The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

Any one overlooking this interplay of public forces sees that in town and city, state and Union, it is not a question of forcing administrative energies into a prescribed sphere of action. They expand everywhere as they will, both from the smaller to the larger sphere and from the larger to the smaller. Therefore, the Union naturally desires to take on itself those functions of state legislation in which a lack of uniformity would be dangerous; as, for instance, the divorce laws, the discrepancies in which between different states are so great that the necessity of more uniform divorce regulations is ever becoming more keenly felt. At present it is a fact that a man who is divorced under the laws of Dakota and marries again can be punished in New York for bigamy. A similar situation exists in regard to certain trade regulations, where there are unfortunate discrepancies. Many opponents of the trusts want even an amendment to the Constitution which will bring them under federal law, and prevent these huge industrial concerns from incorporating under the too lax laws of certain states.

Still easier is it for the states to interfere in the city governments. If the Union wishes to make new regulations for the state, the Federal Constitution has to be amended; while if the state wants to hold a tighter rein on city government it can do so directly, for, as we have seen, the cities derive all their powers from the state legislature. There is, indeed, considerable tendency now to restrict the privileges of cities, and much of this is sound, especially where the state authority is against open municipal corruption. The general tendency is increasing to give the state considerable rights of supervision over matters of local hygiene, industrial conditions, penal and benevolent institutions. The advantages of uniformity which accrue from state supervision are emphasized by many persons, and still more the advantage derived from handing over hygienic, technical, and pedagogical questions to the well-paid state experts, instead of leaving them to the inexperience of small districts and towns. There is no doubt that on these lines the functions of the state are being extended slowly but steadily.

Then again the cities and towns in their turn are tending to absorb once more such forces as are subordinate to them, and thus to increase the municipal functions. The fundamental principles which have dominated the economic life in the United States and brought it to a healthful development, leave the greatest possible play for private initiative; thus not very long ago it was a matter of course that the water supply, the street lighting, the steam and electric railways should be wholly in the hands of private companies. A change is coming into these affairs, for it is clearly seen that industries of this sort are essentially different from ordinary business undertakings, not only because they make use of public roads, but also because such plants necessarily gain monopolies which find it easy to levy tribute upon the public. In recent years, therefore, city governments have little by little taken over the water supplies, and tend somewhat to limit the sphere of other private undertakings of this sort—as, for instance, that of street-lighting. At the same time there is an unmistakable tendency for city and town to undertake certain tasks which are not economically necessary, and which have been left hitherto to private initiative. Cities are building bath-houses and laundries, playgrounds and gymnasiums, and more especially public libraries and museums, providing concerts and other kinds of amusements and bureaus for the registration of those needing employment; in short, are everywhere taking up newly arisen duties and performing them at public expense.

There is, on the other hand, a strong counter-current to these tendencies of the large units to perform the duties of the small—the strong those of the weak, the city those of the individual, the state those of the city, and the Union those of the state. The opposition begins already in the smallest circle of all, where one sees a strong anti-centralizing tendency. The county or city is not entitled, it is said, to expend the taxpayers’ money for luxuries or for purposes other than those of general utility. It should be generous philanthropists or private organizations that build museums and libraries, bath-houses and gymnasiums, but not the city, which gets its money from the pockets of the working classes. Although optimists have proposed it, there will certainly be for a long time yet no subsidized municipal theatres; and it is noticeable that the liberal offers of Carnegie to erect public libraries are being more and more declined by various town councils, because Carnegie’s plan of foundation calls for a considerable augmentation from the public funds. And wherever it is a question of indispensable services, such as tramways and street-lighting, the majority generally says that it is cheaper every time to pay a small profit to a private company than to undertake a large business at the public expense. From the American point of view private companies are often too economical, while public enterprises are invariably shamelessly wasteful.

The city pays too dear and borrows at too high a rate; in short, regulates its transactions without that wholesome pressure exerted by stockholders who are looking for dividends. Worst of all, the undertakings which are carried on by municipalities are often simply handed over to political corruption. Instead of trained experts, political wire-pullers of the party in office are employed in all the best-paid positions, and even where no money is consciously wasted, a gradual laxness creeps in little by little, which makes the service worse than it would ever be in a private company, which stands all the time in fear of competition. For this reason the American is absolutely against entrusting railroads and telegraph lines to the hands of the state. When a large telegraph company did not adequately serve the needs of the public, another concern spread its network of wires through the whole country; and since then the Western Union and Postal Telegraph have been in competition, and the public has been admirably served. But what relief would there have been if the state had had a monopoly of the telegraph lines, with politicians in charge who would have been indifferent to public demands? The wish to be economical, to keep business out of politics, and to keep competition open, all work together, so that the extension of municipal functions, although ardently wished on many sides, goes on very slowly; and it is justly pointed out that whenever private corporations in any way abuse their privileges the community at large has certainly plenty of means for supervising them, and of giving them franchises under such conditions as shall amply protect public interests. When a private company wishes to use public streets for its car-tracks, gas or water pipes, or electric wires, the community can easily enough grant the permission for a limited length of time, reserving perhaps the right to purchase or requiring a substantial payment for the franchise and a portion of the profits, and can leave the rest to public watchfulness and to the regular publication of the company’s reports. It is not to be doubted that the tendencies in this direction are to-day very marked.

Just as private initiative is trying not to be swallowed up by the community, so the community is trying to save itself from the state. So far as the village, town, or county is concerned, nobody denies that state experts could afford a better public service than the inexperienced local boards, and, nevertheless, it is felt that every place knows best after all just what is adapted to its own needs. The closest adaptation to local desires, as, say, in questions of public schools and roads, has been always a fundamental American principle. This principle started originally from the peculiar conditions which existed in the several colonies and from the needs of the pioneers; but it has led to such a steady progress in the country’s development that no American would care to give it up, even if here and there certain advantages could be had by introducing greater uniformities. There is a still more urgent motive; it is only this opportunity of regulating the affairs of the small district which gives to every community, even every neighbourhood, the necessary schooling for the public duties of the American citizen. If he is deprived of the right to take care of his own district, that spirit of self-determination and independence cannot develop, on which the success of the American experiment in democracy entirely depends. Political pedagogy requires that the state shall respect the individuality of the small community so far as this is in any way possible.

The relation between the city and the state is somewhat different; no one would ask the parliamentarians of the state legislature to hold off in order that the population of the large city may have the opportunity to keep their political interests alive and to preserve their spirit of self-determination. This spirit is at home in the streets of the great city; it is not only wide-awake there, but it is clamorous and almost too urgent. When, now, the municipalities in their struggle against the dictation of the state, meet with the sympathies of intelligent people, this is owing to the simple fact that the city, in which all cultured interests are gathered generally, has in all matters a higher point of view than the representatives of the entire state, in which the more primitive rural population predominates. When, for instance, the provincial members which the State of New York has elected meet in Albany, and with their rural majority make regulations for governing the three million citizens of New York City, regulations which are perhaps paternally well meant, but which sometimes show a petty distrust and disapproval of that great and wicked place, the result is often grotesque. The state laws, however, favour this sort of dictation.

The state constitutions still show in this respect the condition of things at a time in which the city as such had hardly come into recognition. The nineteenth century began in America with six cities of over eight thousand inhabitants, and ended with 545. Moreover, in 1800 those six places contained less than four per cent. of the population, while in 1900 the 545 cities contained more than thirty-three per cent. thereof. Since only a twenty-fifth part of the nation lived in cities, the greater power of the scattered provincial population seemed natural; but when now a third of the nation prefers city life, and especially the more intelligent, more educated, and wealthy third, the limitations to independent municipal rights become an obstacle to culture.

Finally, the states themselves are opposing on good grounds every assumption of rights by the Federation—the same good grounds, indeed, which the community has for opposing the state, and many others besides. It is felt that historically it has been the initiative of individuals rather than of the central government which has helped the nation to make its tremendous strides forward, and that this initiative should not only be rewarded with privileges, but should also be stimulated by duties. The more nearly one state is like another, so much the more energetically does it forbid the others to interfere in its affairs; and the more it is like the Union the more earnestly it seeks not to let its distinct individuality be swallowed up. Besides the moral effort toward state individuality, there is a powerful state egotism at work in many states which makes for the same end. Back of everything, finally, there is the fear of the purely political dangers which are involved in an exaggerated centralization. We have seen in this a fundamental sentiment of the Democratic party.

Thus at every step in the political organization centrifugal and centripetal forces stand opposite each other in the Federal Union, in the state, in the county, and in the city. And public opinion is busy discussing the arguments on both sides. Every day sees movements in one or the other direction, and there is never any let up. In all these discussions it is a question of conflicting principles, which in themselves seem just. There is, however, another contrast—that between principle and lack of principle. In the Union, the state, and the city, centralists and anti-centralists meet on questions of law; but in each one of these places there are groups of people working against the law and trying in every way to get around it. In these discussions there is a true and false, but in the conflicts there is a right and wrong; and here argumentation is not needed, but sheer resistance. If one does not purposely close one’s eyes, one cannot doubt that the public life of America holds certain abuses, which are against the spirit of the Constitution and which too often come near to being criminal. One can ask, to be sure, if that lack of conscience does not have place in every form of state in one way or another, and if the necessity of developing a sound public spirit to fight against abuse may itself not be an important factor in helping on the spirit of self-determination to victory.