Just a few words on a matter of business addressed to business
men--for that, I conceive, is what mayors and aldermen primarily are,
whether engaged in trade or in professions. I am aware that it is more
popular to term them politicians in the worst meaning of that abused
word, and to ascribe improper motives to their official actions, but
personal relations with many of them through a long series of years
convinces me that a very large majority of them are men of probity
and good intentions, seeking to perform a public duty to the extent
of their abilities. They are sure of clamorous condemnation for any
errors of commission or omission, and very uncertain of commendation
for conscientious attention to official duties. Lest these remarks
may be construed as undue flattery prompted by the presence here of
so many municipal officers, it may be added that the average alderman
is inclined to be at times a bit self-opinionated in his views of
public business, or impatient with that phase of it which he does not
directly control. At least this is so until his term is nearing its
end. Unfortunately, the broader and wider outlook which experience
always brings to men usually develops too late, except in cases of
re-election, for service during his own period of administration, and
cannot be transmitted to his successor. And that is why, rather than
because of downright dishonesty, our city public works are frequently
defectively constructed, money is needlessly expended for certain
purposes, and not expended at all, or insufficiently expended for
others, where it would bring best results.
A municipality ought to be a business corporation purely, managed
on business principles by its board of trustees (aldermen) and for
the benefit of the stockholders (taxpayers and citizens). Like any
other business institution, its management should carefully consider
its resources and apportion expenditures to secure largest returns
on investment. And in the case of a municipality, the returns from
investments embrace both the material comforts and necessities of
community life which are represented in sanitation, facilities for
transportation, for lighting and for adequate water supply, and the
intellectual requirements of modern life which find their expression in
good public schools and well-administered libraries.
And this brings us to a consideration of the question immediately
before us--the administration of public library funds. Some years
ago a discussion of this question might have required a preliminary
apologetic justification for the existence of such an institution as
a public library. The necessity for that sort of thing has happily
passed, just as the need for explanation in the reasonable expenditure
of public funds for public schools is no longer existent. Nevertheless,
the general conception of the possibilities of usefulness in public
library work remains imperfectly developed. It will require time and
patient effort to secure full recognition of the potent possibilities
for the good of all the people that may be realized through the public
library adequately maintained and properly administered. And herein
lies the crux of the question.
That anecdote which Souther told of himself will bear repetition.
Meeting an old woman one stormy day, he resorted to the usual topic of
greeting:
"Dreadful weather, isn't it?" he remarked.
This was quite obvious, of course, but the old woman's rejoinder was
rather philosophical.
"_Any_ weather is better than none," quoth she.
This philosophic way of viewing a discouraging condition is, I fear,
but too true with reference to the average public library. But _any_
library is not necessarily better than none. The average municipality
is quite likely to rest satisfied with prevailing conditions. If
municipalities were, like other business corporations, subjected to
the test of competition, many of them would be in the hands of the
sheriff. No business man can survive today who does not utilize modern
progressive methods. The successful business man today is he who adopts
the principle that no results can be secured without certain outlays.
No farmer would conceive it prudent to economize in the planting of his
seed. If he did, scanty crops would convince him of the error of his
methods. And yet it is this error which many cities and towns commit.
They may possess libraries, but they grudgingly allow them revenues
just sufficient to keep them from starvation. In Wisconsin we have a
goodly percentage of public libraries that are in every way creditable,
but it is too true that there are also many which fail to realize their
full possibilities.
In order that the maximum dividend on the investment may be realized,
it is essential that a library's resources should permit: