The New England magazine . Columbia was aone-man government. Some colossus of thebusiness world, he said, some independentlywealthy Captain of Industry, a Carnegie, aRockefeller, or a Cassatt, perhaps, one whohad built up great business affairs, handledmen, and accomplished big practical things,and whose wealth would make certain hislack of interest in politics or real-estate in-vestments, one who would devise wise plans,issue orders, and see to their execution,would be just the thing for Washington. President Macfarland naturally com-batted this suggestion, as others in the partydid, and inde
The New England magazine . Columbia was aone-man government. Some colossus of thebusiness world, he said, some independentlywealthy Captain of Industry, a Carnegie, aRockefeller, or a Cassatt, perhaps, one whohad built up great business affairs, handledmen, and accomplished big practical things,and whose wealth would make certain hislack of interest in politics or real-estate in-vestments, one who would devise wise plans,issue orders, and see to their execution,would be just the thing for Washington. President Macfarland naturally com-batted this suggestion, as others in the partydid, and indeed it is possible that none ofthem took it f seriously. But now comesalong President Roosevelts special andconfidential agent,> Mr. James BronsonReynolds, with a plan very similar to thatproposed by the army officer who has madesuch a signal success apparently at the headof New Yorks Police Department. Thepublic do not seem to be crazy for suffragein the District of Columbia, or for munici- 209 2IO NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE. James Bronson Reynolds, sociologist and economist of high repute, who has been appointed byPresident Roosevelt to investigate and report on the slums of Washington pal reform of any kind. There is, of course,a small and unimportant element of thepopulation who spasmodically advocategiving the ballot to benighted District ofColumbia; but the citizenship as a whole,when they regard the privileges vouchsafedto them and denied to the voting and suffer-ing tax-payers of other communities, andespecially when their minds go back to thedays of popular suffrage in the District ofColumbia;— to the days of the feather-duster Legislature and the supremacy ofthe local politicians, white and black,—are content with conditions as they are anddo not sigh to fly to others that they knownot of. Mr. Reynolds has submitted to PresidentRoosevelt an elaborate report upon the sub-ject which will, presumably, be transmittedto Congress next winter. There is much inthe present for
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