Our reform associations, while they have fought party, have often endeavored to substitute their own organization for the party organization. This has often been the alternative offered to us—do we want good government or poor government? We have not been asked if we would like to govern ourselves. This is why Mitchell lost last year in New York. One of the New York papers during the campaign advised Mr. Mitchell “to get nearer the people.” But it is not for government to “get nearer” the people; it must identify itself with the people. It isn’t enough for the “good” officials to explain to the people what they are doing; they must take the people into their counsels. If the Gary system had ever been properly put up to the fathers it is doubtful if they would have voted against it. Then a good deal of this advice in regard to city officials “explaining” their plans in all parts of the city leaves out of account that the local people have a great deal to give. Some of the most uneducated, so-called, of the fathers and mothers might have had valuable points of view to offer in regard to the practical workings of the Gary system. Tammany won in New York and we heard many people say, “Well, this is your democracy, the people want bad government, the majority of people in New York city have voted for it.” Nothing could be more superficial. What the election in New York meant was that “the people” are cleverer than was thought; they know that the question should not be of “good” government or “bad” government, but only of self-government, and the only way they have of expressing this is to vote against a government which _seems_ to disregard them. To say, “We are good men, we are honest officials, we are employing experts on education, sanitation etc., you must trust us,” will not do; some way must be devised of connecting the experts and the people—that is the first thing to be worked out, then some way of taking the people into the counsels of city administration. All of us criticize things we don’t know anything about. As soon as we see the difficulties, _as soon as the responsibility is put upon us_, our whole attitude changes. Take the popular cry “Boston positions for Boston people.” This seems a pretty good principle to superficial thinking. But when we know that we have an appropriation of $200,000 a year for a certain department, and are looking for a man to administer it, when we go into the matter and find that there are only two or three experts for this position in the United States, and that not one of these lives in Boston, the question takes the concrete form, “Shall we allow $200,000 of our money to be wasted through inept administration?” It might be said, “But city governments do have the responsibility and yet this is just what they are all the time doing.” Certainly, because their position rests on patronage, but I am proposing that the whole system be changed.