The Problem of Municipal Government in the United States: An Address Given Before the Historical and Political Science Association of Cornell University, March 16, 1887,

Municipal Government, from its nature, is a problem everywhere. All the tendencies of the times are sending the population of the fields into the cities, not alone in this country, but in all civilized lands. Everywhere this aggregation of population besets the authorities of cities with problems of one kind or another. The question of an economical and healthful disposition of garbage, which solves itself so readily in the country, or in small villages, in the great city becomes a problem difficult in proportion to the size of the city. The difficulties of it continue to increase with the citys growth ;and what is true of that is true of the simplest matters of daily life. To procure water for a household is an easy thing, but to supply a large city with water, always is a most costly thing, and oftentimes is attended with the greatest difficulty. The questions that arise in connection with it are questions that never would be thought of until the multiplication table brings them into prominent view. Not long ago the Governor of one of our States told me of a novel point that had been raised against a citys water supply. The outlying towns, whose factories depended upon water power, while willing to admit that the city was entitled to water for drinking purposes, questioned the right to draw water from its natural channels for manufacturing purposes within the city. The problem of supplying a city with water is great enough, but the problem of meeting a citys waste of water, except by meters, never has been solved. Such questions as these, while legitimately a part of the problem of city government, are in no way peculiar to Municipal Government in the United States.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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