tration is not
the best, and yet is expensive. The officials often are inadequate; they
are not sufficiently equipped for the many-sided demands made upon them,
demands that often presuppose thorough knowledge. The members of
Aldermanic Boards have generally so much to do and to attend to in their
own private affairs that they are unable to make the sacrifices demanded
for the full exercise of these public duties. Often are these posts used
for the promotion of private interests, to the serious injury of those
of the community. The results fall upon the taxpayers. Modern society
cannot think of undertaking a thorough change in these conditions. It is
powerless and helpless. It would have to remove itself, and that, of
course, it will not. Whatever the manner in which taxes be imposed,
dissatisfaction increases steadily. In a few decades, most of our
municipalities will be unable to satisfy their needs under their present
form of administration and of raising revenues. On the municipal as well
as on the national field, the need of a radical change is manifest: it
is upon the municipalities that the largest social demands are made: it
is society _in nuce_: it is the kernel from which, so soon as the will
and the power shall be there, the social change will radiate. How can
justice be done to-day, when private interests dominate and the
interests of the commonweal are made subservient?

Such, in short, is the state of things in the nation and in the
municipality. They are both but the reflection of the economic life of
society.

* * * * *

The struggle for existence in our economic life grows daily more
gigantic. The war of all against all has broken out with virulence; it
is conducted pitilessly, often regardless of the weapon used. The
well-known French expression: "_ote-toi de la, que je m'y mette_." (Get
away, that I may step in) is carried out in practice with vigorous
elbowings, cuffings, and pinchings. The weaker must yield to the
stronger. Where physical strength--which here is the power of money, of
property--does not suffice, the most cunning and unworthy means are
resorted to. Lying, swindle, deceit, forgery, perjury--the very blackest
crimes are often committed in order to reach the coveted object. As in
this struggle for existence one individual transgresses against the
other, the same happens with class against class, sex against sex, age
against age. Profit is the sole regul