In the line of departmental progress Mayor Mitchel’s administration is credited with a large list of reforms and innovations: The transformed morale of the Police Department; the efficiency of the Fire Department in greatly curtailing the number of fires while at the same time that department has cost $200,000 less a year than formerly; the humanizing of the activities of the Charities Department and of the correctional system; the progressive work of the Health, Education and other departments; the enterprise of the Dock Department in adding seven miles of wharfage and vast areas of dock space to New York harbor’s piers. This is but the merest synopsis of the abundant details set forth showing what Mayor Mitchel’s administration has done. So attractive is this record that the description may possibly seem open to the suspicion of being one-sided, if not effusive. Recalling how often New York City has suffered from flagrant maladministration, the skeptic may be tempted to regard these attributed deeds as being too good to be true. Besides, campaign documents are to be scrutinized not so much for their assertions as for their omissions. It is true that the great bulk of the accomplishments of Mayor Mitchel’s administration may be justly claimed by his supporters as genuine services which are bound to become fixed standards any overthrow of which will not be easily tolerated by the educated public. These Administration annalists, however, have not separated the reforms essentially enduring from those which by their nature are merely experimental, as, for example, certain educational policies. But experiments have their distinct value; better that they should be tried than inertia should prevail. One of the few specific charges brought against Mayor Mitchel’s administration is the assertion that a coterie of real estate speculators has profited unduly by the sale of park sites and other real estate to the city and State during recent years. In reply the supporters of Mayor Mitchel’s administration say that the acquisition of these properties was indispensable to great public improvements planned; that whatever payments have been made have been paid by the regularly determined award of the courts; and that there is not the slightest evidence of collusion on the part of city officials.