. 
 
 I might go on, if time were at my disposal, to 
 review the work of the other departments — to point 
 out how the department of water supply, on a 
 budget decreased by $370,000, has extended the 
 lighting system of the City and improved its 
 quality; how this department has obtained lower 
 rates from the lighting companies; how it has ex- 
 tended the system of the City’s water mains, and is 
 now negotiating with the private water companies 
 in Queens for the acquisition of their distributing 
 systems on a basis that will not be burdensome to 
 the taxpayer; how the bridge department has ad- 
 vanced construction work to meet the opening of 
 our rapid transit system; how the department of 
 licenses has established its new employment bureau, 
 has controlled the theatres and the moving picture 
 houses, has exercised sanitary control over the issue 
 of new licenses, and has protected the morals of the 
 community through its supervision of dance halls 
 and public exhibitions; how the civil service com- 
 mission has reorganized its system of competitive 
 and physical examinations, devising a more scien- 
 tific selective method, and has reorganized its force 
 for the better discharge of its duties — but a com- 
 plete review of these and of the other departments 
 would require too much time, and the record has 
 been made, in part, currently in the press. 
 
 Executive Control. 
 
 It is not sufficient for the Mayor to appoint the 
 heads of his departments and send them into the 
 field. If his administration is to be successful, he 
 must work with them constantly day by day. No 
 Mayor heretofore has ever tried to be the business 
 manager of the city. I conceive that he should be, 
 that he must be if his control is to be real as well 
 as theoretic. It is not enough to sit quietly by, as 
 lias been the custom in the past, and wait for situa- 
 tions to arise, for difficulties to be presented by the 
 
 19 
 
administrative heads of the departments, to com- 
 mission them to make good if they can, and to sup- 
 plant them if they fail. The Mayor should work 
 day by day Avitli them on the problems of adminis- 
 tration and of policy. That he cannot do directly 
 personally. His time is too far consumed by the 
 meetings of deliberative boards, and by essential 
 interviews, conferences and public meetings. He 
 must have time at his disposal for consideration of 
 the great questions of city-wide policy. His execu- 
 tive control, therefore, must be through an agency. 
 The agencies I have employed for this purpose have 
 been the Chamberlain and the Commissioner of 
 Accounts. 
 
 I invited Mr. Bruere to become Chamberlain with 
 this particular plan in mind. I wanted someone 
 with a thorough knoAvledge of the organization of 
 the city government, and with capacity for 
 handling the problems of administration, to assist 
 me in keeping a centralized executive control of the 
 administration of the departments within my juris- 
 diction, to work with the heads of departments 
 critically and constructively, and with them, bring- 
 ing to the consideration of questions the point of 
 vieAV of the executive, to formulate and present to 
 me in thoroughly digested form the questions that 
 require executive decision. 
 
 The office of chamberlain afforded this oppor- 
 tunity, because the functions and duties of the office 
 are such as to leave a surplus of free time for de- 
 A’otion to work of this character. 
 
 The office of the commissioner of accounts, al- 
 though primarily Investigative and auditing in the 
 nature of its duties, has also been valuable for a 
 great portion of this work. It was my plan to re- 
 organize that office, to make it a single-headed 
 commission, to make its duties constructive as well 
 as critical and analytic — to make it, in short, the 
 Mayor’s arm and agent of administration, study- 
 ing problems of the departments, co-operating in 
 
 20 
 
1 lie solution of them, developing with them, from 
 the executive point of view, methods and processes, 
 and principally keeping the Mayor constantly in- 
 formed directly of the operations of all those por- 
 tions of the government for which he is responsible. 
 The legislature of last year denied my application 
 for a one-headed commission, constructive in name 
 as well as in duties. The legislature of this year 
 has before it a hill of this character. If it passes, 
 I can make the work of the Mayor, in controlling 
 the administration of the departments vastly more 
 effective. If it fails, 1 must get on as best I can 
 under conditions as they are. 
 
 Commissioner of Accounts. 
 
 In the meantime, the commissioner of accounts 
 has continued the effective discharge of his general 
 investigative duties, with the result that his report 
 upon an exhaustive study of the elective coroner 
 system has brought about the enactment of a law 
 which will abolish that system at the expiration 
 of the terms of the present coroners, and will sub- 
 stitute for it an effective and economical system for 
 the investigation of homicide cases. 
 
 The office has conducted a large number of 
 special investigations at my direction and upon its 
 own initiative, including that of the discharge of 
 its duties by the board of building examiners. 
 
 On the constructive side, it has completed an 
 exhaustive survey of the departments under the 
 jurisdiction of the Mayor, with a view to disclosing 
 and eliminating conflict and duplication of func- 
 tions, the results of which are reflected in graphic 
 charts employed in the work of general reorganiza- 
 tion accomplished and under way. It has colla- 
 borated in budget preparation, and in the solution 
 of a thousand administrative problems. 
 
 General Problems. 
 
 Tliis administration has been confronted with 
 serious conditions which lay beyond the field or 
 
 21 
 
jurisdiction of any one of the departments. The 
 European war and business depression at home 
 created last winter an unprecedented condition of 
 general unemployment. This the government of the 
 City, while not recognizing any legal obligation, 
 undertook to relieve as far as lay in its power. 
 Public works of all kinds projected for the imme- 
 diate future were advanced by the departments and 
 by the Board of Estimate to the point of actual be- 
 ginning with all possible speed. 
 
 A large citizens’ committee, representative of the 
 business, financial and social interests of the city, 
 was appointed by me, and undertook at once a study 
 of the underlying conditions of unemployment and 
 the immediate relief of those in most pressing need. 
 This committee collected approximately $200,000, 
 and established throughout the city some twenty-two 
 workshops, in which over 4,500 men and women 
 have been employed during the past winter on use- 
 ful work, and at wages sufficient to keep them from 
 becoming public charges, and under conditions 
 which permitted them to seek, and many of them 
 to find permanent employment. Realizing that the 
 unemployment problem is intimately connected 
 with our industrial system and wishing to have 
 this responsibility indicated, I asked Judge Gary 
 to accept the chairmanship of this committee. 
 
 With the outbreak of the war, there came a 
 threat of heightened food prices. To deal with this 
 matter, I appointed another citizens committee 
 which has conducted, through the public schools 
 and through the public press, a campaign of gen- 
 eral education, and has contributed in large meas- 
 ure toward discouraging the imposition of exorbi- 
 tant food prices. 
 
 At the time when numberless New Yorkers were 
 abroad, and seemed to be unable to secure means 
 of transportation to the United States, a third 
 committee was appointed to cooperate with the na- 
 tional government in facilitating their return and 
 
 22 
 
in relieving those who might arrive in destitute 
 condition. 
 
 The work of all of these committees has helped 
 materially in bringing us successfully through a 
 winter of extraordinary stress and trouble. 
 
 The Budget. 
 
 By suggestion and by direct statement this ad- 
 ministration lias been charged by its enemies with 
 extravagance. What is the truth ? 
 
 By the exercise of painstaking economy, by 
 taking advantage of every means at hand, by im- 
 proving processes, by eliminating duplication, by 
 dropping supernumeraries, the departments of the 
 Mayor are today operating on an annual basis one 
 million and a half lower than last year. The ad- 
 ministrative cost of government which covers these 
 departments, the Borough Presidents and the 
 Comptroller, has been reduced in the budget of this 
 year two million dollars below that of last year. 
 In this field where alone the Board of Estimate has 
 jurisdiction and power, it has cut the cost of gov- 
 ernment way down below what it ever was before. 
 
 Our budget has increased despite this fact. Yes, 
 but because increases took place over which we had 
 no control. There were three and a half million 
 more uncollectible taxes to provide for in this 
 budget than in that of 1914. There was an increase 
 of seven millions in debt service, due to bonds 
 issued in 1914 but authorized long before, due to 
 the high interest on the $ 100,000,000 loan and due 
 to the $2,000,000 revenue bonds for last winter’s 
 snow removal which had to be redeemed. There 
 was an increase also in the allowance for education 
 to provide for mandatory salary increases and for 
 additional teachers to care for the increased num- 
 ber of pupils in the system. 
 
 These increases which we could not control over- 
 balanced our saving of $2,000,000 and sent the 
 
 23 
 
budget up $0, 000,000 to its present total of 
 $199,000,000. 
 
 Next year we will be able to balance every in- 
 crease even those due to the new financial policy, 
 by a saving or a reduction, so that our budget and 
 our tax rate in 1910 would not go up, were it not 
 for the proposed direct State tax. If your tax bill 
 in 1916 is higher than that in 1915, you will know 
 that it is due to the levy that the State may make 
 upon us this year. 
 
 New Financial Policy. 
 
 Gradually over a period of much more than half 
 a century, the City of New York has been piling 
 up a municipal debt of huge proportions. This debt 
 was incurred for almost every conceivable purpose. 
 Although theoretically contracted only for physical 
 improvements of a permanent nature, partly 
 through loose practice and partly by fraudulent de- 
 sign, the proceeds of the City’s borrowings were 
 used for purely temporary purposes — such as wages 
 of maintenance forces, and the cost of perishable 
 personal property. 
 
 Gradually in recent years a better practice has 
 been built up until, under the administration of 
 Mayor Gaynor, the board of estimate carefully dis- 
 tinguished between the permanent improvements 
 for which long term bonds were issued, and main- 
 tenance charges carried out of the tax levy of the 
 year. But when this administration came into 
 office, the gross debt of the city had reached 
 the staggering figure of $1,223,918,429.58, while the 
 net funded debt was $898,013,401.88. In the bud- 
 get of the present year we carry the sum of 
 $59,000,000 on account of debt service alone. Mani- 
 festly it was incumbent upon some administration 
 to put a stop to the increase of this crushing debt. 
 The present administration faced the situation 
 frankly and undertook that duty. 
 
 At the time when we negotiated the $100,000,000 
 
 24 
 
loan of last September, we declared a new financial 
 polic 3 r . We declared that we would hereafter carry 
 in the tax budget of the city, in increasing propor- 
 tion, the cost of permanent public improvements 
 of a non-self-sustaining character until, at the ex- 
 piration of four years, we would carry in the bud- 
 get the entire cost of such improvements. 
 
 This is a radical departure from the City's former 
 policy. It will, of course, add in the immediate 
 future large sums to the budget of the City. It 
 was necessary, however, as a step to protect the 
 credit of New York. It puts the City, for the first 
 time in its history, upon a pay-as-you-go basis. 
 
 In the course of a number of years, the reduction 
 iu debt service on account of non-self -sustaining 
 improvements will more than balance the yearly 
 sum which the City must carry on account of the 
 quota of such improvements for the current year. 
 
 This is clear when we realize that issuing 4 y 2 per 
 cent, bonds at the rate of $20,000,000 per year, the 
 interest and sinking fund charges carried in the 
 budget at the end of 20 years would amount to up- 
 wards of $20,000,000. So, if the amount of capital 
 expenditure is approximately the same each year, 
 and if we begin to carry all our non-self-sustaining 
 improvements in the budget now, the annual saving 
 in interest and sinking fund in 20 years will equal 
 the full amount which we will then be carrying in 
 the budget. In the meantime the decrease in debt- 
 service due to the redemption each year of some 
 bonds now outstanding will be a further offsetting 
 reduction. 
 
 This new policy did not affect the budget of 1915. 
 The first budget which will feel its effect will be 
 that of next year. We must write into that budget 
 one-quarter of all bonds issued in 1915 for improve- 
 ments authorized during 1915, and an additional 
 sum to pay interest and amortization charges upon 
 the fifteen-vear serial bonds to carry the balance. 
 In the following year, a still larger sum must 
 
 25 
 
be carried in the budget, for then one-half the 
 cost of all bonds issued for improvements au- 
 thorized in 1916 will be carried directly in the tax 
 budget; in the following year, three-quarters, and 
 so on. 
 
 Tax Situation. 
 
 The budget situation for 1916, I have already ex- 
 plained. What I have just told you demonstrates 
 that in 1917 and subsequent years the people must 
 look forward to a budget materially increased over 
 the figures of this year, because of this new finan- 
 cial policy. We have been steadily reducing the 
 cost of running the departments of the city. After 
 making the budget of 1916, in my judgment, we 
 will have reduced the cost of running those depart- 
 ments as far as we can upon the basis of the present 
 service rendered. In the absence, therefore, of the 
 repeal of mandatory legislation which would per- 
 mit us to economize in the field over which at 
 present we have no control and, in my judgment, 
 even allowing for all the economies that we could 
 effect in that field, the City of Hew York, Avhen it 
 makes its budget for 1916 and subsequent years, 
 will be face to face with the following problem : 
 
 Unless the people are willing to accept a higher 
 tax rate upon real property and to carry the in- 
 creased cost of the direct state tax in 1916, and of 
 the new financial policy in 1917 and subsequent 
 years as a charge upon real estate, the government 
 of this city must either greatly reduce its activities 
 and the service which it now renders to the people, 
 or it must develop some new sources of municipal 
 revenue. 
 
 If the people are willing to submit to the reduc- 
 tion of service by eliminating such activities as the 
 recreational work of the city, a part of the health 
 protective work, a material part of the educational 
 work, we might perhaps succeed in reducing the 
 budget by several million dollars. But even this, 
 
 26 
 
in my judgment, would fail to balance the inevitable 
 increases of the next four or five years. 
 
 The alternative to this reduction of service and 
 curtailment of activities is the development of new 
 income in a sum sufficient to carry the increase in 
 the budget. Such income can only be developed 
 through taxation of one kind or another. A com- 
 mission of my appointment has been at work for 
 upwards of a year developing suggestions for such 
 a plan for raising added revenue. It is now past 
 the time when the legislation necessary to carry 
 any plan into effect could be enacted this year. 
 Ample time remains for the development, the dis- 
 cussion and the adoption of a plan before the legis- 
 lature of 1916 convenes. No more crucial or 
 fundamental problem is presented to this govern- 
 ment than that of deciding between the curtail- 
 ment of service and the development of new rev- 
 enues. The whole future of New York depends 
 upon the decision. The government cannot solve 
 this question by itself. It must have the help of 
 the whole citizenship, and all those interested in 
 the welfare of New York as well as those who are 
 responsible for the existence of the present adminis- 
 tration, owe it as a duty to bring us their advice, 
 their suggestions, their co-operation and their sup- 
 port. 
 
 Home Rule. 
 
 New York City is governed very largely from 
 Albany. We have not the power to regulate our 
 local affairs. We are compelled when we need to 
 make slight changes in the organization of our de- 
 partments, and often even in purely administrative 
 matters, to go to Albany. This year we asked the 
 legislature for a series of bills necessary to the 
 economic and effective conduct of our business. A 
 number have been given us, among them the Mar- 
 ginal Railway Bill, the Trade Waste Bill and the 
 Final Disposition Bill. 
 
 27 
 
Other and still more important bills are before 
 the legislature. 
 
 We have asked for a small board of education. 
 Every intelligent, disinterested student of the ques- 
 tion agrees that the present board is unwieldy, and 
 that a small, compact, businesslike could adminis- 
 ter the schools vastly more economically and effi- 
 ciently. That bill would mean millions in saving 
 to New York. 
 
 We have asked the Commissioners of Accounts 
 Bill, which I have already explained. It remains 
 in committee. 
 
 We have asked an effective Central Purchase 
 Bill. The bill, which was the result of a confer- 
 ence and agreement of members of the board, re- 
 mains in committee, and another which we did not 
 ask and did not want has been enacted. 
 
 Most important of them all, we have asked a bill 
 giving to the board of estimate and the board of 
 aldermen the same jurisdiction over the salaries 
 and numbers of city and county employees, which 
 they now have over those in the departments under 
 the jurisdiction of the Mayor. This bill would 
 give the board of estimate the power to save the 
 taxpayers many millions of dollars in the next and 
 ensuing budgets. The bill is still in committee. I 
 am told it will not pass because of the opposition of 
 city employees. It has come to the point when the 
 organized city employees are stronger at Albany 
 than the government of the city and the taxpayers 
 combined. 
 
 All this legislation, asked, granted or denied, as 
 well as the interfering, disruptive and vicious Lock- 
 wood Bill, devised and pushed to the point of final 
 passage by certain landlords and land speculators, 
 merely demonstrates the imperative necessity for 
 genuine Municipal Home Rule. 
 
 Real Home Rule New York will never get from 
 the legislature. We will go to the Constitutional 
 Convention this year, however, with a demand for 
 
 28 
 
home rule fortified by constitutional provision, a de- 
 mand which will not be expressed by the voice of 
 this city alone, but will be dinned into the ears of 
 the constitutional delegates by the united voices of 
 fifty-four cities of this state. At last, I am happy 
 to say, the cities of this state recognize their com- 
 mon necessity, and are banded together in a federa- 
 tion of mutual interest to obtain from the conven- 
 tion the powers that will permit them to develop 
 their local governments and their local opportuni- 
 ties untrammeled by legislative interference. 
 
 These, gentlemen of the Committee of 107, are 
 some of the accomplishments, some of the under- 
 takings and some of the problems of the present 
 city administration. For them we bespeak your 
 earnest consideration and in our efforts to conduct 
 a businesslike and a forward looking government, 
 we ask the co-operation of the entire citizenship. 
 
 29 
 
M. B. BROWN PRINTING & BINDING CO. 
 NEW YORK 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112114128413