What Will the Future Be?
By Editor
CERTAINLY no one who has known San Francisco has ever called it a “strait-laced,” a “puritanical” city. In her most conservative moods in the past she has been what moral men would call decidedly liberal. There have been times when she was as open and immoral as it would seem any lover of pleasure could ask; and yet the mayor-elect tells us that his aim “as mayor will be to let San Francisco have what it wants to have; and to be guided by the popular desire in all matters relating to those wants. The government will be a government of San Francisco by San Franciscans; not a government founded on ideals imported from New England, the Middle West, the South, or any other section of the country.” He says: “I do not see why I should strive as mayor to erect barriers in the path of people who are old enough to know what they want, and are gifted with the speech and unity to demand it at the public election.” “How long lights shall be lit, pianos shall play, and glasses shall clink, are questions which shall be solved as soon as the new administration gets down to active work.” Hopes are faint in the hearts of the better class as to anything like reform. If the San Francisco council, which is largely composed of the mayor’s friends, all share his sentiments, we can only imagine what the result will be. How sad it is that the lesson has not been learned!