most desirable citizens.



CITY GOVERNMENT 91



CITY GOVERNMENT



THE first government of St. Louis, which stood
for the territory now known as Missouri, since
it was its leading town, was purely democratic, for
in 1765 St. Ange de Bellerive, who had just sur-
rendered the country east of the Mississippi to the
English, according to the terms of the Treaty of
Paris, was given by the unanimous voice of the
people full powers for the government of the settle-
ment until a legally appointed successor should
arrive. But this democratic episode soDn closed, for
very soon the Governor-General of Louisiana
organized a civil government by the powers given
him by France.

This w'as not materially changed under the
Spanish rule that followed and continued until the
cession by Napoleon to the United States in 1803.

January 23, 1808, is the date of beginning of the
history of St. Louis as a corporation, in accord-
ance with an act of the territorial legislature passed
some time before.

Under this charter trustees were elected by popu-
lar vote who had both executive and legislative
functions, and they enacted ordinances for the gov-
ernment of the town, which were afterward, when



92 CITY GOVERNMENT

the town had become a city, placed upon the statute
books.

At the election of ^ladison in 1809 St. Louis first
voted for presidential electors. ^Missouri was not
then a State, but the record of this vote is interest-
ing as an indication of her voting population and
political preferences. There were one hundred and
seventy-six votes in all. Of these James Aladison
had one hundred and twenty-two, Charles Pinck-
ney forty-eight and George Clinton six.

That this was the day of small things may be
seen in the statement in 1811 that the expenditures
of the town government for the year had been
$632.87^, exceeding the receipts by $84.57^.
The p()])ulation at this time was about two
thousand. In 1813 two hundred and seventeen
votes were cast for Aladison at his second election,
and in 1815 the population had increased to two
thousand six hundred.

December 9, 1822, an act of incorporation
passed the legislature of Missouri, which had re-
cently been admitted to the Union as a State, con-
stituting a body politic by the name and style of
TJie Mayor, Aldciiiian aiu! Cificiois of the Cit\ of
St. Louis. The ]\Iayor and the nine Aldermen were
to be elected yearly and were to possess a freehold
estate within the city limits. On the first Monday
in March, 1823, this charter was accepted by the
qualified voters of the town. One hundred and
seven voted for and ninety against it, a small vote



CITY GOVERNMENT 93

which may, perhaps, be accounted for by the fact
that many otherwise quahfied voters had not yet
paid the tax to the corporation. It is worth noting
that the salary of the first Mayor, Wilham Carr
Lane, was put at three hundred dohars, and that
the Aldermen were paid no salaries.

This charter of 1822, slightly changed by a few
amendments, controlled city affairs until 1835, when
a new one was granted of a somewhat broader
character, much enlarging the powers of the cor-
poration. The great variety of matters with which
the ordinances passed in the first years after the
adoption of this charter is of much interest to the
political student, as it shows how the little city of
only five thousand inhabitants was struggling three
quarters of a century ago with all the problems,
both serious and trifling, which nowadays beset
those whose duty it is to administer municipal
affairs.

February 11, 1839, a third charter was given to
the city by the State Legislature. The two former
charters had provided for a Mayor and one House,
a Board of Aldermen, a plan not unlike that to
which many thoughtful men in these days desire
to return. The charter of 1839 planned for a City
Council, consisting of two chambers, a Board of
Aldermen and a Board of Delegates. The former
was to be composed of two members from each
ward, chosen ever}^ second year ; the latter of three
from each ward, chosen for three years.



94 CITY GOVERNMENT

In 1859 an important amendment was made in
the charter of 1839. It was provided that the "City
Council should consist of one Board called the
Common Council, who should possess all the pow-
ers and exercise all the functions of the Board of
Aldermen and City Council, as heretofore consti-
tuted."

This Board was to be composed of twenty mem-
bers, two for each ward, one-half of the members
to be elected in each year to serve two years. Under
this amended charter St. Louis passed through the
trying period of the civil war. In 1866, however,
the Council was again divided into two chambers.

In the new constitution of the State of Missouri,
adopted in 1875, a provision was made for another
change in the government of the City of St. Louis.
By this act the city was to have the power to extend
its limits and take in certain portions of the county,
after a Board of Tliirteen Freeholders elected by the
voters of the city should have proposed a scheme
for this enlargement of the city and readjustment
of the relations between city and county, and after
such scheme and charter had been approved by the
voters of the city and the whole county. St. Louis
City had heretofore been within St. Louis County,
and the two governments were continually clashing
and causing serious friction. The friends of the
new plan declared that all of this would be done
away with by its adoption. The contest that pre-
ceded the final adoption of "The Scheme and Char-



CITY GOVERNMENT 95

ter" was spirited and seems to have been one be-
tween friends and enemies of reform. The state-
ments of the advantages to be secured by the new
plan are given by one of its friends in the St. Louis
Republican of August 19, 1876, three days before
the election, is very interesting and worth repro-
ducing here :

''First — It secures one government for the City
of St. Louis.

''Second — It secures a good charter.

"Third — It secures a charter which can be
amended in three ways :

"(a) By virtue of its own powers.

"(b) By virtue of an act of the Legislature,
passed as a general law and accepted by the Mayor
and Assembly in lieu of a charter.

"(c) By virtue of a new election of thirteen
freeholders to form a new charter.

"Fourth — It secures a reduction of taxes in three
localities :

"(a) By a reduction in the old city limits of
35^ cents on the $100 value.

"(b) By a reduction in the new limits of assess-
ments on farming lands, and by 20^ cents on the
$100 of such value.

"(c) By a reduction in the new county of 20^^
cents on the $100 values and by a release from the
entire debt of city and county.

"Fifth — It secures the city from further exten-
sion of its limits.



96 CITY GOVERNMENT

"SisfJi — It secures county lands used for farming
purposes from actual confiscation if required to pay
the citv and countv debt pro rata with the city
property.

"Sezrufh — It secures a uniform system of pub-
lic schools in the city and in the new limits of the
city, with a gradation of schol taxes in the new
limits for the actual expense only of maintaining
the schools.

" Bight Ji — It secures to the people a fixed policy
of government which cannot be changed in prin-
ciple and form, although subject to change in
detail.

''Ninth — It secures forever the abolition of the
County Court and its double expensive, irresponsible
and vicious system.

"ToitJi — It secures to the people a rest from
political rings to control the hard-earnerl money
paid b}- oppressed and overburdened tax-payers.

"Eleventh — It secures one system of official
power, one of paying taxes, one of assessment and
one of expenditure, and holds all persons responsi-
ble for the faithful discharge of duty.

''Tivelfth — It secures this separation by details
in the charter, which, if objectionable, can be
amended at the next session of the Legislature."

The above is, perhaps, a fair statement of the real
benefits which came to both city and county by
its adoption and operation, which latter finally came
about in ]\Iarch, 1877. Some of these benefits



CITY GOVERNMENT 97

would seem, however, to one who now glances
backward over the past thirty years to be somewhat
visionary, especially those mentioned in sections
ten and eleven. The history of these years of city
government in St. Louis has shown again what has
so often been demonstrated by experience, that no
charter or frame work of government for nation,
state or city can be so guarded as to prevent national,
state or municipal corruption, that after all is said
and done, upon the character of the men who
administer public affairs and the character and dis-
interestedness of the voting population.

This charter, however, undoubtedly marks a
step forward in city government in Missouri. For
the circumstances then existing it was in most
respects admirably adapted. But it was a plan of
government devised for a city of about three hun-
dred thousand people, and it is not strange that the
present great city should seem to have outgrown
the charter of thirty years ago.

Two features of the charter of 1876 were then
thought to be of special value. One was the pro-
hibition against city debt beyond a certain point.
The other was the filling by the Mayor of certain
important appointive offices only after two years of
his four year term had expired. The former was
a very wise provision, doubtless, at the time, to pro-
tect the city from extravagant expenditures ; but,
as the needs of a much greater city increased, the
time was to come when such a restriction was a



98 CITY GOVERNMENT

hindrance to progress. The latter was intended to
secure to the executive greater independence of
action by lessening the apparent necessity of making
and fulfilling election promises. Experience, how-
ever, has shown that greater efficiencv and a surer
responsibility can be secured by allowing the execu-
tive to name his executive assistants when he takes
office and not insisting that he be possibly ham-
pered by those who were the appointees of a former
administration, whose policy may have been con-
trary to his own.

The charter of 1876 still adhered to the old plan
of a bi-cameral legislative body, while the ten-
dency is now towards a body with one chamber,
elected not by wards, but on a general ticket, and as
is the Council under the charter of 1876.

Many excellent features, however, were included
in the provisions of this instrument, and under
them very great progress in the material improve-
ment of the city has been made.

The length of the term of its municipal officers;
the carefully framed provisions to secure honest
registration of voters and an honest vote at the
polls; the guards and checks upon all who admin-
ister the financial affairs of the city : the provisions
against an undue increase of the public debt; the
plan already referred to by which the important
offices filled by the Mayor's appointment are not
vacant until the beginning of the third year of his
term of office, so that as rewards of political work



CITY GOVERNMENT 99

done during a heated campaign they are too far
in the dim distance to prejudice seriously the merits
of an election; these are a few of its features which
were regarded important advantages in the new
plan of city government. The next step of prog-
ress in the political development of St. Louis, which
will, it may be, be followed by the other large cities
of the State will be the complete reconstruction of
the present charter in accordance with more modern
and enlightened views. The steps already taken
by this greatest city in the Mississippi Valley since
the early years of its corporate life have been, as a
whole, wisely adapted to the needs of time and
attending circumstances, and there is no reason-
able doubt that St. Louis and other cities in this
great State will be ready at the proper time to take
further action and join in any wise forward move-
ment.



837629



100 LOUISIANA PUCHASE

MISSOURI IN THE CELEBRATION OF

THE CENTENNIAL OF THE

LOUISIANA PURCHASE



The celebration of the centennial anniversary
of the Louisiana Purchase has had so much to do
with the recent forward movement, not only of
the city of St. Louis, but of the state of ^Missouri
and the great territory adjacent to this state, that
it demands attention here, and this, not only be-
cause of the magnitude of this celebration and its
immediate success as a great exposition of the skill
and resources of this and nearly all the other coun-
tries of the globe, but because of the illustration
afforded by it of the spirit and power of those men
of Missouri, and especially of its greatest city, by
whose zeal and indefatigable efforts it was car-
ried to a successful termination.

The event which was thus commemorated, which
has been treated briefly in another chapter of this
record of the development of our state, was of
such importance as to set many minds at work
years before the centennial year, devising some
plan of celebration worthy of the magnitude of this
event, which concerned so intimately the interests,
social and political, of two continents.

Individuals and new^spapers, as early as 1888,
began to agitate the subject, and the matter was



LOUISIANA PUCHASE 101

heard of every now and then during nine follow-
ing years. In the meetings of the officers of the
Missouri Historical Society of St. Louis especially
this subject was frequently discussed and many sug-
gestions made for an adequate commemoration of
the Louisiana Purchase. Nothing on a large scale,
however, was contemplated at first, but all the in-
formal talk concerned itself with something which
should be a permanent memorial. A statute to
Thomas Jefferson ; a fire-proof building for the
Historical Society, with perhaps a day or two for
speeches and a pageant ; a reproduction near the
river front of old St. Louis — all of these were con-
sidered in an informal way for months and years,
even. Nothing was really done, however, until
on the eleventh of January, 1898, at a meeting of
the advisory committee of the society, upon motion
of Mr. Pierre Chouteau, Professor Marshall S.
Snow, the president, appointed a committee of five
to which was added the president, to take the mat-
ter into serious consideration. This was the real
beginning of definite action towards the great ex-
position of 1904. After consideration of the sub-
ject by this committee, and continued discussion
in and out of the society, a conference was held be-
tween the Historical Society's committee and one
appointed by the Business Men's League. This
resulted in a request by the Historical Society that
various business and social organizations in St.
Louis should appoint committees to consider "the



102 LOUISIANA PURCHASE

desirability of a celebration in 1903, and what form
it should take." This call was issued Alay 17,
1898, to twenty-five such organizations. The ap-
peal was favorably received and the committees
thus named met at the rooms of the Historical So-
ciety, Tune 22. Mr. Chouteau, chairman of the
meeting, was authorized to name a committee of
fifteen, which should in turn select a committee of
fifty, to whom the whole matter of further steps to
be taken should be entrusted. The committee of
fifty, of which the president of the society was
named chairman, July 12, after careful considera-
tion, named a sub-committee of ten that a defi-
nite plan of celebration might finally be submitted.
This committee of ten, of which Mr. Chouteau was
chairman, met weekly throughout the summer and
autumn and made their final report November 28.
This report definitely recommended a world's fair
as the only adequate method of celebrating so im-
portant an event as the Louisiana Purchase. They
also recommended, as the proper preliminary steps,
that a convention should be called, made up of rep-
resentatives from all the states in the Louisiana
purchase, not later than the tenth of January, 1899,
to decide upon the time and manner of a proper
commemoration of the purchase. The governor of
Missouri issued the necessary invitations, and on
the tenth of January the meeting was held in the
city of St. Louis.



LOUISIANA PURCHASE) 103

The feeling was practically unanimous in favor
of a world's fair, or exposition as its friends pre-
fered to call it, and an executive committee was
named, composed of three members from each state
represented in the convention. Of this committee,
Hon. David R. Francis was made chairman, and
on January 19 he reported to the committee of fifty
the result of the convention.

The committee of fifty was then enlarged to a
committee of two hundred, and to this enlarged body
it fell to arrange all further details until the con-
trol of the exposition was in the hands of the board
of directors of the organized exposition company.

Such are the steps, apparently feeble at first,
which led finally to the complete and successful or-
ganization of the powerful and able Louisiana Pur-
chase Exposition Company.

In all of this preliminary work may be seen the
power and strength and skill of the men of Alis-
souri, and especially of St. Louis, for upon the
latter fell the great burden of seeing that the neces-
sary ways and means were provided. It is worthy
of note that in the beginning no one among the
prime movers of a celebration desired to have it
take the form of a universal exposition or world's
fair, and when these men who were most active in
the early movement decided that such must be the
form of commemoration of the Louisiana Purchase,
opposition had to be encountered and overthrown.



104 LOUISIANA PURCHASE

The state of Missouri at length appropriated the
sum of one milHon dollars. The city of St. Louis,
by a popular vote, was granted the right to issue
bonds for five millions and five more millions were
also raised by popular subscription to the stock of
the company. Congress also appropriated five mil-
lions of dollars after the facts stated above had been
presented and certified to.

A national commission was appointed in April by
President McKinley, to represent the United States
Government, and on the day when this commission
was appointed, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Company was incorporated with a capital of six
millions, and ninty-three men were appointed as di-
rectors of the company, Hon. David R. Francis be-
ing chosen as president. The committee of two hun-
dred, having now really completed its labors, sur-
rendered all its control to the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition Company.

Work now began in earnest upon a site which
included the western half of Forest Park and about
as much additional territory west of the park, leased
from private parties, including about one hundred
and ten acres belonging to Washington University,
together with the buildings already erected by that
institution for its new home, to which were added
other buildings erected by the university from the
money paid as rent by the exposition.

In May, 1902, it was clear that in order to make
the exposition what it was from the first intended



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 105

to be, the time of its opening must be postponed, and
this was brought about by the joint action of the
exposition company and Congress, so that not until
May, 1904, were the gates of the great fair opened
to the world.

The story of this great exposition is a familiar
one. It was told in continued series in all the dailies
and weeklies of this and other countries. The whole
has been written in a comprehensive and exhaustive
fashion in various ways since the closing of its
gates, on December first, 1904.

We all know something of the multitudes of peo-
ple of our own land and the thousands from all
the nations of the earth who thronged the broad
avenues and filled the great squares daily; of the
strange and picturesque pictures made by the ming-
ling of citizens of the United States, of aboriginal
Americans, of men and women from our island pos-
sessions ; of all the varieties of costume and manners
offered to the gaze of the curious and interested ob-
servers. We know about the wonders of the vast
buildings for the exhibition of the products and the
manufactures of civilized and half-civilized races.
We have strolled about in the galleries of the great
art palace, where great works of men's imagination
were displayed on canvas and in marble. We have
walked along the avenues of states, lined with elegant
and costly structures which were open to the world,
and presided over by the fairest of hostesses. In the
Congress of Nations, the crowning glory of the ex-



106 LOUISIANA PURCHASE

position, we have heard of the latest discoveries in
science, of the newest and w^isest thought upon ques-
tions of the highest importance and interest, from
men of this and other countries, each a master of
his subject. The extent and immensity of it all,
the executive and artistic ability suggested by even
a day's ramble through its mazes have surprised
and amazed every thoughtful observer.

And then as we consider it with greater care, it
comes to our minds that the first suggestion which
led to all this great and wonderful thing, came from
the men of Missouri ; that the exposition was held
on a part of the Louisiana Purchase, which we call
the state of Missouri; that the state itself made
a larger appropriation for exposition purposes than
any other state in the Union ; that in all the build-
ings where exhibits of the states were to be found,
there were found Missouri products, articles un-
excelled in value and artistic excellence by those of
any other state, and we take pride in the knowledge
that in this great enterprise our state was the leader,
and that the men upon whom the great burden
fell of carrying this project through to a successful
termination, were citizens of Missouri.

What Missouri did in the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, therefore, is a striking and brilliant tes-
timony to the vast development of this great state
since the time, when a century earlier, Thomas Jeff-
erson laid before the Senate of the United States



LOUISIANA PURCHASE 107

the treaty which, when ratified, added an Empire of
the West to the infant repubHc.

As has already been said, Missouri appropriated
the large sum of one million dollars for the world's
fair. With a portion of this, about one-fourth,
was erected one of the largest, if not the largest,
certainly the most expensive and imposing of the
state buildings. With the remainder was paid the
cost of placing in position and order in the various
exhibition buildings that which the state thought
proper to show to the world, and in entertainments
of great variety and interest. All this was in the
hands of a commission, appointed by Governor
Dockery, composed of representative citizens from
all sections of Missouri, and thev performed well
their task.

Naturally enough, the Missouri building was
one of the social centers of the exposition. In
the presence of an immense crowd, it was dedi-
cated on the third of June.

The eleventh of October was Missouri day, and
was appropriately observed.

August twenty-second began Missouri week, and
from all parts of the state, especially from the cities
and larger towns, came thousands of the people of
Missouri. An authority tell us that by the tenth
of November, seven thousand persons, all residents
of the state, had registered in the Missouri building.

In the Palace of Agriculture, where Missouri
held properly the first place, were to be seen all the



108 LOUISIANA PURCHASE

varieties of the products of its rich soil. There was
the great corn temple, illustrating one of its richest
agricultural products. The grains and grasses of
the state were used as the decoration of the exhibit.
Pictures might be seen, showing the old and the
new in agricultural methods. Every county in the
state was represented here, with farm and dairy
products of every variety and description.

In the Horticultural Palace, ]vIissouri was alloted
a larger space than that of any other state, having
about six thousand square feet for exhibition pur-
poses. Here more than four hundred varieties of
fruits were displayed, apples, pears, peaches, plums,
grapes, cherries and berries of all kinds.

The Palace of Alines contained the display of the
mineral resources of ^Missouri. Every district in
the state was represented. There one could see
coal, zinc, lead, copper, copper clays and building