San Francisco - A History of the Pacific Coast Metropolis, Vol. 2 by John Philip Young

Author:John Philip Young [Young, John Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-11-22T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER LX. FREQUENT ALTERNATIONS OF ACTIVITY AND DEPRESSION

THE political histories of municipalities, like those of states when they are allowed to occupy too much attention may easily convey the impression that the people are chiefly occupied in quarreling about the method of regulating their affairs, and that the net result of their disputes is confusion and ineffectiveness. Compared with other achievements of men, those accomplished when acting in a collective capacity do not show up favorably. The management of the affairs of a municipality such as San Francisco was at opening of the fiscal year 1912, when a budget was framed which provided for the expenditure of a sum a little in excess of $15,000,000, deserves to be considered as important, but after all the combined operations of the City seem insignificant, viewed from a business standpoint, when contrasted with the multitudinous activities of the community which in the course of the year reach a total approaching two and a half billions of dollars. Someone has intimated that if permitted to write the songs of a people he could come nearer to shaping their destinies than law makers. He might do so now and have them set to the best or most popular ragtime music without achieving any political result of consequence. The campaign song, like the torchlight procession, has gone out of fashion and will never regain its old-time potency. But there is one custom which does not weaken with age, and that is the habit of politicians drawing on the provident. It is from the latter that the means to carry on government must be derived. No matter what subtleties of argument may be advanced to prove that in the last resort the people generally bear the burden of taxation, the fact remains that it is the thrifty who are called upon to settle with the tax collector, and it is the energies of that class, and the skill with which they use their opportunities, that determine whether a city shall progress of retrograde. England, until recently, was undisputably preeminent in the commercial world, and her name will go down in history as a great empire builder, yet her publicists are in the habit of complaining that her statesmen are constantly blundering, and that their mistakes cost the country dearly, yet in some manner the nation manages to "muddle through" its troubles, and in the end things come out all right.

Turning from the ineffectiveness of city governments, and closing our eyes to contemporary complaints, and concentrating our attention on the accomplishments of the people as a whole, the most captious critic will find little in the record as made up to justify adverse criticism. Like the sea which is troubled at times, San Francisco has had its storms, but when they had passed the damage wrought was found to be infinitesimal, comparatively speaking. One hundred years hence, if the historian chooses to take a comprehensive survey, he may find it as easy to pass over the vicissitudes of

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