necessary cash to purchase supplies and pay the labor, we could own and operate a paving plant, and by common business prudence save forty per cent of the present cost of street paving.

One of the greatest needs in carrying on the affairs of the modern municipality is that its business shall be administered upon a cash basis. With our annual expenditures diminishing and an increased sinking fund in operation, I believe we will soon accomplish that end.

While our taxes are higher now than they would be if we did not levy for this sinking fund, in a short time we will reach the summit and the rate will begin to diminish year by year.

I deem it unnecessary to make further references of this character. I believe that any city having a charter containing provisions touching upon the various subjects to be dealt with in every community can be governed with greater dispatch and more economically and satisfactorily than under a commission or managerial form of government. I believe that, with a fairminded council, the average Oregon city can be run with less criticism than would manifest itself under any other form. No man is perfect; governments are man-made, therefore, no government can be perfect.

Responsibility attaches to the head of the city administration, while the executive officer is, in many instances, without power or authority to carry into execution his ideas or plans. He may recommend this or that. He may exert all of his energies toward the accomplishment of certain things but miserably fail because of the lack of cooperation by subordinate officers or positive refusal to obey instructions.

For these reasons, I am convinced that the mayor or the mayor and the council should have the right to appoint the peace officers of a city. The chief of police, if he is elected by the people, is responsible only to the people and can shape the destiny of any administration, regardless of the wish of the mayor or council. If the right of removal from office is summary, it stimulates a friendly cooperation that can hardly be gained in any other way. By summary removal I mean that the subordinate officer is appointed to hold office during the

pleasure of the appointing power. Some would doubtless assert that this power belongs to the people. Admittedly so, but if experience has demonstrated that the community will be benefited by the delegation of this small power when the appointing power is subject to a recall election, what danger of arbitrary exercise of power is imminent? On the other hand, if the officer is a politician and is answerable to the people, he is in doubt many times as to what course will bring him the greatest number of votes and his duties are performed in a negligent manner.

The character of city administrations depends largely upon the stability and business judgment of the men entrusted with the power of government. The best men in the community morally may prove to be the weakest in official ability. The man who lives by the golden rule, the man who honestly loves his fellow man and has experience in the affairs of the world, goes as steadfastly about the performance of a public duty as he does the affairs pertaining to his private life, perfectly unconscious of advantages to be gained or losses to be sustained by his course of action.

I have always had faith in my fellow man and, while there are at times disappointments-bitter indeed-I still rely upon the honor, integrity and business judgment of young Oregon manhood and womanhood with the same instruments of government we have always had to go onward forever in the manner that has always brought fame and glory to this, the fairest of all the states.

BY E. T. MISCHE, ADVISER CITY PARK COMMISSION, PORTLAND

WHAT SHALL BE THE ATTITUDE OF CITIES TOWARD
CITY PLANNING?

Shall cities and towns expect their official representatives to treat this science as an abstract theory, a utopian dream and an inconclusive experiment, or shall they regard it as an agency of known forces whose powers may be used to bring vast benefits to a community?

WHAT MEANS SHALL BE ADOPTED TO BRING CITY PLANNING ADVANTAGES TO A COMMUNITY?

How shall the theory be made practical? How may its pitfalls be avoided and public support secured?

City planning means intelligent and efficient control of a city's life. All growing communities face problems. Some are easily solved; others present complex and profound difficulties with the passing of a comparatively few years. We know of minor examples that touch us directly when we are assessed for the repavement of a street improved four or five years ago. We realize the cost of drainage or the lack of it when an epidemic of diseases takes one of our own family. We have personal appreciation of civic ills when taxes are very high and city advantages such as schools, ample parks and playgrounds, good water, excellent police and fire protection are wanting.

Our troubles may arise from governmental maladministration, and, if so, city planning does not undertake to act as a panacea. City planning supplies the structure that permits the citizen to work and live economically, safely and happily. City planning does not have first claim to recognition upon its superiority in conducting existing city machinery. Its merits rest upon its power of analyzing the needs of the community and of designing the most compact and highest efficiency machinery and means required to do the work. It regards such physical aspects as highways, railroads and water route transportation, but it also concerns itself with good schools,

with food supplies, recreation, housing and the many phases of life and existence the citizens' experience are affected by from day to day.

As a nation, we have passed the pioneer stage of working merely for subsistence. Industry and the development of natural resources have brought a state of affluence in this country previously never known among civilized people. We are not obliged to regard merely the rudimentary ways of primitive man; we have a sufficiency and a surplus. Our people indulge in travel, in making homes of comfort and happiness, even luxury.

Noting how intensely practical the peoples of older communities arrange their city affairs, appreciating the business acumen of adopting better ways, our citizens have not been slow in endeavoring to take a short cut and reach the ends gained by Europeans. Of the striking features of European communities found wanting here were the harbor developments of its ports, the attention bestowed on having public buildings, bridges and similar structures appear beautiful, the assistance rendered and control exercised in erecting homes for the lower and middle classes-all these affairs are novel to Americans. Learning that sharp and free competition brings a reduction in cost, it is easily understood why the stupendous sums of money are spent upon transportation terminals; remembering that growth in population brings increase in land values, the incentive for cities to invest heavily in land is seen; learning that high lands values and close building are prime factors in a large infantile mortality and a lower living standard of adults, the concern of the government is readily appreciated. As a corrective, the sanitation of the district, the physical and moral environment of its citizens must be improved as a matter of necessity if the nation is not to deteriorate.

City life is so complex and interrelated, it is difficult to deal with one phase without considering allied problems. It is not only a common occurrence for officialdom to be engaged with these matters of city life-it would be regarded as positive proof of incompetence were current administrations to fail in providing general policies of extension, of guidance and of good business judgment.

So fixed has become the practice, so incontestable the sound basic reason of administering the affairs of European cities by these systematized and advanced methods, we have but to study to learn that we are decidedly deficient.

To make amends for these deficiencies, to gain the vast benefits of new methods, and to possess some of the by-products of new methods applied to our cities, stimulated interest. It gave rise to the desire to "city plan" our cities. Here and there a detail could be found of city planning principle, applied a generation or two past, but in the main our muncipalities were floundering along with little conception of the profundities of careful study and looking ahead.

This awakening, along with the typical American ardor of following up anything new, accounts for the wave of enthusiasm sweeping over the country and calling for every live, enterprising community to have a "City Plan." Only a few years ago it was deemed to be a mark of proof that a city not having a city plan was sleepy or dead.

With dozens of plans prepared, and printed with all the attractiveness printers can add, we note that the conspicuous examples in process of execution are at Washington, San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia and Cleveland. Washington, as the national capital, holds a unique and exceptional position among the cities. On account of its national uniqueness, let it be dismissed, and we find the remaining illustrations to be the creation of "civic centers." That, then, represents the visual result of some fifteen years' agitation. City plans in great numbers have been prepared for different American cities during the past fifteen years.

During recent periods, there has been no notable demonstration of a new city plan being undertaken. What, it may be asked, is the trouble? Are we to infer that plausible argument has been used to hold before us the benefits occurring by peering into the future and preparing to direct growth and development along fixed channels, and that cities acting upon this theory have been misled in their city plans? Has the reasoning any foundation in fact? Is it wise to reckon with the future, and by deliberate, studied and intelligent action bring about advantages to the community, that otherwise would be absent?