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- Title
PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES IN POLITICS.
- Authors
Cline, Denzel C.
- Abstract
This article examines the role of public service employees in politics. One of the arguments used in favor of municipal ownership is that privately owned public utilities are a source of political corruption. However the author John R. Commons and others have pointed out that there is a tendency for labor groups to take a more active part in politics under municipal ownership than when employed under private management. In 1919, as the result of a popular vote, the city of Seattle purchased the entire holdings of the private traction monopoly for the sum of $15,0000,000. The street railway employees had organized a union and successfully conducted a sixteen day strike two years previously. At the time of the election they took a decidedly active part in persuading the citizens to vote for the purchase of the system. Each man was asked to secure as many votes as possible. Since the date of the purchase of the street railway system by the city there have been three elections for major and one special election concerning a proposed change in the form of the city government to a city manager plan.
- Subjects
PUBLIC service employment; PRACTICAL politics; EMPLOYEES; ELECTRIC railway motors; POLITICAL corruption; COMMONS, John R. (John Rogers), 1862-1945; CITY managers
- Publication
Social Forces, 1926, Vol 5, Issue 1, p127
- ISSN
0037-7732
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/3004822