SEASONGOOD ASKS MORE INTEREST IN CIVIC GOVERNMENT

In the final lecture of the Godkin Series, Murray Seasongood '00 former Mayor of Cincinnati, yesterday afternoon offered as a remedy for corrupt and inefficient municipal government a new educational treatment of local government, with more emphasis placed on the importance of the city in the everyday life of the individual. He issued a call to college men to abandon their aloofness to city affairs and to graduates to take part in this most vital form of government.

Seasongood declared that there has been an altered point of view in recent years towards city and county government. Home rule has accrued more and more power to itself, and with legal sanction, until today some cities own public utilities, regulate housing, and even determine the esthetic value of the beauty of billboards along the public highways. He stated: "New questions are constantly arising for decision and the old, with slight variations, are being re-examined and distinguished in the light of newer interest and popular sympathy which subconsciously influence judicial decision. Progress is not constant and steady. There are advances and then reactionary relapses, but the general movement is onward and upward."

A better education, a new code of morals, and new social standards furnish the remedy for the evils in local government. Seasongood continued: "This education must begin with the youngest and extend through high schools and colleges. It must diffuse the truth that local government is not, as now considered by many, the least important branch of government, but the most vital. For such it surely is."