Bankrupt Cities A well-known An leriean writer once produced a
notable book on The Shame of the Cities. That was a study of municipal corruption, and it is not suggested that corrup- tion is the cause of the present straits of cities like New York and Philadelphia and Chicago, who find themselves Without a cent in their. treasuries and the pay of their municipal employees weeks in arrears. The absence of any effective machinery to deal with distress; expensive emergency measures being necessary instead, is part of the explanation, failure or inability of citizens to :make their tax-payments anctiMr part., while extravagant administration plays someshare in the breakdown. The bankek evidently have the last point well in mind, for they have made any advances to the New York City Government dependent on drastic reductions in expendi- ture. The United States is a little dazed by these and other manifestations of the kind of misfortune that seemed certain never to befall leer. It is a new kind of
shame of the cities. * * * *
