Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in order that it might not be handicapped by a deficit at the beginning. At the end of the year the commission had an excess of cash over claims of $104,855.28, a gain during the year of $48,439.03. In other words, instead of running behind during the year $119,199.82, as the previous administration had done, it ran ahead $48,439.03, thus making a relative saving over the previous administration of $182,949.65. Success In Other Cities The success in other commission governed cities appears to be not greatly unlike that of Des Moines—less striking than in Galveston and Houston, but in general a more or less marked improvement on the previous administration. In Dallas, the commission in its first two years reduced the city's overdrafts from over $200,000 to a cash balance. It paved more streets, and laid more sidewalks than had been paved and laid during any other two year period in the city's history. It built three new school buildings, two new fire stations, and bought four new parks without the issue of bonds, and, in general, reorganized the system of street cleaning and the inspection of public improvements. The administration was returned at the second election. Speaking in New York before a meeting of business men, September 30th, 1909, C. B. Gillespie, Commissioner of Finance and Revenue, said: "In the two years' experience of Dallas, under the commission form of government, many miles of streets have been substantially paved; the enforcement of sidewalk construction is general throughout the city; four new parks have been acquired, numerous public buildings have been erected, extensive additions to the waterworks system are under way, and many reforms have been brought about, among which was the reduction of the city's street lighting from $73 per arc light per ye...