PLAN FOR THE CONTROL OF QUASI-PUBLIC WORKS 847
able to let the street-car fare remain unchanged, and turn the profits of the business to the park fund. However, there are serious objections to this ; for it would be better to tax the land-owning class to maintain the parks than the mass of those who need the street-car service. Lower car fares would help to relieve the congestion in the city, would make the larger parks available to larger numbers of the class which most needs them, and would thus be a proper auxiliary to a park system. However, all of this is a matter of detail. The essential feature is the control of quasi-public works in the interest of the community.
Defects may be found in the plan suggested by Mr. Potts ; but he has certainly made a contribution that is worthy of consideration by students of municipal problems. It seems to be a plan which will secure adequate control without throwing these works into the hands of the spoils politician. It depends upon a public opinion, such as ultimately controls our greatest educational institutions ; and may in these cases be expected to control, though not radically, the manage- ment of non-political institutions. It uses our most highly developed business methods in the service of the public, and secures to the pub- lic all of the possible advantages of those methods. It secures the complete socialization of the values of social functions, and yet does not throw the strain of frequent oversight of complex institutions upon the social consciousness. This last seems to be the desideratum. It might be secured by expert official service, but, unless this should become an intolerable bureaucracy, it must be subject to the fitful changes of our political life: whereas the Indianapolis plan provides for a manage- ment whose policy cannot be revolutionized by a spasm of popular prejudice, yet which must be gradually readjusted to meet social needs by the pressure of public opinion at important crises, and which for the faithful performance of its trust will be under legal rather than/0/i- tical control. In so far as political regulation is necessary, it will undoubtedly be found true, when the semi - public corporation is stripped of its corrupting power, that the municipal government will be found more regardful of the public interests in controlling the cor- poration as a servant than it would be in controlling itself in the direct management of the quasi-public works ; just as the national govern- ment is a hard taskmaster in controlling the note issues of the banks, while it is ever in danger of becoming most self-indulgent in control- ling its own note and silver issues. j ^ FORREST
THE UNIVERSITY OP INDIANAPOLIS.
