The public authorities have not been sufficiently active in framing and enforcing measures for the prevention of fires. They have allowed certain neighborhoods to become veritable fire-traps, liable to be wiped out by a conflagration at any moment. During the past few years the state and city officials have been coming to realize the importance of prevention, however, and the laws relating to fire hazards have been growing more strict. Special rules are now applied to theaters, factories, garages, tenements, and other buildings in which fires are liable to result in the loss of life. Special fire prevention officials have been appointed in some of the larger communities; their duty is to inspect all buildings in which fires are likely to occur and to enforce the fire prevention rules. An endeavor has also been made to educate the people to the need of exercising greater care. This is done by distributing circulars and by instruction in the schools.
The chief causes of fires.
The great majority of fires are the result of some individual’s carelessness. Rubbish is left lying about near the cellar furnace; matches are placed where children can reach them; kerosene or gasoline is used to light the kitchen fire; chimneys are allowed to go unrepaired and uncleaned; ends of cigarettes are thrown on the floor or into the waste basket—individual carelessness may take many forms. But every fire is the same size when it starts and a trivial accident may cause the destruction of a whole city. Fire departments are necessary and they should be kept up to the highest efficiency, with well-trained men and motorized apparatus; but dollar for dollar the money spent in prevention brings far more return than expenditures for putting out fires after they occur.
The work of fighting fires is spectacular and makes an impression on the people; there is nothing spectacular about fire prevention, hence it obtains far less attention from the average individual. Newspapers devote great headlines to the bravery of the fireman who carries somebody down the sheer wall of a high building in the midst of roaring flames and blinding smoke, but the man who quietly builds his tenement so that no such rescue will ever be necessary—he gets no headlines at all. For this the newspapers are of course not to blame; they merely follow the trend of popular interest.
The City’s Share in Health and Welfare Work.—Many functions which formerly devolved wholly upon the city government have now been taken over to some extent by the state authorities. The state makes the general regulations and prescribes how things shall be done, but the city officials still remain largely responsible for putting the regulations into effect. |The broadening field of municipal activity.| This is true of public health protection, public utilities, poor-relief, correction, sanitation, and education, all of which are dealt with in later chapters of this book. No clear separation between state and local activities can be made nowadays, the two overlap and are intermixed. The city still retains, however, almost complete responsibility for the care of its streets, for street lighting, for the maintenance of parks, and for the provision of recreation. But whether it acts merely as the agent of the state or entirely on its own behalf the city’s functions are being broadened year by year. It is expected to do more and more for the social welfare of its people.
A typical example.
Compare the American city of today with its prototype of seventy-five years ago. In 1845, for example, Boston was a city of more than 40,000 people. It had no paved streets, not one. There was no public water supply; the people brought enough for their daily needs from neighborhood wells. A few sewers had been built, wooden drains they were, and only in the more thickly-settled portions of the city. Provision for the care of the public health was altogether lacking; there was no regular police force and only a volunteer bucket-brigade to put out fires. Public playgrounds were unknown; so were public baths, neighborhood centers, band concerts, branch libraries, electric street lights, trolley cars, subways, and the long list of things which come within the range of municipal enterprise today. Those were days of intense individualism when welfare work was left almost wholly to private auspices. Now the city has become a leader in almost every form of social and economic activity. This socializing of urban life has gone on, and still goes on, without attracting much attention, but it is one of the most far-reaching developments of the past century.
The problem of making both ends meet.
Where will the Cities Get the Money?—This expansion in municipal activities has brought with it an incessant need for more money—more money for streets, parks, playgrounds, schools, poor-relief, recreation, pensions, and for a dozen other things. Cities have many hard problems, but the hardest of all is that of making both ends meet. New enterprises mean new expenditures, and even the older activities keep steadily costing more.
The effect of high taxes.