built-up portion of the city have a single track of electric railway
(overhead trolley), and most of the wider ones, except Broad Street,
which has none, have a double track. A subway line has been
opened for a short distance under Market Street, and other subway
lines, as well as elevated lines, have been projected. The entire
system, embracing in 1909 a total of 624.21 m., is operated by the
Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. Several inter-urban electric
lines afford cheap service to neighbouring towns and cities. The
extensive railway system under the control of the Pennsylvania
railway together with the Baltimore & Ohio railway affords
transportation facilities north to New York, south to Baltimore,
Washington and the south, west to the bituminous coalfields of
Pennsylvania, the grain fields of the Middle West, and to Pittsburg,
Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago. The Philadelphia & Reading
railway connects the city with the great anthracite coal region,
and both the Philadelphia & Reading and the Pennsylvania control
a line to Atlantic City. The Schuylkill is navigable for small craft
to the “Fall line,” about 7¾ m. above its mouth and for vessels
drawing 26 ft. to the oil refineries at Point Breeze, 3 m. from the
mouth; from Point Breeze to the head of navigation the channel
depth varies from 14 to 22 ft. The Delaware river is navigable to
Trenton, New Jersey, about 30 m. above the upper end of the port
of Philadelphia, and although in its natural condition this river
was only 17 ft. deep at low water in its shallowest part below the
port this depth was increased between 1836 and 1899 to 26 ft.
(except in three shoal stretches), and a project of the Federal government
was adopted in 1899 for increasing the depth to 30 ft. and the
width to 600 ft. In 1905 the city of Philadelphia and the state of
Pennsylvania appropriated $750,000 for the improvement of the
river between the city and the southern boundary of the state.[1]
Steamships ply regularly between Philadelphia and several European
ports, ports in the West Indies, and ports of the United States.
The port extends from the Pennsylvania railway terminal at Greenwich Point up the Delaware River to the Philadelphia & Reading terminal at Port Richmond, a distance of about 8 m., and there are minor harbour facilities on the Schuylkill. The natural facilities, together with the improvements that have been made, were long offset by an inefficient port administration under an antiquated law of 1803 which permitted the wharves to pass largely under private control; but in 1907 the old board of port wardens was abolished and in its place was created a municipal department of wharves, docks and ferries.
Until the opening of the Erie Canal, in 1825, Philadelphia was the emporium of the United States; it was then displaced by New York. Some years later Philadelphia lost its lucrative China trade, and its decline in commercial importance continued until 1883, when the value of its imports amounted to only $32,811,045, the value of its exports to only $38,662,434, and the city was out-ranked in foreign trade by New York, Boston, San Francisco and New Orleans. By 1900, however, the value of its imports had risen to $49,191,236 and the value of its exports to $81,327,704; in 1909 the value of the imports was $78,003,464, an amount less than one-eleventh that of New York, but exceeded only by New York and Boston, and the value of the exports was $80,650,274, an amount less than one-eighth that of New York, but exceeded only by New York, Galveston and New Orleans. The principal imports are sugar, drugs and chemicals, goatskins, wool, tobacco, jute and burlap, and cotton goods, iron ore, manufactured iron, hides and bananas; the principal exports are iron (manufactured), steel, petroleum, wheat, flour, lard, cattle and meat products. The proximity of the city to New York, whence many of its products are shipped, makes the statistics of its direct imports and exports no true index of its commercial importance.
Manufactures.—Philadelphia has always been one of the foremost manufacturing centres in the United States, and in 1905 it was outranked only by New York and Chicago.[2] The total value of its factory product was $519,981,812 in 1900, and $591,388,078 in 1905. Measured by the value of the products, Philadelphia ranked first among the cities of the country in 1905 in refining sugar and molasses ($37,182,504; 13.4% of the total of the country) and in the manufacture of carpets and rugs ($25,232,510; 41% of the total of the country), leather ($23,903,239; 9.5% of the total of the country), hosiery and knit goods ($15,770,873; 11.5% of the total of the country), woollen goods ($12,239,881; 8.6% of the total of the country), and felt hats ($5,847,771; 16% of the total of the country); second in the manufacture of worsted goods ($26,964,533; 16% of the total of the country) and in dyeing and finishing textiles ($4,371,006; 8.6% of the total of the country); and third in the manufacture of clothing ($31,031,882; 5.1% of the total of the country) and silk goods ($5,079,193; 3.8% of the total of the country). Other large industries are the manufacture of foundry and machine-shop products, cotton goods, malt liquors, iron and steel, chemicals, cigars and cigarettes, soap, confectionery, furniture, paints, boots and shoes, electrical apparatus, and cordage and twine, and among notable individual establishments are the Baldwin Locomotive Works, the Cramp Ship-Yards and the Disston or Keystone Saw Works. There are petroleum refineries at Point Breeze near the mouth of the Schuylkill; petroleum is piped to them from the north-west part of the state.
Water Supply.—The first municipal waterworks, installed in 1799-1801, pumped water by steam power from the Schuylkill into an elevated tank in Centre Square, where the city-hall now stands; this was one of the earliest applications of steam to municipal water pumping. In 1812-1815 new steam works were installed on Quarry Hill, or Fairmount; in 1819-1822 pumping works operated by water power were substituted for those operated by steam; and it was in great part for the preservation of the purity of the water supply that Fairmount Park was created. The park, however, did not serve its purpose in this respect. The water was impure and inadequate: additional works were installed from time to time, mostly on the Schuylkill, whence water was pumped by steam to reservoirs from which distribution was made by gravity; and to meet the increasing demands new filtration works and accessories were installed in 1901-1908. These take the water mainly from the Delaware river.
Government and Finances.—Inasmuch as it has been proved that in 1683 there was in use in Philadelphia a seal bearing the inscription “Philadelphia .83. William. Penn. Proprietor. and. Governor” and in all respects different from the provincial seal or the county seal, it seems that there was then a distinct government for the city. In July 1684 the provincial council, presided over by William Penn, appointed a committee to draft a borough charter, but there is no record of the work of this committee, and it is uncertain what the government of Philadelphia was for the next seventeen years.[3] In 1701 Penn himself issued a charter creating a close corporation modelled after the English borough and under this the city was governed until the War of Independence. Upon the annulment of the Penn charter by the Declaration of Independence, government by commissions was established, but in 1789 a new charter was granted and, although the government has since undergone many and great changes, it is by virtue of this charter that the city remains a corporation to-day. The Consolidation Act of 1854 extended the boundaries to the county lines without destroying the county government, changed the corporate name from “Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of Philadelphia” to “the City of Philadelphia,” created the offices of controller and receiver of taxes, and considerably modified the powers and duties of the corporation and its officers. The Bullitt Act, passed in 1885 to go into effect in 1887, and since 1885 amended and supplemented, is a new charter except in name; particularly notable is its transfer of the balance of power from the councils and various self-perpetuating commissions to the mayor.
The mayor is elected for a term of four years and is not eligible to the office for the next succeeding term. With the advice and consent of the select council he appoints the directors of the departments of public safety, public works,[4] health and charities, supplies and (since 1907) wharves, docks and ferries, and the three members of the civil service commission. He may appoint three persons to examine any department and for reasons given in writing may remove any officer whom he has appointed. His veto power extends to items in appropriation bills, but any item or ordinance may be passed over his veto within five days of such veto by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the members elected to each council. The select council is composed of one member from each of the 47 wards, and in the common council each ward has one member for every four thousand names on the last completed assessment list (including names of those paying poll taxes as well as those paying taxes on real or personal property); in 1909 there were 80 members of the common council. The several administrative departments
- ↑ The city had previously expended $1,555,000 on the improvement of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.
- ↑ The Philadelphia Museums claim that excluding slaughter-house and sweat-shop products the value of Philadelphia's manufactured products is greater than that of any other city in the country.
- ↑ A document purporting to be a charter, bearing the date of the 20th of May 1691, and signed by Thomas Lloyd, deputy-governor, was discovered in 1887, but the great seal is missing and there is no evidence that the charter was even in operation. The minutes of “a meeting of the Council held at Philadelphia on the third day of Sixth Month 1691” mention “Humphrey Morrey the present Mayor of the city of Philadelphia”; and this would seem to show that there was a regular municipal government in 1691. See Philadelphia: Its Founding and Seals: Report of the Committee ... to determine the Year of the Physical and Legal Founding of the City of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1908).
- ↑ In 1905 the state legislature took the appointment of these officers from the mayor and vested it in the councils, but this legislation was repealed in 1906.
