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"Gentlemen, I deem it appropriate at this
time to address you briefly on what I regard as comparatively the
more serious conditions in our municipal affairs."
The matter which I rank first in importance is
the present financial condition of the City of Chicago and its
relation to the ever-increasing burden of taxation which is being
loaded upon our citizens. In the last four years, the City's tax rate
has increased from 92 1/2c per hundred to 137c per hundred. In
figures, the City's expenditures (including those for school
administration) have increased from $152,716,412.18 in 1927 to
$171,261,262.71 in 1930. The general tax bills just mailed our for
1929 taxes are from 19 to 25 percent higher than those of 1928. The
progressive increase in the item of loss and cost in tax collections
indicates a startling increase in forfeiture of property for
nonpayment of taxes, and glaring instances of excessive taxation
amounting practically to confiscation are unfortunately matters of
common knowledge.
Directly, the City is without power either to
change the existing tax laws or more equitably distribute the tax
burden. The first is a matter of legislation. The second depends upon
the honest intelligent and efficient administration of the legally
constituted tax assessing and tax reviewing bodies.
The City, however, through the combined efforts
of its Mayor, its Council, and its Administrative Department heads
can contribute materially to a reduction of taxes. Of every dollar
paid in taxes in Cook County 32.3 cents goes to the City of Chicago
for general corporate purposes and 33.1c goes for the administration
of its schools. Obviously, every dollar needlessly spent by the city
adds to the tax burden, and every dollar properly saved by careful
municipal administration decreases the tax burden. With your help and
the active assistance of our department heads, I propose to reduce
the cost of our municipal government to the lowest possible minimum
consistent with the effective functioning of our vital municipal
services.
In order that there may be no misunderstanding
of the conditions existing at the time I assumed office, let me
direct your attention to the present state of departmental
appropriations. In several of the departments rendering essential
service, the expenditures made against appropriations up to April
11th, exceed the proportion of the fund which it appears should have
been spent between January 1 and April 11; in other words, the period
from January 1 to April 11th constitutes approximately 29% of the
entire fiscal year and in these departments more than 29% of the
annual appropriation has already been spent.
Despite this condition, I confidently believe
that by the elimination of incompetence, waste and the unnecessary
duplication of services and the application of modern methods in
ordinary use in well-ordered private businesses, the City can not
only function for the remainder of the year within its unexpended
budget balances but that a very considerable salvage can be effected.
I am fully aware that this will be no easy task. I will need your
help. I will insist upon the active and sustained co-operation of
every department and bureau head. I shall ask and confidently expect
to receive, the aid of disinterested civic-minded citizens whom I
shall call upon to assist in this necessary reorganization of the
City's business. To these ends I shall ask your concurrence in the
appointment by me of a "Mayor's Advisory Commission" composed of
disinterested, non-partisan citizens whose functions will include a
thoroughgoing study of every department of the City Government with
the definite object in view of making practical constructive
recommendations designed to accomplish the following specific
purposes:
- To consolidate the existing 32 separate
departments of the city into a smaller number of principal
departments so as to bring about a more responsible and harmonious
direction of the City's affairs, eliminate unnecessary employees
and terminate the existing duplication and overlapping of
municipal services.
- To standardize, so far as possible,
contracts and specifications for municipal work and supplies so as
to invite a much wider competition than has heretofore existed in
the letting of such contracts and thus obtain fairer prices for
the City; to improve the City's central purchasing administration,
by providing approved safeguards in the purchase, handling,
delivery and accounting for supplies, materials and equipment, and
to encourage by every proper means a feeling in the business
community that the City of Chicago is entitled to the same
consideration in its contracts and purchases as are large private
businesses, and that the City of Chicago on its part will deal
fairly and honestly with business public in its purchases of
supplies and the letting of contracts.
- To co-operate with the Civil service
Commission which I will appoint in a complete re-classification of
the Classified Civil Service so as to do away with the present
utter lack of logical relationship between the duties and
responsibilities of many positions and the salaries paid to the
incumbents of such positions; to restrict, so far as possible, the
numbers of so-called "60 day" or temporary appointees; to provide
safeguards in examinations so as to develop a confidence in the
community that Civil Service examinations are on the square to the
end of inducing a better class of applicants to enter the service;
to establish lines of promotion so that the provision of the Civil
Service Law that vacancies in the service shall, wherever
practicable, be filled by promotional examination, shall be
carried out; and to set high standards of service and so encourage
the rank and file of the Civil Service employees that they will
strive to render full, efficient and courteous service to the
public which pays them.
- To install modern labor-saving devices and
practices so as to avoid duplication and reduce expense in water,
license and special assessment billing and collections and related
administrative services; to discontinue duplicating accounting and
bookkeeping services through the unification under a central head
of all such services; to provide, within all municipal service,
for an independent auditing of municipal accounts and the
continuous supervision of budget appropriations and expenditures
to the end that the exact condition of the City's finances can be
determined and known by the public at any time.
- To provide for the publication and
publicity of regular reports in simplified form on the activities,
services and projects of the City Government, and on municipal
receipts and expenditures.
- To canvass and study the merits of all proposals made for municipal bond
issues for public improvements to the end that no ill-considered
or questionable proposal shall be submitted to the electorate.
The above six specifications are not
designed to limit the jurisdiction of this commission, but rather
to indicate the general scope of their activities and the nature
of the service expected of it. It is my thought that this
commission should hold frequent and regular meetings and follow
through to accomplishment a definite and progressive program along
the lines above laid down.
I hereby respectfully ask your concurrence
in the appointment of the following persons as members of this
"Mayor's Advisory Commission" :
-
- Mr. William R. Dawes,
- Mr. Elmer T. Stevens ,
- Mr. Oscar Mayer,
- Mr. D.F. Kelly,
- Mr. Victor Olander,
- Mr. John McKinlay
- Mrs. Kellogg Fairbank,
- Mr. Julius F. Smietanka, Mr. Newton C. Farr,
- Mr. Theodore W. Robinson,
- Mr. Joseph Triner,
- Mr. Jacob M Loeb,
- Mr. Sewell Avery,
- Mr. Barney Balaban,
- Mr. Charles E. Merriam,
- Mr. Patrick H. Joyce,
- Mr. Henry H. Porter,
- Mr. Otto Kaspar,
- Mr. Joshua D'Esposito,
- Mr. Bert A. Massee,
- Mr. Gordon Strong,
- Mrs. George V. McIntyre,
- Mrs. B.M. Winston.
-
Mr. Francis X. Busch, now serving the City
temporarily as Corporation Counsel, has agreed to act gratuitously
as the permanent counsel of the Mayor's advisory Commission, and I
also request your approval to designate him to act with the
commission in this capacity.
I have purposely named on the Mayor's
Advisory Commission a number of the same persons who were
appointed by me while President of the Board of Cook County
Commissioners as members of the Cook County Citizens Commission on
Public Finance and Economy. I have done this in order that each
commission can have intimate knowledge of the work being done by
the other and both can work in complete accord. The program of the
County Citizens Commission includes a survey of all of the many
governmental agencies within the County and the recommendation to
the County Board of well-considered proposal for legislation and
perhaps constitutional amendments which will effect a permanent
consolidation of the present independently functioning and
overlapping agencies and resulting saving to the taxpayers of
millions of dollars annually. It is my thought that the Mayor's
Advisory Commission, while dealing primarily with specific
problems which can be accomplished without new legislation, will
co-operate in every way possible to effectuate the broader program
of the County Citizens Commission. In this connection, also, I am
not unmindful of the fact that the previous City Council appointed
a committee to recommend measures looking to a consolidation of
existing taxing bodies in Cook County and it is, likewise, my
thought and desire that if that committee is continued, the
Mayor's Advisory Commission should work in complete harmony with
it.
The next matter to which I wish to direct
your attention, and the importance of which is recognized by you
and every good citizen of Chicago, is the so-called crime
situation. I stated in my pre-election campaign that the
minimizing of crime and the apprehension of criminals was a police
problem. Punishment of criminals is, of course, a matter for the
prosecuting agencies and the courts. I wish to repeat that
statement now, and to declare that the administration, through its
Police Department, must accept full responsibility for the
prevention of crime so far as humanly possible, and for the prompt
apprehension of offenders against the criminal laws. The
responsibility for the conduct of the Police Department, and its
administration, will be placed squarely upon the Commissioner of
Police. He will not be interfered with in the slightest degree by
me. I shall insist that he does not permit himself to be
interfered with by anyone else. He will be judged solely by the
results he accomplishes, and shall not hesitate to reorganize the
department at anytime when I shall be convinced that it is not
functioning efficiently. I shall direct the Commissioner of Police
to co-operate fully with the official law-enforcing agencies and
to welcome and encourage the assistance of voluntary civic
agencies which are honestly endeavoring to aid in the apprehension
of criminals and the rigid and equal enforcement of the law. I
invite particularly the cooperation of prosecuting officials in a
effort to make the collection by the police of the evidence of
crimes more effective to secure convictions. While the police and
crime problem is a most difficult one, I am confident that with
the Mayor, the Commissioner of Police, the Civil Service
Commission, your Committee on Police and Municipal Institutions,
and the other official and unofficial agencies working united and
earnestly to a common purpose, we can well before 1933, when the
Century of Progress Exposition is held, present to the World a
City, well governed and well ordered, and with a record for the
suppression and prompt punishment of lawlessness equal to that of
any other large city in the United States.
And this brings me naturally to that
epoch-making event in Chicago's history, --the celebration of its
hundredth anniversary as a municipality - its "Century of Progress"
Exposition to be held in Chicago in
1933. The success of this Exposition means much to Chicago.
Important public works, great philanthropic enterprises, vast
private undertakings must be completed by 1933 in anticipation of
this event. Your Honorable Body has created a standing committee
to deal with the many problems which the Council will have to pass
upon in connection with the celebration of this, our first
centennial. The first unit of the subway as
provided by the recently passed traction ordinance, must be pushed
to completion. Important street widenings, still uncompleted, must
be finished. The new Post Office must be built. The new Rosenwald
Industrial Museum must be finished and equipped. The various
exposition buildings, already well under way, must be ready to
receive the exhibits which will be sent from all parts of the
world.
Vigorous constructive efforts should be made
through your proper committees, with the co-operation of the
Department of Public Works and Board of Local Improvements, to put
through the streets made possible by the straightening of the Chicago
River, and to bring about the
construction of a unified railway terminal in that area for the
greater convenience of the hundreds of thousands of people who
will visit us during the Exposition. In these endeavors, I pledge
you my active assistance, and the aid of every agency I can
command.
Every effort must also be made through the
enlistment of our numerous splendid and efficient civic
organizations to make known to the World that Chicago's
traditional spirit of accomplishment which made the 1893 World's Fair the greatest event of its kind, either before or
since, is again actively at work to make Chicago's 1933 World's Fair eclipse it in cultural value, in magnificence and in
beauty. We want the World to know that Chicago, reborn in civic
pride, in determination, and in inspiration for worthwhile
progress, extends her invitation to people everywhere to enjoy the
hospitality of the middlewest's great metropolis, which in a
hundred years has emerged from a settlement of less than 200
people to what we will be prepared in 1933 to prove is the best
governed, the safest and the most beautiful City in the
World.
May I be pardoned for one other observation
of more immediate concern. The week of May 10th to May 20th has
been designated as "Chicago Jubilee Week", during which, by
appropriate ceremonies, Chicago will celebrate the determination
of its civic, business, and industrial leaders, to do everything
possible through co-operative effort, to stimulate revival of
trade and industry and interest in Chicago. I have already pledged
my active assistance to this movement and respectively solicit the
aid of your honorable Body and of all the departments and bureaus
of the City Government to a like purpose.
In conclusion, may I make just a few rather
personal observations.
I want it known that I fully appreciate the
tremendous responsibilities imposed upon me by the unprecedented
vote of confidence which I received from the people of Chicago on
April 7th last. I realize, too, my own limitations. Alone and
unaided I, can accomplish little. With the support and help which
I ask for, I think I can do a great deal. I am not afraid of hard
work. I regard the Mayor's office as a "full-time job", claiming
and entitled to the best I have in me. I shall devote all of my
time and thought to the discharge of its obligations. I expect
everyone in the City's service, from department head to the
humblest employee, to do the same. By law I am not only Mayor, but
a member of the City Council. I expect to perform my duty as such
member. I shall sit in with the Finance and other committees on
important measures for the two-fold purpose of informing myself on
the details of such measures and to lend whatever aid my
experience and counsel may be to the other members of the
Committee. I must have the co-operation of City Council if we are
to accomplish anything of lasting good for our beloved City. I
have received, I think, the personal assurance of every elected
alderman that I can count on such co-operation. This voluntary and
sincerely meant expression of confidence and good will inspires me
to look forward to four years of pleasant and treasured
association. I shall also initiate the practice of meeting
regularly and frequently with the heads of City Departments, and
the Chairmen of Council Committees so that I may be kept in
intimate touch with every branch of the City service and discuss
suggestions for improved administration.
I have always been a believer in the
practice enlisting disinterested, specially equipped and
non-partisan citizens to aid in the solution of public problems.
Some of the most effective public service of which I have
knowledge has been accomplished by such groups. I expect to call
frequently upon this citizenship during my term as Mayor. It is a
source of great gratification to me that I have received from
literally thousands of our citizens, without regard to party,
nationality, race or creed, offers to assist in any way possible
in the rejuvenation and development of our great City.
It has been impossible in this message to
even mention many of the important tasks ahead of us. At
subsequent meetings of Your Honorable Body, and at an early date,
I shall ask the privilege of inviting your specific attention to
them.
Source: Chicago (Ill.). City Council. Journal of Proceedings April 27, 1931 p.89-91
Municipal Reference Collection, Chicago Public Library
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