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THE GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NSW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
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TORONTO
THE
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN
CITIES
Br
WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO, PH.D., LL.B.
PROFESSOR OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Neto ffotfc
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1913
All rights reserved
COPTKIOIIT, 1912,
BT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1919. Reprinted
January, April, 1913.
NortoooB
J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick A Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
"Municipal institutions constitute the strength of free
nations. A nation may establish a system of free govern-
ment, but without municipal institutions it cannot have the
spirit of liberty."
— ALEXIS DK TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America, i, 76.
PKEFACE
THE aim of this volume is to describe, in a summary
way, the machinery of city government in the United
States. In its various chapters an endeavor has been
made to outline the growth of American cities, to explain
the present-day powers and duties of the city as a municipal
corporation, to describe the different organs of municipal
government, and to make clear the relations which these
bear to one another. The book deals with government
rather than with administration, with the framework rather
than with the functioning mechanism of the municipal
organization. This is not because the latter is in any sense
regarded as the less important of the two ; but merely
because it is proposed to deal fully with that phase of the
subject in a later volume.
Even as respects governmental organization, moreover,
no attempt has been made to cover every point in full
detail. I have tried to do no more than to provide, both
for the college student of municipal government and for the
general reader, an introduction to the study of a very large
and important subject. Those who desire more definite or
more extensive information than the text contains will find
some suggestions at the end of each chapter.
In an age when men appear far too ready to proceed
with a diagnosis and to prescribe remedies without much
preliminary study of the anatomy and the physiology of
city government, too much stress upon the importance of
the latter branches of the subject can scarcely be laid. At
any rate we have heard so much in recent years concerning
what the government of American cities ought to be that an
vii
yiii PREFACE
apology is hardly necessary for the emphasis which this
volume places upon what their government really is.
Dealing as they do with institutions that are continually
in process of change, these chapters must inevitably contain
some mis-statements of fact and many errors of opinion.
I hope that they are no more numerous than the complex-
ities of the subject render pardonable. In any event I am
deeply grateful for the generous assistance that has been
given me from various sources in securing the data neces-
sary for the writing of the book. To Professors Merriam,
Fairlie, Hatton, and Hormell I am under obligations for their
kindness in reading portions of the proof and for many
useful suggestions. Dr. Adna F. Weber of New York and
Mr. Charles Warren of Boston were also kind enough to
give me the benefit of their counsel on several difficult
points. To the Hon. John A. Sullivan, Chairman of the
Boston Finance Commission I am glad to express my
gratitude for keeping me clear of many pitfalls and for
the privilege of drawing so freely upon his comprehensive
store of sure information on all matters relating to the
practical workings of American government. Miss A. F.
Rowe and Miss Alice Holden of Cambridge have given
loyal assistance in the preparation of the manuscript for
the press.
WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO.
October 1, 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER FACT
I. AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT .... 1
II. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OP THE CITY .... 29
III. THE CITY AND THE STATE .53
IV. MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES ... 80
V. THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 102
VI. MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS . . . 125
VII. MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 153
VIII. THE CITY COUNCIL 180
IX. THE MAYOR 207
X. THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS .... 237
XI. MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES . . . . 265
XII. CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION .... 294
XIII. DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL .... 321
XIV. MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS .... 358
INDEX . 386
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN
CITIES
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT
THE mastery of any field of political science involves
some knowledge of institutional history. Only by know-
ing, at least in a general way, what has gone before can one
grasp the motives that have guided a people to its con-
temporary political machinery, whether national or local;
and only thereby can one reach a proper understanding of
what future development the political features of a coun-
try are likely to have. American municipal institutions,
of one form or another, have now put behind them two
and a quarter centuries of history. This history covers a
great variety of experiments in local government; there
is scarcely a feature of popular administration that has
not at some time been tried in one or more of our cities or
towns. The countries of Europe have not made great
changes in their machinery of municipal government dur-
ing the past half-century; in this field America has been
the world's chief laboratory for political experimentation.
Though costly, the experiments have been instructive, and
have in the end led to notable improvements in the admin-
istration of municipal affairs. By a study of the steps
through which the present framework of American city
2 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
government has been evolved one may come to understand
the chief features which characterize it at the present day.
Boroughs The beginnings of the American municipal system are
colonial era to be found in the incorporation of the colonial boroughs
during the latter half of the seventeenth century,.. In this
New York was the pioneer, receiving its first city charter
from Governor Dongan in 1686.1 Albany followed a few
months later in the same year, its first charter being sub-
stantially the same as that granted to New York. Both
charters continued in force until the Revolution. Other
rising colonial towns received similar recognition in due
course, — Philadelphia in 169 1,2 Annapolis in 1696,3 Nor-
folk in 1736,4 Richmond in 1742,6 and Trenton, the last of
the colonial list, in 1746.6 A dozen others of less impor-
tance scattered through the Middle and Southern colonies
also obtained their charters during this interval. There
were no active chartered boroughs in the New fin^anrl
colonies, for there the system of town government seemed
to be sufficient and satisfactory.7 In Massachusetts no city
1 A burgher government, after the model of that maintained in the free
cities of Holland, had been established by Governor Stuyvesant in 1653 ; but
in 1665 the town passed into English hands and the government was changed
to that of an English municipal corporation, though no formal charter was
issued. Dongan granted a formal document in 1686 at the request of the
mayor and aldermen of the town. This charter, which in its printed form
covers only fourteen pages, is still preserved in the archives of the comp-
troller in New York City. A copy may be found in the Colonial Laws of
New York (5 vols., New York, 1897), 1. 181. Some doubts having arisen as
to the validity of this charter, it was reissued under the royal seal in 1730.
This confirmation, which made no very important changes, is commonly
known as the Montgomery charter. It may be found ibid., II. 575.
* The Philadelphia charter of 1691 was replaced by a new one, granted
by Perm in 1701, which remained in operation till 1776.
* David Ridgely, Annals of Annapolis (Baltimore, 1841), 89.
4 Virginia Statutes at Large (ed. W. W. Hening, 13 vols., New York, etc.,
1819-1823), IV. 541.
6 Ibid., XI. 45. • New Jersey Historical Society, Proceedings, IX. 152.
7 Sir Fernando Gorges gave borough charters to Agamenticus and
Kittery, two Maine hamlets, in 1641 and 1647 respectively; but no
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 3
charter was granted prior to the Boston charter of 1822,
and this change was made only because the community
had become too populous to be any longer governed as a
town, and not because new corporate powers were needed ; l
for the New England town had, without any specific grant,
substantially all the powers and privileges that a borough
charter could confer.2 The town required no charter to
give it powers, and desired none to set limitations upon local
freedom.
From first to last the governors of the thirteen colonies charters
gave charters to twenty boroughs, or cities, as some places Revolution,
were called from the outset.3 Fifteen of these were places
of considerable importance. It will be noticed that the
charters were given by the governors and not by the colonial
legislatures, a local adaptation of the practice existing in.
England, where the incorporation of boroughs was always
made by royal grant rather than by act of Parliament.
The governor apparently acted upon the request of the
municipal governments appear to have been organized under these
grants. These charters may be found in Ebenezer Hazard's Historical
Collections (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1792-1794), I. 470, 480.
1 The population of Boston in 1822 had passed the 40,000 mark, and
the qualified voters numbered about 7000. "When a town-meeting was
held on any exciting subject in Faneuil Hall, those only who obtained
places near the moderator could even hear the discussion. A few busy or
Interested individuals easily obtained the management of the most im-
portant affairs, in an assembly in which the greater number could have
neither voice nor hearing. When the subject was not generally exciting,
town-meetings were usually composed of the selectmen, the town officers,
and thirty or forty inhabitants." — JOSIAH QUINCY, Municipal History of
Boston (Boston, 1852), 28.
z The powers which the New England towns possessed without any
formal act of incorporation are best set forth in the case of Hill v. Boston,
122 Mass. 344. See also J. F. Dillon, The Law of Municipal Corporations
(5th ed., 5 vols., Boston, 1911).
8 The list, with dates of grant and details, may be found in J. A. Fairlie's
Essays in Municipal Administration (New York, 1908), ch. iv. ; also in
an essay on "Municipal Corporations, 1701-1901, " by H.W. Rogers, in Two
Centuries' Growth of American Law (Yale Bicentennial Publications, New
York, 1901), 203-260.
4 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
burgesses, or inhabitants, and the charters were sometimes
submitted to the latter for their acceptance before being put
into operation. In the drafting of these charters no single
model was followed. In general, however, all the boroughs
were provided with a frame of government which approxi-
mated that of the English municipal corporation in the days
before the epoch of reform. In each case provision was
made for a governing body, to which were given the cor-
porate powers of the community. This governing body,
usually styled "the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty"
of the borough, consisted of a single council made up of a
mayor, a small number of aldermen, and a larger number
of councilmen, all sitting together. Except in the threes
close corporations. Annapolis. Norfolk, and Philadelphia, the
councilmen were chosen at regular intervals by popular vote,
and so were the aldermen, as a rule ; but the mayor was.,
commonly named by the governor of the colony. There
were, in addition, some other borough officers, such as the
recorder and the treasurer. None of these had to perform
burdensome administrative tasks; for the boroughs were
small, and provided for their inhabitants no public services
of account. Boston was, from its foundation in 1630 until
after the middle of the eighteenth century, the most popu-
lous community in the New World. Philadelphia then
took the lead, and retained it till after the Revolution.1
On the eve of the Revolutionary War there were only five
cities and towns with populations exceeding 8000, and the
combined strength of these was less than 100,000.2 When
it is remembered that these five places contained less than
three per cent of the total population of the thirteen colonies,
1 In 1700 the population of Boston was 6700, of Philadelphia 4400, of
New York about 4500. In 1760 the figures stood, Philadelphia 18,756,
Boston 15,631, and New York about 14,000. See Bureau of the Census,
A Century of Population Growth, 1790-1900 (Washington, 1909), 11-12.
1 Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Charleston, and Newport.
the large part which their citizens took in the military and
political events of the war period becomes the more remark-
able. Even at this time the urban population was doing
more than its proportionate share in moulding the course
of national development.
The successful outcome of the Revolution and the adop- Effects
tion of the new state constitutions served to bring about tion.
great changes in both the form and the spirit of municipal
government. Municipal charters were henceforth granted,
not by the governor alone, but by the state legislature. In
other words, the cjt,y p.hfl,rter became a statute^ which mighj.
be amended or repealed like anv other statute. This in-
volved a radical change in the relation existing between the
municipality and the state. Under the regime of roval
charters the municipalities enjoyed almost entire fre^om
from legislative interference f under the new disptvn action
they were completely under the domination of tfoft ptfl.tft
legislature. With the aftermath of the Revolution, accord-
ingly, one finds the way thrown open for that virtual extinc-
tion of municipal home rule which characterized the situation
in American cities during the latter half of the nineteenth
century.1
Some of the boroughs that had received charters before charters
1775 abandoned them after the Revolution and received Revolution,
new grants from the legislatures of their respective states.
These new municipal constitutions differed considerably
from the old ones. The old idea of the borough as a " close
corporation" was discarded, for instance, the new order
resting upon the idea that admission to citizenship should
be made easy and that the officials of borough government
should be elected. The charter of Philadelphia issued in
1789 affords a good example of the change which was taking
1 See below, pp. 71-72.
6 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES %
place in the spirit of municipal government.1 By its pro-
visions the government of the city was vested in the hands
of the mayor, aldermen, and common councillors, silftting
together in one body. Fifteen aldermen were to be eM?ted
for a seven-year term by the owners of freehold, property,
and thirty common-councilmen were to be chosen for a
three-year term by the "freemen." These together made
up the city council. The mayor was to be chosen by the
aldermen from among their own number, his post to be no
more than that of a presiding officer. Such officials as
might from time to time be found necessary were to be
chosen by the council.
The decade in which this charter was granted has been
very properly termed the critical period of American his-
tory. In municipal development it was a time of special
crisis, an epoch of transition from the old English to the
new American type of urban government. The disap-
pearance of political privilege and the making of local gov.-
ernmftnt. essentially representative are the outstanding
features of the Philadelphia documenfc. In the frame of
government which it provided only slight departures from
the English model were made. Other city charters of the
period were of the same general type, diverging more in
spirit than in form from those of the colonial era. They
paved the way, however, for the charters which came at
the threshold of the new century, and which embodied
the more important ideas concerning governmental organi-
zation that had been recognized in the national and state
constitutions,
influence of In these constitutions two or three salient features stand
the federal „, .
analogy. out prominently. Chief among them, of course, is the
1 The charter of 1789 is printed in Laws of the Commonwealth of Penn-
sylvania (ed. A. J. Dallas, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1793-1797). A summary
of its provisions is given by E. P. Allison and Boies Penrose, History of
Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1887), 6O-62.
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 7
principle of divided powers, or of checks and balances, —
mother words, the doctrine that executive and legislative
y should be vested in separate and independent
hajt^. , Other features that may be regarded as corollaries
totEE fundamental axiom were the use of the executive
veto, Vie establishment of double-chambered legislatures,
and tha intrusting of some executive functions to the upper
of these' two chambers. Since these new and native prin-
ciples of political organization were sanctioned in the organic
laws of s^ate and nation, it was only natural that they
should maKE their way into the organic laws of the cities.
The dominating factor in the development of municipal
framework during the first, quarter of the nineteenth century
was, accordingly, the influence of the federal analogy.
The charters represented the attempt, on the part of those
who framed them, to impose upon the cities a miniature of
that plan which on a broader scale had won the confidence
of the electorate. Excellent examples of this procedure
may be found in the Baltimore charter of 1796 * and the
Detroit charter of 1806. In Baltimore provision was made
for the election of the mayor by an electoral college, and for
a two-chambered city council, one branch exactly repre-
senting the eight wards of the city by giving them two
aldermen each, the other representing the citizens at large.
Although in the distribution of powers the national model
was not exactly followed, the influence of this analogy upon
the general make-up of city government is clearly apparent.
American municipal development had taken a course of its
own, cutting somewhat adrift from earlier English influences.
It long since became apparent to thoughtful men that its effect
this radical swerve was unwise in its day and unfortunate nidpai gc
in its consequences. No one will deny, of course, that the
framers of the national constitution had defensible ground
1 Laws of Maryland, 1796, ch. 68.
8 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
for the recognition which they gave, in their great work,
to the principle of divorcing administrative from legislative
functions, and for their action in establishing a bicameral
legislature. Nor are the framers of the state constitu$bns
to be criticised for having followed along the sp,me lines.
Although a century of experience has led many to the belief
that, as a working principle of government, the much-
vaunted doctrine of separation of powers is a delusion and a
snare, yet in the days when it first gained recognition in
American state and national administration there were
many convincing arguments of a practical sort that could
be put forward in its behalf. In the field of municipal
government, however, the doctrine of divided powers never
had a single sound prop to rest upon. Its chief professed
virtue, that of providing a bulwark against executive or
legislative usurpations to the detriment of civil liberty,
can have relevance only in dealings with an ultimate po-
litical power. Those who design the structure of subordi-
nate governments need not make the liberty of the subject
their first care; that is the responsibility of those who
mould the frame of higher authority in state and nation.
If these have done their work rightly, the subordination of
municipal to state government deprives the former of all
the elements of permanent danger. But that was not the
viewpoint of those who framed American city charters in
the quarter-century following the establishment of the
federal constitution. The principle of administrative and
legislative autonomy became a fetich; it gained ready
recognition everywhere, and determined the main channel
of later municipal development. The autonomous mayor-
alty, the bicameral council, the executive veto, and the
practice of aldermanic confirmation, — all of them native
institutions, and all attributable to the influence of national
theories upon local government, — made their appearance
9
before the period closed. The first charter of Boston,
adopted in 1822, with its provision for a mayor directly
elected by the voters, shows quite clearly another positive
drift of the age.1
During this period (1790-1825) the cities of the United Growth of
cities after
States had made notable progress in number, in popula- the Revoiu.
tion, and in the scope of their municipal activities. In a
new country, as an authoritative writer on the distribution
of population has pointed out, the rapid growth of cities
is both natural and necessary; for no efficient industrial
organization of a new settlement is possible unless there
are industrial centres to carry on the work of assembling
and distributing goods.2 In 1790 there were but five com-
munities in the country with populations exceeding 8000, —
namely, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and
Charleston. These together contained slightly more than
130,000 inhabitants, or less than three and one-half per
cent of the nation's population. In 1820 the number of
cities with 8000 people or more had nearly trebled ; there
were now thirteen, containing together nearly half a million
inhabitants. New York, the largest of them, had passed
the 100,000 . mark, and was expending an annual budget
amounting to about a dollar per capita. Boston on its
admission to cityhood in 1822 contained over 40,000 in-
habitants, a number which rendered the continuance of the
town-meeting a physical impossibility.
Growth in population brought serious beginnings in The begin-
municipal services. In 1825 New York had the rudiments municipal
of a police system, the city being divided into three dis-
1 Laws of Massachusetts, 1822, ch. 110. As pointed out by Professor
J. H. Beale some years ago (Proceedings of the National Municipal League,
for 1903), many features of Boston's first city government were adapted
from town institutions.
2 A. F. Weber, The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (New
York, 1899), 20.
10 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
tricts, to each of which constables were assigned for duty ;
it was not till 1837, however, that a regular system of day
patrols was instituted. A water-supply service, estab-
lished by Aaron Burr and his associates under their famous
charter, was also in operation, and served the city, though
not very satisfactorily, till the Croton supply became avail-
able in 1842. In most of the larger towns public sewers
began to be erected to supersede the drains owned by in-
dividuals; public lighting of the streets, at first by oil
lamps but later by gas, became common; and some atten-
tion was being paid to the cleaning of streets.1 Raised
footways or sidewalks, usually of cobble-stones but some-
times of boards, were built in the main thoroughfares of
the larger municipalities. Fire protection was undertaken
by volunteer companies ; the system of public education
was formulating itself slowly; and in some places land
was being set aside for recreation grounds. All in all, a
good beginning in the provision of the chief municipal
services was made during the first quarter of the nineteenth,
century.
The ante- The third period in American municipal development,
period. extending from about 1825 to the close of the Civil War,
witnessed the elaboration of those administrative principles
which had gained recognition in the preceding era. The
new charter of New York, enacted in 1830, showed the
direction in which the tide was running.2 It divided the
city council into two chambers, and explicitly stated that
this action was taken in order that the principles upon
which the national government was based might be recog-
nized. By this charter the mayor was invested with the
1 A system of public sewers was established in Boston in 1823 ; public
lighting of the streets had been carried on long prior to this date, but
lighting by gas was not introduced till 1834. See Nathan Matthews,
The City Government of Boston (Boston, 1895), 59, 97.
* J. A. Fairlie, Municipal Administration, 83.
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 11
right to veto any order or resolution of the council, his
veto to be overridden only by a two-thirds vote of both
chambers. Up to this time the public services of the city
had, so far as they went, been managed by the council
through its committees. The unsatisfactory character of
this method was evidently becoming apparent, however;
for the new charter provided that these services should
thenceforth be intrusted to administrative officials ap-
pointed for the purpose by the council. Notwithstanding
this provision, the council committees continued for some
years to exercise a large influence in administering the city
departments. Wherever charter revisions took place in
other cities during the forties and fifties, the same drift is
observable. At various points one encounters the begin-
nings of a movement which aimed to make the mayoralty Popular
a semi-independent organ of city government, chosen directly mayors.
by the people and exercising on a reduced scale the sort of.
powers given to the executive heads of state and national
governments.1
Another interesting development of this period was the Widening of
the suffrage.
widening of the municipal suffrage. Prior to 1830 many
of the states imposed a property, or tax-paying, qualifica-
tion for the right to vote, whether in state or in local elec-
tions ; 2 but during the presidency of Andrew Jackson a
movement for the abolition of these requirements obtained
impetus in the general atmosphere of the new democracy,
and before the middle of the century universal suffrage had^.
an f^r a-g.-f.Ti P| white population was concerned, become the^
1 See, for examples, the Boston charter amendments of 1854 (Laws
of Massachusetts, 1854, ch. 448), which gave the mayor the veto power ;
and the Philadelphia charter of 1854, commonly called the Consolidation
Act (February 2, 1854), which considerably increased the independent
authority of the mayor. For a discussion of this latter change, see Alli-
son and Penrose, History of Philadelphia, ch. iv.
2 The list may be found in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America
(ed. D. C. Oilman, 2 vols., New York, 1898), II. Appendix.
12 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
accepted policy in virtually all the states. The observant
Tocqueville, writing in the early thirties, foresaw this
outcome. "Where a nation," he wrote, "begins to modify
the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen that,
sooner or later, the qualification will be entirely abol-
ished. . . . Concession follows concession, and no stop can
be made short of universal suffrage." Since the suffrage
qualifications were, as a rule, alike in state and city, the
extensions in one affected the situation in the other. Man-
hood suffrage came upon the cities, however r at a rather
trying time, for close upon its adoption followed the large
European immigrations to America. The foreigners, of
whom the cities received the larger share, were admitted
to voting rights as soon as they were naturalized, and the
facility with which they often lent themselves to exploitation
by unscrupulous politicians unquestionably had an influence
in breaking down some of the sound traditions which the
cities had conserved till that time.
The spoils It was at this stage in municipal development, moreover.
system. ~ "•*•"""
that the soils sstem gained its firm anchorage not only
in the national and state administrations, but in the s
of selecting city officials as well. In the larger cities ap-
pointments to administrative posts rested, for the most
part, within the power of the city council; and, since the
members of this body were usually chosen from wards, in
contests conducted along party lines, they readily fell into
the habit of treating such appointments as political patron-
age. Moreover, since the idea of rotation in office as a
maxim of democracy made its way from national and state
politics into city affairs, even office-holders of the dominant
political party had to give place when their terms expired.
All incentive to the development of skill and efficiency in
the conduct of municipal administration was thereby
removed.
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 13
Another important feature in the evolution of municipal Separation
institutions during the ante-bellum era was the rise of the trationfrom
independent administrative department. The New York
charter of 1830, as has been seen, provided that the council
should elect administrative officers to take charge of various
city services ; but the fact that these officials were ap-
pointed by the council kept the latter body in real control
of their work and prevented any marked improvement.
In 1849, however, a new charter changed the situation by
prescribing that thereafter the officers in charge of city
departments should be chosen by popular vote.1 This
gave them independence of the municipal legislature, and
was an important step in the direction of divorcing the
administrative arm of city government from the legislative.
New York, moreover, was not alone as an exponent of this
policy; Chicago and Cleveland furnish like examples. In
the latter city a board of improvements was established,
consisting of the mayor, the city engineer, and three elective
commissioners; and to this new commission was given
the supervision of all public works.2 In Philadelphia, like-
wise, the new charter of 1854 made the office of city treasurer
elective; and in establishing the new post of city comp-
troller it made that elective also.3
But while some advantages came from the experiment of Appointive
giving the administrative departments a position of inde-
pendence, it was soon apparent that efficient heads for
those branches of the city service could not be secured by
popular election. In various cities, therefore, the selection
of these officials was taken from the voters and given to
the mayor, with the restriction that his appointments
1 Laws of New York, 1849, ch. 147.
s Municipal Organization Act, May 3, 1852, § 41. See also Charles
Snavely, History of the City Government of Cleveland (Baltimore, 1902), 41.
* Allison and Penrose, History of Philadelphia, 172-175.
14 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
should be subject to confirmation by the upper chamber
of the city council. New York made this change in 1857 ; 1
Chicago and Baltimore followed within a few years. The
idea of making the mayor responsible for the appointment
of a municipal cabinet comprising the heads of the various
departments soon gained popularity, partly because it
seemed in consonance with the general plan of American
government as exemplified in the larger areas of state and
nation, and partly because the people of the cities were
beginning to look upon the mayor as the pivotal figure in
local administration. Indeed, the decline of popular
confidence in city councils and the increasing confidence
in the chief magistrate form the outstanding features of
this period.
stricter A tendency to tighten the reins of state control over
vision.8"1 " city administration is another development of the same era,
particularly of the later years of it. The inefficiency, waste-
fulness, and even dishonesty with which the various munic-
ipal services had been administered by council committees
and by officials elected by popular vote became texts for
frequent protests on the floors of state legislatures. Par-
ticularly did the almost universal maladministration of
municipal police departments, and the consequent failure
of the cities to enforce the laws of the state, furnish a stand-
ing temptation to legislative intervention. This interven-
tion came in several states during the late fifties. In 1857
the legislature of New York established a state-appointed
police board for New York, Brooklyn, and adjacent munic-
ipalities, thereby displacing local control of the depart-
ment.2 The legislature of Maryland saddled a state police
1 Laws of New York, 1857, ch. 446.
8 "Dissatisfaction with the inefficiency of urban police and a desire
to gain partisan advantage were the principal motives." — L. F. PULD,
Police Administration (New York, 1910), 26.
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 15
board upon Baltimore in 1860, state control of municipal
police was established in St. Louis in 1861, and about the
same time the legislature of Illinois put the police of Chicago
in a similar strait-jacket. When the war broke upon the
jjind in 1861. the policy of taking municipal police control
into sta^9 hand^ was making rapid headway : but in due
course the movement overreached itself and brought a reac-
tion. The war disorganized local administration to some
extent, but not to the degree that might have been ex-
pected. Occasional disorders connected with the forced
drafting of recruits put added strain upon the police depart-
ment in some cities ; but otherwise the public services, in
regions outside the theatre of conflict, were carried on about
as usual. Foreign immigration almost ceased, of course,
and during the war years the cities moved forward in popu-
lation much more slowly than before the struggle be-
gan. The close of hostilities marked the beginning of a
new era in almost every department of economic and
industrial life.
In tracing the history of American municipal development Municipal
one may say that the fourth important epoch extended tion after
through the years of national reconstruction down to about
the year 1890. This era began inauspiciously, for the
administration of the larger cities of the land appeared at
the time incurably bad. The action of the state authorities
in withdrawing powers from local hands seemed to have
made things worse rather than better. New York, where
the arm of the state had been most active, was properly
pilloried as the most corruptly administered city in America,
and one of the most corrupt in the world, its government
being firmly in the clutches of the notorious Tweed Ring,
a troop of plundering banditti who used their civic authority
to turn public funds into private fortunes. There is no
page in the annals of American municipal history more
16 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
sordid than this.1 Nor was the situation in many other
cities at this time much better. While the war lasted
its effect was chastening, and local public opinion was strong
enough to keep the municipal authorities from gross extrava-
gance ; but with the end of the conflict came an extraordi-
nary economic revival, — industry and commerce expanded,
the tide of immigration returned, and the cities, as was
entirely natural, felt the first effects of the new prosperity.
The tone of local opinion became one of pronounced opti-
mism, an atmosphere in which opportunities for the abuse
of public trusts are usually abundant. Taxes rose, debts
increased, and much of the money that came into the
municipal treasuries was shamelessly squandered. A com-
prehensive investigation of conditions in American cities
during the later sixties would probably have disclosed a
state of affairs no better, and much more difficult to remedy,
than those laid bare in the boroughs of England by the royal
commission of 1833.
The turn of By 1870 the dangers of the situation had become so clear
the tide. " "" "" • ... . '
that a popular uprising in the interest of municipal reform
could not be prevented by all the efforts of the powerful and
well-organized groups of professional politicians who con-
trolled affairs in the larger cities^ In New York the Tweed
Ring was overthrown, and immediately thereafter the city
received a new charter which contained many provisions de-
signed to afford greater safeguards against the misuse of mu-
nicipal funds.2 Other cities, such as Pittsburgh, Chicago, and
1 An excellent brief account of the organization and operations of the
Tweed Ring may be found in James Bryce's American Commonwealth
(2 vols., New York, 1910), II. 384-396.
* One of these was the provision establishing a Board of Estimate and
Apportionment, made up of the mayor, the comptroller, the president
of the board of aldermen, and the chief officer of the department of taxes
and assessments. To this body was given the task of preparing the
annual budget, a function which had up to 1873 been exercised by a com-
mittee of the city council. The change was designed to put an end to
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 17
St. Louis, undertook important administrative reforms
during the next few years. In general the changes were
all in the direction of concentrating upon the mayor a large
part of the responsibility for selecting; those administrative,
officers who controlled the large spending departments.
In some instances the mayor was authorized to suspend or
remove undutiful heads of departments, and in nearly
every case his veto power was put upon a firm statutory
basis.
Many of the worst abuses in city government were the Curbing
legitimate progeny of the spoils system. As has already system*,
been seen, the iniquitous doctrine that public office and
public patronage were the fair rewards of partisan valor
obtained its foothold in the national service during the
presidency of Andrew Jackson. Malignant ills of this
type seem to spread very rapidly in the body politic, and
it was not long before the Jacksonian dogma had obtained
acceptance in the fields of state and municipal administra-
tion. The period following the war found the spoils system
triumphant in all the larger cities. Independent spirits
like Charles Sumner had begun a campaign against it in
the national service,1 but in the cities scarcely a voice was
yet heard in denunciation. The New York charter of 1873.
however, dealt the system of official patronage an indirect
but important blow when it prohibited the removal of
policemen and firemen except for good cause^ In fact, the
beginnings of civil-service reform in the cities are to be found
in attempts to prevent improper removals rather than in enr
dfta/yflrs tfn sftf.iirfi proper appointments. The merit system
of appointment was making headway in the national adminis-
tration during the period, but it was not till after 1890
the carnival of extravagance which had been made possible, and even
been encouraged, by the log-rolling practices of the years preceding.
1 Charles Sumner, Works (16 vols., Boston, 1874-1883), VIII. 452-457.
18 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
that it gained any considerable recognition in the charters
of cities.1
Growth of During the quarter-century following the war American
cities made an unprecedented advance in population, in
the share which they assumed in national life, and in the
importance of the public services undertaken by them. In
1860 the number of American municipalities having popula-
tions exceeding 8000 had increased to 141 ; in 1870 it was
226; in 1890 it was 448. In 1865 these cities contained
less than twenty per cent of the entire national popula-
tion; in 1890 the urban element had risen to thirty per
cent. In the intervening quarter-century the city dwellers
had trebled in total numerical strength ; nearly 20,000,000
Americans in 1890 lived in cities and towns. Particularly
marked, moreover, was the growth of the larger cities in
this era. In 1890 there were six cities of the United States
with populations exceeding half a million each, fifteen had
above 200,000, and twenty-five over 100,000. For much
of this growth the steady stream of immigration, the devel-
opment of railway and marine transportation, and the general
expansion of industry were responsible. Cities had p-own.
not only through their own internal increase of population.
and through the lar^e alien element which came to them.
but also by drawing on the rural districts and the small
towns.
inefficiency With this rapid growth the various municipal functions
tried to keep pace, but frequently without success. Follow-
ing the example of New York, all the cities of any consider-
able size had established professional police systems, and
1 The early history of the fight against the spoils system is given by
C. R. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage (New York, 1905), es-
pecially eh. x. For the theories upon which the spoils system rested,
see H. J. Ford, The Rise and Growth of American Politics (New York,
1898), ch. xiii.
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 19
had for the most part put them in charge of boards or of
single commissioners. Some of the states that had assumed
direct control of local police in their larger cities gave up
this control, — New York, for example, in 1870, and Michi-
gan in 1891. Other states followed a contrary policy. —
as Massachusetts, which established a state police commis-
sion for Boston in 1885, and Ohio, which took over the
police administration of Cincinnati in the year following.
In the matter of fire protection, the general establishment
of professional brigades and the enormous improvement in
appliances were features of the period. Water and sewerage
systems were extended and greatly improved; comprehen-
sive schemes of street lighting were adopted in even the
smaller cities ; modern pavements came into general use ;
municipal transit facilities were bettered, particularly with
the introduction of the trolley system; and vastly more
attention was given to public elementary education, to the
creation of parks and places of public recreation, and to the
provision of municipal hospitals.
All this expansion was inevitably accompanied by a rapid increase in
— — — ••_•• *••••••••«••••••••—••• — • • -••••••••*•••••••••••*•••. \ , im municipal
increase in annual municipal expenditures and by an even borrowing.
more marked increase in city debts. The latter mounted
everywhere, often to such dangerous proportions that in
several states attempts were made to hold municipal in-
debtedness within bounds by the application of statutory
debt limits, and by other hampers upon the freedom to bor-
row on the city's credit. Much of that heavy burden which
to-day puts some larger cities in rather straitened circum-
stances by reason of the vast amounts that must annually
go to pay interest on bonded debt, is directly traceable to
the lavish and often ill-advised exercise of municipal bor-
rowing powers which characterized the policy of the city
authorities during the seventies and eighties. Loans for
public works and services were contracted under arrange-
20 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ments that inadequately provided for repayment, or that
spread repayment over long periods. The lifetime of bonds
often proved more extended than the duration of the works
or services for which the borrowed funds had been ex-
pended. Not a little of the trouble arose from slovenly
financial methods, from the wholly ineffective system of
municipal accounting, and from the indefensible policy,
which most cities pursued, of paying for present-day needs
by obligating a future generation.
An era of With all its persisting problems and its apparent inabil-
provement. ity to find solution for most of them, the American munici-
pal system underwent noticeable improvement during the
quarter-century preceding 1890. Some of the more flagrant
abuses were greatly diminished, some of the lesser ills
disappeared. From time to time during the period there
were spasms of civic virtue. Public indignation in this or
that large city would arise, shake off its wonted apathy, and
turn a remiss administration out of office; then it would
usually allow itself to be lulled into false security while
the old regime gradually worked itself back into full opera-
tion. Reform movements labored under heavy handicaps,
for the public temper would hardly be ready to brook any
root-and-branch demolition of existing municipal institu-
tions. Proposals for improvement had, accordingly, to
reckon with a rigid popular loyalty to the principle of
division of powers in city government, and such of them as
secured adoption were invariably inadequate to the desired
ends. The cause of municipal reform suffered greatly
in the public estimation through its frequent championship
of halfway measures, which were put through with great
expenditure of energy but which accomplished very little
after their acceptance. To gain support for their proposals^
reformers had to promise more civic improvement than
their measures could ever achieve ; and this r.nn^t.ant dis-
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT. 21
crepancy between prediction and performance brought a
natural loss in publfc prestige.1
i The latest period in the growth of the American municipal The last two
system, extending from about 1890 to the present time, has
been in many ways the most important and the most inter-
esting of all. It began with somewhat indistinct gleams
of an awakening civic conscience. During the nineties,.
however, the old municipal framework suffered little impair-
ment ; for the assaults of reform were directed against
particular features of it rather than against its general prin-
ciples of construction.2 The spoils system, for example,
became a favorite target, and with excellent results. Soon
after civil-service reform had proved its profitableness in
national administration, the agitation for its extension to
state and municipal appointments brought tangible results
in New York and Massachusetts, the former state enacting
its first civil-service law in 1883, and the latter in 1884.
After an interval of about a decade three other states,
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, followed in 1895. Louisi-
ana gave the merit system a limited recognition in 1896,
Connecticut in 1897; and one by one most of the other
states have been added to the list, until at the present
time about two-thirds of them have civil-service reform
laws of one sort or another.3 In many cases the cities have
1 See below, pp. 377-383.
2 In 1899, for example, the National Municipal League undertook to
frame a model organic law for American cities of medium size; and this
draft, which was given to the public under the title of A Municipal Pro-
gram, did not venture to depart in any essential way from the orthodox
type of American city government. It pronounced in favor of a one-
chambered council, and suggested many useful improvements in municipal
machinery ; but its framers evinced no readiness to throw overboard
the old principle of separation of powers. Hence the Municipal Pro-
gram retained provision for an independent mayor, and proposed that
this officer should have the usual power of veto.
8 C. R. Fish, The Civil Service and the Patronage, ch. xi. ; also the annual
report of the National Civil Service Reform League for 1910.
22 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
secured legislation putting certain of their officials and em-
ployees under civil-service rules even before the policy has
gained acceptance in the state administration. There are
now very few municipalities of any considerable size in
which civil-service reform has not gained some footing.
It would be difficult to overestimate the beneficent political
reaction which the introduction of the merit system, even
upon a narrow scale, has exercised in American cities. Not
all municipal abuses can be related to the vice of political
patronage; but a great many of them are very closely
connected with it, and it is certain that where patronage
has been eliminated, or even restricted, some of the worst
evils have disappeared.
Other improvements in municipal methods during the
nineties deserve mention. One was a return to the early
practice of holding state and city elections upon different
dates, a procedure which made possible the divorce of
local from state issues. This method was not followed
by all the larger cities, however; for it always has to
brave the opposition of party organizations, and its adop-
tion necessarily involves considerable extra expense. The
abolition of the two-chambered council, the reduction
in size of the municipal legislature, the substitution of
election at large for election by wards, the abolition
of aldermanic checks upon the mayor's appointing power,
— all these features gained favor in some cities prior
to 1900.
The civic But the real renaissance in American city government
renaissance.
has come during the last ten or twelve years, and may be
said to have begun with the Galveston experiment of 1901r
although somewhat connected with the general movement
for the concentration of power in the mayor. The genesis
of government by commission and its remarkable growth in
popularity throughout the United States are matters that
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 23
will be discussed in a later chapter.1 It ought to be empha-
sized at this point, however, that the advocates of the com-
mission plan were the first pproup of municipal reformers to
bring forth a proposal to abolish the traditional separation
of legislative and administrative powers, and consequently
the first to urp;e a complete reorganization, on a simplified
basis, of the whole municipal framework. The plan has
spread rapidly ; its acceptance by one or more cities in more
than two-thirds of the states constitutes the most striking
phenomenon of the latest decade in American municipal
development. With the adoption of commission charters,
moreover, most cities have used the opportunity to make
other organic changes. The introduction of provisions for^
direct legislation and the recall has, for example, been a
feature of charter revisions almost everywhere.2 The open,
direct ninizi^rtisan_jiQniary as a means of putting candi-
dates in nomination for municipal offices has also found its
way into many of the newer charters. As yet, Boston alone
has preferred the system of nomination by petition. Some
other cities have obviated the necessity for any serious nomi-
nating formality by adopting the plan of preferential voting.
But all these various changes in nomination methods have
had the same motive behind them, — namely, to break down
the power of the party leaders, and to give a fair opportu-
nity to those candidates for municipal office who might
come forward without the pledged support of any political
organization. The abolition of party designations on the
municipal ballot, the simplification and shortening of the
ballot itself by a reduction in the number of elective officers,
the provision of new securities for fairness at elections, —
all these reforms have made unparalleled headway during
the last ten years.
Improvements in internal administration have gone hand
1 Below, oh. xii. 2 See below, ch. xiii.
24
GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
Administra- in hand with these organic changes.
tive reforms,
Better methods of
Improve-
ments in
municipal
services.
municipal accounting; and auditing, a closer scrutiny of all
payments out of the municipal treasury, the elimination
of such vicious features as padded payrolls, non-competitive
contracts, and patronage purchases, the proper safeguarding
of the city's interests in all dealings with public-service
corporations, — these are a few examples of the progress
toward greater efficiency and economy made by many of
the cities of the United States within recent years.
Noteworthy improvements in both the scope and the
efficiency of various municipal services have been made
in the last two decades. In 1890 there was little or no
public interest in city planning, or, indeed, in any of these
later-day movements which have for their aim the aesthetic
improvement of cities. Municipal works were undertaken
with little regard to what had gone before, and with less
regard to what was likely to come after. All this has
changed, or is changing. So, too, there has been a great
advance along the lines of municipal sanitation and care for,
the public health ; arrangements for the protection of life
and property have been better organized ; and lighting and
transportation systems have made more progress in efficiency
during the last twenty years than they did in the preceding
fifty.1 Finally, the civic conscience has been brought from
apathy to activity, and the whole tone and temper of mu-
nicipal life has been raised thereby. Public opinion in
American cities is healthier to-day than it has been for
three-quarters of a century; it will not tolerate doings
which it freely condoned a generation ago. In the late
eighties and early nineties it was in many large cities practi-
cally impossible to secure a fair election. Impersonation,
repeating, intimidation, and kindred offences against the
1 For further details, see Charles Zueblin, American Municipal Prog-
ress (New York, 1903), and Decade of Civic Development (Chicago, 1905).
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 25
election laws were committed with impunity, in some cases
with the aid or the connivance of the police officials of the .
municipality. All that has passed away, or nearly so.
Organized crookedness in politics, as in business, has become *
unprofitable.
Much of the credit for this improved tone in city affairs The organs
is due to the host of local organizations whose officers and
members have labored unceasingly to leaven the whole
electoral lump. The cause of municipal reform, like all
reform causes, has produced its due quota of misguided
zealots who would fain reap where they have not sown,
and who, accordingly, have aimed to hurry the cities into
righteousness without that preliminary education of the
electorate which is the only safe foundation upon which to
build. Yet, on the whole, the great majority of civic organi-
zations, as a subsequent chapter is designed to show, have
done their work patiently and to good ultimate end. Dur-
ing the last decade, moreover, there has been more team play
among the organizations, and a greater readiness to coordi-
nate their various activities so that energy may not be wasted.
Jn point of city growth the last twenty years constitute. City growth
the most remarkable period in American history. In 1890 twenty s
the urban population of the United States formed 36.1 per y
cent of the whole ; in 1900 it had risen to 40.5 per cent, and
in 1910 it rose to 46.3 per cent, a total increase of 10 per cent
in two decades. That is a greater gain than has marked
any previous period of equal length. In 1890 there were
15 cities with populations exceeding 200,000 ; in 1910 there
were 28. In 1890 there were 28 cities with more than
100,000, and 56 with over 50,000; in 1910 these numbers
had risen to 50 and 98 respectively. Even more striking is
the rate at which some individual cities have been expanding.
During the decade 1900-1910 more than twenty American
cities showed increases of population ranging from 100 per
26 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
cent to nearly 250 per cent or more. The growth of Birming-
ham, Alabama, for example, gave that city the phenomenal
record of 245 per cent ; but the fact that Los Angeles gained
211 per cent, Seattle 194 per cent, Spokane 183 per cent,
Dallas 116 per cent, and Schenectady 129 per cent shows
that the phenomenon was not peculiar to any section of the
country.
f ^th**8 ^ *kis seems to prove that the great urbanizing forces
future. which made the nineteenth century the classic era of
city expansion are still at work with undiminished vigor.
The continued development of production on a large scale,
the centripetal influence of artificial power, the greater facili-
ties which the large city gives to industry in the matter of
transportation, the better opportunities that it offers for
the profitable utilization of by-products, the elasticity of
the labor market in urban centres, the advantages derivable
from a considerable market close at hand, — all this has
tended to concentrate the great industrial assets of the
United States in the cities, and particularly in the larger
cities. Time was when industries went where the water-
power happened to be placed by nature; but nowadays
great industries are rarely, if ever, ready to sacrifice for
the sake of this single feature the other great advantages
afforded by an urban location. It is the combination erf
cheap fuel for motive power, cheap labor r and cheap trans-
portation which now determines the location and governs
the growth of great cities. The development of water-
borne commerce has also had its great share — greater than
most people realize — in the making of large American
cities. The fact that, of the thirty cities which the census
of 1910 reported as having populations exceeding 150,000,
all but four are located upon navigable water is not a mere
coincidence ; it is a tangible proof (which may be corrobo-
rated by a glance at the maps of other countries) of the
AMERICAN MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT 27
intimate relation that exists between the statistics of mari-
time commerce and the census figures of city growth.1
These primary causes of urban expansion have made their The forces
still at work.
way into the twentieth century with unabated vigor. They
show no signs of weakening. Despite predictions that the
"law of diminishing returns in agriculture," the "centrifugal
influence of electric power in industry," and "the abolition
of discriminations in transportation rates by state and federal
commerce commissions" would all operate to stem the
drift to the large centres, there is no sign that any or all of
these factors have had any effective counteracting influence.
So also the secondary causes of urban growth — the social,
political, educational, and other advantages of city life —
have increased rather than diminished in strength. The
cumulative influences that go to constitute the magnetism
of the modern city were never more pronounced than they
are to-day. Their seemingly irresistible strength warrants..
the expectation that, before many years
urban population of the United States will have gainecL
numerical mastery*.
REFERENCES
There is no general history of municipal development in the United
States, although one is much to be desired. Several useful monographs in
the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science,
however, deal with the development of municipal institutions in various
sections of the country. Among these may be mentioned Dr. Albert Shaw's
Local Government in Illinois (1883) ; E. R. L. Gould's Local Government
in Pennsylvania (1883), and W. P. Holcomb's Pennsylvania Boroughs
(1886) ; E. W. Bemis's Local Government in the South and Southwest
(1893) ; and D. E. Spencer's Local Government in Wisconsin (1890).
Professor Edward Channing's Town and County Government in the English
Colonies of North America is an exceedingly serviceable study of local
institutions during the colonial period.
1 For an interesting discussion concerning the various causes of urban
concentration and the probabilities of a continued rural exodus, see
A. F. Weber, The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (New York,
1899), ch. iii.
28 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Much has also been written on the municipal history of each of the
larger cities. Among the most useful books in this field are the following :
J. G. Wilson, Memorial History of the City of New York (4 vols., New
York, 1892-1893) ; Theodore Roosevelt, New York (New York, 1891) ;
A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (3 vols., Chicago, 1885) ; S. E. Sparling,
Municipal History and Present Organization of the City of Chicago (Madi-
son, 1898) ; H. S. Grosser, Chicago: a Review of its Governmental History
(Chicago, 1906) ; E. P. Allison and Boies Penrose, History of Philadelphia
(Baltimore, 1887) ; J. T. Scharf, History of St. Louis (2 vols., Philadelphia,
1883) ; Josiah Quincy, Municipal History of Boston (Boston, 1852) ;
H. H. Sprague, The City Government of Boston, its Rise and Development
(Boston, 1890) ; Nathan Matthews, City Government of Boston (Boston,
1895) ; St. George L. Sioussat, Baltimore (Baltimore, 1900) ; J. H. Hol-
lander, Financial History of Baltimore (Baltimore, 1899) ; Bernard Moses,
The Establishment of City Government in San Francisco (Baltimore,
1889) ; Charles Snavely, History of the City Government of Cleveland
(Baltimore, 1902) ; W. W. Howe, The City Government of New Orleans
(Baltimore, 1889).
The best short outline of municipal growth in America is contained in
the chapter on "Municipal Development in the United States," in Pro-
fessor John A. Fairlie's Municipal Administration (New York, 1901). In
the same author's Essays in Municipal Administration (New York, 1908)
there is also an excellent study of "Municipal Corporations in the Colo-
nies." Mention may also be made of the essay on "Municipal Corpora-
tions, 1701-1901," by Professor H. W. Rogers, in the Yale Bicentennial
volume entitled Two Centuries' Growth of American Law (New York,
1901).
CHAPTER II
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY
THE modern city is roughly definable as a body of popu- The city as
lation massed in a small area. But it is something more
than that ; it is a body of population of other than ordinary
social texture, presenting measurable characteristics that
differentiate it from the general mass of a country's inhabit-
ants. In other words, if we take as one unit the 100,000
individuals who may constitute the population of a present-
day American city, and compare this with another unit
made up of 100,000 individuals drawn at random from the
length and breadth of the land, from city and country alike,
the two units will show differences, more or less marked,
at all points at which their respective social characteristics
can be statistically compared. In such matters as the
numerical proportion of the sexes, the distribution of popu-
lation according to age, the variety and nature of occupa-
tion, the birth, marriage, and death rates, the average
earning power of individuals, the proportion of the proper-
tied to the non-propertied class, the relative prevalence of
illiteracy, pauperism, and crime, a comparison of the two
units will reveal differences which, in their totality, warrant
the conclusion that the modern city has a sociological
anatomy of its own.
In the United States, as in all other new countries, the Distribution
males outnumber the females in the national population ys
as a whole; but in the cities this relation is reversed, the
excess of females being there pronounced.1 This reversal
According to the twelfth census, there were 1,638,321 more males
than females in the national population, — that is, about two more in every
29
30 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
of the ratio in the urban sections of the country is readily
explained by the fact that the normal proportion of the
sexes in different areas is dependent upon the prevailing
occupations of the people.1 In agricultural and mining
districts males predominate strongly; in industrial centres
the reverse is true. The city is such a centre; and upon
the nature of its industries depends, of course, the strength
of the female excess. In the factory cities of New Eng-
land, such as Lowell, Manchester, Holyoke, and New
Bedford, which are strongholds of the textile industry, the
predominance of females ranges from three to four per
hundred of population.2 Of itself, this difference in the
ratio of the sexes between the national population and that
part of it which is urban may be regarded as a matter of
no considerable importance; but with the steady influx of
women into new industrial fields the difference may, and
probably will, become still more marked as time goes on.3
Distribution A national population, not affected in its growth by im-
byage. migration or emigration, and regarded from the viewpoint
of its distribution by age, is commonly plotted on the
census charts in the form of an irregular pyramid. At the
base are the infants, at the apex the aged. The base is
one hundred persons ; but in New York City the females constituted
50.38 per cent of the population, in Philadelphia 50.96 per cent, in Boston
50.98 per cent, in Detroit 51.26 per cent, in Cincinnati 51.78 per cent,
in New Orleans 52.26 per cent, and in Atlanta 53.61 per cent. See Bureau
of the Census, Bulletin, No. 14, " The Proportion of the Sexes in the United
States" (Washington, 1904). Figures based on the thirteenth census
(1910) are not yet available.
1 Ibid. For a more elaborate discussion, see Jean Guillou's U Emigra-
tion des campagnes vers les villes (Paris, 1905), 143-295.
8 Some interesting statistics on this point are given in F. J. Goodnow's
Municipal Government (New York, 1909), 28-31.
1 Of the thirty-six American cities which in 1890 had populations
exceeding 50,000, twenty-four had an excess of females ; but in 1900 the
females outnumbered the males in twenty-seven of these same thirty-six
cities. The three cities which changed columns during the decade were
Buffalo, Los Angeles, and Toledo.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY
31
broad, and the more rapid the increase of population the
broader this base becomes. The sides of the pyramid con-
verge sharply for a short distance above the base, because
the mortality of infant years is heavy; the convergence
which portrays the more moderate mortality rates of youth
and middle life is more gradual ; and finally the lines close
rapidly in the years above threescore and ten. Such a
population is normally strongest in persons of immature
age, and weakens in each succeeding decennial age period ;
but in the United States the foreign influx introduces a
new element, with the result that the national population,
taken as a whole, shows its chief strength in the early
middle-age periods.1 In tables of urban residents this
1 The subjoined chart, reproduced from Paul Meuriot's Des agglomera-
tions urbaines dans I' Europe contemporaine (Paris, 1897), shows the dis-
tribution by age, per 10,000 persons, of the populations of France and
Paris respectively : —
AGES
, PARIS
FRANCE
90 to 99
80 to 89
70 to 79
60 to 69
50 to 59
40 to 49
30 to 39
20 to 29
10 to 19
0 to 9
INHABITANTS
1200 900 600 300 0 300 600 900 1200
32 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
feature is even more pronounced. The city population
is replenished in the periods of youth and early middle
age not only by immigration from abroad, but by the
influx from the rural districts. The age pyramid bulges,
therefore, at the points represented by these periods in
life. In other words, the city acquires, mainly at the
expense of the rural areas, an undue strength in persons
of productive age, a fact which forms one of the chief
contributory causes of its great economic capacity per head
of population.
The rural American cities, particularly the larger ones, have pos-
sessed this magnetism in marked degree. They have drawn
far more than their share of young aliens, and at the same
time have laid heavy toll upon the country districts of the
land.1 The call of the city is heard most plainly by the
able-bodied young man or woman; infants and persons of
advanced years do not ordinarily come to the populous
community save as dependents upon individuals of the
productive age. The drain which the city makes upon
the rural areas cannot, then, be measured merely by count-
ing heads. Those who seek the city's opportunities, its
fellowship, its comforts, and its human interest are the
best blood of the land, the vigorous, the ambitious, and the
firm-willed of both sexes; it is the crippled, the dull, and
the shiftless who commonly remain behind.2 Urban popula-
1 During the decade 1890-1900 about 75 per cent of the aliens who
came to the United States were between the ages of 15 and 40 years.
As will be pointed out a little later, most of these went to the cities. In
regard to the age distribution of those who came to the cities from the
rural districts we have no statistical data, but there is no good reason
to suppose that they were not of about the same ages. A full discussion
of the matter maybe found in the census Bulletin, No. 13, "A Discussion
of Age Statistics" (Washington, 1904). The census of 1900 showed that
of the whole national population 49 per cent were between the ages of 15
and 45, but that of the population of the cities of over 25,000 about 54
per cent were between those ages.
* C. M. Robinson, The Call of the City (New York, 1908).
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OP THE CITY 33
tion ought, therefore, as it does, to make a superior showing
in wealth and income per head. It ought to display quali-
ties of initiative ; and its achievements per individual should
in general be greater than those of rural areas, for it contains
more persons of achieving age.
The United States is commonly regarded as the land par Distribution
excellence of alien accumulation, and in truth the resort to nationality,
these shores during the last four decades has presented a
phenomenon unparalleled in human history. Yet the
census of 1900 showed that of the whole national popula-
tion less than 14 per cent was foreign-born. To the
country as a whole, therefore, the alien influx has not
presented any unsolvable problem of social assimilation;
but if one regards only the cities, and particularly the
larger cities, one finds the situation tos be very different.
In the cities of over 25,000 the foreign-born constituted,
in 1900, about 26 per cent of the population; in those
of over 100,000 the ratio was about 35 per cent, and in
some of the largest cities it ran above 50 per cent. The
figures for 1910 are certain to put these urban percentages
even higher.
The reasons for the strength of the foreign-born element Reasons for
in the larger cities are easy enough to find. It is not, as foreign-bom
might be superficially supposed, that large cities are usually citiea.
ports of entry for European immigrants, and that the im-
migrant settles down at his first point of arrival ; for this
would not explain the presence of great alien elements in
cities like Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. The real
reasons are numerous, and they are chiefly economic.
Immigrants of some nationalities do go, and go in large
numbers, to the rural districts; whole agricultural regions
of the West, for example, are peopled by Scandinavians.
The greater part of the alien influx has, however, during
the last few decades at any rate, come from the countries
34
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Relation of
the alien
influx to
municipal
problems.
of Eastern, Middle, and Southern Europe. These races,
Slavs, Poles, Lithuanians, Italians, Greeks, and Armenians,
go very largely to the urban centres, mainly because they
come here with neither the capital nor the skill necessary
to enable them to do anything else. Although many of them
come from the agricultural regions of their own lands, few
bring any knowledge of farming that would be of much
service to them here. It takes a little knowledge to be
even an agricultural laborer; and for an immigrant to
become a farmer in America on his own account requires
some capital as well as some knowledge, whereas to obtain
a place as a sewer-digger or as a rough laborer in one of the
various urban establishments requires neither. Most im-
migrants come to America to find work; and they go,
accordingly, where the work which they can do is to be
found. So long as industry concentrates itself in the large
cities, and so long as great industries present a steady
demand for cheap, unskilled labor, both of men and of
women, the large cities will naturally get most of those
aliens who come without either skill or sustenance. About
the only great industry employing large quantities of un-
skilled labor and situated outside the larger cities is that of
mining. This industry does draw great numbers of newly
arrived aliens into its vortex. It is chiefly for this reason
that Pennsylvania usually ranks next to New York in the
statistics of immigrant destinations.
Social as well as economic motives of course have their
influence. Aliens who speak only their own language like
to be among their own people in a strange land; more-
over, then* passage to America is very often paid for
by friends or relatives already here. When a colony of
any nationality is once started, therefore, the social motive
comes quickly into play. All these things have, however,
been so fully elaborated by writers upon the ethnic fac-
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 35
tors in city government that they need no further discus-
sion here.1 /
The problem of governing the state and the nation re-
mains primarily a problem of governing native Americans ;
but the task of administering the affairs of the larger cities
has, as the figures prove, become that of making political
and administrative provision for units of a population of
which a very large portion has come to America without
sound and well-fixed political traditions. This is not to
say that the alien element is wholly or even mainly respon-
sible for the fact that the government of great cities is
America's "one conspicuous failure." No American city
has had its affairs more consistently mismanaged, or has
been able to develop fewer wholesome municipal traditions,
than Philadelphia; yet the foreign-born element in the
population of Philadelphia is much weaker than it is in
any of the other cities of the largest class. Nevertheless,
the fact that the alien-born bulk large in nearly all American
cities of any considerable size does complicate the problems
of municipal government. It can hardly be true, for
example, that the influence of heredity can affect the busi-
ness aptitudes, the tastes, and even the ideals of races, and
yet be without bearing upon their political propensities.
A considerable proportion of those who have come to America
during the last half-century are men who did not possess
1 The best succinct discussion, based, however, on the census figures
of 1890, is in A. F. Weber's Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century,
304-310. For more extended considerations, see P. F. Hall's Immigra-
tion (New York, 1906), especially chs. iv. and vii. ; R. Mayo-Smith, Emi-
gration and Immigration (New York, 1904) ; the report of the Senate
Committee on Immigration, 57 Cong., 2 sess., No. 62 (1902) ; and the
annual reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration. A List of
Books on Immigration was issued by the Library of Congress in 1907.
See also W. S. Bennet on "The Effect of Immigration on Politics," and
Grace Abbot on "The Immigrant and Municipal Politics/' in Proceedings
of the National Municipal League, 1909, pp. 142-156.
36
voting rights in their own lands, and whose fathers before
them did not have such rights. As the discreet and sober
use of the ballot is something not to be learned in a day or
even in a generation, it is not a matter for surprise, then,
if alien-born voters have often proved easy prey to the
sophistry and cajolery of claptrap politicians. To a suc-
cessful exploitation of the foreign-born voters many of the
worst factors in urban politics have been indebted for
advancement.
The poiiti- The new citizen has neither political traditions nor
tio^oUhe*" prejudices. His eye is on the present rather than on the
aUen- past. Being unable to go to sure sources of information
concerning his new political duties, he must take such
misguiding authorities as come to him. These are, too
often, the hired henchman of his own race, the newspaper
of his own language (which is frequently kept in existence
by patronage from the party in power), or the native-born
political roundsmen who cultivate his confidence for their
own ends. All these make it appear to him that his own
immediate advantage can be best served by following the
counsel which they give ; and, being led to believe that
individual interest is the only motive which actuates Ameri-
can-born voters, he is quite liable to let himself be thus
exploited. We have the testimony of seasoned campaigners
that the alien-born voter is inclined to think for himself if
he gets the opportunity; but too often he does not secure
even that small amount of fair information which is neces-
sary to furnish food for thought. As a rule, practically all
that he gets concerning the facts of the municipal situation
comes to him in such form that it leads to one conclusion
only. It is not that the foreign-born voter is indiscriminat-
ing, or that he always prefers to vote for one of his own
race or religion. Experience has proved that he cannot
always be stampeded by appeals to class prejudice, or
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 37
delivered blindly to the support of some political faction.
Given a fair chance, he is, according to authoritative testi-
mony,' a voter of at least normal independence. If he has
too often proved to be the tool of the exploiter, it is largely
because a system of partisan nominations and a beclouded
ballot have given the latter a redoubtable position. Loyalty
to some social idea or custom which aliens have brought
with them from their own lands, moreover, sometimes out-
weighs their aversion to boss-domination. Time and again,
in cities like New York and Chicago it has been found impos-
sible to to get various bodies of foreign-born citizens to range
themselves on the side of honest and decent city government,
owing to inter-racial jealousies and a fear that a change of
administration would mean interference with their Sunday
recreations or other social customs.
In any case, the presence of the large alien element in urban
areas gives the cities of the United States a prime interest
in the terms of the naturalization law, in the rigid enforce-
ment of this statute, in all regulations pertaining to the
selection of immigrants, and, indeed, in every matter relat-
ing to the immigration policy of the nation. The enormous
assimilating power of the American people has often been
commented upon by students of sociology ; but it is not by
the American people as a whole that this process is per-
formed. Most of the task falls upon the larger cities of
the country, and it would therefore be surprising if mu-
nicipal institutions did not in some degree feel the strain.
A unit of population constituting a large city, when con- The dy
trasted with a unit of equal size drawn from rural districts,
shows marked differences in its birth, marriage, and death lation
rates.1 In the matter of births it seems to be generally
1 Accurate statistics relating to vital progress (that is, to the birth,
marriage, and death rates) are not available for the whole United States,
but only for what is officially termed the "registration area." This
38
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
1. Birth-
rates.
2. Mar-
riage-rates.
true that the number per thousand of population is almost
always greater in urban than in rural communities. In-
deed, it has been laid down as a working rule that the
birth-rate varies directly with density of population and
inversely with sparseness. A superficial explanation of the
situation in America may be found in the fact that aliens,
among whom the birth-rate is high, are numerous in urban
populations ; but that would not explain why the birth-
rate is larger among the native-born in cities than among
the same element in rural districts. The real explanation
of this disparity, as of many other social phenomena, is
probably economic. Since the national birth-rate is to a
considerable extent dependent upon general economic con-
ditions, rising in times of prosperity and falling in times of
depression, it is more than likely that the higher birth-rate
of the urban community connects itself with the city's
superiority over the rural district in point of wage-earning
power per capita.1
The urban marriage-rate per 10,000 of population is
also considerably higher than the rural. This is accounted
for in part by the fact that the city is proportionately
stronger in persons of marriageable age, in part by the
greater accuracy with which marriage records and statistics
are kept there, and in part by the fact that many marriages
which ought to go into rural statistics are credited to the
city in which the ceremony happens to have been performed.
The economic factor of greater income-earning power per
individual also has its influence.
area, which covers most of the Eastern and Middle, some of the Western,
and parts of a few Southern states, comprises slightly over one-half of
the total population of the Union.
*But this is a matter upon which demographical authorities widely
disagree. An interesting discussion of the matter by C. A. Verrijn-Stuart
may be found in the Bulletin de Vinstitut Internationale de statistique, xiii
(1903), 357-368.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY
39
The city, as is well known, has a death-rate per thousand 3. Death-
very much above that of the country, a social phenomenon
which seems to have held true in all periods and in all
countries. It was the decimating urban death-rate of the
Middle Ages and the early modern centuries that kept the
cities from making substantial headway in growth of popu-
lation. In London the ordinary death-rate of the seven-
teenth century is estimated to have been about fifty per-
sons per thousand of population each year ; and it was not
till about 1800 that the annual death-rate went below the
annual birth-rate, thereby permitting the city to achieve
some growth through natural increase. In this respect
London was not unique among European cities; on the
contrary, her showing was probably better than that of the
other great centres. Nor was the situation very different
in America. In 1700 the death-rate of Boston was thirty-
four per thousand ; in 1900 it had dropped to less than
nineteen. The enormous advances made by the science of
medicine, including improvements in sanitation, and prog-
ress in personal hygiene, in arrangements for preventing the
spread of infectious diseases, and in preventive medical science
generally, — all this has cut down the urban death-rate in
every large American city during the last three decades.1
1 The decline in the average death-rates of some large American cities
may be seen in the following table of deaths per thousand of population,
which has been compiled from the reports of the United States Census
Bureau : —
1881
1886
1891
1896
1901
ClTT
TO
TO
TO
TO
TO
1885
1890
1895
1900
1905
New York
27.5
25.8
246
203
189
Chicago
21.5
19.5
20.6
15.2
14.2
Philadelphia ....
22.3
20.6
21.1
19.2
18.1
Boston
24.9
23.5
23.6
20.9
18.8
40
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Causes of
the high
urban
death-rate.
The death-
rate as a
barometer
of adminis-
trative effi-
ciency.
But, with it all, the city death-rate continues at every
stage of human life to be higher than that of the rural
district. Especially is this true, as one might expect,
among children under five years of age. In larger cities
the infant mortality is from twice to three times that of
rural areas having an equal number of children; in the
case of children under one year of age the discrepancy is very
much greater. Many circumstances combine to bring
about this situation. The poverty, the cramped quarters,
and the general lack of even elementary necessities with
which the population of congested urban districts has to
contend account for much of it. It is the tenement wards
of the large city that make the figures of infant mortality
what they are. The employment of married women, par-
ticularly of the poorer classes, in wearing industrial occu-
pations is also a factor of importance, as is shown by the
heavy infant mortality of those cities in which textile in-
dustries prevail.1 In any event, much of the heavy loss
of population in its earlier years is admittedly preventable ;
its continuance is due largely to public failure to realize
the seriousness of the situation and to official apathy in
the attempts made to remedy it.2 It has been demonstrated,
for example, that the annual infant mortality in large cities
can be greatly reduced by strict inspection and control of
the milk supply, yet this is a matter which in many com-
munities has received but half-hearted attention from the
municipal authorities.
Of all conservation measures none can be more worthy
than those which have for their end the conservation of
human life. It is in the infant mortality of the cities, large
1 See the interesting table printed in F. J. Goodnow's Municipal Gov-
ernment (New York, 1909), 30-31.
2 National Conservation Commission, Bulletin of the Committee of One
Hundred on National Health; being a Report on National Vitality, its
Waste and Conservation, prepared by Professor Irving Fisher, July, 1909.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 41
and small, that the greatest saving can be made ; for in some
respects the infant death-rate is a barometer of the efficiency
of a city's administration in matters of health and sanitation.
Concentration of population engenders a heavy drain upon
the vitality of a race, and only by lavish outlays of skill,
energy, and money can this drain be held in check. The
water-supply system, the sewerage arrangements, the parks
and recreation grounds, the schools, the transit facilities in so
far as they operate to relieve density, the public-health
department, the street-cleaning service, the inspection of
food, — nearly every branch of city administration reflects
its efficiency or its inefficiency upon the figures of infant
mortality. Much as all these services have been improved,
— and the improvement has shown itself in the lower
mortality rates of the past few decades, — the city still
loses, by its high death-rate, most of what it gains through
an excess of births. Apart from the infant mortality, the
difference between the urban and the rural districts in the
matter of death-rates is not great. Among adults a large
proportion of the city's excess can be traced to the nerve-
racking strain of city life and the larger accidental death-
rate of the urban community. Most of the hazardous and
extra-hazardous occupations of industry and commerce
are urban employments, and many serious diseases which
are at least semi-accidental, so far as the usual methods of
contracting them go, are peculiarly the diseases of city
dwellers.
Surveying the field of vital progress as a whole, one The city's
sees clearly that the rural districts may make a greater to'the
net contribution to the growth of national population than
do the cities. Where this is so, the urbanization of a coun-
try ought, in the absence of immigration, to mean a slower
rate of national growth. Possibly the increasing slowness
of England's decennial growth in population may be in
42 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
part explained by the steady drift of the English population
into urban centres.
Phyaicai A good deal used to be said and written about the de-
bilitating effect of urban life upon individual physique.
Nothing seemed easier to establish than a priori conclusions
as to the superior physical development of the rural popu-
lation. It was, indeed, so far taken for granted that the
rural militiaman was physically superior to the townsman,
that one of the stock arguments for the encouragement of
English agriculture by corn laws and other protective legis-
lation was the necessity of preserving that yeomanry of
England which was alleged to furnish the military sinew of
the kingdom. There are, of course, a great many reasons
why the per capita physical attainment of the country
ought, if it could be measured, to be greater than that of
The older the town. That minute division of labor in urban indus-
tries which even in Adam Smith's day required a man to
spend his lifetime in making the nineteenth part of a pin,
nowadays gives him an even more specialized task in pro-
duction. Most urban occupations develop only a very
small part of the worker's physical powers, whereas the
rural employments encourage bodily versatility and all-
round physical development.
what the When one attempts to adduce accurate statistical evidence
dose.^ of this rural prowess in point of physical development,
however, one does not find the expected proofs so readily
forthcoming. Statistical data to prove or to disprove the
claim are not to be had in America, for there is in this country
no arrangement for recording the physical measurements of
typical sections of the population. Prisoners in jails,
athletes in training, applicants for places on city police
forces, newly enlisted men in the army or navy, are all
measured and the results are put on paper; but these
classes, even taken together, form so small a part of the
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 43
national population that generalization from their measure-
ments would be unfair and inconclusive. We must go to
those countries of continental Europe, such as France,
Germany, and Italy, where universal military service is
compulsory, and where, in consequence, practically the
whole adult male population is subjected, section by section,
to physical examinations of exactly the same scope and
nature. Now, the evidence that comes from all these
countries — and it is based upon the measurements of many
millions of men drawn from all sections during the last
quarter-century — gives no conclusive support to the notion
that city life is physically debilitating. On the contrary,
the percentage of those who are rejected each year for failure
to meet the minimum requirements in height, weight, chest
measurement, and so forth, is in many cases higher among
recruits from the rural areas than among those drafted from
the population of the large cities. It may be, of course,
that many of those who enter the army from the cities were
born in the country; but that factor alone would scarcely
account for the urban superiority which the army statistics
often show. It ought to be added, also, that this evidence
which disputes popular notions concerning the superiority
of rural life as a developer of physical strength and stamina
receives corroboration in the expressed opinions of nearly
every one who has given the matter careful observation.
Military leaders have frequently, in the great wars of the
nineteenth century, commented upon the superior powers
of physical endurance displayed by urban regiments. If
the urbanization of a people means physical degeneracy,
the evidence now obtainable gives no conclusive proof
of it.1 Health, strength, and vigor evidently depend less
1 Much has been written on both sides of this question, chiefly by Pro-
fessor Brentano of Munich and other German economists. A summary
of the data may be found in Weber's Growth of Cities, pp. 382-397.
44 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
on place of residence and occupation than upon cleanli-
ness, variety of diet, and prompt attention to minor
bodily ills.
Relative The balance-sheet of a people's intellectual attainment
attainment. *s something that cannot very well be cast in figures.
Having no gauge of popular erudition, one can make only
a general comparison of urban with rural populations as
regards the percentage of illiterates found in each. The
census of 1900 showed that, whereas 17.4 per cent of the
total white population of the United States over ten years of
age was classed as illiterate, the proportion in cities of over
25,000 was only 4.4. per cent, and this despite the presence
of the large alien element in them.1 This greater freedom
of the urban centres from illiteracy is due in part to their
superior day-school facilities and to their better enforcement
of the laws relating to compulsory education; but to a
greater degree it is perhaps attributable to the supplemen-
tary agencies of crude education in which the city abounds,
— the night school, the neighborhood house, and, by no
means least, the daily newspaper. In the city, moreover,
the pressure put upon the illiterate is very great ; even the
least remunerative employments open to youths require
that the employee shall be able to read and write.
is the intel- It may be urged that although the city may thus make a
better showing at the lowest rung of the intellectual ladder,
assumed or ^ ^oes no* necessar^7 follow that the general average of
real? intelligence or of mental achievement in it is any greater
than in the country. We have been assured, at any rate,
that the city-dweller's assumed superiority in knowledge
is only superficial, that "scattered and unrelated fragments
There is also an excellent study of the whole matter, based on data gath-
ered during the Boer War, in the British Blue Book of 1904 on " Physical
Deterioration. ' '
1 Bureau of the Census, Bulletin, No. 26, "Illiteracy in the United
States" (Washington, 1905).
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 45
of half-baked information form a stock of ' knowledge ' with
which the townsman's glib tongue enables him to present a
showy intellectual shop-front." 1 Most of the best and
strongest intellectual work done in the cities is performed;
it is said, by rural-bred men. There are, however, no con-
clusive ways of determining the extent to which the professed
superiority of the townsman in point of education is unwar-
ranted; consequently the world continues to take him at
his own value. If it be true that education is largely a
matter of opportunity, there is every reason why the citizens
of urban communities should make the better showing.
Many sermons have been preached upon the inferiority standards
of urban moral standards ; but, like the allegations concern- ° morals*
ing the enfeebled physical development of the city-born,
these indictments rest for the most part upon little more
than biassed and uncomprehensive observation.2 There
are no trustworthy indices of public morals ; for the
standards of different races are never fairly comparable,
nor are those of different sections of the same people. As
presumptive evidence bearing on the morality of a community
the statistics of the criminal courts may be brought forward ;
and in the light of such tests the city makes a rather poor
showing. In the United States the cities are commonly
debited with two or three times their due share of the nation's
convicted criminals. There are, however, some things to be
noted in extenuation of this discreditable urban achievement.
The cities, especially the larger ones, are, as every one
knows, the habitat of malefactors whom they have not
tutored into crime. The country youth of vicious disposi-
tion is pretty sure to drift where his propensities can find
1 J. A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism (New York, 1904),
339.
1 For an example, see Josiah Strong, The Twentieth Century City (New
York, 1898).
46 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
scope ; but the city which must bear the brunt of his later
criminal record is not the author of his waywardness. It is
not because the moral plane is lower in the urban centres
that the criminal classes gravitate there ; it is only because
density of population affords greater opportunity for gain-
ing the emoluments of crime, and at the same time better
chances of escaping detection. Crimes against the person
— assaults and the like — are not relatively more numerous
in the city than in the rural area; but the city is more
prolific in crimes against property, such as burglary, larceny,
and embezzlement, for the obvious reason that the temp-
tations to these offences are stronger where things of high
value are thrust continuously before the eyes of the covetous.
In the city, moreover, the vicissitudes of employment are
many. Men are at work to-day and out of work to-morrow ;
hence there is always an idle element, and this element is,
from its lack of honest earnings, under pressure to transgress
the laws. The saloon, the opium-dive, the brothel, and
those pawnbrokers who seek their profits from the fruits
of thievery, are each entitled to a fair share in the responsi-
bility for the city's criminal record ; yet they are all ex-
crescences upon normal urban life rather than essential
features of it.1 Their elimination is, however, scarcely
within the range of to-morrow's possibilities ; hence, while
Urban cities remain what they are, the urban crime rate is likely to
growth and . . . .
the increase Continue high.
rune' The expanding crime ratio of the United States, taken as
a whole during the last two or three decades, has given rise
to serious misgivings in the minds of many students of
social statistics ; but this development, it may be suggested,
is possibly no more than a corollary to the steady shifting of
1 Those who are interested in this topic will find a readable essay on
"Great Cities, and their Influence for Good and Evil " in Charles Kingsley's
Miscellanies (2 vols., London, 1860), II. 318-345.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 47
the population. The crime ratio of the larger cities is much
greater than that of the rural areas ; and, since the cities grow
much more rapidly than these districts do, it would be strange
if the number of crimes did not increase with greater relative
rapidity than the population of the Union as a whole. The
progress of urban concentration is doubtless responsible for
much of the national growth in criminality ; not, however,
because the growth of cities tends to lower the entire moral
tone of a people, but because the urban centres provide
greater scope for that element which, whether in city or
in country, is governed in its activities by its oppor-
tunities.
The cities of the United States, being stronger in persons Ownership
of productive age than are the rural areas, ought to have ° property<
a greater income-earning power per head of population.
It is certain, at any rate, that the per capita wealth of the
cities far exceeds that of the rural communities. Of the
total wealth of the United States, as estimated in 1900,
the urban population possessed about three-fourths, or more
than double its proportionate share. These reckonings,
however, include personal as well as real property. If one
takes only real property as the basis of calculation, and
estimates the relative number of those who own property
and those who do not, one gets a very different showing;
for the percentage of those who own real property is much
larger in the rural districts. It is true that the real signifi-
cance of the proportion of "farm families owning their
homes," as given in the census returns (nearly sixty-five
per cent, by the enumeration of 1900), is somewhat impaired
by the fact that much of this "ownership" is in form rather
than in reality ; for heavily mortgaged farm-homes are no
rarity in the agricultural states of this country. But, with
all due allowance for this fact, the real-propertied element
in the rural population of the United States is much larger
48 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
than that in the urban. It seems, indeed, to be a law of
urban concentration that the more congested the popula-
tion the lower becomes the ratio of home-owning families.
In Baltimore this ratio was 27.9 per cent, in Chicago 25.1 per
cent, in Boston 18.9 per cent, in New York 12.1 per cent,
and in the crowded boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx
only 5.9 per cent.
Property This marked difference in the ratio of home-owners to
^rvatism. total population, as between city and rural areas, is one of
great social and political importance. That indefinable
inspiration to thrift which John Stuart Mill called the
"magic of property," and which he credited with the alchemy
of turning sand into gold, is more general and more effective
in country than in town. It is well known that a wide-
spread ownership of property makes for conservatism and
soberness in popular thought, whereas the propertyless
element is liable to be radical in its political, social, and eco-
nomic views. The history of nations affords plenty of evidence
that urban centres are impatient of the slow course which
social and political institutions commonly take in working
out their own evolution, and hence that their growth is sure
to promote radicalism in all departments of thought. It
has done so in the United States during the last twenty
or thirty years. Urban concentration means, accordingly,
that the landless man rises to supremacy in the voting-lists,
that the property-owning element dwindles in relative im-
portance, and that through this wide difference an antag-
onism of interest between the two classes is likely to be
aroused. The rural district, in its broad diffusion of
ownerships, possesses a strong incentive to sober habits of
thought ; the large city does not have this advantage,
other points There are many other viewpoints from which the urban
son. and rural populations of the United States might be subjected
to fair comparison, but enough have been used to show that
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 49
marked differences exist in the social textures of the two.
Compared from any single point of view, these differences
are perhaps not of very much consequence; the mere fact
that the American city is stronger in its percentage of
females or weaker in its ratio of illiterates scarcely suffices
to give urban populations any distinctive social coloring.
Taken together, however, the variations show a difference
in make-up both great and important. It is to be remem-
bered, moreover, that some of the most marked discrepancies,
quite visible to the naked eye, are not statistically comput-
able. Differences between urban and rural populations in
their versatility of interests, in their breadth of intellectual
horizon, in their average qualities of initiative, perseverance,
and constancy, in their capacity to develop and to follow safe
ideals, — these are things which cannot be set forth in
columns of numerals. In the public imagination the city
looms large as a place where sordid and material motives fill
the minds and govern the acts of men, a place of excessive
individualism, where neighborhood feeling is almost absent,
and where, through the incessant shifting of the people,
no neighborhood traditions can ever become firmly rooted.
Its population is restive, impulsive, intolerant of delay (yet
docile enough in its continued submission to public abuses),
laying too little stress upon the family as the ultimate
social unit and too much upon artificial organizations that
are more social in aim than in ultimate accomplishment. If
all these traits could be weighed in the balance and their
intensity determined, the real extent of the modern city's
influence upon national life, and of its departure from the
rural unit in texture and problems, could be more accurately
measured.
It is in the great cities of the land that the extremes of Place of the
national life come face to face. There it is that the high- national
est culture stares down the street at unalloyed ignorance. Ufe<
50 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The extremes of personal wealth and poverty are also there.
If one desires the best in men of science, of art, of industry,
one will find them in the large city ; if one wants the worst
types of illiteracy, depravity, and incidence, one will find
them there too. It is from this heterogeneity that the
population of the city derives its individualism; it is this
that accounts for the sang-froid with which one half of it
regards the way in which the other half lives. As a fair
consequence of this oil-and-water amalgam of its population,
the city will undoubtedly continue to present both the
highest achievements in political virtue and the basest
spectacles of political vice. Across its warp of sacking, as
Mr. Bryce puts it, are woven threads of silver and gold.
The crucible Into this great melting-pot of American municipal life
' the baser elements of indifference, ignorance, and greed,
together with the finer elements of intelligence, public
spirit, and self-sacrifice, must be poured, and out of the
mass will come the composite of American citizenship.
The modern metropolis, whether in America or elsewhere,
is neither an Athens nor a Gomorrah ; it is both rolled into
one. In the rural community, which has the features of
neither one nor the other, the problem of maintaining a
reasonable standard of ideals and achievements is easier
than in the city, where these things must be determined
by the might of the stronger among its modern Hellenes
and Philistines.1 That the city's influence upon the political,
social, and economic ideals of the whole people ought by
every effort to be thrown into the proper channel is of the
1 "The city is the spectroscope of society; it analyzes and sifts the
population, separating and classifying the diverse elements. The entire
progress of civilization is a process of differentiation, and the city is the
greatest differentiator. The mediocrity of the country is transformed by
the city into the highest talent or the lowest. Genius is often born in
the country, but it is brought to light and developed by the city." — A. F.
WEBER, The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1899),
442.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CITY 51
most vital importance ; for the urban population is in ef-
fect more influential than its numerical strength implies.
As the element which supplies the leaders of thought, and
which through its press has an incalculable influence upon
the moulding of public opinion, it must be credited with
far more than forty-five per cent of the responsibility for
the successes or the failures of American political life.
The problems of the city are not, therefore, the problems
of its own citizens alone. The proper solution of them is
of vital moment to all who value American ideals; for the
ideals of a nation are determined by the most influential
among various elements of its population, and, being so
determined, they are in constant process of change. The
course of alteration is unheralded by any blast of trumpets,
and it often evades even the notice of trained observers.
Transformations in the political or the social psychology of
a people proceed insidiously. Hence it is that a general
betterment of popular ideals may descend on a land, like
as an angel, unawares, or a deterioration may come even
as a thief in the night.
As the city, then, with all that it expresses and implies, True civic
must be the controlling factor in the national life of the future, patnotlsm-
there is no service more truly patriotic than that of helping
to make it a better place for men to live in. True patriotism,
as has been well said, requires "not only that a man shall
be ready to make the supreme sacrifice for his country's
salvation, but that he shall stand ever-ready to devote his
time and talents to the less conspicuous but equally momen-
tous duty of maintaining public order, protecting private
property, and preserving the lives of his fellows against the
dangers which lurk in foul tenements, in unclean food, and
in that whole field of civic administration whose mismanage-
ment leaves a trail of misery through the habitations of
the poor." To make the city, as Henry Drummond has
52 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
reminded us, is what we are here for. "He who makes the
city makes the world. For though men may make cities,
it is after all the cities which make men. Whether our
national life is great or mean, whether our social virtues
are mature or stunted, whether our sons are vicious or
moral, whether religion is possible or impossible, depends
upon the city. To the reformer, the philanthropist, the
economist, the politician, this vision of the city is the great
classic of social literature."
REFERENCES
Reliable data regarding the social structure of the American city may
be had most conveniently from the various Bulletins which the United
States Bureau of the Census issues during the years following each de-
cennial enumeration. These bulletins, which take up such topics as the
distribution of population by sex, age, and nativity, the statistics of
illiteracy, the progress of population as disclosed by the birth and death
rates, the ownership of property, and many other matters, usually in-
clude some interesting discussions of the figures which they contain.
Two excellent monographs dealing with the sociological anatomy of the
modern city are Paul Meuriot's Des agglomerations urbaines dans V Europe
contemporaine (Paris, 1897), and A. F. Weber's Growth of Cities in the
Nineteenth Century (New York, 1899), especially ch. v. On the general
questions of ethnic structure, no work approaches in value Emile Levas-
seur's La population fran^aise (3 vols., Paris, 1889-1892).
Books dealing with the social texture of American city population are
H. B. Woolston's Study of the Population of Manhattanville (New York,
1909) ; F. A. BusheVs Ethnic Factors in the Population of Boston (New
York, 1903) ; and E. E. Pratt's Industrial Causes of the Congestion of
Population in New York City (New York, 1911). The last-named volume
contains a useful bibliography. Mention should also be made of T. J.
Jones's Sociology of a New York City Block (New York, 1904), which is a
painstaking study of real value. There are a great many useful tables in
the volumes relating to the Pittsburgh Survey, issued under the auspices of
the Russell Sage Foundation. Indeed, the supply of first-hand material now
available for the study of urban sociology is so extensive that any attempt
to enumerate all of it would constitute a formidable task.
CHAPTER III
THE CITY AND THE STATE
THE American city is a municipal corporation created Supremacy
by the state under its reserved rights of internal sovereignty : state,
it derives all its powers from state laws, and it is subordinate
in all its activities to the state's authority. It is one of
the agents which the state uses for the more convenient
administration oil local government. To this end, the city
is intrusiea witn only suck powers as the legislature may
think wise to confer, and even in such grants it acquires
no vested right. Municipal authority may be enlarged,
abridged, or entirely withdrawn by the legislature at pleas-
ure. In other words, the state authorities have the right
to govern the city lust as they govern anv other *vw. within
their jurisdiction. This is a fundamental principle of
American law, so well recognized that it is not nowadays
open to question.1
But upon this supremacy of the state legislature in all mat- Conatitu-
ters of municipal government there are two important kinds limitations,
of limitation : (l) those restrictions which are imposed upon
all legislative freedom by the constitution of the United
States, and (2) those special limitations which are contained
in the constitutions of the various states themselves. The
federal constitution, for example, withholds from all legis-
lative bodies, state and national? the power to take private
property for public use without iust compensation. What
a state itself cannot, Hn| it cannot empower anv subordinate,
1 Meriwether v. Garrett, 102 U. S. 472, printed in J. H. Beale's Selec-
tion of Cases on Municipal Corporations (Cambridge, 1911), 54.
53
64 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
authority to do : hence, legislative freedom in the matter
of granting powers to municipal corporations is subjected
to some very important checks. More important and far
more numerous are the limitations imposed upon the
legislatures of states by their own constitutions. In the
earlier state constitutions these restrictions were few; in
some there were none at all with reference to municipal
government. By the middle of the nineteenth century,
however, the disposition to insert checks upon legislative
interference with local administration had become so marked
that whenever state constitutions were revised some such
provisions were almost invariably inserted. During the
last fifty or sixty years this tendency has grown even stronger,
until it has nowadays come to be taken for granted that,
whenever a state adopts a new constitution or revises an
old one, it will almost certainly use the opportunity to in-
sert various restrictive clauses relating to legislative freedom
in matters of local government.
Their Constitutional limitations upon the freedom of the
legislature to deal with city affairs are of great variety.
Many of them relate to the form of city charters or to the
methods of framing them. In some states the legislature is
forbidden to charter cities by special act; in others it is
required to grant all charters in this way. Some state
constitutions prohibit changes in city charters unless they
are made with the consent of the citizens ; others guarantee
to the voters of cities the right to frame their own charters
and to enact them into force by referenda free from legis-
lative interference, — in other words, to adopt so-termed
"home-rule" charters. A common form of limitation pre-
vents legislatures from giving cities undue borrowing powers^
or from empowering municipalities to ftrftnt pp-rpfttnal^
franchises to public-service corporations or to loan their
credit to private enterprises.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 55
Clauses forbidding the legislature to charter cities by Prohibition
special law, or to enact special legislation for individual
cities, have found their way into the constitutions of nearly
a score of states; yet both these prohibitions have proved
to be capable of evasion. The Ohio constitution of 1851,
for example, provided that the state legislature should
pass no special acts conferring corporate power, but
should arrange for the organization of cities by general
laws, and should give to all laws of a general nature uni-
form operation throughout the state.1 In keeping with
these wholesome doctrines, the legislature in 1852 enacted
a general municipal code dividing the nine cities of the
state into two classes and applying somewhat different
provisions to these classes. It was not long;r however. The Ohio
before special legislation appeared under the guise of further e:
classification of cities : when it was desired to pass an act
affecting only a single city, the legislation was wnr^jj^ an-
as to have a purely local application.2 In course of time,
accordingly, the two classes of cities came to be subdivided
into various grades according to their population, until
there were eleven grades in all, eight of them containing
only one city each.3 With these cities fixed in a stated cate-
1 Art. xii. §§ 1, 6; art. ii. § 26.
1 An act intended for Cincinnati, passed in 1868, contained the follow-
ing provision: "The city council of any city of the first class having a
population of 150,000 inhabitants, wherein a public avenue of not less
than one hundred feet in width is now projected to be known as Gilbert
Avenue, is hereby authorized to issue bonds of the said city in any sum
not exceeding $150,000." Other examples may be found in Constitutional
Home Rule for Ohio Cities, a report issued by the Municipal Home Rule
Committee of the Municipal Association of Cleveland, 1912.
* The gradations were as follows : —
CLASS I
Grade 1, over 200,000 (Cincinnati).
Grade 2, from 90,000 to 200,000 (Cleveland).
Grade 3, from 31,500 to 90,000 (Toledo).
Grade 4, to be created (none).
66 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
gory, the legislature was able to handle them quite as if
there were no constitutional restrictions at all. For fifty
years, from 1851 to 1902, the courts of Ohio upheld this
procedure, declining, so long as legislation was general in
form, to hold it unconstitutional even though it was special
in fact. In 1902, however, the supreme court of Ohio
reversed its course,1 took a clear ground against special
legislation, and thereby forced the legislature to enact a
new municipal code, with provisions that apply uniformly
to all Ohio cities having populations exceeding 5000 .2
Evils of a But if the Ohio situation prior to 1902 affords an excel-
lent illustration of the way in which constitutional restric-
tions relating to uniformity in municipal legislation may be
evaded, the situation since that date shows with equal
clearness the absurdity of such restrictions when strictly
enforced. The new Ohio code applies its provisions uni-
formly to seventy-two cities with populations ranging from
about 5000 to over a half-million. This means that all the
cities, whatever their varying problems and needs, must
conform themselves to a rigid framework of government
which makes no allowance for differences in local condi-
tions. Constitutional limitations that require such in-
elasticity cannot but overreach themselves. Must a small
CLASS II
Grade 1, from 30,500 to 31,500 (Columbus).
Grade 2, from 20,000 to 30,500 (Dayton).
Grade 3, from 10,000 to 20,000 (Youngstown).
Grade 3a, from 28,000 to 33,000 (Springfield).
Grade 3b, from 16,000 to 28,000 (Hamilton).
Grade 4, from 5000 to 10,000 (four cities).
Grade 4a, from 8330 to 9050 (Ashtabula).
1 State v. Jones, 66 Ohio, 453.
2 An excellent summary of this code, with a narrative of the events
leading to its adoption, is given in J. A. Fairlie's Essays in Municipal
Administration (New York, 1908), ch. v. The code itself is edited, with
good introduction and notes, by Wade H. Ellis (Cincinnati, 1909).
THE CITY AND THE STATE 57
inland city be burdened with all the cumbrous machinery
of a great commercial metropolis, as the only means of
relief from legislative meddling with the affairs of single
municipalities? Or must the metropolis manage to get
along with the administrative machinery of a country
town ? It takes no extended argument to prove that mu-
nicipal problems become more difficult as cities grow in size,
that questions relating to police and fire protection, to the
control of public utilities, the supplying of water, the pro-
vision of modern methods of sanitation and of public recrea-
tion facilities, and to the whole host of minor metropolitan
services, all contribute to make the necessary administra-
tive machinery of a large city somewhat elaborate. Cer-
tain broad lines of organization can profitably be followed^
in all cities, great or small ; but the details of the govern-
ing mechanism ought to be adjusted to the problems with
which it will have to cope.
As a result of the rigid application of the Ohio code of Some
1902 to all cities in the state, some of the larger municipali-
ties have been heavily handicapped in their efforts to deal
with local problems. The city of Cleveland, for example,
has found itself unable to prevent the disfigurement of its
own streets by signs and billboards, to provide public lec-
tures in its schools, to establish rules relating to the isola-
tion of persons afflicted by tuberculosis, and to do many
other things which its council has sought to accomplish by
ordinances since 1902, — and all because no general powers
covering such matters had been conferred upon all the cities
of the state by the municipal code. Apart altogether from
the merits or the defects of these proposed regulations, it
may very well be urged that a system which prevents a city
from providing for its own citizens any service not also
provided by all its neighbors is supported neither by common
sense nor by considerations of civic progress. Something
58
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Constitu-
tional
classifica-
tion of
cities.
may be said in favor of statutes that apply uniformly to all
cities of about the same size, but it does not follow that two
cities with equal populations will have the same problems
to face. The texture as well as the size of the population must
be taken into account. Such sweeping reductions of all
cities to the same plane as that made by the Ohio code is
therefore quite at variance with both reason and experience.1
Recognizing the undesirability of too strict a rule, and at
the same time realizing how a legislature will abuse its
powers if left free to classify cities as it thinks fit, some other
states have endeavored to steer a midway course by incor-
porating in the constitution itself the classification of
municipalities that seems to be warranted by the existing
circumstances. Such constitutions divide cities into three
or four groups, usually on a basis of the population, and
require that statutes passed by the legislature covering
matters of municipal government shall apply to all the cities
within at least one of these groups. This is in many ways
an improvement upon the crude plan of prohibiting all
special legislation, and at the same time it has many advan-
tages over the practice of permitting the legislature to
exercise an unfettered hand in the way of special law-making.
The chief objection is that such classifications are artificial.
taking little account of real differences between cities of
approximately the same sizef and as a rule making no
provision for the passage of a city from one class to another.
A somewhat unusual and original method of dealing
with the matter was some years ago put into operation in
New York State. Although the policy of classifying cities
1The Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1912 incorporated in its draft
of some new constitutional limitations a series of municipal home-rule
provisions giving municipalities power either to frame their own charters
or to adopt by local referendum any general or special charter law which
the state legislature may pass. The new provisions have been adopted
by the voters of the state and will go into effect on January 1, 1913.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 59
according to their size, and of requiring uniformity of
legislative action with respect to all municipalities within
each class, is there regarded as a good plan for ordinary
use, yet it is recognized that there may be good reasons
for permitting departures from it, and that such depar-
tures, in the form of special legislation for individual
cities, ought to be allowed under proper safeguards. The
best safeguard, as it appeared to those who framed the New
York constitution, is the necessity of consulting the au-
thorities of the city affected by the special statute. Hence
the constitution groups the cities of the state into three,
classes, and permits the legislature to pass any law apply-
ing to all the cities in any one of the three classes without
consulting the authorities of such cities.,1 Legislation
applying to a single city may also be enacted, but in such
cases the city concerned mu^t be consulted. When any
measure applying to a single city (or to less than the whole
number of cities in a class) has passed both branches of the
legislature, it must be sent to the mayor of that city, who
must return it within fifteen days with a declaration that
it is or is not acceptable to the city authorities. If it is
acceptable, it goes forward to the governor for his considera-
tion, as in the case of other bills ; if it is not acceptable, it
must be passed again by the legislature before it can be sent
to him for approval. In actual practice, however 7 the New
York plan has not proved very effective in safeguarding
the cities from special legislation. A somewhat different
plan was provided in an amendment made to the constitu-
tion of Illinois eight years ago (1904). This provision placed
a check upon the right of the state legislature to pass special
acts for the government of Chicago, by prescribing that jia
such special act should go into operation until after its adop-
tion by the voters of Chicago at a referendum election.
1 Art. xii. § 2.
60 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Under this arrangement it has been found that while,
Chicago does not always e^et what its people want in the
way of legislation they can at any rate repel attempts to force
obnoxious measurpg nprm t.V>Ptfv All this was very well
shown in 1907 when the city failed in its efforts to get a
new charter satisfactory to its own people but at the same
time kept the legislature from imposing upon the city charter
provisions which the voters did not want. It is significant
that the new constitution of Michigan includes provisions
for local referenda on special legislation relating to any city
of that state.
Yet, in spite of all these constitutional limitations, the
state legislatures have a broad sphere of action in relation
to municipal affairs, and they have used their powers un-
sparingly. In the larger cities, legislative interference with
the organization and functions of municipal administration
has been so unremitting as frequently to constitute an
obstacle to the development of any sound local traditions.
In many cases, however, the arm of the legislature has
been put forth in local affairs to good purpose and with
excellent reason; for uncontrolled local administration is
liable to become slovenly and evftn corrupt. When, for
example, the police administration of a large city has come
to be hopelessly honeycombed with the by-products of
local politics, so that the laws of the state stand disre-
garded, it is idle to urge that legislative interposition in
the interest of law and order must be forever forestalled by
some dogma of political laissez-faire. Legislatures have
interfered in such cases, and they ought to do so whenever
the situation warrants. So, also, in their efforts to deliver
cities from the bondage of spoilsmen through the applica-
tion of civil-service laws, and in establishing safeguards
against the improvidence of municipal authorities, the
legislatures have acted quite defensibly, even if sometimes
THE CITY AND THE STATE 61
in a partisan spirit as well as in violation of local sentiment
concerning the natural rights of autonomous municipalities.
But not all legislative interference in the affairs of cities Motives of
has been prompted by any such proper motives; much i^iatioo.
of it, on the contrary, has been actuated by an ill-concealed
desire to serve purely partisan or personal ends. To help
the dominant political party, or to gain the favor of public-
service corporations, state legislatures have times without
number betrayed the best interests of the larger cities and
set the will of the citizens at naught. Not a session passes
but the legislatures of Massachusetts, New York, and Penn-
sylvania deliver their gjist of special enactments for the
benefit of Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. It
would be nonsense to assert that their prolific output of
special legislation is needed or desired by these cities, or that
it would ever be forthcoming if the cities themselves had
power to order it otherwise. From 1885 to 1908 the Mas-
sachusetts legislature passed no fewer than four hundred
special laws relating to Boston, with the result that a volume
containing the revised state statutes affecting a single city
filled more than six hundred closely-printed pages.1 Many
of these special acts, if not most of them, embodied ill-con-
sidered, unnecessary, and primarily partisan legislative action.
Yet the legislature of Massachusetts does its work carefully,
and professes to have as much respect for the rights of the
municipality as have the legislatures of most other states of
the Union.
Of the various methods of protecting cities against over- Thehome-
meddlesome legislatures the most effective is that knpwn Bystem.
as the "home-rule charter" system. This plan appears to
have had its origin in the Missouri constitution of 1875,
which gave cities of over 100,000 population the right to
1 Statutes relating to the City of Boston (ed. T. M. Babson, Boston,
1908).
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
frame and enact their own charters.1 By the provisions of
the constitution the voters of the city might elect a charter
board of thirteen members, — in other words, a miniature
constitutional convention, — which was empowered either to
frame a new city charter or to revise an old one, its work
when finished to be submitted to the qualified voters at a
regular election. During the first quarter-century follow-
ing its adoption this system gained little headway outside
the state in which it originated; in 1900 it had spread to
three other states only.2 Within the next ten years, how-
ever, five more states incorporated in their constitutions
the principle of the Missouri plan, and most of them made
it applicable to smaller as well as to larger cities.3
How home- Among these nine "home-rule charter" states there are
considerable differences in the process and the machinery
of charter-making. In some of them the initial step in
the adoption or the revision of a municipal frame of govern-
ment may be taken on petition of a prescribed number of
voters;4 in others the city council must make the first
move ; and in one state, Minnesota, the initiative must be
taken by the district court.5 In all cases (except in Minne-
sota) the actual work of drafting a home-rule charter is
intrusted to a commission commonly called a board of free-
holders, made up of from thirteen to twenty-one members
chosen by popular vote, usually at large, but in some cases
. » Art. ix. §§ 16-17.
* Constitution of California, 1879, art. xi. §§ 6-8 ; constitution of
Washington, 1889, art. xi. § 10; constitution of Minnesota, art. iv. § 36
(adopted in 1898). For the general history of the movement during this
period, see M. R. Maltbie's paper on "City-made Charters," in Yale
Review, XIII. 380-407 (February, 1905).
1 Colorado in 1902, Oregon in 1906, Oklahoma in 1907, Michigan in
1908, and Arizona in 1910.
4 The percentage varies from 5 per cent in Colorado to 25 per cent in
Washington.
6 Constitution of Minnesota, art. iv. § 36.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 63
by wards ; and jn all cases the document, when finished, is.
submitted by referendum to the qualified voters of the citv.
If more votes are cast for it than against it, the charter
usually goes into effect ; but in some states more than this
is required. In Minnesota the charter commission is ap-
pointed by the district court and an affirmative popular vote
of at least four-sevenths is demanded; in Michigan the
freeholders' charter goes first to the governor and if he dis-
approves it a two-thirds vote at the local referendum is
necessary to put it into force ; in California the charter does
not become effective until the legislature has also approved
it ; l and in Oklahoma it has to be submitted to the governor
of the state, who is, however, required by the constitution
to sign it unless it appears to be in conflict with the general
statutes of the state. Amendments to a home-rule charter
may usually be initiated and ratified in the same way.2
The chief objection urged against the system of home- Objections
rule charters is that it gives the voters of individual munici- By8tem.
palities unwarranted freedom in determining things which
may be of paramount interest to themselves, but which
are also of great concern to the state as a whole. In other
words, it is urged that there can be no clear line of demar-
cation between functions and responsibilities which are
strictly municipal and those which appertain to the state.
Since, for example, state and municipal elections are often
held on the same day, with the same ballots, the same
officers in charge of the polls, and the same securities
for fairness, it may well be questioned whether the state
may safely permit each municipality to be a law unto itself
1 The legislature mustJiQwever. approve or reject the charter as a
whole ; it can make no amendments.
2 Details of the methods in vogue in the various states may be found
in Comparative Legislation Bulletin, No. 18 (on "Municipal Home Rule
Charters"), issued by the Wisconsin Library Commission, Legislative
Reference Department, Madison, 1908.
64
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Limitations
upon the
system :
in matters relating to elections. So also with reference to
police administration. The city's policemen are appointed
by the municipal authorities, and are paid by them ; but
the chief function of the police is, after all, the enforcement
of state laws, and in most states the courts have upheld
the doctrine that they are state officers. Ought, then, the
principle of local autonomy to be unrestricted in matters
relating to the appointment, organization, discipline, and
functions of municipal police ? So, again, if one considers
such matters as the organization of municipal courts and
the administration of local justice, the system of compul-
sory elementary education, the assessment of taxes, and the
exercise of borrowing powers, one finds that the line of
cleavage between matters of municipal and state jurisdic-
tion is not so easily drawn as some advocates of the home-
rule charter system seem to imagine. A recognition of this
fact has forced the courts in home-rule charter states to.
decide that municipal charter provisions cannot supersede
the general state laws relating to police administration,
election machinery, the administration of justice, the school
system or in any matter which is of more than purely local
concern ; and the upshot of this ruling is to throw upon the
courts rather than upon the legislature the determination of
the question as to how far municipal autonomy may be in-
fringed in the general interest.1
At best, there must be some important limitations upon
the freedom of cities to deal in their own way with what
seem to be their own local affairs. Just what these limita-
tions ought to be and how far they should extend is some-
thing upon which few men will agree; but in general the
following propositions will not be subject to very serious
dispute. In the first place, the exercise by cities of the
1 See the list of cases cited in Eugene McQuillin's Law of Municipal
Corporations (6 vols., Chicago, 1911-1912), I. 309.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 65
power of taxation ought to be closely guarded in the general (?) tar*,
laws. Taxation is essentially a sovereign function; it
gives to authorities a weapon which may very readily be
misused ; hence uncontrolled liberty to impose taxes might
enable the cities to put grave difficulties in the way of general
state administration. The power to tax is the power to
destroy; it is therefore not a function which the state
should delegate without reservation to any subordinate
authority.
So, too, with regard to the police power, which in its (6) police ;
broader sense is always committed by the constitution to the
state legislature. Since the preservation of the public health
safety, and morals ought to be the first care of the state,
the police power should never be surrendered to any sub-
sidiary corporate authority. Again, when the same voting- (c) election
lists are used in state and local elections, or when pollings
are held on the same day and in the same places, it seems
best that the hand of the state should be unrestrained by
local regulations. Many considerations make it desirable, too,
that the qualifications for voting, the methods of compiling
the lists, the machinery of the poll, the securities against
unfair practices, and the provisions affecting recounts
should be uniform throughout the state. They cannot .be
uniform if each city is allowed to make its own rules in
such matters. Or take the field of municipal expenditures
and indebtedness. Here again there is much to be said for
statutory regulations which require city councils to make
their appropriations in a business-like manner, which pro-
vide proper safeguards against payment of public monies
without due warrant, which require municipal treasurers
to make their annual reports in a uniform way, and which au-
thorize some state official to see that these rules are honored
in the observance.
Likewise, the right to borrow money without interference
66
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
(d) borrow-
ing ;
(e) educa-
tion and
philan-
thropy.
Additional
restrictions
in metro-
politan
areas.
is not a power that can safely be granted to cities. It is
plausible to urge that taxpayers should be permitted to do
as they will with their own financial credit ; but the right of
a city to borrow its way into bankruptcy does not appear
to be self-evident. Whether restrictions upon municipal
borrowing should take the form of a general statutory debt
limit, as in New York and Massachusetts, or whether each
proposal to borrow should be dealt with on its individual
merits by a state authority, is an open question, with the
lessons of history pointing mainly toward the latter method ;
but that there should be reasonable state restriction or super-
vision of some kind is scarcely to be gainsaid. Finally, edu-
cation and charity can hardly be accounted purely local
function^. Uniformity of organization and method in both
these fields of civic effort, though by no means imperative,
seems to be desirable ; otherwise there is liable to be an over-
lapping of undertakings, attended by wastefulness and the
penalizing of one municipality for the sins of another.
When several cities are contiguous or ev^n in th
general sphere of communication there are additional
grounds for state interference with local freedom. Freedom
here means independence of action, which is another way
of saying that public services will be so uncoordinated as to
be detrimental to the best interests of the whole district.
Take the Boston metropolitan district as an example.
Within fifteen miles of Beacon Hill there are no fewer than
thirty-nine cities and towns, each with its own municipal
organization. To allow all these municipalities entire
freedom of action in the matter of making arrangements
with public-utility corporations would be to inaugurate
a regime of franchise chaos. No public-service corporation
could give much satisfaction were it required to deal with
thirty-nine separate authorities. A somewhat analogous
situation exists in and around Chicago where the Illinois
THE CITY AND THE STATE 67
Traction Company operates the street railways and the
electric lighting plants throughout a wide area comprising
many cities. In such casesf therefore, the state legislature
may, in the absence of any general metropolitan authority,
very properly reserve to itself the final decision in matters
affec|,jng._ public-service franchises^ Limitations on munic-
ipal autonomy may, indeed, go further in such instances.
When there is a common interest, as there may be in a
scheme of district water-supply, sewerage, parks, or general
planning, there should be common control ; and, if the munic-
ipalities concerned are not willing to be federated into a
single unit, state supervision of all projects affecting several
cities seems to be about the only practicable avenue of
progress. The principle of permitting cities to do things in
their own way, as the home-rule charter plan proposes, must,
therefore be subject to important limitations.
On the other hand, there are some sound and cogent Advantages
reasons for the extension of the plan. One of these lies in the hom^-ruie
increasing difficulty with which legislatures find time to charter
^B-——BiB««»«-ii™i—i«»*L»M——_—.M-i— "-«•*"-•'—" ' system.
consider adequately requests that come forward at each
session either for new charters or for amendments to existing
ones. In Massachusetts, at the legislative session of 1911,
petitions for new charters came from ten cities, some of
which sent not merely one fully-framed proposal ready for
enactment into law, but two or three of them. A dozen
other cities asked for one or more charter amendments.
Of proposals to amend the charter of Boston the legislature
found itself confronted with at least a score ; 1 and it is within
bounds to say that at this single session there were presented
to it at least one hundred measures, each of which would,
if adopted, have been, in effect at least, an amendment to
1 At the legislative session of 1912 no fewer than 68 bills were sent
to the legislature by the mayor of Boston alone. Of this number less
than a dozen were enacted into law.
68
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Inadequacy
of considera-
tion given
to charters
by legisla-
tures.
Inherent
defects of
legislative
charter-
making.
the charter of some city of the commonwealth.1 To allege
that these measures received, or could receive, much more
than a hasty survey from a body of nearly three hundred
legislators would be to attribute to the law-makers of Massa-
chusetts the power to achieve a physical impossibility.
Moreover, according to the report of a commission appointed
a few years ago by the governor of West Virginia to examine
this situation, the host of charter matters which come before
the legislature at every session not oniy fail to obtain ade-
quate study and discussion for themselves, but they seriously
impede the consideration and passage of important legisla-
tion affecting the people of the state as a whole. Testimony
to the seriousness of this impediment can be adduced from
the legislative journals of almost every state where the
special-charter system prevails ; and the situation does not
seem to be much better in states where legislation for cities
is by general law, since scores of general amendments come
forward at every session. Upon a conservative estimate,
fully one-third of the entire time of the Ohio legislature has
been occupied in recent years with local measures proposed
in general form. As cities continue to increase in number,
extent, and importance, this burden upon the time and
patience of legislatures will increase rather than relax.__
If it is not yet intolerable, it is likely to become so.
Not only does the system of home-rule charters promise
that most of the legislation affecting cities shall have due
discussion and consideration without impeding the progress
of more general measures, but it gives some assurance that
this legislation will be dealt with upon their merits by men
who are in position to know most about these merits and
1 The legislative Committee on Cities considered 85 bills ; and 75
others went to the Committee on Metropolitan Affairs, not to mention
dozens of measures relating directly to city administration which went
to standing committees on Street Railways, Water-supply, Taxation, Public
Lighting, Liquor Laws, Public Health, Election Laws, and Education.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 69
who are most immediately p.nnnfirned with them. Under
the conditions that now prevail in most states this is not
the case. Measures affecting the framework or the functions
of city administration are too often rejected or approved
on grounds entirely foreign to their merits ; the controlling
factor is more likely to be the attitude of this or that political
faction or the interest of this or that public-service corpora-
tion. Furthermore, senators and representatives from rural
districts influence and often control the action of the
legislature in matters of metropolitan policy, when they
have neither the requisite local knowledge nor the interest
to make their influence salutary. Thus it has come to pass
that New York City must make its supplication for charter
amendments to honorable gentlemen from Chenango and
Chemung, while the metropolitan problems of Boston
must look for their solution to statesmen from Chicopee
and Cape Cod. Accordingly, legislation affecting large
cities, being handled by men who are qualified neither by
temperament nor by training to deal with it upon its merits,
must usually depend for its acceptance or its rejection upon
those political or corporate influences which can determine
the attitude of the "up-state representative," — in other
words, upon the relative skill in the arts of legislative ma-
nipulation mustered by its friends and its opponents. The
case for municipal home-rule therefore finds its strongest
argument in the conditions which exist wherever this
principle of local government is disregarded. The statute-
books abound with instances of enactments imposed upon
cities despite their reasonable protests and contrary to
their best interests, legislation which, if it had been submitted
to the citizens, would never have received the indorsement
of a tithe of the voters. The state gives, and the state
takes away ; but seldom do the citizens regard its handiwork
as a blessing.
70
GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
General
charter
laws and
home-rule
charters.
Educative
influence
of the
home-rule
system.
To the special-charter system, with its heavy burden
upon the time and the temper of legislatures and its premium
on lobbying and log-rolling, there are but two alternatives.
One of these is the enactment of a general charter law for
all the cities of the state, or of a series of general charter
laws each applying to cities of a certain class. This system,
however, though it may mitigate some of the evils connected
with special legislation, does not, as we have seen, eliminate
them altogether. The results in Ohio and in other states
which have had experience with the general-chartersystem
are not such as to warrant any enthusiastic advocacy of
the plan. The other alternative is the adoption of the
principle of local autonomy, subject to such reservations
as the state may properly make in the interest of its own
administrative efficiency. In operation this principle has
demonstrated its popularity; it has proved a tolerably
effective safeguard against pernicious legislative interference
in matters of purely local import, and it has not been abused
by those cities which have enjoyed great freedom of action
under it.
Something may also be said for the home-rule charter
system as an agency of political education. In a city that
has been permitted to frame its own charter, the electorate is
likely to take a keener interest in all matters affecting the
organic laws of the municipality than in one in which the
people are merely allowed to pass upon what the legislature
presents to them. One way to excite popular interest in
any subject is to create popular responsibility. In states
like California and Missouri, the campaign that precedes
the election of a freeholders' convention to draft a charter,
the public hearings, the convention discussions, and the
large attention which the press is sure to give to mooted
questions, all combine to arouse interest in the fundamental
questions of local-government organization.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 71
It has also been argued, and with some color of plausi- its influence
bility, that the home-rule charter system does its share in
helping to divorce state and municipal politics. There
can be no doubt that the policy of permitting the state
legislature to make, unmake, and amend city charters at its
own pleasure and caprice has contributed to the confusion
of state and local issues. So long as the charter of a citv
remains wholly within the range of legislative jurisdiction.
it is obviously not easy to keep state and municipal issues
apart, or to regard the city as haying a right to a sphere
of independence in politics. Only by giving the city such
independence, it is asserted, can state politicians be compelled
to keep their activities outside the city's gates. Although
the home-rule charter system does not give complete
autonomy to the municipality, it at least elevates it into
a position in which its charter provisions can no longer
be made the plaything of state political rivalries. Tak-
ing all these things into account, therefore, the home-rule
charter system has much to commend it, despite its serious
limitations and its incidental defects. Its extension to
other states may be looked for within the next few years.
Save in so far as it has been put in leash by the provisions The
of the federal or the state constitution, the power of the ofltate
legislature over the city is supreme. The American city has. interference-
no inherent authority ; its charter is ^ g^-ant of
powers : ji is the creature of the state. Naturally, then,
since constitutional limitations have in most states been
relatively few, interference has been unremitting. This
interposition in municipal administration has taken the
form either of legislative or of administrative control, usually
the former. State laws stipulate in no uncertain terms
what cities must or must not do. They frequently set
limits to the taxing powers of city authorities; and they
fix bounds beyond which cities may not incur indebtedness,
72 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
naming these boundaries, as a rule, in terms of a percentage
of the city's assessed valuation. State laws determine the
scope of the city's licensing power, fix the license fees, and
regulate the hours during which liquor may be sold. They
determine the period for which the city may grant franchises
in its own streets, they make mandatory the provision of
various municipal services, and they determine the duties
and responsibilities of many municipal officers. "To
indicate all the forms which legislative control has taken
in the United States would be to enumerate practically
every detail of city government from the general structure
of the city organization to the salaries of firemen or the right
of the city to alter the grade or the width of a street." * The
American city has, in fact, ceased to be what it once was,
an organization for the satisfaction of local needs, and has
become a cog in the machinery whereby the state carries
out its functions of government. This subordination of
the city's autonomy to what is conceived to be the interest
of the whole state has furnished an almost limitless oppor-
tunity for legislative control. State legislatures have acquired
the habit, which has in some cases developed into a vice,
of enacting into laws all manner of limitations upon munic-
ipal independence, and this wholly upon their own inspira-
tion and initiative, not only without the advice and consent
of the municipalities concerned, but often in direct contraven-
tion of their interests and wishes.
ineffective- Legislative control of city affairs is above all things ama-
legisiative teurish. the work of men who have no special skill or apti-
controiover ^ude jn wnat they undertake to do, and who often have
city affairs.
scant knowledge of the conditions under which their enact-
ments are to be applied. Most of it has, in consequence,
been worthless or worse^ Its ineffectiveness is a common-
place among municipal officers, and nowhere more so
1 A. R. Hatton, Digest of City Charters (Chicago, 1906), 32.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 73
than in those states which have been most persistent in
their disregard of the claims of cities to deal with their own
affairs in their own way. Massachusetts, for example, has
rigid laws circumscribing the powers of cities to tax and
to borrow: no city of the state may levy above the pre-
scribed tax limit, or issue bonds beyond the allotted debt
limit. These limitations, left to be self-enforcing, have,
however, been evaded by all manner of subterfuges ; hardly
a city in the commonwealth has conformed to them either
in letter or in spirit. Money is borrowed in anticipation
of taxes ; and in many cases these loans are not met when
the taxes come in, but are renewed, frequently for year after
year, by the issuance of new notes extending or taking up
their predecessors. An investigating accountant recently
found $200,000 of such notes in one city, and $160,000 in
another. "Similar infractions of the spirit and even the
letter of the law," he reported, "are common in the cities
and towns of this Commonwealth." l The tax rate is held
down under cover of debt issues ; and the limitations upon
bonded indebtedness are evaded either by the maintenance
of floating obligations renewed year after year, or by the
using up of monies supposed to be held in sinking funds.
In one Massachusetts city the sinking-fund deficiency was
recently found to exceed $600,000.
If legislative control cannot be made effective when it
undertakes to compel the observance of a few simple rules
in the field of municipal finance, how much less potent is its
influence likely to be when it seeks to regulate the minutiae
of departmental administration, to deal with the details
of municipal police, sanitation, or poor relief. Foreign^
lands, such as England, Francef and Germanyr having!
long since recognized the futility of expecting satisfactory
1 H. N. Chase, A Report to His Excellency the Governor . . . concern-
ing . . . Municipal Debts and Revenue (Boston, 1911), 7.
74
GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
results through this channel of local supervision, put their
trust in a system of administrative qont.fnT In England
the Local Government Board and the Board of Trade are
examples of administrative organs through which the
central government holds the local authorities in check.
In France the prefect is the ever-watchful administrative
agent of the national government. In America, on the
contrary, this method of guarding the interest of the gtat,^
in city affairs has been used to a relatively slight extent |
it is only within comparatively recent years. indeedT that it^
has been used at alL Its development, so far as it has pro-
ceeded, has been inspired by a growing belief in the weakness
and uncertainty of control by statute, particularly in such
matters as excise administration and the conduct of elections.
Develop- Several states have taken over into the hands of their own
adminLtra- administrative officials the enforcement of the state liquor
laws> *heir acti°n being prompted by a feeling that the city
authorities cannot be depended upon to perform this func-
tion satisfactorily. In some states election commissioners
are appointed to see that the general laws governing election
procedure are carried out. In New York and Illinois a state
civil-service commission supervises the work of the civil-
service boards maintained by the cities, and holds them to
a strict conformance with the law. In Massachusetts a
state civil-service board administers the law directly, without
the use of local commissions as intermediaries. In New
York, Wisconsin, and other states, public-utilities commis-
sions adjust the relations between the cities and the public-
service corporations. By state boards of health and boards
of education many states have increased the strictness of
their administrative control over the corresponding municipal
activities. In at least a few states the statistical and account-
ing departments of state government have enforced progress
in the direction of uniform municipal book-keeping; and
United
THE CITY AND THE STATE 75
their success has given rise to a movement for the establish-
ment of state finance boards that will secure the observance
of the laws relating to municipal assessment, taxation, ex-
penditure, and borrowing.1
In addition to extending administrative control to all Special
their cities without distinction, some states have developed,
the practice of applying this form of supervision to particu-
lar departments of individual cities, or groups of cities, such
as the police department, nr the sanitary department r
Massachusetts, Missouri, and Maryland have put under
the direct administrative control of the state the police depart-
ments of Boston, St. Louis, and Baltimore, on the theory
that the whole state is too much interested in the police
administration of the metropolis to permit it to be left in local
hands. Massachusetts has, furthermore, given to state com-
missions the administration of the main sewerage, water, and
park systems of a metropolitan district which includes Boston
and more than a score of encircling cities and towns, on the
theory that in the absence of any general district authority
no comprehensive policy in these important services can be
worked out by the free action of many independent munic-
ipal units. Wherever a problem of public service transcends^
in scope the boundaries of several municipalities, the natural
tendency is to call for state interposition. When these
various examples are considered in their totality, it is seen
that the amount of administrative control already developed
by American states is larger, perhaps, than is usually supposed.
On the other hand, that it is as yet crude and meagre when
1 The course of this development has been dealt with in detail by the
writers of various monographs in the Columbia University Studies in
History, Economics, and Public Law : R. H. Whitten, Public Adminis-
tration in Massachusetts, the Relation of Central to Local Activity; J. A.
Fairlie, The Centralization of Administration in New York State; C. M. L.
Sites, Centralized Administration of the Liquor Laws in American Common-
wealths; S. P. Orth, The Centralization of Administration in Ohio; and
W. A. Rawles, Centralizing Tendencies in the Administration of Indiana.
76
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The future
relation
of city
and state.
compared with the well-ordered administrative arrangements
by which the various European countries provide central
supervision of local government, is just as evident.1 That it
should be much less comprehensive than the systems of
France and Germany is no cause for wonder ; but that the
United States should have fallen so far behind England in
matters of local supervision through administrative agencies
is not so readily explained. It is to be remembered, however,
that this development has taken place in England within
the last forty years. During the next forty a similar ad-
vance may be made in America. If it does, it will be a
desirable advance ; for administrative control is in every
way preferable to that factious interference with
autonomy which we nal] legislative supervision. i It is super-
vision by experts, and hence is based upon knowledge, not
upon caprice ; it is consistent in policy : it does not give
unnecessary affront to looaj ^plf-rpspp^f. ; and it is effective
in doing what it sets ou^ to do. The substitution of adminis-
trative for legislative supervision — that is to say, of super-
vision by responsible boards of trained men rather than by
the desultory action of legislatures — would be an influential
factor in improving the relations of the city to the state,
and would thereby have a beneficial reaction upon the affairs
of the city itself. A sharp distinction ought to be made,
however, between state administrative supervision and
direct state control of municipal activities. The latter,
especially when the city is forced to pay the bills, is never
popular and cannot be looked upon as affording a permanent
solution of local problems.
The city charter, whatever the procedure under which
it is secured, is the constitution of the municipality. As
such, it ought to be prepared with great care as to arrange-
1 These arrangements are set forth in F. J. Goodnow's Comparative
Administrative Law (2 vols., New York, 1903), I. ohs. v-vii.
THE CITY AND THE STATE 77
ment, matter, and phraseology. So far as arrangement is
concerned, the drafting of city charters has in general left
much to be desired. There has been no accepted model
to follow; every charter commission or legislative com-
mittee has stumbled along upon a plan of its own, so that
the method of arranging matter in a city charter has rarely
contributed to either clearness or symmetry. An arrange- General
ment into chapters and sections such as will put provisions mentof
of the same sort together and keep provisions relating to Provuuona-
different branches of the city government separate from
one another, which will give chapter and section headings
that are really designatory and yet mutually exclusive,
which will set provisions in their logical order, — an ar-
rangement that will secure these ends would satisfy any
reasonable requirement.1
The substance of the provisions will of course depend Need of
,, ... . . , • i' * .1 preliminary
upon the convictions, opinions, and prejudices of those 8tudy.
who frame the charter. Their work of drafting ought to
be preceded by a thorough and careful study, not only of
provisions in the charters of other cities, but of actual con-
ditions in the particular municipality with which they
have to deal. There is no set of charter provisions that
will fit readily the needs of all cities, or even of cities that
superficially appear to be alike in their requirements. All
this ought to be commonplace, but in practice it is almost
everywhere disregarded. Charters are drafted to elabo-
1 The following chapter headings may be suggested as indicating a
suitable scheme of general arrangement : —
1. General Provisions. 8. The Powers and Duties of
2. Nominations and Elections. Officers.
3. The City Council. 9. Accounts and the Conduct of
4. The Mayor. Business.
5. Administrative Departments. 10. Direct Legislation.
6. Income and Appropriations. 11. Franchises.
7. Loans, and Appropriations 12. Miscellaneous.
therefrom.
78 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
rate this or that set of principles, and frequently by men
who have had no experience in municipal affairs whatever.
More often than not, the framers fail to equip themselves
for effective work by any study of the city's actual prob-
lems. It would be far better for our cities if every
charter-drafting body would follow the example of the
Boston Finance Commission, and devote a year to a relent-
less probe of every branch of city government before be-
ginning its constructive work. As a rule, too much time
and energy are spent in framing the political provisions of
a charter, the sections relating to the methods of nomina-
tion, the machinery of election, the organization of the
council, and the general powers of the mayor. Not enough
attention is bestowed upon the administrative and the
business provisions, those which deal with the methods of
making appropriations, with the safeguards against ex-
travagance, the restriction of the city's borrowing powers,
the system of municipal accounting, the organization of the
administrative departments, the methods of selecting sub-
ordinate officers, the distribution of official duties, and the
relations of the municipality to public-service corporations.
These are the most difficult provisions to frame properly;
the proper consideration of them requires a thorough grasp
of local conditions, and upon the amount of careful atten-
tion which they receive the successful working of the charter
will very largely depend.
The As to phraseology, the everyday rules that ought to
of cha-rters. &&& observance in the framing of ordinary statutes need
to be scrupulously observed in the drafting of corporate
charters. Tho ipPQm'np- /-.f Q| ^iwmVnp is f.nn nff.pp hidden
in a mass of le^al verbiage which seems to have for its_aim
the violation of every rule of English composition. This
is because charter-makers usually copy, so far as possible,
the phraseology of something already upon the statute-
THE CITY AND THE STATE 79
book, which has, in turn, borrowed the language of some-
thing that went before. An avoidance of all technical
terms, the use of short sentences, and the policy of saying
no more than is necessary to render a provision intelligible
would make city charters less forbidding in length and
more intelligible to ordinary citizens.
REFERENCES
A great deal of useful information concerning the relation of the city
to the state has been brought together in A. R. Hatton's Digest of City
Charters (Chicago, 1906), especially pp. 1-48; in J. F. Dillon's Law of
Municipal Corporations (5 vols., Boston, 1911), I. 140—472 ; and in Eugene
McQuillin's Law of Municipal Corporations (6 vols., Chicago, 1911-1912),
I. chs. iv., ix. Interesting general discussions may be found in H. E.
Deming's Government of American Cities (New York, 1909), especially
chs. iii., ix., xii. ; in F. J. Goodnow's Municipal Home Rule (New York,
1903), chs. iv.-v., and in his Municipal Government (New York, 1909),
ch. viii.
The relative merits of the general and special charter systems are dis-
cussed in the National Municipal League's Municipal Program (New
York, 1900), especially pp. 36-58, 129-173; in the introduction to The
Municipal Code of Ohio (ed. W. H. Ellis, Cincinnati, 1909) ; in F. J.
Goodnow's Municipal Problems (New York, 1904), ch. iv. ; and in J. A.
Fairlie's Essays in Municipal Administration (New York, 1908), chs.
v.-vi. For information concerning the development and details of the
home-rule charter system, see J. F. Dillon's Law of Municipal Cor-
porations, I. 110-118; M. R. Maltbie's "City-made Charters," in Yale
Review, xiii. 380-407 (February, 1905) ; Amasa M. Eaton's article on
"The Right to Local Self-government," in Harvard Law Review, xiii.
441-454 (February, 1900) ; a paper on "The Progress of Home Rule in
Cities," by Ellis P. Oberholzer, and one on "The Home Rule Law for
Michigan Cities," by G. A. Miller, in Proceedings of the National
Municipal League for 1904 and 1909 respectively ; and the bulletin on
"Home Rule Charters," issued by the Wisconsin Library Commission,
Legislative Reference Department. A forcible and informing presenta-
tion of the arguments in favor of the system is contained in the booklet
on "Constitutional Home Rule for Ohio Cities," prepared under the
direction of Professor A. R. Hatton for the Municipal Association of
Cleveland.
On the art of drafting a city charter very little of any service has been
written. Types of charters recently adopted in various American cities
(most of them following the commission plan) are printed in C. A. Beard's
Digest of Short Ballot Charters (New York, 1911).
CHAPTER IV
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
IT has been pointed out in the preceding chapter that
the city, being a municipal corporation, is the creature of
the state. Like all other corporations, it owes its existence
to a statute, and it has no powers save those which may
be conveyed to it thereby. A city charter is accordingly a
grant of authority, a delegation of powers. The exact
situation has been tersely stated by the leading American
authority on the law of municipal corporations. "It is a
general and undisputed proposition of law that a municipal
corporation possesses and can exercise the following pow-
ers and no others. First, those granted in express words ;
second, those necessarily or fairly implied in or incident to
the powers expressly granted; third, those essential to the
declared objects and purposes of the corporation, — not
simply convenient, but indispensable." 1
This principle, as has been pointed out in a well-known
decision, "is fairly derived from the nature of corporations.
In aggregate corporations, as a general rule, the act and
will of a majority is deemed in law the act and will of the
whole, and therefore is to be carried into effect as the act
of the corporate body. The consequence is that a minority
must be bound, not only without but against their consent.
Such obligation may extend to every onerous duty, to
pay money to an unlimited amount, to perform services,
1 J. F. Dillon, The Law of Municipal Corporations (5 vols.
Boston, 1911), I. 418 419. On the general subject of municipal powers,
see also Eugene McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations (6 vols.,
Chicago, 1911-1912), I. ch. x.
80
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 81
to surrender lands, and the like. It is obvious, therefore,
that, if this liability were to extend to unspecified and in-
definite objects, the citizen, by being a member of the
corporation, might be deprived of his most valuable per-
sonal rights and liberties. The security against this danger
is in a steady adherence to the principle stated, that cor-
porations can only exercise their powers over their respec-
tive members for the accomplishment of limited and well-
defined objects." *
Now, it is a general rule of legal interpretation, in keep- Construc-
ing with the principles just enunciated, that the charters ^barters,
granted to corporations shall be construed strictly. In
other words, the onus of proving the possession of powers
by implication is upon the corporation. In general, how-
ever, this rule of interpretation has not been rigorously
applied to the ordinary clauses of charters incorporating
cities, — to those, for example, relating to the organization
of municipal government and the functions of the regular
municipal departments. In regard to the construction of
such clauses the courts have been lenient ; but in the inter-
pretation of grants of powers which are "out of the usual
range, or which may result in public burdens, or which,
in their exercise, touch the right to liberty or property, or,
as it may be compendiously expressed, any common law
right of the citizen," 2 — in all such matters the rigor that
is applied to the charters of private corporations is applied
to city charters as well. One of the powers thus out of
the ordinary range is that authorizing a city to engage in
any sort of public-utility enterprise not directly connected
with the police power of the municipality.
1 Spaulding v. Lowell, 23 Pickering (Mass.), 71. This decision may
be conveniently found in J. H. Beale's Selection of Cases on Municipal
Corporations (Cambridge, 1911), 240.
2 J. F. Dillon, Law of Municipal Corporations, I. 452—453.
82
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Rules of
interpreta-
tion.
Scope of
powers
usually
granted.
When a power has been expressly granted to a city by
statute and the mode of exercising this power has not been
stated in express terms, a liberal amount of discretion is
allowed in the choice of methods. The express grant of a
power carries with it the implication of authority to provide
the machinery for carrying such power into operation;
and as to the best means of doing this the regular mu-
nicipal officials are allowed full discretion, provided this dis-
cretion be used in a reasonable way. Thus, when permis-
sion to erect and maintain a market-house has been given
to a city, the courts will not, within the bounds of reason,
interfere with the city authorities in determining the loca-
tion or the size or the design of the building.1 Or when
permission "to open streets and make public improve-
ments thereon" is given, the methods of opening and im-
proving are left to the discretion of the appropriate city
authorities, unless they have been prescribed by statute.
The powers commonly granted to a municipal corpora-
tion, whether in express words or by implication, are not easy
to classify, for they cover a considerable range. In most
cities, however, they may be grouped under six main
heads, — namely, the general legislative power of a subor-
dinate corporate body, the police power, the power to tax
and to borrow, the power to appropriate and spend
money, the power to enter into contracts, and the power to
acquire, manage, and dispose of property. Every Ameri-
can city has all of these general powers in greater or less
degree, but rarely are they alike in any two cities. In
none is the range of power under any head unlimited ; and
the limitations vary not only in different states, but even
in different cities of the same state. What the exact scope
and limits of a given city's powers are under each of these
heads is something ordinarily known to no one but the
1 Spaulding v. Lowell, 23 Pickering (Mass.), 71, 80.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 83
city's legal adviser, and not always even to him. An ac-
curate knowledge of the subject can be had only through
a study of the constitutional provisions relating to cities,
of the general statutes covering municipal affairs, of the
city charter and the amendments to it, of the special laws
relating to the city, and of the judicial decisions bearing
upon them. To master all this is not an easy task.1
In the second place, the statutory powers of a city may Mandatory
be either mandatory or permissive. In other words, a ISsaivT
city may be invested either with powers which it must p°wer<»-
exercise or with those which it may exercise if it chooses to
do so. Whether the power falls into one class or the other
depends upon the intention of the legislature that granted
it; and this intention is usually made clear by the lan-
guage of the enactment. If the statute provides that a
city "shall" or "must" do something, the power thus
conferred is mandatory, and it is not within the discretion
of the city authorities to refrain from exercising it ; but if
a statute provides that a city "may" do something, or that
"it shall be lawful" for a city to do something, then the
power conferred is, as a rule, permissive, and the municipal
authorities may or may not exercise it. They may not
always use their discretion, however; for powers granted
in permissive language may be mandatory in effect. The
courts have in some instances held that a power conferred
in permissive phraseology must be exercised if there is a
clear public benefit to be derived from it.2
1 A group of decisions on the general powers of municipal corporations
may be found in J. H. Beale's Selection of Cases on Municipal Corpora-
tions, 240-473.
* "It is the settled doctrine in New York, for example, that where a
public or municipal corporation or body is invested with power to do an
act which the public interests require to be done, and the means for its com-
plete performance are placed at its disposal, not only the execution, but
the proper execution of the power, may be insisted on as a duty, though
the statute conferring it be only permissive in its terms." — Mayor of
84
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Powers
may not be
delegated.
The rule in
Hitchcock ».
Galveeton.
Municipal
ordinances.
But whether derived from express language or by im-
plication, and whether mandatory or permissive in effect,
no powers which are conferred, either by charter or by
other statute, upon the governing authorities of a city, to
be exercised as they may deem best, may be delegated to
any subordinate official or body. Powers committed to the
mayor, to be used at his discretion, cannot be delegated
by him to a board or a commissioner; powers given to the
city council cannot be transferred by it to the mayor or to a
committee. All this, however, does not apply to purely min-
isterial functions, or, in other words, to the carrying out of
administrative details. The supreme court of the United
States has held that the performance of such work by agents
does not constitute an unlawful delegation of powers by a
city council.1 An ordinance empowering the city engineer
to make a selection between two kinds of paving material,
or to determine the grade of a sewer, would furnish an ex-
ample of delegated ministerial functions. The line between
discretionary and ministerial offices is not very sharply
drawn; but the disposition of the courts seems to have
been, on the whole, to decide against delegation in all very
doubtful cases. Any concession to a subordinate board of
officials which seems capable of embarrassing the regular
governing organs of a city in their exercise of governmental
powers, or of restraining them from a full performance of
their public functions, is usually deemed an unlawful dele-
gation.2
The usual medium through which the governing authori-
New York v. Farze, 3 Hill, 612 ; cited by J. F. Dillon, Law of Municipal
Corporations, I. 466. See also the discussion of mandatory and discre-
tionary powers in Eugene McQuillin's Law of Municipal Corporations, I.
836-838.
1 Hitchcock v. Galveston, 96 U. S. 341.
* See the list of cases given in Eugene McQuillin's Law of Munici-
pal Corporations, I. 842.
85
ties of the city (i.e., the mayor and city council, or, in
cities that have adopted the system of government by com-
mission, the commission) put the powers of the munici-
pal corporation into activity is the ordinance. Within the
scope of this term are included all "local laws of a municipal
corporation, duly enacted by the proper authorities, pre-
scribing general, uniform, and permanent rules of conduct
relating to the corporate affairs of the municipality." l
Powers given to a city by its charter or by other statutes
are usually coupled with a provision that the city council
or other legislative organ of city government shall have
authority to carry these powers into operation by appro-
priate ordinances. It is by ordinances that most cities
have organized their various administrative departments.
One ordinance deals with the police department, another
with streets and street traffic, another with fire protection,
another with building regulations, and so on. Each pre-
scribes in detail not only the way in which the department
shall be organized, its personnel, and the relation of the
various officers, but, even to minute particulars, the manner
in which its work must be carried on. In some cases the
charter or other statutes give to certain administrative
bodies, such as the board of health or the tenement-house
commission, or even to a single official, the power to make
rules and regulations within their respective fields of juris-
diction. These are termed "regulations," not ordinances;
but in general they have all the force of ordinances, and
they are subject to the same general restrictions.2
1 Eugene MoQuillin, The Law of Municipal Ordinances (Chicago,
1904), 2. Judge Dillon (Law of Municipal Corporations, II. 892) defines the
term "ordinances" as including all "acts or regulations in the nature of
local laws passed by the proper assembly or governing body of the
corporation."
2 Both ordinances and regulations, as above defined, are sharply dis-
tinguished from resolutions or orders. Ordinances and regulations almost
86
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Limitations
upon the
ordinance
power.
1. General
limitations.
2. Ordi-
nances
must be
reasonable.
In the exercise of their powers by ordinance (or by regu-
lations) the governing bodies of the city are subject to
several important limitations. Some of these are of a
general nature, merely representing the application to
municipal law-making of those principles which apply to
state legislation. An ordinance must not, for example, be
inconsistent with the provisions of the charter or the statute
under which it is passed. When a state statute and a
municipal ordinance are in conflict, the latter is of course
invalid. To be valid, likewise, a municipal ordinance must
be passed with due respect to the prescribed formalities.
An ordinance is more than a mere resolution of the council ;
when there are standing requirements that it must be intro-
duced in a certain way, be submitted to three readings,
and be approved by the mayor before going into effect,
these formalities must be observed. But in addition to
these general rules there are some of a more special char-
acter.
In the first place, an ordinance must be reasonable or it
will be voided by the courts ; but it is presumed to be reason-
able until the contrary is shown. Unreasonableness can be
demonstrated either by an examination of the ordinance
itself or by an investigation of a specific situation to which
it would apply. There are, of course, no general rules for
.determining what is reasonable and what is not ; each case
must be decided on its own merits. Ordinances have,
however, been so often attacked in the courts on this ground
invariably prescribe permanent rules of conduct or government; resolu-
tions or orders provide temporary rules only. A resolution may ordi-
narily be passed by the council alone, whereas an ordinance usually re-
quires the approval of the mayor, or of the chief executive authority.
The legislative powers of the corporation must, as a rule, be exercised
by ordinance ; its day-to-day ministerial functions may often be carried
out by resolutions. See the cases bearing on these points in McQuillin,
Law of Municipal Ordinances, 4 ; and Dillon, Law of Municipal Corpora-
tions, II. 893-896.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 87
that there is now at hand a considerable body of precedents
to guide the legal authorities of a city in advising a city
council whether or not any proposed measure would be
upheld.1 As a rule, the courts have given the ordinance
the benefit of any serious doubt; the burden of proof is
put upon him who asserts unreasonableness. It may
not infrequently happen that an ordinance is reasonable
as applied to one situation and unreasonable as applied
to another. In such cases it may be enforced in one
case and prove to be unenforceable in the other. An
ordinance is prima facie unreasonable, and therefore void,
if it is oppressive in character ; it must not be inconsistent
with a reasonable degree of personal liberty.2 Thus, a
Baltimore ordinance which forbade any person to use a
steam-engine within the city limits except on permission
of the mayor was held to be oppressive and void because
it sought to put within the discretion of a single officer a
practically absolute power over the use of steam in the
city.3 It should be borne in mind, however, that if an
ordinance is passed under a special statutory grant of
power, and in accordance with the terms and tenor of such
grant, the reasonableness of the ordinance cannot usually
be attacked. Moreover, it is for the judge, not for the
jury, to decide whether an ordinance is reasonable or not.
In the second place, ordinances must not make special 3. Ordi-
or unwarranted discriminations. When they grant privi-
1 An excellent illustration of the distinction between an unreasonable
and a reasonable ordinance may be found in Northern Liberties v. discrimina-
Northern Liberties Gas Co. (12 Pa. 318), a Pennsylvania case decided in tions.
1859. An ordinance forbidding the gas company to open a paved street
at any time for the purpose of laying gas-pipes from its trunk main to
houses abutting the street was held to be unreasonable ; one prohibiting
it from thus opening a paved street from December to March in each year
was declared to be reasonable. See McQuillin, Law of Municipal Ordi-
nances, 188, 300.
* Cf. J. F. Dillon, Law of Municipal Corporations, II. 929.
1 Baltimore v. Radecke, 49 Md. 217.
88 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
leges, they must make these privileges open to all upon
the same terms and conditions ; when they impose restric-
tions, they must make them applicable to all persons in the
same circumstances or the same class. An ordinance must
not single out an individual and compel him to do some-
thing under penalty of fine; it must not discriminate in
favor of residents as against non-residents,1 or in favor cf
some residents as against others engaged in the same busi-
ness.2 On the other hand, an ordinance is not to be re-
garded as discriminatory because, although its provisions
are couched in general terms, its force happens from the
nature of things to fall upon one individual or concern.
It is within the power of the city council to make classifi-
cations (provided they be reasonable ones), and to restrict
the application of an ordinance to any one class. The
general rule, which applies alike to statutes and to ordinances,
was firmly stated many years ago in a notable supreme-
court decision.3
4. Ordi- Finally, an ordinance must not have the effect of un-
nrnsTnot warrantedly interfering with or restraining trade. If it
ahTratrain does, ^ ^^ ^e ^e^ void. This is not to imply, however,
trade. that ordinances may not subject trade to reasonable regu-
lations. It has, for example, been decided in a well-known
1 "The specific regulation of one kind of business, which may be neces-
sary for the protection of the public, can never be a just ground of com-
plaint because like restrictions are not imposed upon other business of a
different kind. The discriminations which are open to objection are
those where persons engaged in the same business are subject to different
restrictions, or are held to different privileges under the same conditions."
— Soon Hing v. Crowley, 113 U. S. 703, in Macy's Cases, 214.
8 Ex parte Frank, 52 Cat. 606.
* "Though the law itself be fair on its face and impartial in appear-
ance, yet, if it is applied and administered by public authority with an
evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal
discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to
then* rights, the denial of justice is still within the prohibition of the
Constitution."— Tick Wo v, Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, printed in J. B.
Thayer's Cases on Constitutional Law (2 vols., Cambridge, 1895), I. 774.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 89
case that ordinances requiring coal to be weighed at the
city scales are entirely allowable.1 Those, on the contrary,
which restrain competition for public works have generally
been held void.2 Every regulation of trade is, of course, a
restraint upon it in some direction; but if the measure
seems designed to secure a public good, and if it imposes
no more restraint than is necessary to achieve this end, the
ordinance will be sustained. Not that it is enough merely
to avow a public purpose; ordinances bearing in their
preambles specious professions of solicitude for the public
welfare have often been disallowed. It must be demon-
strated that regulation in the public interest is plainly
desirable. On this paramount consideration for the public
health, safety, and general welfare is based the system
of requiring licenses to be taken out by all persons engaged
in certain trades or occupations, a requirement which forms
part of the machinery employed by the city in the exercise
of its "police power," and which does not within reasonable
limits operate against the citizen's right to an unrestrained
pursuit of this trade. or calling. As a monopoly, on the
other hand, is a restraint of trade, a municipal corporation
cannot by ordinance grant to any company an exclusive
right to use its streets unless it has obtained from the legis-
lature express permission to do so.3 Exclusive franchises,
given without express statutory authority, have usually
been regarded as not warranted by any considerations of
public welfare. Furthermore, no franchise will be con-
strued to be exclusive by implication; it must say in un-
mistakable terms that it is so.4
1 Davis v. Anita, 73 Iowa, 325.
2 Atlanta v. Stein, 111 Ga. 789.
8 Long v. Duluth, 49 Minn. 280.
4 On the whole question of municipal powers in the matter of exclusive-
franchise grants, see O. L. Pond, Municipal Control of Public Utilities
(New York, 1906), ch. viii.
90
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Effect of It will be seen from the foregoing discussion that not only
these
restrictions, are the powers of the city limited to fields expressly or
impliedly plotted out for it by legislative enactment, but
that even within these limits the municipal corporation
must put its authority into operation under strict limitations.
Such powers as it has obtained by general grant it must use
in a reasonable way, without discrimination and without
unwarranted interference in the common right to freedom
of trade. The logical result of all this circumscription is
that cities are constant suppliants at the bar of the legisla-
ture. If there be any doubt as to the scope of their powers,
or as to the manner in which their authority may be exer-
cised, the easiest course, as a rule, is to seek such specific
statutory action as will make everything clear. It is in
considerable degree to this situation that the plethora of
special legislation commented upon in the preceding chapter
owes its existence. The European practice of permitting
a city to do its work under broad grants of power, of assum-
ing that it may do whatever it is not forbidden to do, and of
giving it wide freedom to choose its own manner of doing
it, has done much to save the municipal systems of France
and Prussia from the maelstrom of special legislation. It is,
moreover, one of the ironies of political history that the
necessity of constant mendicancy for doles of power should
exist in a land where there is a historic pride in free local
institutions.
In all well-ordered governments power goes hand in hand
with responsibility. In the nation and the state this re-
corporations. sponsibility is popular rather than legal ; in other words,
the government is responsible to the people at the polls,
not to individuals who may desire to hale it before the
courts of law. A national or a state government is legally
irresponsible, save in so far as it may of its own free will
submit itself to the jurisdiction of courts. This it may do,
Responsi-
bilities of
municipal
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 91
and often does, by special statutes permitting suits to be
brought against it. A city, on the contrary, is in no such
favored position. Not only is the municipal government
responsible to the voters, but the corporation may be cited
before the ordinary courts of justice, whether with or with-
out the consent of its governing authorities, and may there
be made the defendant in suits at law. The city is liable to
be sued on actions of contract, or for the torts of its agents,
or in causes arising out of its possession of municipal prop-
erty. Its liability is not, however, equally complete in all
three classes of actions.
In the matter of contracts the city is subject to substan- Contracts,
tially the same rules as are applied to individuals or to
private corporations.1 A suit that can be successfully
prosecuted against an individual can in the same essen-
tial facts be prosecuted against a municipality. In an
action for breach of contract the city can urge only the
same pleas and defences that are open to the individual
defendant ; it has no immunities by reason of being a public
corporation. It matters not whether the contract has been
entered into for a governmental or for a commercial purpose ;
the degree of liability for breach is the same.2
In the matter of liability for the torts, or civil wrongs, Torts,
committed by its agents or employees, on the other hand,
the status of the city is not so simple. A municipal cor-
poration, so far as the acts of its officials are concerned,
stands in a dual position. On the one hand, it is part of
the machinery created and used by the state for carrying
out the sovereign functions of the latter. For the improper
1 The reason for this is well stated in F. J. Goodnow's Municipal Home
Rule (New York, 1906), 106.
2 The municipal corporation may, of course, like any other corporate
body, set up the defence that the contract was entered into outside the
scope of its chartered powers, or that it was not made by its proper officers
or agents.
92
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
exercise of these functions the state itself has no legal lia-
bility, nor can any attach to those who carry out these
functions under its authority. The city, therefore, so far
as it is an agency of state government performing govern-
mental functions, cannot be held responsible for the torts of
its officials or employees. But the city is also a corpora-
tion, engaged very often in commercial or semi-commer-
cial enterprises. It is a purveyor of water, gas, or electricity.
As such it is not performing strictly governmental functions,
and hence must assume the same liabilities as a private cor-
poration engaged in the same undertakings.1
In keeping with these general principles, it may be as-
serted that a city is not liable to civil prosecution either for
the non-exercise of the powers of subordinate legislation
given to it by statute or for the manner in which it exercises
them. It is not liable for its neglect to provide ordinances,
or for its failure to enforce them when provided. Such
liability may be expressly established by statute, but it
will not be implied. If an individual is injured through the
failure of the city council to provide or to enforce an ordi-
nance regulating the storage of explosives, he can recover no
damages from the city treasury.2 Nor does the failure of
the municipal corporation to exercise its statutory power to
abate a nuisance give a person who is injured by the existence
of such nuisance an enforceable claim against the city,
1 "There are two kinds of duties which are imposed upon municipal
corporations : one is that kind which arises from the grant of a special
power in the exercise of which the municipality is as a legal individual ;
the other is of that kind which arises, or is implied, from the use of po-
litical rights under the general law, under the exercise of which it is as a
sovereign. The former power is private and is used for private purposes ;
the latter is public and is used for public purposes." — Lloyd v. the Mayor,
5 N. Y. 374. See also J. H. Beale, Selection of Cases on Municipal Cor-
porations, 594.
1 McDade t». Chester, 117 Pa. 414, in Beale's Selection of Cases on
Municipal Corporations, 583.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 93
even though he has duly notified the officials of the nuisance
and requested them to use their statutory powers in securing
its abatement.1 Most cities have ordinances regulating the
construction of buildings in the interest of protection against
collapse or conflagration ; but if such an ordinance be not
enforced, and if injury to the persons or property of private
individuals be caused thereby, no action for damages can
be successfully prosecuted against the municipality.2 The
United States supreme court has gone even farther, by laying
down the principle that, even if a city misinterprets the
scope of its statutory powers and undertakes to do in a
governmental capacity what it has no authority to do,
it cannot be successfully sued in an action of tort.3 The
power to enact and to enforce ordinances is a governmental
power, discretionary in its nature; and for negligence or
mistake in connection with it the city has no legal liability.
A municipal corporation must of necessity carry out its Responsi-
functions, whether governmental or commercial, whether
public or private, by means of officials, agents, and employ-
ees ; and by a general principle of law it becomes responsible engaged in
for what some of them do. Certain classes of city officials mental
a ! 1-1 , i functions.
and employees are engaged in purely governmental or
public work, others are just as clearly employed in commer-
cial or private undertakings conducted by the city. For
the acts of the former class the city is not liable, but it is
held accountable for torts committed by the latter in the
discharge of their duties. A good example of the class
engaged in the performance of strictly public or govern-
mental functions is furnished by the city fire department.
In the absence of express statutory provisions creating
liability, the municipality is not subject to claims for damages
1 Davis v. Montgomery, 51 Ala. 139 ; Kiley v. Kansas, 87 Mo. 103.
1 Forsyth v. Atlanta, 45 Ga. 152.
,» Fowle v. Alexandria, 3 Peters, 398.
94 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
caused by the negligence or the inefficiency of this body.1
Other officials and employees who are regarded as exercising
public functions of this class are those connected with the
parks department,2 with the city's hospital and health
service,3 or with the municipal administration of poor
relief.4 The doctrine which exempts the city from legal
responsibility for negligence or inefficiency on the part of
such officials often results in loss to private individuals,
who are thus deprived of all effective redress, since to sue
the official personally is not usually a profitable proceeding.
On the other hand, the system is defensible upon grounds
of practical policy ; for, since the city performs such functions
as the protection of property from fire, the maintenance of
parks, the establishment of hospitals, and the care of the
poor without hope or possibility of profit, it cannot reason-
ably be expected to penalize itself for every lapse from effi-
ciency. To require the municipal corporation to insure
citizens against mishaps in such departments would be to
require a guarantee of official infallibility backed by the
resources of the municipal treasury. Under a system of
popular government the maintenance of such a doctrine
would prove rather costly to the taxpayer.
The status of the police department is somewhat different
from that of the departments just mentioned. Police officers
are unquestionably engaged in the performance of a govern-
mental or public function, and hence for their sins of omission
or commission the city would not be liable. But the exemp-
tion of the municipal corporation from liability for the torts
1 Hafford v. New Bedford, 16 Gray (Mass.), 297; Taintor v. Worcester,
123 Mass. 311. See also Wheeler v. Cincinnati, 19 Ohio, 19, and Hayes
v. Oshkosh, 33 Wis. 314, in Beale's Cases on Municipal Corporations,
618-620.
2 Louisville Park Commissioners v, Prinz, 127 Ky. 460.
1 Gilboy v. Detroit, 115 Mich. 121, in Beale's Cases on Municipal
Corporations, 582 ; also Maximilian v. the Mayor, 62 N. Y. 160.
4 Curran v. Boston, 151 Afass. 505.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 95
of its police officers is more commonly based upon the plea
that they are not municipal but state agents. They are,
as a rule, appointed by city authorities, are paid from the
city treasury, and are instructed in the performance of their
duties by municipal regulations. But all this does not make
them municipal officers; it merely represents what the
state has found to be a convenient method of securing per-
formance of a recognized function of state government, —
that of preserving the public peace and order. Even in en-
forcing municipal ordinances the police act as agents of the
state. The authority to make these ordinances "is delegated
to the city by the sovereign power, and the exercise of the
authority gives to such enactments the same force and effect
as if they had been passed directly by the legislature. They
are public laws of a limited and local operation designed to
secure good order and to provide for the welfare and comfort
of the inhabitants. In their enforcement, therefore, police
officers act in their public capacity and not as agents or
servants of the city."1 Upon similar grounds, the city is
not liable for negligence in the performance of functions,
not strictly police in nature, which are nevertheless some-
times intrusted to police officers, — as, for example, the
granting of permits, the listing of voters, and so on.
All of the foregoing functions are clearly governmental, For the
or public. Some others are quite as clearly commercial, agents
or private. When, for example, a city owns and operates JJJJSgove
a system of water-supply from which it derives revenue or mental
J . functions.
profit, it becomes liable for damages resulting from the negli-
gence or the incapacity of its employees connected with the
working of the system. Its liability is the same, both in
nature and degree, as that of a water company;2 and the
1 Buttrick v. Lowell, 1 Allen (Mass.), 172, in Beale's Cases on Munici-
pal Corporations, 580.
2 Murphy v. Lowell, 124 Mass. 564.
96 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
same rule would apply to it as owner of a gas plant or an
electric-lighting plant.1 Municipal ownership of docks and
wharves, where tolls are charged, subject the city to the
same legal liabilities that pertain to a private owner.2 It
has also been held that a municipal corporation is responsible
for damages caused by the faulty management of public
cemeteries, markets, and wash-houses.3 All these depart-
ments of municipal enterprise are within the range of private
or commercial functions. When a city enters into competi-
tion with private corporations, it should of course assume
responsibilities similar to those attaching to the latter.
When it displaces a private enterprise in favor of municipal
ownership, it ought not thereby to impair the redress hith-
erto available for negligent or inefficient operation. The
damages in which the city may be mulcted for the torts of
its employees in these branches of municipal activity may
properly be made a part of the cost of operation to be covered
by charges levied for the service. Municipal liability for
the exercise of private or commercial functions seems thus
to be an entirely defensible doctrine.
What are Thus far the distinction between public and private func-
?unctions? tions has not been difficult to draw; but there is a con-
siderable field of civic activity which does not readily and
at first sight fall into either of these classes. As regards
the construction and care of streets, for example, the provi-
sion of sewers, the removal of ashes and garbage, and so on,
the principles governing municipal liability are not sc
easily described. In most states of the Union the courts
have held that municipal corporations are liable for negli-
gence in the performance of their duty to keep the city
1 Kibele v. Philadelphia, 105 Pa. 41 ; Greenville v. Pitts, 102 Texas, 1.
* Allegheny v. Campbell, 107 Pa. 530.
* On the detailed application of this rule, see D. A. Jones, The Negli-
gence of Municipal Corporations (New York, 1892), 71.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 97
streets in proper condition ; but for a similar default towns
and counties have been held to be not liable.1 On the face
of things, there would seem to be no good reason for this
distinction, and the courts have not been very successful in
providing one. It is sometimes urged that the streets of
cities are local thoroughfares, whereas the streets of towns
and villages are state highways, — that the former are means
of communication, the latter means of intercommunication ;
but that is true in a general way only, and scarcely in suffi-
cient degree to warrant the broad distinction made by the
decisions. However this may be, the care of the city's
streets is in most states regarded as a local duty ; and, when
a tort arises from the negligence or the incapacity of an
official intrusted with this function, the doctrine of respondeat
superior applies, and the city may be sued for damages.2 In
regard to the sewerage system, the general principle, so far
as the decisions may be said to establish a general principle,
is that the city authorities, in planning a system of sewers,
are performing a public and discretionary function, and
hence are not liable for injuries arising from faulty planning,
as, for example, from the construction of sewers too small
to serve their purpose properly. The task of keeping the
sewers free from obstruction, however, and otherwise in
proper repair is a ministerial function, for negligence in the
performance of which the city is liable.3 Much diversity of
1 F. J. Goodnow, Municipal Home Rule, 144-146. See also Russell
v. The Men of Devon (1788), in Beale's Cases on Municipal Corporations,
530 ; Mower v. The Inhabitants of Leicester, 9 Mass. 237, ibid., 601 ;
and Detroit v. Blackeby, 21 Mich. 84, ibid., 603. The argument of Judge
Gray on this question, in Hill v. Boston (122 Mass. 344, 369), is also very
interesting.
2 The whole question of the liability of the city in the matter of damage*
to property caused by changing the grade of streets is too technical to
be discussed here. It is dealt with at length in J. F. Dillon's Law of
Municipal Corporations, IV. 2920 ff.
1 Barton v. Syracuse, 36 N. Y. 54, in Beale's Cases on Municipal Cor-
porations, 611; O'Donnell v. Syracuse, 184 N. Y. 1, ibid., 611-612; also
98
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Responsi-
bilities of
the city
with refer-
ence to its
property.
opinion is disclosed by the decisions bearing upon the lia-
bility of a municipal corporation for the torts of its officials
and employees engaged in cleaning the streets and in remov-
ing refuse and garbage. In some cases the courts have
regarded these functions as governmental, and so have de-
nied the city's liability ; in other cases they have ruled that
the city, in performing this sort of work, acts in a private
or commercial capacity, and must therefore assume the same
liabilities as an ordinary corporation or individual.1
The legal responsibility of the city extends not only to
torts committed by its officials when engaged in performing
a private or commercial function for the municipality, but
also to any claims that may arise from defects in city
property which is not exclusively devoted to governmental
uses. When the city owns and uses buildings solely for
public purposes, as the city hall, the schoolhouses, the
police and fire stations, it is ordinarily not liable for
damages caused by negligence in the construction or repair
of them.2 If, however, the municipal authorities permit
such a building to be used for other than public purposes,
as for private entertainments, the city must assume lia-
bility for any injuries ensuing.3 This is a branch of law
upon which the array of judicial decisions is at present very
perplexing. The general drift seems to be in the direction
of extending civic liability, even in the case of property
devoted wholly to public use. Indeed, the manifest desire
the various decisions printed in S. D. Thompson's Cases on Municipal
Negligence, especially II. 625 ff.
1 See the cases cited in J. F. Dillon's Law of Municipal Corporations,
IV. 2900.
1 There have, however, been a good many exceptions to this general
rule. See F. J. Goodnow's chapter on "The Liability of Municipal Cor-
porations for their Management of Property," in his Municipal Home
Rule.
1 Eastman v. Meredith, 36 N. H. 296, in Beale's Cases on Municipal
Corporations, 571 ; Oliver v. Worcester, 102 Mass. 489.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 99
of the courts to give every possible security to the rights
of individuals has impelled them in recent years to the policy
of putting municipal corporations upon the same plane of
legal responsibility as private individuals, so far as property
is concerned.
A rather special field of municipal powers and duties is Rights and
connected with the relations of the city to public-service
companies. This is a subject too extensive and too complex in relatjon
to public-
to be dealt with in any general treatise on municipal govern- service cor-
ment ; for not only does it include the scope and the limita- F
tions of municipal franchise-granting power, but it involves
such important questions as the authority of the city to
regulate the rates charged and the quality of the service
rendered. On these points even the general principles of
law, as enunciated in judicial decisions, are not easily
formulated; but two rules may be laid down with some
degree of assurance. In the first place, the courts have been
rather reluctant to abandon the old notion that public
advantage can be best secured by the competition of two
or more enfranchised public-service corporations operating
within the same locality. Students of applied economics
have long since become convinced that no permanent, effec-
tive competition in a natural monopoly, such as a water, gas,
electric, telephone, or transportation service, can be carried
on in the same area of patronage.1 But even in recent years
the courts have held that benefits will accrue to the public
from competition in the operation of public utilities, and
hence, in the absence of express statutory authority, have
denied the power of the municipality to grant exclusive
1 "There are some general principles which we wish to present as
practically the unanimous sentiment of our committee. First, we wish
to emphasize the fact that the public utilities studied are so constituted
that it is impossible for them to be regulated by competition." — NATIONAL
Civic FEDERATION, Report on Municipal and Private Operation of Public
Utilities (3 vols., New York, 1907), Pt. I. vol. i. 23.
100 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
franchises. They have likewise refused to imply exclu-
siveness wherever any other reasonable construction of a
franchise is possible, and this even when the municipality
has admitted powers derived from express statutory grant.1
On the other hand, they have not ventured to trust competi-
tion as the sole means of regulating public services. They
have readily admitted the authority of the legislature (within
the bounds prescribed by the federal and state constitu-
tions) to make reasonable regulations as to rates charged
and quality of service provided ; but they have denied to
the municipal corporation any such right of regulation,
save when it has been expressly delegated to the city by
the legislature or when the power to regulate has been re-
served in the franchise itself.2
Condumona. Surveying the powers and liabilities of the American city
as a whole, and comparing them with those attaching to the
cities of Europe, one need have little hesitation in pro-
nouncing them both too narrow. In the first half of the
nineteenth century broad grants of power to municipalities
were very common but this practice was in due course
abandoned and in more recent years legal restrictions have
greatly hampered the cities of the United States in the per-
formance of their logical functions of local administration.
Legislatures and courts have been at one in their reluctance
to allow the municipal corporation that free scope which
it enjoys abroad. This attitude of mistrust has had a
depressing effect upon city government, and has undoubtedly
contributed to the half-heartedness with which municipal
authorities too often undertake the performance of their
duties. Moreover, the policy of so carefully guarding the
municipal corporation from civil liability for the improper
1 See O. L. Pond, Municipal Control of Public Utilities, ch. viii. ("The
Power to grant Exclusive Franchises").
1 Ibid., ch. ix.
MUNICIPAL POWERS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 101
performance of its public or governmental functions has not
improbably contributed to the popular palliation of negligence
and inefficiency. In the cities of France and Germany, where
an aggrieved individual may bring suit in the administrative
courts, and mulct the municipal treasury for the negligence
or the incapacity of any city officer, no matter what his sphere
of employment, the premium thus put upon care and efficiency
has been a salutary factor in securing high standards in
local administration. A wider range, both of power and of
liability, seems to be not the least among the needs of the
American city to-day.
REFERENCES
The most exhaustive treatise on the rights and duties of municipal
authorities is J. F. Dillon's Law of Municipal Corporations (5th ed., 5 vols.,
Boston, 1911), a comprehensive, thorough, and accurate work, and a
worthy exemplar of American legal scholarship. An equally invaluable
commentary is Eugene McQuillin's Law of Municipal Corporations (6
vols., Chicago, 1911-1912), of which only the earlier volumes have yet
come from the press. The latter contain many historical discussions.
In the preparation of the foregoing outline both these works have been
of great service. Many of the leading cases referred to in these treatises
are included in J. H. Beale's Selection of Cases on Municipal Corpora-
tions (Cambridge, 1911), and in John E. Macy's Selection of Cases on
Municipal or Public Corporations, Boston, 1911.
Special works which will be found valuable in their respective fields
are Eugene McQuillin's Law of Municipal Ordinances (Chicago, 1904),
and D. A. Jones's Negligence of Municipal Corporations (New York, 1892).
In Professor F. J. Goodnow's Municipal Home Rule (New York, 1903)
there are some lucid discussions of municipal powers and liabilities ; and
attention may also be called to the chapter on "The Legal Position of
the Modern City" in his Municipal Government (New York, .1909). There
is a chapter on "The Legal Powers of the Municipality" in L. S. Rowe's
Problems of City Government (New York, 1908) ; and O. L. Pond's Mu-
nicipal Control of Public Utilities (New York, 1906) is a brief but useful
study of the attitude of American courts toward an increase in the sphere
of municipal activity. Some data on the same topic may be found in
D. F. Wilcox's Municipal Franchises (2 vols., New York, 1910) ; and there
is an illuminating chapter on "Freedom of Incorporation" in Simeon E.
Baldwin's Modern Political Institutions (Boston, 1898).
CHAPTER V
Importance
of the
electorate.
Frequent
tasks im-
posed upon
the Ameri-
can munici-
pal voter.
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE
FIRST in point of importance among the active organs
of American city government is the electorate itself, or,
in other words, the body of municipal voters. The com-
position of this body is of greater importance in America
than it is in European countries, because here the electorate
participates more frequently and more directly in actual
government than it does there. The American municipal
voter is called to the polls practically every year, whereas
the French voter casts his ballot at a municipal election only
once in four years, and most of the voters in Prussian cities
but once in six years. Moreover, the American municipal
elector, when he goes to the polls, has a larger task to per-
form. He is not, like the voter in an English, French, or
German city, asked to select merely one name from a list
of two or three candidates. On the contrary, he is usually
called upon to scan a ballot containing scores of names,
and to register thereon his choices for a half-dozen or
more municipal offices.
Not only is the American municipal electorate required
to elect the officers of city government, but wherever the
system of primary elections has been adopted it is also
expected to nominate the candidates as well. The voters
of the city have thus a double responsibility, that of choos-
ing the candidates and of making final selections from the
candidates chosen. In the cities of no other country is
this dual function imposed upon the electorate. In France
and Germany the system of ballotage often works out to
102
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 103
something like a primary and a final election ; but in these
countries the preliminary election becomes final whenever
any one candidate gets a clear majority of the polled votes.1
Finally, the demands upon the American municipal The
electorate are heavier than those of European cities because
the voters are here, with much greater frequency than dens-
abroad, called upon to participate directly in the adminis-
tration of city affairs by deciding questions submitted to
them on the ballot. The increased facilities, developed in
so many American cities during the last decade, for the use
of the initiative, the referendum, and the recall have greatly
augmented the voter's responsibility, and have in conse-
quence made the composition of the electorate a matter of
more vital importance than it used to be. It is true that
municipal voters in England are sometimes asked to pass
upon questions submitted to them by referenda; but no
English city has any provision for the mandatory initia-
tive or the recall, nor, except in Switzerland, have the cities
of continental Europe any system of direct legislation.
Their voters take no direct part in civic law-making or
administration, but exert only an indirect control through
their elected councillors.
It is because of this more frequent and more extensive Popular
participation, direct and indirect, of the American voter toward3
in the government of his city that the problem of safe-
guarding the electorate, both as to its composition and as
regards the normal influences which exert themselves upon
it, is of greater importance in the United States than it is
abroad. Yet the subject has not received in America the
attention which its importance warrants. In all the coun-
tries of Europe questions relating to the suffrage have prob-
ably had more careful consideration than has been given
1 See the discussion of this feature in Munro's Government of Euro-
pean Cities (New York, 1909), 25-35, 140-145.
104 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
to them on this side of the Atlantic. Taking manhood
suffrage as an unalterable feature of the political system,
reforming movements in America have been disposed to
concentrate their chief attention upon the instruments with
which the electorate performs its work rather than upon
the make-up of the voters' lists. The public temper has not
been at all tolerant of proposals to put any important
limitations upon the policy of manhood suffrage. The
suggestion of a property qualification for voting would not
get a serious hearing in any American city. Nor, indeed,
would such a suggestion seem to merit any consideration,
in view of the fact that even a nominal property-holding
qualification would probably disfranchise a majority of the
present manhood-suffrage voters. In a previous chapter
attention has been drawn to the small percentage of home-
owning heads of families in cities like Boston and New York ;
and from these figures some idea can be gathered as to the
havoc which the imposition of any form of real-property
test would work upon the present composition of the elec-
torate.1 It ought to be pointed out, moreover, that such a
test for voting does not now exist in any of the chief Euro-
pean cities. What appears at first glance to be a property
qualification is merely a requirement that citizens, in order
to be voters, shall either occupy tax-paying property or
pay a certain minimum in annual taxes into the public
treasury.
Histoiyof In the earlier stages of American political development,
in America, it is true, property qualifications for voting were practically
universal. In none of the colonies was manhood suffrage
the rule. Nor was it established as an immediate result
of the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence
asserted the inalienable natural right of all men to a voice
in the conduct of their governmental affairs ; but not even
1 See above, pp. 47-48.
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 105
after they had achieved their autonomy did the states
hasten to make provision for a government which would
depend for its continuance upon the consent of all the
governed. With the adoption of the federal constitution,
however, a reaction against property tests began, and the
movement received some impetus from the plausible dog-
matism of the French Revolution, which had its echoes in
America. Then, in the first three or four decades of the
nineteenth century came the fiercer competition of politi-
cal parties and the inevitable reaching out for new voters.1
One by one the states abolished both property and tax
requirements, which had, however, even before they were
given up, remained in many cases unenforced. The crest
of the abolition wave came during the period 1820-1845.2
In this interval New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New Jersey, Tennessee, and Delaware threw property
qualifications overboard ; and when new territories were
formed their assemblies were usually left to fix the standing
qualifications for voting. As they almost invariably adopted
the policy of manhood suffrage from the outset, and as no
change took place when the territories were admitted to
statehood, the widening of the suffrage thus went hand in
hand with the expansion of membership in the Union.
By 1850 it had established itself as the dominant practice.
It is approximately correct to say that in an American Present
city every adult male citizen is entitled to vote at munici- tionsfor"
pal elections. It is not strictly true, however; for there
are many departures from the rule, by reason of the fact cities,
that the laws relating to qualifications for voting are made
by the several states, which, subject to certain limitations
1 A good account of this movement is given in Professor F. W. Black-
mar's article on "The History of Suffrage in Legislation in the United
States," in the Chatauquan, XXII. 28-34 (October, 1895).
2 See above, pp. 1 1-12.
106 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
imposed by the federal constitution, are free to establish
such requirements as they choose. As they have, for the
most part, made rules that do not differ widely, variations
in the texture of the electorate, even though they are more
numerous than is commonly realized, are not of great im-
portance. In all but three of the states qualifications for
voting are the same at the regular state and city elections,1
a feature that distinguishes the American from the English
and German electoral systems. In some states, as in
Massachusetts, there are special laws by which the
suffrage on school matters is wider than on ordinary state
and municipal issues. In other states the right to vote at
special elections called to decide certain questions, such as
the authorizing of municipal loans, is restricted to property
taxpayers. In general, however, all those who are qualified
to vote at state elections have the same right at the mu-
nicipal pollings, and the same voters' lists are almost always
used at the two elections.
1. Age. Without exception, all the states have adopted the old
English rule fixing twenty-one years as the age of polit-
ical majority. As the enrolment of voters takes place
some time before the annual elections, however, it is usually
provided that a person otherwise qualified may have his
name put upon the voters' list before reaching his twenty-
first birthday if the election comes shortly after that .date.
2. Citizen- In the minds of most people voting rights are inseparably
associated with citizenship. In practice the two do usually
go together, but this association is not at all necessary.
There are thousands of American voters who are not citi-
1 The exceptions are Rhode Island (see p. 114, below), Kansas, where
female suffrage exists in municipal but not in state elections ; and
New York, where women are not permitted to vote at state elections,
but are, if they own property and are otherwise qualified, allowed to
have a voice in town and village elections upon questions involving local
taxation.
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 107
zens, and there are many more thousands of American
citizens who are not voters. This is because the laws
governing citizenship are made by one authority, and those
relating to suffrage qualifications by forty-eight other
authorities. Citizenship is a matter of federal jurisdiction :
Congress alone decides who are American citizens and who
are not. Congress likewise establishes the rules under
which aliens may become citizens, and provides the ma-
chinery for admitting to citizenship. Voting rights, on the
other hand, come within the sphere of state jurisdiction.
Each state determines who shall vote, not only at its own
state and municipal elections, but at presidential and con-
gressional elections as well. In this matter each state has
entire discretion, subject, of course, to the well-known
general restrictions contained in the constitution of the
United States.1 These limitations do not preclude a state
from giving the franchise to non-citizens ; and nine states
allow non-citizens to vote. Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas,
Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, and
Texas require only that an alien shall, in due form and at
a fixed date preceding the election, have declared his in-
tention to become a citizen.2
Under the provisions of the existing federal laws relating The ac-
to citizenship by naturalization, the formal "declaration of Of citizen-
intention" may be made by any alien who is "a white
person, or of African nativity or of African descent," before tion-
any federal court or any court of record having jurisdic-
tion over the place in which he lives. Such declaration
may not be filed, however, until the alien has reached the
age of eighteen years. The declaration must contain in-
1 Art. xiv. § 2, and art. xv.
1 Two other states, Michigan and Wisconsin, allow voting rights to
those aliens, otherwise qualified, who before November 8, 1894, and Decem-
ber 1, 1908 respectively, declared their intention to become citizens.
108 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
formation as to the applicant's name, age, parentage, occu-
pation, country of origin, and time and place of arrival in
the United States ; and it must further announce his inten-
tion to become a citizen, and thereby to divest himself of
all allegiance to any foreign sovereign.1 A copy of this
declaration, under the seal of the court, is given to the alien,
and must be presented by him when he applies for final
naturalization.
Procedure Not less than two years after an alien has filed his dec-
•ation. laration of intention, and after not less than five years'
continuous residence in the United States, he may file a
petition for letters of full citizenship in any one of the
various courts designated by law as having authority over
naturalization matters, provided that he has lived within
the jurisdiction of this court at least one year immediately
preceding the filing of his petition. The petition must be
signed by the applicant himself, and must give full answers
to a set of prescribed questions. If the alien has arrived
in the United States since June 29, 1906, his petition must
be accompanied by a document from the United States
immigration authorities certifying the time and place of
his arrival. In addition, he must, when he files his ap-
plication, bring forward the sworn statements of two wit-
nesses (both of whom must be citizens of the United
States) in personal testimony to his five years' continuous
residence and his moral character, and in substantiation
of the other claims made in his petition. After this paper
has been left with the clerk of the court it must lie on file
for at least ninety days, during which notice of its filing
is posted. In this interval, also, an investigation of the
petitioner's claims is undertaken by one of the federal
1 Citizenship may be acquired, without formal declaration of inten-
tion, by aliens who have served a certain term in the United States army
or navy and have been honorably discharged.
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 109
agents maintained for the purpose. All these formalities
having been attended to, the court sets a date for a hearing
upon the petition. This hearing, which must be public,
cannot take place within thirty days preceding a regular
election. Both witnesses must attend the hearing with
the applicant, and must answer such questions as may be
put to them by the presiding judge, who may also demand
from the applicant assurance that he is not affiliated with
any organization teaching disbelief in organized government,
and that he is attached to the principles embodied in the
constitution of the United States. If the court is satisfied
upon these various points, the clerk will issue letters of
citizenship, or final papers, as they are more commonly
called ; and this issuance is made a matter of permanent
court record.
These strict rules concerning naturalization procedure Naturaiiza-
are the outcome of an attempt to put an end to various
abuses that existed under previous naturalization arrange-
ments. Prior to 1906, when the process of naturalization
was simpler and easier, fraudulent admission to citizenship
was all too common. Sometimes an alien got himself en-
rolled upon the voters' list by means of forged papers;
and, since there were so many courts with authority to
grant these papers, the detection of forgeries was not easy.
More often crowds of aliens were admitted to citizenship
during the days preceding an election, when no careful
investigation of their statements was possible. Paid wit-
nesses were sometimes provided by party managers to
take oath as to matters which they knew nothing about.
Not uncommonly the same witnesses appeared for a dozen
or more aliens. In fact, the naturalization of foreign-
ers became one of the regular undertakings of the ward
organization : the applicant's petition was made out for
him, his witnesses were supplied, and in many cases he was
110 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
merely a participant in procedure which he did not under-
stand. The handling of fifty or sixty naturalizations per
hour was not a rare achievement in New York courts before
the stricter rules went into force. Under such pressure
during the days preceding the registration of voters all
careful scrutiny of petitions was out of the question; and
the voters' lists of the larger cities were regularly padded
with the names of persons who had not fulfilled the stated
qualifications for admission to citizenship. Since 1906
these abuses have been almost wholly eliminated. The
requirement that the applicant shall produce an immi-
gration certificate, that his petition shall lie on file for ninety
days, and that there shall be no court hearing on naturali-
zation matters within thirty days of a regular election has
reduced fraudulent practices to a minimum.
The chief Although naturalization abuses were chiefly the result of
tTftiudu- overzeal on the part of political agents, they were never-
izationtural" ^heless mspired to some extent by those rules which in many
cities forbid the employment of unnaturalized aliens in the
city's working force. The city is everywhere a large em-
ployer of unskilled labor in its streets, sewer, water, and
public-works departments. The daily pay is good, and the
newcomer chafes under the regulations which prevent him
from getting a place on the municipal pay-roll. He wants
to become a citizen as soon as he can, not in order that he
may get the franchise for its own sake, but that he may be
eligible for employment in public undertakings. He finds,
moreover, that local politicians develop a much greater
interest in the welfare of those among his compatriots
who have become naturalized and have acquired the right
to vote. Very naturally he comes to regard citizenship as
something which has economic as well as political utility.
The pressure put upon him becomes correspondingly great,
and the temptation to apply for citizenship before he has
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 111
fulfilled all the requirements has too often proved irresist-
ible, especially when the way to fraud has been smoothed by
assurances from some ward politician.1
In addition to citizenship, a certain minimum of local 3. Red-
residence is invariably required. The term varies in length
from state to state, the requirement providing for a cer-
tain period of residence within the state and a shorter one
within the city. In Massachusetts the law demands a
year's domicil in the state and six months in the city;
in Pennsylvania, a year in the state and two months in the
city ; in Michigan, six months in the state, with no definite
term of residence in the city.2 It should be understood,
however, that the requirement refers to legal residence,
which is not the same thing as actual habitation. Ordi-
narily the two are the same; but it is quite possible for
a man to live in one state or community and still have his
legal residence in another. It is commonly remarked that The
a man's legal residence is where he says it is, provided, of ^e^g^»
course, that he does not claim legal residence in more than residence>
one jurisdiction at the same time. What constitutes resi-
dence for purposes of fulfilling the suffrage requirements is
a matter for the laws and the judicial decisions of each state
to decide ; but in the main the animus manendi — in other
words, the individual's own intent to be domiciled in a
particular jurisdiction — is the determining factor.
The question is badly complicated, however, by the
1 "I was long ago taken to watch the process of citizen-making in New
York. Droves of squalid men, who looked as if they had just emerged
from an emigrant ship, and had perhaps done so only a few weeks before,
for the law prescribing a certain term of residence is frequently violated,
were brought up to a magistrate by the ward agent of the party which
had captured them, declared their allegiance to the United States, and
were forthwith placed on the roll." — JAMES BRYCE, American Common-
wealth (2 vols., New York, 1910), II. 103.
2 The exact requirements in the various states, revised annually, may
be found in the Statesman's Year Book, or in the World Almanac.
112
GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
Legal resi-
dence and
taxation.
4. Educa-
tional
qualifica-
tions.
common American practice of permitting a man's legal
residence to determine where he shall be assessed for per-
sonal property, income, and poll-taxes. In fact, the choice
of a legal residence — for in many cases it has become a
matter of individual discretion — is very often determined by
a person's desire to be assessed in one state or municipality
rather than another, a desire not always wholly unconnected
with the severity or leniency of the local assessors. In
the last resort, the question of a man's legal residence is a
matter for judicial decision, and must be determined from the
facts in each particular case ; but as a matter of everyday
practice the sworn statement of the individual is usually
taken as conclusive both by tax-assessors and by registrars
of voters.1 Some of the evils to which this divorce of legal
from physical domicil has given rise are mentioned later;
in this place it is enough merely to lay stress upon the
point that the fiction rather than the fact of residence is
what law and practice often exact.
In nearly one-third of all the states some sort of educa-
tional test for voting is established by law. Connecticut,
which requires that every one enrolled as a voter shall be
able to read the state constitution or statutes in the Eng-
lish language, is the only state which allows no exemptions
whatever. California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts,
Washington, and Wyoming require that voters shall be able
either to read or to write or to do both; but all grant
exemptions of one sort or another. These exemptions,
which apply mainly to persons physically incapacitated
or of advanced age, are not designed to permit racial or
1 The general principles followed by the courts in determining whether
or not a person has "established a legal residence" are discussed in Wil-
liams v. Whiting (11 Mass. 424), which has become a leading case upon
the point. For a comprehensive consideration of the law and practice,
see G. W. McCrary's Treatise on the American Law of Elections (4th ed.,
Chicago, 1897), ch. iv.
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 113
other discriminations, but merely to keep the strict applica-
tion of the tests from resulting in hardship. Several South-
ern states, on the other hand, while prescribing educational
tests, grant exemptions to whole classes of voters, for the
express purpose of excluding colored citizens from the
franchise privileges guaranteed to them by the fifteenth
amendment to the federal constitution.1 Inasmuch as the
percentage of illiterates among negroes is very large, the
requirement that voters shall be able to read or write is one
which, when strictly administered, shuts out a large propor-
tion of them. But there are also many illiterate white Administra-
citizens who would be excluded by the test; and for their educational
benefit Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South *"1 the
Carolina, and Virginia have provided means whereby the
requirement can be easily circumvented by the white element
of the population. Various devices are employed to this end.
In one case the provision is that the voter must either read
the constitution or " give a reasonable interpretation
thereof," the question whether the interpretation is reason-
able or not resting with the white officials in charge of the
registration.2 In another state the so-termed "grandfather
clause" relieves from the necessity of passing the educational
test all those who enjoyed voting rights before 1867 and all
descendants of such voters, which is a way of giving complete
exemption to all native-born white citizens.3 Still another
of the Southern states exempts all owners of property who
have paid the taxes assessed for the year preceding enrol-
ment. As the percentage of property-owning negroes is
small in all the Southern cities, and the proportion of those
who pay their taxes on time even smaller, it follows that
1G. T. Stephenson's Race Distinctions in American Law (New York,
1910) contains a full discussion of this matter.
1 Constitution of Mississippi, 1890, art. xii. § 244.
3 Constitution of Louisiana, 1898, art. cxcvii. §§ 3-5.
114 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
not many illiterates get their names upon the rolls by the
use of this exemption.1 It requires little argument, accord-
ingly, to prove that the educational tests imposed by various
states in the South are designed, not so much to purge the
voters' lists of illiterates as to permit racial discriminations
to be made without violating the letter of the federal consti-
tution. That they have done this effectively is proved by
the estimate, based upon careful study, that in some of the
Southern states not more than one adult male negro out
of every hundred votes, even at presidential elections.2
6. Owner- No state of the Union now requires either the ownership
property. or the occupancy of property as a condition of enrolment
for state elections; and only one state, Rhode Island,
makes any such requirement for voting at municipal elec-
tions. In Rhode Island the right to vote for city councillors,
or on matters of municipal finance, is restricted to those
who own property to the assessed value of $134, or who pay
a rental amounting to at least seven dollars per year. In
actual operation this restriction does not exclude many who
would be enrolled under a system of manhood suffrage.
Indeed, it may be doubted whether the requirement, how-
ever wise it may have been when established in 1842, serves
any useful purpose nowadays.
e. Payment Some other states — Pennsylvania and Tennessee, for
example — require that voters shall have paid their poll or
state taxes before being enrolled. Others, like Massachu-
setts, require only that no names be put on the list save
those of persons who have been assessed for poll-taxes.
1 Constitution of South Carolina, 1895, art. ii. § 4. For a further dis-
cussion of these matters, see J. B. Phillips, Educational Qualifications of
Voters (University of Colorado Studies, III. No. 3) ; and, for a defence
of the policy pursued by the Southern states, see F. G. Gaffey's article on
"Suffrage Limitations at the South," in Political Science Quarterly, XX.
1-15 (March, 1905).
* J. C. Rose, " Negro Suffrage," in American Political Science Review,
I. 20 (November, 1906).
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 115
When the rule that poll-taxes must be paid is rigidly enforced,
the payment of them for delinquents virtually becomes a
charge upon the campaign funds of the political parties.
The number of voters who will leave their poll-taxes unpaid
in the expectation that party agents will provide the money
on the eve of the election is larger in every community than
popular professions of civic patriotism would lead one to
suppose. To provide that a voter must be assessed for
poll-taxes is quite different from providing that he must
have paid them. The former requirement shuts out nobody ;
the latter, were it not for the readiness of party leaders to
pay delinquent taxes, would exclude a considerable propor-
tion of the present electors. In Boston not more than fifty
per cent of those assessed for poll-taxes ever pay them.
Indeed, if we leave out of account those whose poll-taxes
are put on their property-tax bills, and who therefore cannot
evade payment, we find that in Boston not more than ten
per cent of assessed polls are ever collected. The experience
of other cities is doubtless the same. Of all species of tax-
dodging this is the most prevalent and the least defensible.
In every state there are certain disqualifications from
voting; but within every category of the ineligible are
included persons convicted of treason or other felonies, and
those who are insane or under guardianship. In a few states
the exclusion extends to all persons in receipt of public
poor-relief, and to United States soldiers and sailors.
New York has provided by special statute that the dis-
qualification shall not extend to convicts in the House of
Refuge or the State Reformatory. A few states also pro-
vide for the disfranchisement of persons who have been
convicted of bribery at elections. Even when rigidly
enforced, these various disqualifications do not exclude
many who would otherwise be entitled to vote.
The methods of compiling and revising the voters' lists
116 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Methods of are not radically different in the various American cities.
^c?1jSng When the right to vote is wholly divorced from tax-paying,
voter*1 lists. ^ kecomes impossible to use anything akin to the English
and German methods of compiling the voters' lists from the
tax-rolls. Manhood suffrage necessitates some system of
special registration of voters. In Massachusetts a voter's
name is put upon the rolls by the assessors, without any
initiative on his part. During the first week of April in
each year the municipal assessors proceed to make up their
lists of taxable property. On these lists they enter the names
not only of all persons who have real or personal property
subject to taxation, but also the names of those who are
liable to the payment of poll-taxes. The names in this latter
category are supposed to be obtained by house-to-house work
on the part of the assessors or their assistants. When the
assessors turn in their rolls, the voters' lists are compiled
from them.
Defects of As a system of enrolling voters this procedure has proved
system?*108 far from satisfactory. Since the assessors are usually men
who have been appointed to their posts for political reasons,
they naturally show more zeal than fairness in their work,
sometimes, it is to be feared, taking pains to put on the list
the names of their fellow-partisans and to leave off those of
their political opponents. The work is done so carelessly
that the lists are usually prolific in errors and much revision
of them becomes necessary. Because of these shortcomings
the task of enrolling voters has in Boston been taken from
the assessors and given to the police. During the first week
in April members of the police force visit every house in
the city and obtain the names of all qualified voters ; and
the lists which these officers turn in are made the basis of
the electoral rolls.
The work No matter how well this preliminary work of enrolment
of voters may be done by the assessors or the police or any
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 117
other set of officers, a good deal of revision is necessary.
Some voters will be overlooked; others will be put on the
lists who ought not to be there. In every Massachusetts city,
therefore, there is a revising body, or board of registrars, who
have this task of revision in charge. Such a board is made
up of three or more members appointed by the mayor,
subject to the usual rules governing the confirmation of the
mayor's appointments. For many years it has been required
by law that both political parties shall be represented on it,
the principle of bi-partisanship receiving wider recognition
in the composition of this board than in that of any other
municipal body, for the reason that the duties of registrars
are regarded as unavoidably political in nature. Registrars
are usually appointed for terms of three years, and one or
more of them retire annually. In most cases they are paid,
by annual salary in the larger cities and by a per diem allow-
ance in the smaller.
In most of the states other than Massachusetts a different The ma-
plan is pursued. The lists are not compiled from the asses- registration
sors' rolls but are made up entirely by the registrars. These
registrars, who are appointed in different ways (in New York
by the mayor, in Philadelphia by the governor, and in Chi-
cago by the county judge), hold sessions a short time before
each election. The applicant for enrolment appearing be-
fore the board, is put under oath, and is then questioned
concerning his age, his citizenship, and his length of resi-
dence in the state and the city ; if there is an educational
test for voting, he is also subjected to this ; if he is under
the law which requires voters to have been assessed for
poll-taxes, he must present evidence of such assessment.
All these statements are recorded by the registrars, who
then either give or refuse to the applicant a place on the
voters' list as a majority of them may decide. In New
York the registrars enter upon their books a description
118 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
of the voter's personal appearance, in order that he
may be identified in case another man should attempt to
vote in his name. If the board were to scrutinize care-
fully the statements of every applicant for enrolment, and
were to verify the alleged residence of each one by send-
ing an officer on a personal visit to the address given,
the results obtained would of course be more satisfactory.
As there is neither time nor appropriation for all this,
however, the lists invariably contain names which ought
not to be upon them ; and instances of "colonization" — that
is, of the enrolment of voters from fictitious residences —
are not at all rare, although they are not so common as
they were a decade ago.
Suggested There seems still to be much room for improvement in
mental the machinery usually provided for the enrolment of voters
in American cities. In some states the list is made up anew
each year, and it becomes necessary for every voter to appear
annually before the board of registrars. This is something
of a burden, and often results in the disfranchisement of
many who forget to have their enrolment renewed. In a
few states, as in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the
practice is to keep a voter's name upon the list so long as he
remains assessed for poll or other taxes, thus obviating the
necessity of his making a new registration each year. This
plan seems, on the whole, to be the more satisfactory of
the two, although in all large cities, owing to frequent
shifts in the residences of voters, a great many changes in
the lists become necessary from year to year. If boards of
registration, moreover, were supplied with such clerical a^
sistance as would enable them to take the same care whh
banks, trust companies, and other private organizatior
exercise in safeguarding themselves against imposture, t, c
voting-lists could be purged of perennial frauds. When lists
are padded with fraudulent names, it is not usually because
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 119
the registrars have been privy to political malpractice or
have connived at the trickery of ward politicians ; it is
almost always because they have too much work to do
properly. So many voters have to be enrolled in a few
days that only the most perfunctory scrutiny of appli-
cants is within the bounds of physical possibility.
In some states matters are made worse by the practice
of permitting those whose names are not on the voters' lists
to "swear in" their votes on election day, in other words to
make oath at the poll that they are duly qualified voters.
Such persons are allowed to vote forthwith although there
is obviously no way of verifying the sworn statements which
they have made.
Whether the prevailing tone of present-day municipal Theexten-
politics might not be further improved by the imposition Educational
of more rigid qualifications for voting is a fair, if a difficult, te8tet
question. The requirement that voters shall be able to
read and write can scarcely be called illogical or unjust in
states which maintain at the public expense systems of
universal and compulsory education. The census of 1900
showed that there were in the United States nearly two and
a half million illiterate men of voting age, or about eleven
per cent of the total adult male population. A considerable
proportion of this illiterate element is concentrated in the
negro population of the Southern states ; but even in North-
ern cities the percentage of those who cannot read and write
is too large to be disregarded. In the state of New York,
for example, in cities of over 25,000 population, about six
per cent of the adult male population was designated as
illiterate; in the cities of New Hampshire the figure was
above ten per cent.1 The ratio of illiteracy is large in the
1 C. W. Dabney, ."The Illiteracy of the Voting Population in the
United States," in Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of
Education, 1902, pp. 789-818.
120 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
cities because of the foreign elements massed there. Now,
it is a commonplace of practical politics that the voter who is
unable to read his ballot becomes an easy prey to political
manipulators. His only alternatives are, as a rule, either
to vote a straight ticket or to spoil his ballot. It may well
be asked, then, whether a policy of political prudence should
permit one vote in every ten to be cast by persons who have
only such alternatives. Men can contribute to the success
of free government only by using the ballot with intelligence
and reasonable independence ; and this they can hardly do
if the ordinary avenues of information, including the news-
papers, are closed to them. Mr. Tweed, in the heyday of
his domination, declared that he paid no heed to what
the newspapers said about him, as most of his followers
"couldn't read English." Nor is he the only political boss
who has owed his power, in part at least, to the fact that
the illiterate element in the electorate forms an unmeltable
mass in the crucible of public opinion.
Thederir- Apart from the direct effect upon municipal politics, the
excluding requirement that men should be able to read and write
iterates. before securing the franchise would promote the cause of
elementary education in the humbler walks of city life.
Grown persons who remain illiterate furnish more than
their due proportion of public charges; they contribute
far more than their quota to the pauper and criminal classes
of the community. As a measure of social amelioration,
therefore, every agency that can be used to diminish the
illiterate element in the population of the large city has a
good deal to commend it. The assimilation of the foreigner
would, moreover, doubtless be accelerated by such require-
ment ; for education is a potent agent of social fusion, even
though it be carried to only an elementary stage. Taking
all these considerations into account, therefore, there is
reason to believe that the policy of permitting enrolment to
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 121
those only who can read and write might profitably be
extended to the states that have not yet adopted it.
Laws requiring that no one shall vote unless he has paid his The en-
taxes for the year are also sound in motive, although some- oTthTtax
what difficult of strict enforcement. Men who do not fulfil re<iuire-
mente.
their duties to the community ought not to have the corre-
sponding rights. Yet a system which uses the suffrage as a
means of collecting taxes — that is, as a means of doing what
the city's collecting department ought to do, but does not —
tends to put an unfair burden upon the electoral machinery.
The city ought to collect its poll-taxes in the same way in
which it enforces its other monetary claims against citizens.
The courts are open to it for this purpose. Why they are
seldom resorted to is not so much because their procedure
is too slow or too cumbrous or too expensive. It is simply
because the municipal authorities who attempt to collect
poll-taxes by legal compulsion create too much antagonism
among voters who are in arrears, and thereby impair their
own chances of reelection or political advancement. Hence
it is that large cities either write large sums off their books
each year, or try to put the odium of collecting poll-taxes
upon some self-executory statute. Since it costs a great
deal to provide ballots, voting-places, polling-officers, and
all the paraphernalia of an election, it seems absurd that
thousands of voters should be permitted to evade payment
of an individual charge which does little more than defray
this outlay.
Improvements might also be made in the relation that Greater
exists between a man's voting rights and his place of in "
residence. In England the municipal electorate is built
upon the idea that occupancy as well as residence gives a man residence
require-
the right to a voice in local affairs ; when a citizen owns or ments.
occupies an office or a store or a warehouse, he becomes,
as it were, a civic stockholder, even though he may, within
122 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
certain limits, actually reside outside the municipality.
The English city accordingly retains upon its list of voters
that large quota of men whose business interests are within
the municipal limits, but who may actually reside in some
suburban towns near by. American cities, on the other
hand, have gone on the principle that a citizen's real interest
can only be in that municipality in which, actually or con-
structively, he makes his home. Thus, the man who owns
a factory in Boston and occupies a rented apartment in
Brookline is presumed by the law to have his real interest
where common sense asserts that it is not. Every large
American city therefore loses from its electorate an element
which it would be most desirable to retain, — namely, those
who spend their day-hours within the municipal limits and
have their chief economic interests there, but who happen
to live in residential districts outside. To keep this element
on the city lists it would not be necessary to give any man
more than a single vote. The practice in vogue in the
cities of the French republic, which allows a voter to choose
whether he shall be enrolled from his place of business or
from his residence (but not from both), would be practicable
in America. Adequate safeguards would of course be neces-
sary to prevent duplication of enrolment and other evils;
but difficulties in that direction would hardly prove insu-
perable, and the advantages to the cause of better city
government would surely be important. In America too
much emphasis is put upon "legal residence" as a factor in
the suffrage laws, and this undue emphasis serves to deprive
the voters' lists of what ought, in large cities, to be their
most dependable element.
The ex- In various parts of the United States a belief is apparently
suffrage growing that the plane of the municipal electorate can be
wolUeni0 greatly raised by the extension of voting rights to women.
Whether or not this proposal offers more in the way of im-
THE MUNICIPAL ELECTORATE 123
provement than do the others mentioned in these pages, it is
at any rate exciting much more public interest and discus^
sion.1 Although the American idea of a democratic elector-
ate does not necessarily include women, nevertheless the ex-
tension of the suffrage to them is one of the things which, in
course of time, is liable to follow in the wake of pronounced
democratic tendencies. When people believe that the proper
remedy for the ills of democracy is more democracy, the
suffrage is more likely to be widened than to be narrowed.
In seven states of the Union the right to vote at municipal
elections has already been granted to women, and in some
of them women's suffrage has been in existence long enough
to have passed the experimental stage. As to the influence
which female participation in municipal politics has had upon
city administration in these states there is some difference
of opinion ; it has at any rate not proved radical in its re-
sults either for good or for ill. So far as American political
experience goes, it has been found that women rise to their
public responsibilities no better, and perhaps no worse,
than men do. Political opinion in states which have
adopted the wider suffrage seems to be moulded by the
same factors and influenced by the same considerations
as is public sentiment in communities which hold fast to
the policy of manhood suffrage.
Much effort in the cause of improved municipal adminis- Relation of
tration has been rendered ineffective through its failure to 60
strike at the fundamentals of misgovernment. As a stream reform-
will rise no higher than its source, so will a representative
government do no more than reflect the ideals of the elector-
ate which chooses it and maintains it in office. An elector-
1 Most of the arguments for and against this extension of the suffrage
may be conveniently found in the little volume entitled Selected Articles
on Woman Suffrage, in the Debaters' Handbook Series (Minneapolis,
1911).
124 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ate made up even in part of persons fraudulently naturalized,
or enrolled by fraudulent means, or voting from fictitious
places of residence, or illiterate, or whose civic conscience is
so numb as to tolerate evasion of just dues, — an electorate
made up even in part of such elements needs attention
from the reorganizers of municipal machinery before much
thoroughgoing improvement can be hoped for in the work
of popular representatives.
REFERENCES
General questions relating to the suffrage (apart from the special ques-
tion of negro suffrage) have had very little attention from American
writers. Interesting discussions of the right to vote, in its wider aspects,
may be found in W. E. H. Lecky's Democracy and Liberty (2 vols., Lon-
don, 1899), I. 2-38, 70-100, and Sir Henry S. Maine's Popular Government
(London, 1885), chs. i.-ii. There is a somewhat rambling discourse on the
relation of universal suffrage to popular government in Tocqueville's
Democracy in America (ed. D. C. Gilman, 2 vols., New York, 1898), I.
ch. xiii. The best short outline of the development from strict to liberal
suffrage requirements in the United States is F. W. Blackmar's article
on "The History of Suffrage," in the Chatauquan, XXII. 28-34 (October,
1895). The relation of the suffrage system to present-day municipal
problems is dealt with somewhat briefly by Professor F. J. Goodnow,
Municipal Problems (New York, 1904), ch. vii., and by D. F. Wilcox,
American City (New York, 1904), chs. i., be. A well-written article by
G. H. Haynes on "Educational Qualifications" may be found in the
Political Science Quarterly, XIII. 495-531 ; and attention may also be
called to the paper on "Educational Qualifications of Voters" by J. B.
Phillips, in University of Colorado Studies, III. 55-62. Arguments for
and against restrictions upon universal suffrage were given at length
many years ago in the report of a commission appointed by the governor of
New York "to devise a plan for the government of cities " ; and in the chapter
entitled "The Voting Many versus the Taxpaying Few," in A. P. Wilder's
Municipal Problems (New Haven, 1891). Other sources of information
are by C. W. Eliot, American Contributions to Civilization (New York,
1897), ch. i.; H. C. Adams, Public Debts (New York, 1898), 359-366;
J. S. Mill, Representative Government (London, 1894), ch. viii. ; and D. C.
McMillan, The Elective Franchise in the United States (New York, 1898),
passim. Further references, chiefly to magazine articles on the subject,
may be found in R. C. Ringwalt's Briefs on Public Questions (New York,
1911), ch. iv., and in W. D. B. Brookings and R. C. Ringwalt's Briefs
for Debate (New York, 1911), ch. v.
CHAPTER VI
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS
THE influence of the electorate, or whole body of the The
voters, is exerted upon the administration of the city in two
ways, directly and indirectly. It is exerted directly by the
use of the initiative, referendum, and recall ; it is exerted
indirectly in the nomination and election of city officials.
Both directly and indirectly this electoral influence has
become more active in recent years, but this is more
particularly true of the direct control which the voters
exercise over the conduct of the city's business. The
increase in the direct control of municipal matters by the
whole body of the voters has, indeed, been an outstanding
feature in American political development during the last
decade. Its significance is dealt with in a later chapter.1
In general, however, the government of the average Direct and
American city continues to exemplify a type of representa- ^^r
tive rather than of direct democracy ; in other words, popular contro1 of
city gov-
control of local affairs is maintained through the nomination ernment.
and election of those to whom the immediate management
of administration is intrusted. It is not so long, of course,
since the whole body of voters took no direct part in mak-
ing municipal nominations; this function used to be per-
formed by a very small section of the electorate, which
claimed to represent the entire body but rarely did so in
fact. Nowadays, however, the voters take upon them-
selves both the nominating and the electing of officers, and
1 Below, ch. xiii.
125
126
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
History of
nominating
methods.
Rise of the
convention.
this development from the old caucus to the open primary
affords one of the best illustrations of that general popu-
larizing of electoral machinery which has been taking place
during recent years.
In the earlier stages of American municipal development,
the laws provided no nominating machinery. Candidates
for office were brought forward by a few friends, or they
came forward of their own initiative. Sometimes an
informal meeting of a few representative citizens was per-
mitted to decide what names should be put before the
voters. So long as the cities remained small in population
and with few elective officers, and so long as restrictions
upon the suffrage kept the voting element still smaller,
these informal methods of nomination, in which the mass of
the electorate had no share, seem to have been readily
tolerated ; and they continued in existence through the
first three decades of the nineteenth century.1 The change
from informal to formal methods of nominating candidates
for municipal offices was one of the many shifts in the whole
American electoral system which came in the wake of the
Jacksonian propaganda. Largely through the onslaught
made upon it by Andrew Jackson, the congressional caucus
as a means of nominating candidates for the presidency
was definitely superseded m 1840 bv the national party con-
vention, made up of delegates from the various states. So
also, but rather earlier, the legislative caucus as a means
of nominating candidates for state offices gave way to the
state party convention ; and, as part of the same movement,
the local party convention, made up of delegates chosen by
a caucus of voters in each ward, was established as the
1 For a full discussion of this topic, see G. D. Luetscher, Early Polit-
ical Machinery in the United States (Philadelphia, 1903), and M. Ostro-
gorski, on "The Rise and Fall of the Nominating Caucus,'! in American
Historical Review, V. 253-283 (January, 1900).
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 127
ordinary method of nominating candidates for .. piujn'p.ipa]
offices.1
The new system began its career in municipal history Abuses of
under serious handicaps. Its adoption came at a time when tion system"
cities, owing to the rising tide of immigration, were begin-
ning to grow rapidly. This growth gave impetus to the
creation of new public services, such as street pavements,
public buildings, water and sewerage systems. The new
services enlarged the patronage of the city authorities,
both by necessitating the creation of new administrative
offices and bv increasing the annual expenditure for public
work and materials. The spoils increased proportionally;
until, in an age when partisan victors were regarded as
fairly entitled to the emoluments of office and the profits
of patronage, the incentives to party victory were very
great. Large prizes often hinged upon the issue of attempts
to capture the nominating convention, with the result
that almost every imaginable form of trickery and fraud
was resorted to by political leaders. The rules governing
ward caucuses and party conventions as to the manner of
calling them together T the times and places of meeting, and
the general procedure were not prescribed bv law, but were .
made and unmade by the caucuses and conventions them-
selves. There were therefore no real securities for fair
play; and that faction of the party which could, by any
manner of fraud or violence, once get control of a caucus or
a convention was almost certain to put through its slate of
candidates. Caucuses were often called upon inadequate
notice, in rooms too small to hold any but those who were
warned to come early ; the meetings were not uncommonly
packed with political thugs from outside the ward ; the
ballot-box was frequently stuffed, or, when the end was not
1 M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Party System (New York, 1910),
chs. ii.-iv.
128 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
achieved by some such method, the count of ballots was
falsified. Any one of a hundred ingenious devices was em-
ployed to serve the ends of an unscrupulous faction.1 Yet
the political alignment in many cities was such that the
faction which captured the caucuses, and through them the
nominating convention, thereby put upon the ballot candi-
dates who were practically certain to be elected. It gradu-
ally dawned upon the public mind, therefore, that under
such a system representative government was a travesty,
that the voters oi the city were allowed to do no more at
the polls than choose between two sets of professional
politicians, each tagged with a party label that had been
gained, in many cases, by resort to violence or subterfuge.
With an adequate realization of this state of things there
began a popular movement for the regulation of party
nominations by law.
The first attempt to furnish legal securities for fair play
in political caucuses and conventions was made by the
legislature of California in 1866 : but the statute then
passed, though comprehensive in its safeguarding provisions,
was optional in its application ; that is, it was to apply only
to such political party or parties as might accept its provis-
ions.2 In the same year the legislature of New York passed^
a statute of similar type, less comprehensive in its provisions
but mandatory in application.3 This measure, despite its
inadequacy to secure all the ends desired, marked a new de-
parture in American municipal policy ; for it was virtually an
1 C. E. Merriam, Primary Elections (Chicago, 1909), 7. See also
F. W. Dallinger, Nominations for Elective Office (New York, 1897), especially
chs. v.-vi.
* "An Act to Protect the Elections of Voluntary Associations and to
Punish Frauds therein : " Laws of California, 1866, ch. 359.
"An Act to Protect Primary Meetings, Caucuses, and Conventions
of Political Parties : " Laws of New York, 1866, ch. 783. Similar acts were
passed by Ohio and Pennsylvania in 1871, and by Missouri in 1875.
In 1874 California extended the scope of its optional statute.
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 129
acceptance of the principle that political pajfipg g.g
tions for nominating candidates should be formally recog-
nized by law, and that their methods of performing this
public function should he laid down for them by statutory
provisions. Other states gradually gave their adhesion to
this policy, and in so doing usually extended the scope of
their laws, until in course of time many of the safeguards
applicable to regular elections were applied to party nomi-
nations. Not, however, till more than thirty years after
New York first committed itself to the principle of statu-
tory regulation had two-thirds of all the states enacted
primary laws.1
The general purport of such laws, so far as they apply The party
to cities, is to require that nominations shall be made by pnmary-
the voters of the respective political parties at a regular
primary election, upon official ballots, and under official
supervision. The party primary, as established by these
laws, may be either "closed" or "open." The former
type of primary is the more common, and its chief charac-
teristic is that only regular members of the party can
take part in it. Although theoretically superior to the
old caucus and convention systems, in that it aims to
secure a fair opportunity for the expression of a party's
opinions, the closed primary in the municipal system has
some serious defects. In the first place, it is based upon
the assumption that all municipal voters have some definite
party allegiance. This does not necessarily mean that
the voter must actually bear allegiance to one or other
of the state parties, but in practice it commonly works
out that way. It may almost be said, indeed, that the
spread of the closed primary has helped to give state-party-
ism in municipal affairs an extended lease of life. This is
1 For an extended account of this development, see C. E. Merriam,
Primary Elections, chs. ii.-vi.
K
130 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
because the voter, either at the time of registration or at
the primary, is in most states required to disclose the party
to which he belongs ; for, as a matter of practice, separate
lists of voters are usually made, and the parties commonly
hold their primaries on different dates. Even in Massa-
chusetts, where joint primaries are held and a single voters'
list used, the voter must nevertheless declare the party
to which he belongs, and in accordance with his statement
receives the ballot of his own party.1 This necessity of
declaring affiliations has been one of the chief objections raised
against the closed primary. Sometimes the method whereby
a voter shall declare his party allegiance, and the rules
governing the acceptance of his declaration, are left to the
party authorities ; but more commonly the means by which
his party affiliation shall be established are prescribed by
state laws. Some states require a declaration of his past
allegiance, others of his present preference, and a few pre-
scribe that he shall say which party he intends to support
at the next election. The rules relating to the way in which
such declarations are recorded, the degree of secrecy to be
1 At the hearings held in Boston a couple of years ago by a joint
committee of the New York legislature, nearly all those who testified
were of the opinion that the Massachusetts system of holding joint
party primaries had, after a trial of nine years, proved a failure, so far
as providing a satisfactory method of nominating municipal officers was
concerned. It was urged by those who appeared before the committee
that both the character and the caliber of candidates had deteriorated
since the introduction of the system, that their expenses for nomination
had greatly increased (in a threefold measure, according to one who had
been a candidate under both the convention and the primary system),
that contests for nominations had become campaigns of personalities
rather than of principles, that party responsibility had declined, and
that the members of the minority party took very little interest in the
primaries. A digest of this testimony is given in Report of the Joint
Committee of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York appointed
to investigate the Primary and Election Laws of this and other States
(Albany, 1901), 5-29. In corroboration, see also Reports of the Boston
Finance Commission (7 vols., Boston, 1908-1912), II. 22-24.
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 131
maintained by officials who receive them, and various other
matters differ greatly from state to state.1
The other type of party primary is that used, for ex- The open
ample, in Wisconsin and commonly called the "open"
primary. Candidates for nomination at the open primary
bear the designations of their respective parties ; but no
disclosure of party affiliations is exacted from voters. The
same ballot serves for all. Hence the voter may record his
choice for the candidates of either party and his action will
remain known to no one but himself.
Both forms of primary election described in the fore-
going paragraphs are party primaries. They rest on the
idea that, whether asked to disclose their partisan allegiance
or not, the voters should be given their choice between
candidates whose names bear party designations on the
ballot. On the principle, however, that party desip^fl-*'1'011*
ought to have no place on the municipal ballot at anv
election, whether preliminary or final, some cities have,
established the nonpartisan primary. This system, as
a method of nominating candidates for municipal offices,
was first tried in Iowa, where the legislature applied it to
such cities as might accept the commission form of govern-
ment.2 It was adopted at once by Des Moines, and went
into operation there in 1907. Since that date it has gained
acceptance in many of the cities governed by commissions,
and in at least two states permission has been granted for its
adoption by cities that desire to retain their old frames of
government.3 Under this type of primary, municipal officers
1 A summary of such regulations may be found in Comparative Legis-
lation Bulletin, No. 13, issued by the Legislative Reference Department
of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission in 1903.
2 Laws of Iowa, 1907, ch. 48. The more important provisions of this
statute are printed in C. L. Jones's Readings on Parties and Elections (New
York, 1912), 67-70.
J Laws of Wisconsin, 1907, ch. 670 ; Laws of Minnesota, 1909, ch. 170.
132
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Objections
to the
primary
eyetem.
are selected by what is virtually a double election. When
the time for a municipal election draws near, notice is given
that any one who desires to be a candidate may have his
name entered upon the primary ballot by presenting a pe-
tition signed by a small number of qualified voters, usually
twenty-five. All such names are put upon the ballot
without any party designation whatever, the order being
determined alphabetically, or by the course in which the
petitions were filed, or by lot. As all voters at the primary
use the same ballot, there is no disclosure of partisan prefer-
ences. The two candidates who make the highest showing
for an office are thereupon named upon the general ballot
to be used at the regular election. T" ^i^ ™°y +he
tisan primary becomes a sort, of qualifying heat which elimi-
nates the weaker contestants from participation in the final
race. As such it has undoubted merits. It insures the
.election of municipal officials by a majority, rather than by
a mere plurality, of the polled votes, and thus accomplishes
at American city elections what is obtained by the use
of the system of supplementary elections in Germany, the
chief difference being that in Germany a candidate who
polls a clear majority at the first election is declared thereby
to have been finally chosen, and there is no need for a second
polling.1 The nonpartisan primary must also to some ex-
tent encourage independent candidacy ; it helps to oust state
politics from city affairs ; it insures a short ballot for the
final election ; and it puts the whole responsibility for satis-
factory nominations upon the voters themselves.
On the other hand, the nonpartisan primary has in actual
operation disclosed some objectionable features. The total
vote cast at a primary, though probably larger on the whole
1 In San Francisco and a few other American cities the laws provide
that a clear majority at the primary secures the actual election of any
candidate.
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 133
than that which was commonly polled in the election of
delegates to a nominating convention, is usually much smaller
than that polled at a regular election. Unless there be
important local issues represented by rival candidates,
the primary is not likely to draw out the voters in great
numbers; and when a large part of the available vote is
not forthcoming, it is usually found that the stav-at-homes
include most of those whose participation at the nomination
of candidates is much needed in the interest of good city
government.
Again, the nonpartisan primary is costly to all concerned, its costii-
and particularly to the candidates. The candidate who hopes
for success must, in the absence of party backing, make
himself known to the mass of the voters; and this he
can do, as a rule, only by means of an advertising campaign
which involves considerable outlay either on his own part or
on that of his friends. The advantage, under the nonp arti-
san primary system, lies with the candidate who can prosecute
the most effective publicity campaign. This fact has become
so far recognized of late that some states and cities are
undertaking to give equal publicity to the claims of all the
aspirants by sending to every voter a pamphlet, printed and
mailed at public expense. Such an arrangement might have
a tendency to multiply candidates, since there are undoubt-
edly not a few men in every community who would grasp the
opportunity to have their public virtues set forth broadcast
without any cost to themselves. Precautions against this
contingency could, it may be suggested, be taken by a pro-
vision that a small sum toward the cost of the pamphlet
shall be assessed upon each candidate, but under the present
constitutions of many states this would be impracticable in
view of provisions which prescribe freedom of candidacy
for public office.
Whether the nonpartisan primary secures the nomination
134 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The type of better candidates than either the convention or the parti-
da^which san primary is not yet established. So far as can be judged
it promotes. from the experience of a few years, it gives great advantages
to the smooth man who is willing to spend money in making
himself known, or to the aspirant who keeps himself much in
the public eye, regardless of the way in which he gets himself
there. Public prominence is by no means synonymous with
past service ; a man may have acquired the one without hav-
ing given the other. Many voters who go to the nonparti-
san primary are confronted with a sheet of names wholly
unknown to them. Having no party designations to guide
them, they are apt to be influenced by some inconsequential
things, such as the race or the religion of a candidate as
indicated by his name, or the place which a name occupies
on the ballot paper. In some cities a candidate is permitted
to put on the ballot, after his name, a short statement of
his claims to the support of voters. If he has had some
experience in municipal office, and mentions this fact on
the ballot, he furnishes some information that may be of
service to voters ; but the set of alliterative adjectives with
which most candidates adorn their names on the primary
ballot is of little or no help to any one. It has been well
said that the primary offers a greater opportunity than
the convention for the defeat of a conspicuously unfit aspir-
ant, and that one who is known to the community as
unusually well-qualified for any position is more likely to
secure a nomination from the voters than from a convention.
The usual aspirant for a municipal nomination, however, is
in neither of these categories ; and in the matter of sorting
out the best among a list of average candidates neither
system seems to have done much better than the other.
At its best the convention was capable of high-grade work.
merits of
the prims
and the
convention, showing sufficient vigor compel the majority to accept, in
the primary Now and then a small minority of the delegates could by
and the ' J
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 135
the interests of harmony, a candidate of better stamp than
would otherwise have been chosen. Under this system
there was always an opportunity for compromise, and a
vigorous minority could at least make its influence felt in
the outcome. Under the primary systemT whether partisan
or nonpartisan, the door of compromise is pretty nearly,
closed. The majority, whatever be its ideals, must have
its whole way. This would not be so bad, however, were it
not that the majority opinion, as expressed at the primary,
is often no more than a public ratification of some de-
cision already reached in caucus conclave by a few leaders.
This is because the direct primary, whether open, closed
or nonpartisan, has not done away with the making of
slates by those who, through some means or other, can
exert influence upon certain elements among the voters.
It has merely pressed back the process of slate-making
from a point preceding the election to a point preceding
the primary. In many cases the primary has become little
more than a preliminary contest between those candidates
who have organized support and those who have not ; and
the result, too often, is just what it would be under any
other system of nomination. The chief difference is that it
permits the leaders who have really determined the out-
come to avoid all responsibility for it. Under the conven-
tion system the boss could dictate nominations with rea-
sonable certainty, but he had to take the responsibility for
the slate which he presented; under the primary arrange-
ments he may be less certain to have his way, but when he
does get it he can rarely be made to bear any responsibility
whatever.
The primary, furthermore, proves an excellent weapon its effect
of discipline among the rank and file of a party. The removal party*
of party designations from the ballot does not in practice
eliminate the obligation to stanch partisan allegiance.
136 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The word is passed out by the leaders, and it is pretty
generally obeyed. The aspirant who questions the judg-
ment of his party superiors may take his chances at the
primary, and in some cases may succeed, but the chances
are, in the long run and under ordinary circumstances,
heavily against him. Under the old system the leaders,
to make things run smoothly, usually found it desirable
to conciliate rather than to discipline the recalcitrant who
showed that he had some followers/ Mow all they need to
do is to tell the man who thinks he~Eas a foIlowing^^EKat
entitles him to recognition by the party leaders to put His
name on the primary ballot and let his strength with the
voters disclose itself. For his defeat there he" can muster
up no reasonable grudge. The primary has thus become,
in some measure, a useful means of healing breaches in
the party organization, and of enabling the machine to
come forward to the elections without a trace of friction.1
In view of these various drawbacks, it is very unlikely
*nat tne primary, in any of the types now used, will prove
a satisfactory and final solution of those problems which
question.
connect themselves with municipal nomination methods;
for it is based upon the assumption that the voters will
act wisely without leadership, rather than upon the principle
that they will follow wise leadership. This is just the trouble
with too many latter-day political reforms : they endeavor
to supplant vicious leadership by no leadership at all. If
they assumed the inevitableness of leadership and strove to
make it responsible, the results would undoubtedly be
better.
Nomination It was a feeling that the whole primary system was faulty
in some of the directions above indicated which led to the
adoption, in the amended Boston charter, of the System of
1 This has been the experience in Massachusetts ; in several other
states, however, this feature has not as yet disclosed itself.
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 137
nomination by petition. Since 1909 it has been possible for
any Boston voter to appear upon the municipal ballot as a
candidate for election to the office of mayor, or to the city
council or the school committee, by filing with the election
board, at least twenty-five days prior to the election, nomina-
tion papers bearing at least 5000 valid signatures. Signatures
are valid for this purpose only if made by registered voters
who have signed no more papers than there are places
to be filled. Each paper bears the name and residence of
the candidate, but no party designation; it contains also
the names of five or more other persons who, in case the
candidate should later withdraw, would have power to name
a substitute. The papers are examined by the election
commissioners, who check each name by the voters' lists.1
In actual operation thus far, the system of nomination its actual
by large petitions has shown itself to be possessed of great
merits and of equally obvious defects. Without doubt it
has weakened the influence of party organizations in con-
trolling nominations ; for, though candidates can secure
signatures much more easily when they have an organization
behind them, it is nevertheless quite possible to obtain them
by the efforts of a few individuals without this support.
To that extent, therefore, the system has weakened party
disciplineT since the elimination of the candidates who have
no political faction behind them does not take place until the
election. Again, unlike the primary^ the system ?f nomina-
tion bv petition gives every element in the community a
chance to put forward its own candidate: it does not re-
strict the race to the two strongest candidates. On the
other hand, it has not put an end to the preliminary caucus ;
in fact, the real selection of candidates is usually made by
rival organizations, through their committees, some weeks
before the time for filing nominations arrives. To get the
1 Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1909, ch. 486, § 53.
138
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
procedure.
required signatures for these candidates, moreover, does not
by any means prove to be so easy a task as was antici-
pated. The system has also brought in its train a good deal
of chicanery, forcing of names, and other illicit practices..
On the whole, however, it serves the cause of independence
in municipal politics better than any of the nominating
systems which preceded it, for it encourages the putting
forward of candidates who, despite their personal merits,
would have little chance of nomination at the hands of either
a convention or a primary.
The establishment, in American cities, of a system of
nominations that will give every citizen a fair chance to
°^er himself as a candidate for public office and yet not
bring an avalanche of names upon the ballot is something
yet to be achieved. One is moved to ask, however, why this
should be so serious a problem in America when it is such in
no other country. In England it needs the names of only
ten qualified voters to put a candidate before the municipal
electorate ; in France and Germany any voter may become a
candidate for municipal office upon his own personal
announcement. Even in the cities of Canada, where social
and political conditions are not very different from those of
American municipalities, any two voters may officially
nominate a candidate. In all these countries the road to a
place on the ballot is easy enough; yet the number of
municipal candidates is everywhere smaller than in the
United States. What one may have for the asking one is
not apt to desire for its own sake. Mere candidacy for_
municipal office is regarded as an honor nowhere but in the
United States, and it is so regarded here only because
nominations nave been made so difficult. When it is nearly
as hard to get one's name on the ballot as it is to win an
election, and sometimes even harder, nominations are liable
to be too much sought for their own sake. If the American
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 139
city were to put upon its ballot the name of any voter who
asked to appear there, it would find, judging from the
experience of every other country, that, far from being
deluged with aspirants, it would in the long run have
fewer names on the ballot than under a system demanding
5000 signatures. Nomination reform ought to move in the
direction of simplification ; its aim ought to be to make it
as easy for a voter to have his name printed on the ballot
as it now is for him to write it there when he goes to the
polls. Were this done, many of the present nomination
problems might eventually pass out of existence.
Municipal elections in the United States have presented Municipal
various difficulties; there have been times, in most of the
large cities, when it has seemed well-nigh impossible to
secure a full and fair expression of popular opinion at the
polls.1 Most of these difficulties have, however, been met
and so far overcome that elections are nowadays conducted
about as fairly and as efficiently in the United States as in
any other country. There are, nevertheless, four matters
connected with election methods and machinery upon
which there is still no uniformity of practice or opinion.
These relate to the proper date for a municipal election, the
selection of polling-places, the form and contents of the
ballot, and the prohibition of election practices that are
unduly expensive, unfair, or corrupt.
As to the proper date of a municipal election, the chief The date
question is whether it should be held upon the same day
as the state election or not. In favor of holding both elec^ tioa'
tions upon the same dav mav be urged the saving in expense.
Elections are costly, more so than the average citizen imag-
ines. The registration of voters, the printing of ballots,
1 For an account of the methods that have been used to win elections
in New York and Philadelphia, see C. L. Jones, Readings on Parties and
Elections (New York, 1912), 282-296.
140
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Objections
to the
practice
of holding
state and
municipal
elections on
the same
day.
the rental of polling-rooms, the payment of polling-officers,
and similar items of expenditure combine to put upon the
city a cost which amounts to about a dollar for every ballot
cast at a municipal election. To this must be added the
legitimate and necessary expenses of a campaign which,
though not paid for out of the municipal treasury, yet fall
upon the community in which the election takes place.
When state and municipal elections are held upon the same
day, there is thus a large saving both in official and in cam-
paign expenses. Moreover, this policy insures thft pnl]jng
of a larger percentage of the registered vote. Voters seem
to come to the polls in numbers proportioned to the impor-
tance of the election. The maximum vote appears when
the national, state, and municipal elections all come together.
When the city election is isolated from the others, popular
interest in it seems ordinarily to flag unless some unusual
stimulus is applied to it ; and a small polled vote at a city
election is unfortunate, not only because it gives no fair
reflection of public opinion, but because the friends of well-
ordered administration usually form more than their due
proportion of the absentees.
On the other hand, the practice of holding state and
municipal elections on the same day has been influential in
bringing state politics into city affairs. Identity of election
dates usually means that the state and municipal parties
conduct a mutual campaign, which is another way of saying
that the interests of each party organization in the city will
be sacrificed, whenever necessary, to the interests of the
same party organization in the state. As will be suggested
in a later chapter, partyism is not in itself an objectionable
feature of a municipal campaign. The objection is only
to the identification of state and municipal partyism, or,
in other words, to the trailing into the municipal arena of
party programmes and partyisms which have no local
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 141
relevance. So Igng as the voters of a city divide according
to their state-party affiliationsT there is little or no oppor-
tunity for division upon local issues. Municipal partyism
can be developed only when local issues are made to serve
as the basis of political cleavage. The holding of state and
municipal elections on different days is one of the features,
though only one, which make the rise of local parties possible.
Most cities, actuated by a desire to divorce local from state
politics, have kept their municipal elections upon a date
apart; Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco are examples.
On the other hand, Baltimore, and a few other cities
elect their municipal officers on the regular state-election
day.
In the selection of places for municipal polling a few Polling-
matters are worth bearing in mind. Polling-places should be p a
located where they will best serve the convenience of voters ;
they should be at yoints easy to find without detailed direc-
tions; and, wherever practicable, public buildings should
be used for the purpose. A schoolroom forms an ideal
polling-place, if it be available. In some European cities
schools are always so used ; but in America, where elections
are almost invariably held on a Tuesday, schoolrooms are
on that day in use for their regular purpose. When it
becomes necessary to rent polling-places, it is usual to
avoid certain buildings, such as those in which intoxicating
liquors are sold; in many cities, indeed, the law forbids
the holding of a poll in or adjacent to such premises. Build-
ings that are used for sectarian purposes, or that are associ-
ated in the popular mind with any partisan propaganda,
are also commonly avoided. Some cities have found it
profitable to provide themselves with portable booths
which can be set up in a public square or other convenient
place for use on election day.
Of greater importance, however, than the time or the The ballot.
142
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Objections
to the old
ballot.
Introduc-
tion of the
Australian
ballot.
place of polling is the form of ballot used. That it should
be such as will enable a voter to record his opinion secretly
is a feature recognized in all American cities. In the earlier
periods of American municipal history voters were required
to provide their own ballots ; but candidates and their or-
ganizations soon adopted the practice of preparing printed
slips which voters might use if they wished. As the number
of elective officers increased, these ballots grew in size,
until it came to pass that the voter never prepared his own
ballot paper, but merely used the printed sheet, or slate, of
candidates handed out by party agents. If he wished to
depart from this list, he erased one or more names and wrote
in others, a procedure known as "scratching" a ballot.
This was the ballot system which remained in vogue through-
out the cities of the United States until about twenty-five
years ago.
The system was, however, open to many serious objec-
tions. It was the custom of party organizations to provide
ballot papers which, from their color or form, could be recog-
nized even when folded, so that secrecy of voting was prac-
tically destroyed. Furthermore, a heavy premium was put
upon voting a straight party ticket ; the voter who wished
to depart from the regular slate could do so only with some
trouble to himself. All this facilitated trickery of various
sorts; for, with an unlimited number of ballot papers in
circulation about the polling-booth, the ordinary securities
against ballot-switching, the stuffing of ballot-boxes, and
kindred frauds were impaired. The system also gave a
great advantage to the regular, or organization, candidates,
and served to discourage independent candidacy.
It was because of this that a movement began, in the
later eighties, for the adoption of the so-termed Australian
ballot. As a matter of fact, there was nothing exclusively
Australian about the new ballot ; although it originated
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 143
there, it was merely the ballot used in England since 1872,
and in all the self-governing English colonies. The dis-
tinguishing characteristic of this ballot lies, not in its size
or shape or arrangement, but merely in the fact that it is
printed officially at the public expense, whereas under the
older system ballots were printed either by or on behalf
of the candidates at their own cost. The "Australian"
ballots, being official, bear the names of all the candidates,
whether put forward by organizations or otherwise; they
are printed under close official supervision in limited numbers,
are supplied to each polling-booth for the use of voters, and
must all be accounted for when the voting is over. Their
use insures absolute secrecy, and affords some security
against fraudulent practices.1
But this ballot soon developed in America a form utterly Ballot
unlike its prototype in Australia.2 Since there were many
municipal officers to be elected, and since the various parties
continued to put whole slates of candidates in nomination,
it became customary to arrange in columns, according to
their party affiliations, the names of all the candidates on
the ballot. Then came the habit of putting at the head of
each column a party symbol, and below this a circle in
which, by making a single cross, a voter could record his
vote for the score or more of candidates whose names were
printed in the column underneath. The original Australian
ballot had none of these things. The party column, the^
emblem^ and the circle are all features that have been.
engrafted upon it in America by the influence of party organ-
1 P. L. Allen, "Ballot Laws and their Workings," in Political Science
Quarterly, XXI. 38 (March, 1906). On the movement for the introduc-
tion of the Australian ballot in America, see J. H. Wigmore, The Australian
Ballot System (Boston, 1889).
2 The great variety of regulations adopted by the various states in
regard to the form of the ballot may be seen in the summary of "Ballot
Laws in the United States," by Arthur Ludington, in American Political
Science Review, III. 252-261 (May, 1909).
144 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
izations which desired to hold their grip upon the voters and
to place deterrents in the way of political independence.
The long As a result of this development, the ballot, though made
secret, was not made intelligible. The premium upon
straight voting still remained. The party designation of
candidates represented a direct appeal to the partisan alle-
giance of voters. The number of names upon the ballot,
as used in large cities, rendered it impossible for the average
voter to make intelligent selections ; and the arrangement of
the names was such as to penalize him with extra trouble,
as well as with the risk of spoiling his ballot, if he displayed
any political independence. To vote a straight party
ticket was made easy, — a single cross accomplished that ;
but it sometimes required the marking of fifty or more
crosses to vote a split ticket. Thus it was that, despite the
changed character of the ballot, party organizations con-
tinued to hold most of the advantages which they had
Removal acquired under the former system. The next step in the
design^ direction of ballot reform came with a movement for the
tions. abolition of the party column and the grouping of all candi-
dates under the particular offices to which they aspired.
Massachusetts, in 1888, had adopted a ballot of this type,
which bore no party emblem and forced the voter to mark
separately his choice for each office. This was an improve-
ment; but a partisan designation still followed each name
on the ballot, and the great mass of voters continued to
accept this as their sole guide. The Massachusetts ballot
performed a good service, however, in paving the way for
the dropping of partisan designations altogether, and the
amended Boston charter of 1909 marked the first application
of the new principle to the elections of a large American city.1
1 Municipal ballots without party designations were, however, already
in use by some smaller cities that had adopted the commission form of
government.
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 145
Since then the ballot without party designations has found
favor in many cities of the United States ; in other words,
the Australian ballot in its original uncomplicated form
is now for the first time obtaining a fair trial in this
country.
But the mere removal of party designations from the The ballot's
municipal ballot is not likely to be of much avail in promoting burden-
independent and intelligent voting unless other changes go
along with it. If the voter is expected to use discrimination
in marking his ballot, the ballot itself must be shortened to a
point at wmcn a lair scrutiny of the claims ol eacn candidate
is not beyond his patience. A ballot which bears twenty
names or more is too long for practical scrutiny ; the average
voter will pay attention to the candidates for a few of the
most conspicuous offices only.1 The others he will vote
for, either according to the party label which they bear,
or according to some other rule which does not require any
careful study of candidates on his own part. To say this
is in no way to reflect either upon the intelligence or upon
the civic spirit of the ordinary voter. It means only that
there is something wrong with an electoral system which
requires from every man a service that not one in ten
thousand is willing to give. It is idle to urge that all munici-
pal offices might be capably filled by election if the voters
would perform their duty. If it be made the duty of the
voter to constitute himself a committee of investigation at
every election, he will not perform that duty, nor will any
amount of political sermonizing induce him to do it. This
being the case, it becomes the part of wisdom not to put
any such burden upon him. To this end, the number of
1 Ballots containing three or four hundred names have not been at all
uncommon at state and national elections. The record for unwieldiness
appears to be held by a ballot used in the thirty-second assembly district
of New York State a few years ago. It contained the jsiames of 835
candidates.
146 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
elective offices should be reduced to a minimum; the out-
standing offices, those which from their nature carry large
powers and attract wide attention, must of course be filled
by popular action, but there the task of the voter ought to
cease. It is well enough for politicians to dilate upon the
"educative value of a system under which all officers of
government are elected," or upon the " antagonism between
executive appointments and popular sovereignty"; but the
downright folly of requiring voters to go through the pre-
tence of doing what they cannot and will not do is too patent
to be permanently tolerated. The blanket ballot has been
the political jobber's device for imposing upon the voter a
hollow mockery of popular sovereignty which has served
to shield from his eyes the real existence of a political oli-
garchy. Popular sovereignty demands that the voter shall
do more than go through the form of selecting his represent-
atives. To have any educative value whatever the
electoral system must make it practicable for him to do
more than execute a perfunctory service at the polls. " No
plan of government is a democracy unless on actual trial
it proves to be one. The fact that those who planned it
intended it to be a democracy and could argue that it would
be one if the people only would do thus and so, proves
nothing." 1 If it is not a democracy in fact, it ought not
to bear the name.
The short It is not enough, moreover, to have the ballot small and
the names upon it few. No matter how scant the number
of names, the voters will not rouse themselves to any intelli-
gent part in the election if none but unimportant offices are
to be filled. The ballot should bear, therefore, the names
of those only who are candidates for such municipal offices
1 R. S. Childs, Short Ballot Principles (Boston, 1911), 19. This little
book may be commended to readers as a trenchant and colorful state-
ment of the case for ballot reform.
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 147
as bulk large in the public imagination, — the posts of
mayor, comptroller, and members of the city council, if the
latter body be not too large. It is also highly desirable
that a place upon the ballot be within the reach of candi-
dates who have no party organizations behind them. This
can be achieved to some extent by the elimination of all
party designations from the ballot, but more effectively
by the establishment of a system under which voters will
indicate, not merely their first choice for an office, but their
second and perhaps their third choice as well.
The aim of the ballot ought to be, in a word, to extract from The pref-
the voter, not merely a part of his judgment in regard to the
list of names set before him, but the whole of it. A ballot
that asks the voter to designate only his first choice solicits
a partial judgment only. Voters ought, therefore, when-
ever possible, to be asked for an expression of their opinions
concerning two or more of the candidates on the ballot,
which means that some variety of the so-termed "preferen-
tial" ballot may well be employed when tfrfi pumber of elec-
tive office^ fp *m*i\ pnmigh to pprnnit its nsp. The prefer-
ential ballot is in form and arrangement simpler than the bal-
lot commonly used in American municipal elections. The
names of candidates are printed upon it in a column, in an
order determined either alphabetically or by lot; but,
instead of the single column in which the voter ordinarily
marks a cross to designate his selection, there are three
vertical columns, in which he is asked to record his first,
second, and other choices respectively. He indicates his
first choice just as he would in using the ordinary Australian
ballot ; in the second column he puts a cross opposite the
name of the candidate whom he wishes to mark as his second
choice ; and in the third column he indicates all the candi-
dates (apart from the two already designated) to whom he
is not definitely opposed, — in other words, all those whom he
148
GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
Method of
counting.
Advantages
claimed
for the
would deem worthy of his support were his first and second
favorites out of the running. The names of those candidates
whom he would not care to support under any circumstances
he leaves unmarked.
When preferential ballots, marked in this way, are counted
up and some candidate is shown to have a clear majority
of first choices, that candidate is declared elected. In that
event the outcome of the balloting under the preferential
system would differ in no way from that in which the ordi-
nary ballot is employed. If no candidate secures a clear
majority of first choices, the second choices marked for
each candidate are added to their first choices ; and the one
who scores highest in this addition wins, provided he proves
to have a clear majority of all the first and second choices
taken together. If no candidate has this, the preferences
indicated in the third column are added to the totals already
recorded for each candidate ; and the highest wins, whether
he has a majority or not.
Various advantages are claimed for this system, which
substantially in the form outlined by the preceding para-
graph has been in operation in Grand Junction, Colorado, and
in Spokane, Washington, during the last two or three years.
It dispenses with all complicated nomination machinery, obvi-
ating the necessity of conventions or primaries as agencies for
weeding out all but a few leading candidates. It permits
practically any voter to have his name put on the ballot,
for even a considerable list of names does not impede the
working of the system. It moreovej^ejicourages indepen-
dent/candidatures, since it affords an opportunity of election
to the man who has no strong personal following^ but is
rpprfl.rHpH wjt.H moderate fa.vnr hy
^
It serves to prevent what is a very frequent outcome of
three-cornered campaigns under the ordinary balloting
system, — the election of any candidate who is clearly the
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 149
selection of a minority.1 There are, of course, some objec-
tions to the system, chief of which is the possibility that
many voters would find it so hard to understand that
spoiled ballots would be numerous ; but the preferential
ballot seems to have given satisfaction in the two cities in
which it has been on trial, and it ought to have an oppor-
tunity to demonstrate its serviceability on a wider scale.
Anything which offers a promise of getting rid of the cum-
brous American nomination machinery is indeed to be
welcomed.2
When the ordinary ballot bears no party designations^ order of
it is likely, unless it be very short, to give a marked advan- names-
ta^e to those candidates whose names appear near the top
of the list. To provide that names shall appear in alpha-
betical order is to put a handicap upon those candidates
whose names begin with letters well down in the alphabet ;
to put names on the ballot according to the order in which
the nomination papers are filed is to encourage an unseemly
scramble when the hour for filing arrives. Hence the se-
quence of names is in many places decided by lot, a device
which merely transfers the advantage to the candidates who
happen to draw the lucky numbers, but which, by giving
an equal chance to all, is somewhat better than the other
plans. Some cities believe that they have found a satis-
factory solution in an arrangement whereby _the names
on the ballot are revolved alphabetically. — that is to say,
1 At a recent municipal election in Massachusetts the candidate
chosen to the office of mayor received only about 1800 out of nearly 7200
votes cast ; the remaining 5400 were divided almost equally among four
other candidates.
2 For further discussions of the preferential-ballot system, see the
article by R. M. Hull on " Preferential Voting and How it Works," in
National Municipal Review, I. 386-400 (July, 1912) ; the summary given
by Robert Tyson in C. A. Beard's Digest of Short Ballot Charters (New
York, 1911) ; and the brief account printed in E. S. Bradford's Commission
Government in American Cities (New York, 1911), 100-103 ; 258-261.
150 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
an arrangement under which, if there are five candidates, for
example, each of them will have his name at the top of one-
fifth of all the ballots. Just how much advantage comes
from occupying the first place on the ballot depends upon a
variety of circumstances, including the make-up of the
ballot itself; but practical politicians esteem the place
to be highly important.1
Securities A final consideration affecting municipal elections lies in
comlpt the degree of security afforded against corrupt and unfair
practices. From the beginnings of American municipal
history, all offences that are by nature culpable, such as
personation, intimidation, bribery, tampering with ballots,
and falsifying returns, have been punishable under the
rules of common law. It is only within the last quarter-
century, however, that many practices which do not involve
moral turpitude, but which nevertheless contribute to make
an election undignified, unfair, or unduly expensive, have
been forbidden by statute. These statutes, modelled in
general upon the English "Corrupt and Illegal Practices
Prevention Act" of 1883 and the amending act of 1895
(46-57 Victoria, c. 51, and 58-59 Victoria, c. 40) have been
applied to city elections in many states of the Union.2
Their provisions vary considerably from state to state,
but in the main they not o^lv provide severe penalties for
bribery f illegal •"'Vtiinni QTW* iT^jy^rUfi'™^ hnf. mrjfajn ^larK^
limiting the sources from which campaign contributions
1 Some idea of the value which politicians attach to possession of the
first place on the ballot may be gained from the action of a candidate
for election to the board of aldermen in a Massachusetts city, who recently
secured from the probate court authority to change his name so that it
would begin with the first letter of the alphabet.
1 A digest of these laws is printed in Comparative Legislation Bulletin,
No. 23 ("Corrupt Practices at Elections "), issued by the Wisconsin Free
Library Commission in 1911. See also the Report of the Commission on
Laws relating to . . . Corrupt Practices at Elections made to the General
Assembly of Connecticut (Bridgeport, 1907).
MUNICIPAL NOMINATIONS AND ELECTIONS 151
may be received^ designating the purposes for which such
funds may be spent, and requiring publicity in both cases.
Not infrequently they forbid the taking of contributions
from corporations. As to purposes for which funds may be
spent, the laws sometimes set forth a list of things which may
not be paid for, as, for example, conveyances, hired can-
vassers, and the treating of voters ; in other cases they name
in detail the objects for which money may legitimately be
used, as printing, rent of halls, travelling, etc., and forbid
it to be spent for any other purpose. Special restrictions
are sometimes imposed upon advertising ; in several states,
for instance, all campaign advertisements must be signed
by the voter who causes their publication. Some states
require the appointment of party treasurers, through
whom all contributions and expenditures must be made;
and the practice of insisting upon the filing of a statement
showing all the receipts and expenditures connected with an
election has developed rapidly in recent years. In many
cases, to be sure, statutes have proved defective or have
been too easily evaded; but they have nevertheless done
much to improve the tone and temper of elections, both
state and municipal. Even if dishonest and unfair practices
at American city elections are not yet wholly things of the
past, the situation is vastly better to-day than it was two
decades ago.
REFERENCES
The most profitable selected list of materials relating to nominating
methods is that given in the appendix of C. E. Merriam's Primary Elec-
tions (2d ed., Chicago, 1909). This volume also contains an admirable
re'sume' of the whole subject. Special mention should also be made of
G. D. Luetscher's Early Political Machinery in the United States (Phila-
delphia, 1903) ; F. W. Dallinger's Nominations for Elective Office in the
United States (New York, 1897) ; and E. C. Meyer's Nominating Systems
(Madison, 1902). References to laws that have been passed since these
books were written may be found in the quarterly summaries of current
legislation printed in the American Political Science Review. The Report
152 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
of the Joint Committee of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York
(Albany, 1910) contains a great deal of interesting evidence in regard to
the working of nominating systems in various states, although the find-
ings of the committee bear obvious marks of unfairness. A group of
interesting articles on direct primaries appeared in the annual Proceed-
ings of the American Political Science Association for 1910; and atten-
tion should be called to Professor Ford's thoughtful essay on the direct
primary in the North American Review for July, 1909. See also the
volume entitled Selected Articles on Direct Primaries, ed. C. E. Fanning,
in the Debaters' Handbook Series (Minneapolis, 1911).
On the registration of voters and the machinery of municipal elections,
the following are useful sources of information : G. W. McCrary, Treatise
on the American Law of Elections (Chicago, 1897) ; C. F. Bishop, History
of Elections in the American Colonies (New York, 1893) ; J. H. Wigmore,
Australian Ballot System (Boston, 1889) ; R. S. Childs, Short Ballot Prin-
ciples (Boston, 1911); P. L. Allen, "Ballot Laws and their Workings,''
in Political Science Quarterly, XXI. 38; Arthur Ludington, "Ballot
Laws in the United States," in American Political Science Review, III.
252; C. A. Beard, "The Ballot's Burden," ibid., XXIV. 589; and R. M.
Hull, "Preferential Voting and How it Works," in National Municipal
Review, I. 386-400 (July, 1912 ; printed in somewhat different form in
Twentieth Century Magazine, v. 49-56, April, 1912). Some interest-
ing discussions of ballot laws and corrupt practices at elections are
reprinted in C. L. Jones's Readings on Parties and Elections (New York,
1912), 206-334. On the safeguards against corrupt and illegal prac-
tices at elections, a summary of legislation and a list of books deal-
ing with the subject are given in the bulletin of the Wisconsin Free Li-
brary Commission on "Corrupt Practices at Elections" (February, 1911).
Much information may also be found in Report of the Commission on Laws
relating to . . . Corrupt Practices at Elections made to the General Assem-
bly of Connecticut, January, 1907. The parent English law, with notes
and comments, is in E. A. Jelf's Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention
Acts of 1883 and 1895 (3d ed., London, 1905) ; and a discussion of the
way in which the English system operates may be found in A. L. Lowell's
Government of England (2 vols., New York, 1908). The general subject
of sinister practices in American politics is dealt with comprehensively
in Professor R. C. Brooks's Corruption in American Politics and Life
(New York, 1911).
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS
HAVING considered, in the two preceding chapters, the Political
way in which the electorate is constituted and the channels par
through which it puts forth its power, one encounters the
task of discussing an important branch of municipal science
that is not by any means so well understood, — namely,
the system whereby groups of voters seek to make them-
selves the exponents of the whole electoral will. These
group organizations, or political parties, serve not only ta
afford rallying-grounds for voters who share the same gen-
eral opinions, but also to provide centripetal forces in the
moulding of public policy. All sound and stable repre-
sentative government is party government. Were it not,
indeed, for the focussing influence of partisan organization,
whether in nation, state, or city, it would be impossible to
formulate clear policies, or to develop real responsibility,
or to establish sound traditions of government.
The division of citizens into rival parties is a natural Why they
outcome of the simple fact that in matters pertaining to the
body politic they do not all think alike, or yet all think dif-
ferently. If they did either of these things, political parties
could not exist. Whatever his opinions on public questions,
a man will always get some of his fellows to agree with him ;
and the more meritorious his opinions, the larger, presumably,
will be the company in which he finds himself . Political par-
ties are merely groups of partisans, of men who think alike,
or profess to think alike, upon questions of the day. They
are the sects of statecraft. It is through them that indi-
153
154
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Identifica-
tion of
political
parties in
the various
realms of
govern-
ment.
Effects of
this identi-
fication.
vidual opinions are combined into a political consensus.
In this alone lies their explanation and their justification.
Since parties are built upon variety and unity of political
opinion, they should be, and usually profess to be, related
to issues of public policy. And since such questions are not
the same in the three realms of government, national, state,
and municipal, the logical outcome of partisan philosophy
would be the evolution of three sets of political parties, each
adjusting itself to the issues of its particular realm. Such
ia noj. thft actual situation, however. The voters of the
United States have ranged themselves into two or three
great groups which retain their cohesion in all spheres of
government, irrespective of the fact that the problems in one
sphere have no relation to those in another. In the American
city, therefore, the voters are cleft into groups, not by any
local point of difference, but by a line of cleavage drawn down
from the politics of state and nation. It is this identifica-
tion of party lines in state and city that has demoralized
municipal politics almost everywhere by preventing the_
voters from getting face to face with issues that concern,
their own immediate neighborhood.
The municipal party organization, accordingly, can rarely
be studied in isolation ; it is usually no more than one of the
wheels in the greater partisan machine which operates in
state politics. This subordination of city to state in the
machinery of party organization is, so far as its effects go,
a flagrant violation of the doctrine of municipal home rule ;
and its results have been more pernicious to city administra-
tion than many of those legislative infringements upon civic
autonomy against which municipal politicians cry out so
lustily. Indeed, it is a curious fact that those city politicians
who are most uncompromising in their opposition to legisla-
tive interference in city affairs are the very ones who often
submit most tamely to the domination of municipal politics
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 155
by a state-party machine. Yet it cannot be denied that its relation
one form of outside domination has as little justification as
the other. The intimacy which so often exists between the rule'
party organizations in state and city means almost inevi-
tably that adherents of the party in the city are exploited
for the advantage of the party in the state ; or, if the spoils
which become available through the control of city govern-
ment be greater (as is the case in cities like New York,
Chicago, and Philadelphia), the situation will be reversed
and the interests of the party in the state will be sacrificed.
Wherever the spoils of victory promise to be in greater
abundance, there the energies of the two machines will be
concentrated.
As a means of remedying this evil three plans have been Methods of
tried. Some cities have sought to get rid of all party or-
ganization in municipal politics. To this end they have
abolished the political convention and the party primary,
substituting either the nonpartisan primary or nomina-
tion by petition. They have likewise removed all desig-
nations from the election ballot, and have tried to destroy
the chief props of partisan rivalry by putting municipal i. Abolition
offices under civil-service rules and by taking contract
awards out of the realm of political influence. All this has
served to weaken, if it has not destroyed, the hold of organi-
zations upon the electorate. But it may well be asked
whether attempts to abolish all electoral organization in
municipal politics do not result from a failure to realize the
true function of parties and the real service which properly-
based political associations can render to the community.
To formulate and to set before the whole electorate opinions
that are held in common by a portion of it, to impress the
merit of these opinions by concerted effort upon the whole
body of voters, to afford a means whereby responsibility
for a policy shall be borne in common by all who advocate
156
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
2. Creation
of strictly
municipal
parties.
it, — these appear to be the true functions of a political
party, and they are services needed in the city quite as much
as elsewhere. So long, therefore, as there are opinions to
be formulated, ends to be achieved in concert, and respon-_
sibilities to he effectively shouldered, we are not likely to get
rid of the best affpp™^ y^tr dpvised for accomplishing these.
results.1 To suggest that the American municipal voter
can best perform his civic duties without cooperation and
guidance is to disregard the plain fact that his need for
both these things was never so pressing as it is to-day, by
reason of the complex nature of the task which he is asked
to perform at the polls in passing upon measures as well as
upon men.
Taking it for granted that the forces which make for
organized electoral action are not likely to grow weaker, and
that parties of some sort will therefore probably keep com-
ing into action no matter what formal changes may be made
in municipal machinery, other cities have undertaken to
encourage the development of strictly municipal parties _
which relate their propaganda solely to local questions and
have at most only an incidental connection with the party
organizations of state or nation. This is a policy which
seems on its face to be not only logical but easily carried to
success. Few men will quarrel with you when you urge
that there is no reasonable connection between local and
state issues, and that to drag the latter into the arena of
municipal politics serves no useful purpose in either field
of government. Nor will you provoke dissent by asserting
that, because a political party enunciates in its platform
sound canons of policy concerning the tariff or the currency,
it thereby acquires no right to control the appointment of
police commissioners or the award of municipal contracts.
1 M. R. Maltbie, "Municipal Political Parties," in Proceedings of the
National Municipal League, 1900, pp. 226-238.
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 157
The wisest disposition of purely municipal questions can
come only from a consideration of the factors directly in-
volved, and matters of national politics are not involved
even remotely. On all these things most men are agreed;
yet agreement in the premises has not served to bring about
very much in the way of results. There have been strictly
municipal parties in American cities from time to time. In
a later chapter something is said concerning their achieve-
ments and failures, but more, unfortunately, about the
latter than the former.1 Such parties have been sporadic
in appearance, and rarely have survived a second municipal
campaign. Coming into the field of municipal politics with
much ado and clatter, they have usually gathered to them-
selves all the elements of local discontent, and not uncom- Thehandi-
monly have acquired thereby sufficient momentum to seat {^ party,
their candidates in office. But the unity of malcontents is
precarious. Since the new party can hold its diverse ele-
ments only by satisfying all, it is sure to find the ensuing
factional discord fatal to the success of its candidates at
the next election. A new party, whatever the principle
upon which it is based, carries a further handicap : its plat-
form or programme must, if it is to gain the public ear and
attention, contain some striking features not to be found
in the platforms of the existing parties. But most things
that are feasible and at the same time popular have already
been gathered into these programmes by the shrewd men
who formulated them. Accordingly, the new party is cer-
tain to start out with a list of aims which, if popular, are
not practicable, or if practicable are not popular^ Being
made up chiefly of men who have strong views as to what
is right and wrong, it is apt to have a rigid and uncom-
promising platform which too often repels by its vigor and
intensity of expression, thereby offsetting what it gains by
1 See below, ch. xiv.
158 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
its appeal to the local patriotism of voters. Each charter
member of a new municipal party is more likely than not to
be wedded to some specific reform which has become a
hobby with him, and which he will ride into the party plat-
form if he can. The new programme thus becomes too often
an odd mosaic of individual fads, many of which are sure
to prove utterly irreconcilable in actual opera/Hon.
New parties These two features — the inharmonious nature of the
ihTe?0' elements that ordinarily constitute the nucleus of a new
municipal party, and the almost inevitable shortcomings
of the programme which it formulates — do not, of course,
prevent the frequent appearance of such parties, nor do they
always prevent the party's initial success at the polls. They
do, however, preclude sustained success, and they explain
in large measure why the mortality rate among municipal
parties is so high. To speak after the manner of actuaries,
the normal expectation of life among such parties, as
based upon a wealth of experience during the last quarter-
century, is not more than a half-dozen years at most, —
an inevitable result, so long as these organizations acquire
at birth the germs of their own speedy dissolution. Al-
though such imperfections may not on their face seem to be
ineradicable, yet in attempts to remove them no country
European has achieved any permanent success. Throughout Europe^
analogies. . . •~™™^»— — «^— — —
notwithstanding a current American idea to the contrary,
national and municipal party lines are almost everywhere
identified,. Nowhere in France or Germany have the na-
tional parties been definitively ousted from city politics.
In England there are nominal instances of strictly municipal
parties, but very little study is sufficient to show that they
are not such in reality. The most notable example is af-
forded by London, where two ostensibly local parties known
as Progressives and Reformers have divided the allegiance
of the voters by presenting to them two party programmes
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 159
built upon local issues. But every Londoner knows that
the Progressive party is made up mainly of Liberals and that
most of the Reformers are Conservatives. There is of course
no exact coincidence of national and local party lines, but
there is a fair approximation to that situation.1 The char-
acteristic feature of London politics is not the existence
of strictly municipal partiesT but rather the prominence
given in local elections to local issues, and the readiness of.
the voter, whatever his party affiliations, to be guided by a
candidate's qualifications and record rather than by his
professions and promises.
Apart from the various obstacles that stand in the way of Difficulties
regular municipal parties as steady factors in city affairs, the fn New "
entire divorce of state and local party organizations is for York*
another reason difficult to bring about. This reason lies
in the frequent similarity, and evpn identity, of state and
municipal issues. Were the American city master of itsL.
own destinies, this identity would not often arisen but
under the present system of unremitting legislative inter-
ference in municipal matters, problems of a purely local
scope are too often settled, not at the city hall, but at
the state capitol. This means that even^ffihen._a^jrriiinicinaL
party gets control of the city government it does not always
get a mastery of the city's policy : to secure the latter it
must often enter state politics and try to make its influence,
felt in the legislature. Some years ago the Citizens' Union
of New York encountered this situation. After gaining
control of the city government, it found itself balked in its
1 "In London these divisions tend to run close to the national party
lines ; for although a Liberal is not always a Progressive, or a Conservative
always a Moderate [Reformer], and a member of one national party may
actually stand for the council on the opposite side, still the two lines coin-
cide on the whole very nearly, and the party organizations lend their aid
to no small extent in the contest." — A. L. LOWELL, Government of Eng-
land, II. 151. See also Munro's Government of European Cities, 346-347.
160
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
efforts to carry out its programme by an unsympathetic
The state legislature at Albany. It was, accordingly, forced
Union. to choose between remaining an ineffective municipal party
and becoming a factor in state politics. To pursue the
former course was to court certain defeat at the next elec-
tion; to follow the latter policy was to give up the chief
principle upon which the Citizens' Union was founded.
The experience of other cities has in many cases been sim-
ilar. City and state functions cannot be sharply differenti-
ated ; neither can city and state issues, so long as the city
is the creature of the state. From the nature of the situa-
tion a certain connection between state and municipal party
organizations is likely to continue, whether we approve of
it or not. If independent municipal parties could be es-
tablished and maintained in successful existence, some city
would probably have given us a good example before now.
American municipal experience has been prolific of such
parties, but none have lived long enough to prove that the
natural obstacles are surmountable.
The third plan for diminishing the evils which commonly
result from the identification of state and municipal parties
the ^o^8 in ta^es the form of an attempt to induce the chief political
grammes of parties to adopt special platforms, or parts of platforms,
dealing with local issues. Such endeavors are logical
enough. If the state organization feels that it cannot afford
to keep clear of municipal politics, it ought in fairness, we
are told, to give city affairs their proper share of atten-
tion in the party programme. And this it has of 1at.fi KP^T^
somewhat inclined to do. The announcement of a party's
policy on important local matters like public-service fran-
chises, municipal home rule, civil-service reform, license regu-
lations, and so forth, is coming to be a prominent feature of
state platforms ; and it is likely to become even more promi-
nent as time goes on and as urban problems grow to be of
3. incor-
of munici-
parties.
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 161
greater interest to the whole people. It has been suggested
that the friends of better city government should spend their
energies, not in a futile attempt to abolish all political
parties, or in efforts to drive a wedge into the hierarchy of
party organization, but in an earnest endeavor to gain for
municipal issues a proper recognition in state platforms.1
Such a plan, it is urged, has all the advantages of an inde-
pendent municipal-party system, with none of its great diffi-
culties. This does not mean, of course, that independent
organizations should not be encouraged for what they can ac-
complish. To win one election and lose the next may be a
modest achievement, but it is better than losing both. The
Citizens' Union of New York got but a short lease of power,
but for even that the city has some cause to be thankful.
The independent municipal party can at least put the regular
parties on their mettle, and force them to a realization of what
the community wants done. After all, insurgency is more
prolific of results than independence. The insurgents within
the party ranks can usually accomplish more than the
bolters who leave the ranks to conduct a guerilla warfare of
their own.
Taking the cities of the United States as they are, one finds The exist-
municipal politics to be featured neither by an absence of all 1
parties nor by the prominence of strictly local party organi-
zations. Almost everywhere the regular party lines are
drawn, if not always ostensibly, at any rate in fact. It
becomes of importance, therefore, to understand how the
parties organize themselves for work in city elections, what
their methods are, and to what extent they earn their right
to be called " political machines." It ought to be mentioned,
in passing, that American party organization, which from
the viewpoint of efficiency is perhaps the best in the world,
1M. R. Maltbie, "Municipal Political Parties," in Proceedings of the
National Municipal League, 1900, p. 235.
162 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
reaches its acme in the large city. There the machine
actually approaches perfection both in the clever adjust-
ment of all its parts and in the smoothness with which
it proceeds to the production of results. The physiology of
American party politics can be best studied by an examina-
tion of its most highly developed organism, the political
machine of a large city.
Typical The framework of party organization is not everywhere
ganiLtiona. alike. The party in each city has its own mechanism,
which, however, differs little from place to place, especially
in general methods. In New York, for example, th^ unit of
party organization is the assembly district, that is to say,
the area which sends a representative to the lower branch
of the state legislature. In the boroughs of Manhattan
The and the Bronx there are thirty-five of these districts. In
eac^ district the Democratic voters choose delegates to a
general committee, which, since there is one delegate for
every twenty-five voters, has about 7000 members.1
Being too large to do any executive work properly, it vests
its real functions in an executive committee of thirty-five
members, — each usually the leader of an assembly district, —
with certain ex-offi cio members. This body actually controls
the policy of the party. It is at once the regular Democratic
machine and the political organ of Tammany Hall. The
latter institution, so long a factor in New York politics and
now dominant on the Democratic side of them, has a history
of over a century. Originally a social and charitable society,
it soon developed political interests, and, making headway
against less effective party groups, in time obtained its pres-
ent primacy in Democratic circles.2
1 This general committee maintains five standing committees, on
organization, finance, correspondence, naturalization of alien voters,
and printing, respectively. The members of the general committee from
each district also form a district committee.
2 Further information concerning the history and organization of
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 163
It has been observed that the executive committee of ita
Tammany is made up of the thirty-five district leaders. JSach ^
leader, besides sharing in the work of the committee, directs
the political work in his own district and is the head of the
district organization. For the more effective handling of
campaign tasks the election district or voting precinct is
used as a unit of local organization. It is one of the
duties of the district leader to appoint a captain for every
polling-precinct in the district, and there are well over
1000 such precincts in the two boroughs. Eanh napta,in
has a small corps of worker^, and is held strictly accounta-
ble for getting the voters registered and for seeing that the
vote comes out on election day. Such is the framework
of official organization. Potentially the supreme control of
the party's interests rests with the general committee of
nearly 7000 delegates chosen by the voters. In practice
thirty-five assembly district leaders, supported by the host
of general committeemen in each district and the hundreds
of precinct captains and workers, assume the real direction
of the election campaigns.
Supplementary to this organization, and a very important. The regu-
.... lar clubs.
influence in promoting its strength T are the snores of os-
tensibly social bodies which form centres of party propa-
ganda in every district of the city. These associations
commonly rank as clubs, and each has its own distinctive
name. Each has its regular rendezvous, usually a small
hall or suite of two or three rooms in a central location.
Sometimes there is also a room for billiards and other games,
and in some cases the club holds a license to serve
liquors to its own members. In these quarters the members
gather frequently in a close personal intimacy, and attend
Tammany Hall may be found in Dorman B. Eaton's Government of Munici-
palities (New York, 1899), chs. iv.-vi., and in Gustavus Myers' History of
Tammany Hall (New York, 1901).
164
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The spo-
radic clubs.
The Phila-
delphia
system.
to the interests of the party in the immediate neighborhood
in which the club is located. A spirit of partisan loyalty
is thus fostered through the channels of everyday friend-
ship. When necessary, these clubs are financed from above ;
for the leaders of the party well understand their value in an
election campaign.
Along with these more or less permanent associations
are the sporadic political clubs that come into being a month
or so before the election and disappear as soon as the contest
is over. These likewise are social in outer guise, but purely
political in motiveT They are composed of groups of younger
voters who are for the most part already personal friends
or acquaintances, but who find in the approaching election
an opportunity to enjoy, for the time being, a place of
rendezvous with occasional distributions of liquors and
cigars at no cost to themselves. A small hall is procured,
and is fitted up with chairs and table ; smoke-talks by minor
fry among the party leaders are announced ; stray voters
are corralled and brought into nominal membership ; and
the necessary neighborhood enthusiasm for the party slate
is manufactured by an occasional parade with a band and red
fire. To some extent these fly-by-night clubs may ren-
der political service equivalent in value to the funds which
they draw from the party treasury ; but on the whole they
are not regarded as very profitable adjuncts to the party
organization. In many cases they are little more than
agencies for extracting, either from candidates or from the
organization, enough money to keep in good humor a lot
of political rounders whose votes would be had anyway.
New York is not unique in the possession of these groups ;
they abound in all large cities at election time.
In Philadelphia the system of party organization is not
widely different from that in New York. Here, however, the
unit of organization is not the legislative district, but the ward.
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 165
There are forty-two wards in Philadelphia, but
has several polling-precincts or election districts, amount-
ing to nearly 1100 in all. On the first Tuesday of April in
each year a caucus, or primary, of the Republican voters in
each precinct is called, and this elects a president, secretary,
and treasurer, together with two registration officials. This
body of five has charge of the local interests of the party in
the matter of registering voters. Each of the fortv-two
wards has a Republican ward committee made up of two
delegates from each precinct, who are chosen by the party
voters of the precinct at a regular primary election. The
size of the ward committee depends, of course, on the number
of precincts in the ward, which ranges from ten to fifty ; the.
chairman of the committee is the ward leader. The super-
vising organ of this whole system is the central city commit-
tee of eighty-four members, composed of two from each
ward, who are selected by the ward committees. This cen-
tral body has practically final jurisdiction in all matters
affecting partisan regularity. The system constitutes a real
hierarchy, therefore ; for the central committee has juris-
diction over the ward committees, and the latter in turn
have a like authority over the precinct organizations. As
the ultimate source of all authority rests in the Republican
voters at the primary, the fiction, if not the actuality, of
popular organization is thus scrupulously preserved.
In Boston the nart.v organization "alan talcfta thft ward as The Boston
the unit. Once a year each of the twenty-six wards of the Bys
city elects its respective ward committees, the enrolled
members of each party receiving ballots upon which are
printed the names of candidates for election to the party
committee. jSach ward committee, which contains one mem-
ber for every 200 party voters, elects its chairman, and each is
upon a f>ity committee made up of a delegate
(usually the chairman) from each of the various wajd
166
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Variety
and unity
in party
organiza-
tion.
mittees. The city committee, in turn, chooses its chairman
and secretary, both of whom give nearly their whole time
to the party service during the period of an election cam-
paign. In both parties, however, the efficiency and disci-
pline of the organization has been greatly weakened by the
charter amendments of 1909, which substituted nomination
by petition for nomination by party primaries in the case
of all elective city officials, took party designations off the
ballots, greatly reduced the number of elective posts, and
laid many effective restrictions upon the distribution of mu-
nicipal patronage.
Going through the whole list of larger American cities,
one would find that party organizations, so far as their
relation to municipal politics is concerned, display almost
everywhere the same characteristics.1 Each organization
takes the form of a pyramid, with the rank and file of par^
tisan voters forming the base. These delegate their powers
to a large group of ward committeemen, and these in turn
depute their authority to a smaller group of men who form
an executive committee. This latter committee is ostensibly
a responsible body, but in reality it is not so. It assumes the
plenary powers of a body which is directing the tactics of a
battle: during the heat of an election campaign there is
no time to question whether the party leaders are ex-
ceeding the letter of their powers. Too much actual democ-
racy in party organization does not make for machine-like
precision; accordingly, much that has the externals of
popular rule is in effect pure autocracy. If the party
voters would come out to the caucuses and primaries in full
strength, the situation might be different ; but for the most
part, and under normal conditions, these gatherings are
more freely patronized by hide-bound partisans than by
1 See Jesse Macy, Party Organization and Machinery (New York, 1904),
especially ch. xvi.
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 167
voters of independent tendencies. The substitution of the
primary for the caucus has not changed the caliber or the
methods of ward or city committees ; it has merely given
to the old order that added prestige which legal recognition
of its status implies.
The work which the party organizations lay out to do. Work of
and in large measure actually perform, is extensive and
exacting. It does not, as in Europe, all fall within the few
weeks which precede an election ; it is spread over the whole
year. In the first place, there is the task of getting aliens
naturalized, so that their names may ultimately appear
on the voters' lists. A precinct committee which does its
work well will keep careful record of every one who comes
into its neighborhood, and will proffer its help freely to those
who seek to qualify as voters. It will make sure that all
who are likely to vote right are duly registered; and on
polling-day it will see that checkers, watchers, conveyances,
and other accessories are provided. The work of the ward
committee is of somewhat broader scope. Its functions
include the supervision of ward headquarters, its chairman
is the disburser of all that can be had from the city in the
way of patronage.1 Furthermore, an efficient ward organiza-
tion manages to keep its solicitude for the voters constantly
before their eyes. When there is a public building, play-
ground, or anything of the sort to be located somewhere,
the ward chairman will urge the claims of his own locality ;
when there are appointments to be made, he will press
for a share on behalf of candidates from his own ward ;
if there are any favors, official or unofficial, to be distrib-
1 The disbursing of patronage, in general, is handled about as follows :
llxe ward leader (or chairman) keeps for himself and his personal friends
all that he dares. A part of what is left goes to members of the ward
committee. The rest is distributed outside this immediate circle wher-
ever it seems likely to promote the ward leader's strength or allay oppo-
sition to him.
168
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The city
committee.
uted, the ward chairman will see that they go where they
will do the most good. During the election campaign the
committee provides for minor rallies within the ward, and
attends to many local details turned over to it by the central
city committee.
The city committee, on its part, is the general board of
strategy. But its actual functions in this regard are usu-
ally arrogated by a small clique of leaders and personal
friends of the chief party candidate, not all of whom may
be members of the committee. This small group, with the
assistance of the whole committee, directs the general party
policy, selecting so far as it can the issues that are to be
emphasized and usually handling the literature of the cam-
paign; it provides the press service, supplying the news-
papers with facilities and copy ; it arranges for the speakers
at the various rallies; and it superintends the collection
and distribution of the campaign funds. Above all, it has
direct supervision of the central headquarters, an office that
becomes the pivotal point in the party's activities. A great
deal, therefore, depends upon the men who make up this
group, and particularly upon the man who is at the head
of it. The routine of a municipal campaign is much the
same everywhere; but the effectiveness of this routine
work hinges upon the popularity of the issues selected for
emphasis, and upon the energy that can be inspired from
headquarters.
The More can be accomplished in American cities by persistent
premium* on political industry than in any other cities of the world. In
England, although organization and vigorous effort on the
eve of an election count for much, the fact remains that
public sentiment reacts against the candidate who seems
to make politics his profession. Too much work in his
behalf is apt to alienate voters. In America there seems to
be no such danger. The more enthusiasm and effort that a
party
activity.
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 169
candidate and his frieyids put, into fl, campaign the better the
voters seem to like it : hence it is thought well to begin early,
to press the party's claims upon the attention of the voters
without a moment's let-up, and to demonstrate how much
energy is in reserve by a whirlwind finish on the eve of the
election. To do all this requires the full time of many
persons while a campaign is in progress ; and when elections
come annually such persons never have much opportunity for
anything but political work. That is why the professional
politician finds a place in American municipal life. To
desire the end is usually to tolerate the means. So long asi
public opinion relishes the expenditure of so much time and
energy during the months preceding a municipal election,
and so long as annual elections continue to be the rule, it
is not to be expected that politics will cease to be a
recognized vocation.
For the proper performance of all this work the party Party
organization needs a good deal of money. An important
office, therefore, is that of treasurer of the citv commit-
tee. This post is usually given to some man who has
financial standing in the community, and who,, because of
his business connections or for other reasons, is able to get,
easily into touch with the elements that are likely to be the
most generous contributors to the party exchequer ._ From
the treasurer's office circulars soliciting contributions are
sent out to all those who have helped in previous campaigns,
and to such others as seem likely to prove responsive. This
appeal is followed up by personal solicitations either on the
part of the treasurer himself or by the committeemen who
assist him, the scope of the canvass depending upon the
urgency of the need. Funds come in from various sources. The
The candidate himself is expected to contribute substan-
tially ; in fact, the amount of his subscription is sometimes cpntrib«-
.... tiona.
fixed by a general understanding when his nomination is
170 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
arranged for. Members of the party who are already in
municipal office, or who hold paid administrative posts,
are also expected to respond generously; and they usually
do so. The current notion among politicians is that the
man in office should prove his gratitude to those who put
him there by contributing liberally from his public salary to
the party income. Then there are the public-service cor-
porations, which, even when prohibited by law or confronted
by legal requirements in regard to the publication of cam-
paign contributions, almost always donate freely, and
usually without favor, to the funds of both parties when-
ever the strength of the two parties is sufficiently well-
balanced to render the issue of an election at all in doubt.
Since they desire privileges from the city government, they
feel that they cannot afford to antagonize both parties by re-
fusing to contribute at all ; nor are they willing to take the
chance of having supported the losing side, as might be the
case if they contributed to the funds of one party only.
But when there is a great difference in strength between
the two parties, the stronger gets the whole contribution
and the weaker obtains nothing at all. Since in any case
all such disbursements come ultimately from the public,
however, and not from the corporate stockholders, the policy
of forbidding all such contributions has been growing in
favor during recent years, although as yet these prohibitions
have not proved proof against evasion. Other persons
likely to be approached by the party treasurer are munici-
pal contractors, aspirants to appointive offices, holders of
licenses, — all of those, indeed, who have occasion to deal
with the city government in any capacity. All such are
apt to feel that by contributing they will strengthen
their own positions. Finally, there are always many sub-
scribers actuated by unselfish motives, who, desiring only
the success of that party in whose programme they be-
\
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 171
lieve, contribute as to a public cause. The motives of men
are not often easy to fathom, and when they can be dis-
covered they are rarely found to be simple. A variety of
factors usually combine to make one individual contribute
and another refrain. But no one can scan the published
lists of contributors without being impressed with a feeling
that the sinews of party conflict are furnished, in the main,
by those who are fairly close to the organization rather than
by those who are not even indirectly connected with it.
Much of the money that comes in is given quite voluntarily ;
more of it, perhaps, flows in under varying degrees of pressure,
open or implied ; but some of it is not infrequently the
fruit of pure blackmail, levied upon office-holders and others
who dare not refuse the party's demands.
Most of the money which the party treasurer can bring where the
together is needed for purely legitimate routine expenses, Iloney goea>
such as the rental of city and ward headquarters and of
halls for rallies, the cost of advertising, printing, bill-posting,
and postage, the wages of clerks and stenographers, pay-
ments for checkers, watchers, and other workers on polling-
day, the hire of conveyances to bring voters to the polls,
and little appropriations for bands, transparencies, and the
other accessories of party display. In any large city these
items combine to foot up a considerable sum. Some of the
party's income may be and probably is spent for sinister
purposes, but not directly from headquarters. It is cus-:
tomary, a few days before the election, to give to each
ward or district leader a certain sum fa) be used by him,
and his committee within their own Jurisdiction. Much of
this goes to employ men who are listed in the subsequent
return of expenditures as "messengers," but who in reality
are voters to whom small sums (usually five dollars each)
are paid for work in the party's interest on the day of the
election. The only service these "messengers" perform is
172 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
that of voting right themselves and perhaps influencing a
few friends in the same direction. The practice has the
externals of legitimacy, but much of the money spent in
this way is sheer bribery. To put the whole matter in
another way, one might say that, while comparatively little
of the party's income now goes for purposes that are clearly
illegitimate, a considerable part of it, though disbursed for
things which are ostensibly within the law (such as rentals,
advertising, services, etc.), is invariably spent in ways that
constitute a virtual purchase of votes. It is to keep such
payments within proper bounds that the stringent laws
relating to election expenditures, mentioned in the preceding
chapter, have been pressed to enactment.
The dia- But it is not through the possession of ample funds that
patronage? ward and district organizations and leaders get their strength ;
for the funds at their command are not ample. Contrary
to the popular impression, the ward leader has throughout
the greater part of the year very little money on which to
keep his organization alive. He has other resources, however,
which serve his ends as well or even better. Chief among
these is his wide range of patronage, official and unofficial.
In the days before civil-service reform laws began to protect
the city's pay-roll from his talons, the ward boss rewarded
party service and loyalty by gaining positions in the various
municipal departments for the more valiant of his supporters.
By the development of the merit system, however, this field of
official exploitation has been steadily reduced, until in many
cities it no longer affords the ward organizations their
livelihood. Recourse has accordingly been had to unofficial
patronage ; that is, to the securing of jobs or favors for party
henchmen from public-service corporations, municipal con-
tractors, firms that sell supplies to the city. — from alL
indeed, who have anything to gain from the ward leader's
support or anything to lose by his opposition. Street-
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 173
railway companies, gas and electric companies, contractors
for street pavements, and so on, all bear on their pay-rolls
men whose services to them are largely political; and the
same thing is sometimes done by banks and other financial
institutions that carry the city's accounts or do the business
of those public-service corporations which serve the city.1
Ward leaders have asked that these men be employed, and
in the long run it is cheaper to comply with such requests —
so long as a leader does not ask too much — than to fight him
in the city council or the legislature, in each of which he is
likely to have one or more minions. The real snnrnft of the
ward leader's strength lies in his ability to do substantial
favors for his adherents, as well as in the number of reputedly
honest m'tisfma on, whom he may depend to carry out his
wishes.
Unofficial patronage thus runs a vicious circle. The The vice
ward organization thrives on the supineness of those cor-
porations and individuals who seek public favors; the
latter, in turn, get or hope to get what they are after by
purchasing political support in this way. By using money
the corporations get men, and by using men they get money.
Hence it has come to pass that taking municipal offices
and contracts out of politics has not appreciably increased
the politician's difficulty in maintaining an effective organi-
zation. For it is not alone the office-holder and the con-
tractor who seek to benefit by the favor of the community.
The host of public utilities, so long as they find it profitable
to supply the ward leaders with a substitute for those official
spoils which the laws have removed from their grasp, can
hardly be otherwise than important factors in keeping
1 The extent to which these things are done, and the very fact of their
existence on a considerable scale, are hard to prove ; but a careful and
thorough examination of the facts will convince any one who can gain
access to the inner circles of party management that these statements are
substantially true in every large city of the United States.
174 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
the machine supplied with motive power. There is scarcely
a large city in the United States which has not, within very
recent years, felt the demoralizing influence of political
hirelings who owe their power to the pelf and patronage
furnished at their behest by public-service corporations and
other seekers of privilege.1 The system is one which creates
no such popular protest as did the old practice of nourishing
the party organization by the distribution of city offices and
contracts among the party stalwarts. For that very reason
it is more insidious in its operation and more dangerous in its
influence. Under the old spoils system political debts were
contracted and discharged in full view of the electorate. Thg.
new circle of demoralization runs its round without disclosing
itself, save by a slight flash here and there, to anv but those
immediately concerned.
The boss ; Much of the blame for wastefulness and chicanery in the
conduct of the city's business has been laid upon the party
boss and upon the machine of which he operates the throttle ;
and most of it has doubtless been entirely deserved. But the
denunciators of municipal bossism usually overlook the real
source of trouble, which is not the iniquitous ideals and meth-
ods of the boss himself, but that supine element in the comr
munity which, while professing abhorrence for him, yet fur-
nishes most of his resources. The ward boss has rarely any
very attractive personal traits. Usually of low birth, little
education, dubious habits, and more or less slovenly appear-
ance, he is a fair target ; and the weapons of regeneration have
more often been directed at him than at the conditions which
1"The privilege-seeker has pervaded our political life. For lus own
profit he has wilfully befouled the sources of political power. Politics,
which should offer a career inspiring to the noblest thoughts and calling
for the most patriotic efforts of which man is capable, he has, so far as he
could, transformed into a series of sordid transactions between those who
buy and those who sell governmental action." — H. E. DEMENQ, Government
of American Cities (New York, 1909), 194.
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 175
clothe such an individual with power.1 It seems usually to be
forgotten that the evolution of the boss follows the law of
natural selection, which in this case secures the survival of the
man who is most resourceful in using to full advantage the
conditions that he finds about him. To gain even a ward
leadership and to hold this post requires industry, persever-
ance, and no end of shrewd tactfulness. A successful ward,
boss must be a worker, capable by his example of inspiring
others to similar industry, lie must not be content with
doing the work that comes to him ; he must look for things
to do. As his work consists mainly in doing favors for
voters, he must inspire requests as well as grant them.
Therefore he encourages voters to come to him for help when
they are out of work or in any other sort of trouble. When a
voter is arrested, the ward or district leader will lend his
services to secure bail or to provide counsel, or will arrange
to have the offender's fine paid for him. Then there are the
day-to-day favors which the local boss stands ready to do
for all who come to him, provided they are voters or can
influence voters. These services cannot be even recapitu-
lated here, for their name is legion. To one he lends money
to stall a landlord whose patience is exhausted ; to the family
of another he sends fuel or provisions in time of need. "He
buys medicine for the sick and helps to bury the dead. He
dispenses an ample hospitality in the saloons ; as soon as he
comes in, friends known and unknown gather about him, and
he treats everybody. He is the only one who does not
drink, for he is on duty." 2 Tested by his acts, the boss is
1 Two notable exceptions, both of them discriminating discussions of
the real sources from which the boss derives his power, are the article on
"The American Boss" by the late Justice Francis Cabot Lowell in the
Atlantic Monthly, LXXXVI. 289 (September, 1900), and the chapter on
"The Boss" in Professor F. J. Goodnow's Politics and Administration
(New York, 1900).
2 M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Party System (New York, 1910),
237-238.
176 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
chief among neighborhood philanthropists; judged by the
motives that prompt his acts, he is a serpent spreading
the slime of political debauchery over whole sections of the
community. With the submerged tenth (it would be more
accurately termed the submerged half) of a great city's
population, however, it is the acts and not the motives of
men that weigh.
But it is not alone as a purveyor of favors and petty pre-
ferment that the ward leader holds his sway. He is also a dis-
penser of equally petty penalties and annoyances among those
who fail to truckle to his will. The way in which he holds
the whip-hand over the keepers of saloons and other places,
of public resort is too well known to need more than passing
mention. But his power does not stop there.. If a word
from the boss will get one man employment, a word will also,
very often, procure another employee's dismissal. At a hint
from him the small shopkeeper, thepedler, the pawnbroker, the
hackman, can be worried daily by the police or by the health
and sanitary officials of the city on baseless or imaginary
pretexts, — tactics in which, as the history of almost every
large city shows, the machine is unrelenting and vindictive.
In the higher walks of industry and trade the same policy
is pursued through somewhat different channels. There
the assessors or the building inspectors or some others
among the city's hierarchy of officials are egged on against
the unfriendly. The merchant first learns that he has
offended a political leader when his assessment for personal
property is raised to the legal maximum, or when he is
ordered to provide additional fire appliances in accordance
with the provisions of some half-forgotten law, or when the
drivers of carriages and delivery wagons before his door are
annoyed by the police in their enforcement of the city
ordinances. The manufacturer, again, is liable to reap the
whirlwind of his recalcitrancy in petty persecutions for the
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 177
technical violation of laws relating to the employment of
minors, or to overtime labor, or the like. The public-service
corporation finds itself penalized by "strike" ordinances,
or measures that are framed to give the company trouble
and worry. So expensive is the task of fighting a hostile
and vindictive political machine that there arises a strong
temptation to make a truce with it. But in the long run,
a policy of yielding to such pressure is bound to prove
more expensive still. If the business community could be
brought to realize that peace with political buccaneers at
their own price is not only bad politics but bad business,
this whole system of virtual blackmail would soon pass
out of existence.
Wherever one may turn, therefore, the hand of the politi-
cal boss is in evidence. It is unceasingly put forth to help patronage
some and to hinder others, acting always on the principle,
however, that he who is not for the machine is against it.
But whether to help or to hurt, its source of potency is al-
ways the same, — namely, the patronage which it can either
provide or withhold. This patronage, the ramifications
of which can hardly ever be traced to their end, is at once
the source of a ward leader's power and the weapon with
which he crushes opposition. Power and patronage pro-
vide a cycle hard to break. Each keeps the other intact.
The removal of official patronage in the form of appoint-
ments, contracts, and so forth from the arena of politics has
been an achievement of much value ; but it must always be
remembered that the most lucrative spoils are not official.
They come ultimately from the pockets of the public, it is
true, but not as spoils of partisan conflict. They are the
privileges which citizens and corporations may rightly claim
from the city, but for which they must pay toll to politi-
cians if they desire to avoid endless trouble in obtaining
them. With this triad of city politics, parties, and patron-
178 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
age so closely linked together, reform has found some dif-
ficulty in choosing its point of most effective attack. That
the most vulnerable spot, however, lies not so much in the
machinery of municipal government or in the organization
of parties as in the existing system of patronage, there can,
from recent experience, be very little doubt. The simpli-
fication of municipal machinery by the reduction of elective
officers and the centralizing of responsibility has accom-
plished much, and may do still more, in the way of curbing
the politician's power for harm; and there are capabilities
of like service in the establishment of independent munici-
pal parties, even though they be short-lived, and the push-
ing of municipal questions to prominence in the programmes
of state parties. But most encouraging of all present-day
municipal phenomena is the steadily rising tide of public
opinion that has set against the system of business black-
mail which now provides the professional politician with
his sinews of war. The public-service corporations, which
have been thus exploited in largest measure, are already
feeling the force of popular antagonism in laws that penalize
even to a vindictive degree their slightest participation in
politics. Big business is the first to be called to account
for its sins only because it has been the chief offender ; little
business will doubtless have its turn in due course. The
elimination of politics from the official business of the city
is only one step in the direction of civic regeneration ; the,
ousting of politics from private business is a task of even
greater importance^
REFERENCES
The best general work on the history, organization, and activities of
parties in the United States is M. Ostrogorski's Democracy and the Organi-
zation of Political Parties (2 vols., New York, 1902). These volumes con-
tain a comprehensive, accurate, and interesting survey of the entire sub-
ject. An abridged edition, in a single volume, was issued recently under
the title Democracy and the Party System in the United States (New York,
MUNICIPAL PARTIES AND POLITICS 179
1910). Other useful and readable works are Jesse Macy's Party Organi-
zation and Machinery (New York, 1912), and J. A. Woodburn'a Political
Parties and Party Problems (New York, 1906). Excellent short discus-
sions are in H. J. Ford's Rise and Growth of American Politics (New York,
1898), especially chs. vii., xxiii.-xxv., and F. J. Goodnow's Politics and
Administration (New York, 1900), especially chs. iii., viii.-ix.
On the detailed organization of the party forces in individual cities very
little has been printed, except in the handbooks issued by the organiza-
tions for the use of their own officers and members, — as, for example, the
Rules and Regulations of the Democratic- Republican Organization of the
County of New York (New York, 1908). It need scarcely be said, however,
that the actual facts of organization do not hew closely to the rules laid
down in such manuals. The evolution of the New York municipal democ-
racy may be studied in Gustavus Myers's History of Tammany Hall (New
York, 1901) ; and some idea of the situation in the metropolis during the
halcyon days of the machine's supremacy may be gleaned from W. M.
Ivins's Machine Politics (New York, 1887) and Theodore Roosevelt's
Essays on Practical Politics (New York, 1888). Machine methods in
other cities are described, without any undue leniency, in such works aa
John Wanamaker's Speeches on Quayism and Boss Domination in Phila-
delphia Politics (Philadelphia, 1898), John Jay Chapman's Causes and
Consequences (New York, 1898), F. C. Howe's The City, the Hope of
Democracy (New York, 1905), and Lincoln Steffens's Struggle for Self-
government (New York, 1906), as well as in numerous articles printed in
the annual Proceedings of such organizations as the National Municipal
League and the National Civil Service Reform Association. The Reports
of the Boston Finance Commission (7 vols., Boston, 1908-1912) contain
many examples illustrating the results of machine domination in city
government.
The devious ways of the municipal politician cannot, however, be mas-
tered by any study of printed materials. His motives, methods, resources,
and his facility in achieving results can be fully understood only by one
who is ready to gain such knowledge by the personal sacrifice involved
in taking a place on the firing line in one or more municipal campaigns.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CITY COUNCIL
History of THERE was a time in American municipal history when
council the council was the chief, and in fact the only, governing
organ of the city. It has long since ceased to be the sole
organ of civic administration, and in some places it is no
longer the dominant one ; but it retains everywhere some
of its old-time importance, and in some places it has still
to be reckoned with in every municipal undertaking.
The importance of the council as an organ of local gov-
ernment during the earlier stages of American municipal
development arose from the fact that the first English cities
of the New World adopted the system of urban administra-
tion then existing in the motherland. Although in England
the gradual narrowing of the circle of freemen had deprived
city government of its earlier democratic character, the
theory of popular local control was at least maintained, and
a council elected by the burghers of the city managed all
important municipal affairs. At the time of its transplanta-
tion to the American colonies, the English municipal sys-
tem was a democracy in principle, but a sheer oligarchy in
fact ; * and this character was retained by the American
colonial borough, at least so far as its frame of government
went.
The council Each of the colonial boroughs accordingly had its council ;
coioidai and this body was, as in England, made up of aldermen and
boroughs, councilmen sitting together. The number of aldermen
was small, usually six or eight. In most of the boroughs.
1 For further information on this point, see Munro's Government of
European Cities (New York, 1909), 209-221.
180
THE CITY COUNCIL 181
they were elected : but in a few they were chosen by the
"corporation," that is to say, by the mayor, aldermen, and
councillors. There were from six to twenty-four councillors,
chosen either by the freeholders or by the corporation.
As already said, the aldermen and councillors did not form
two separate bodies, but met always together; and there
was jittle difference between them, save that the aldermen
often had some special functions to perform, chiefly of a
judicial nature. The mayor of the colonial borough was
a member of the council and its presiding officer f but he had itsorgani-
no veto power over its acts, and, as a rule, no right to appoint powers80
any of the borough officials. The council as a whole, made
up as it was of mayor, aldermen, and councillors, framed the
local ordinances, voted and spent the borough appropria-
tions, and attended to such administrative tasks as there
were ; but administration, as it is now understood, was not
then of much importance, for the colonial borough provided
very little for its citizens in the way of public services.
Rather curiously, the chief tasks imposed upon members
of the council were neither administrative nor legislative,
but judicial. The mayor and aldermen, together with the
recorder, formed the borough court, which held its weekly
or fortnightly sessions for the trial of criminal and civiL
cases.
After the Revolution great changes took place in both The city
the organization and the functions of municipal councils, after the
The practice of dividing the aldermen into two bodies with Revolutloa
distinct powers was adopted by some cities, and soon
spread to others, till before long the bicameral council be-
came a general feature of tfhe American municipal system.
Soon the "corporation" as a self-perpetuating body was
everywhere abolished, both aldermen and councillors being^
now _ elected by direct popular voteT The mayor was not
yet elected, and in most cities he still ranked merely as the
182 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
presiding officer of the council and not as a separate adminis-
trative official ; but in course of time, as the principle of
division of powers gained recognition in municipal organi-^
zation, his independence was established With this step,
came the mayor's veto power over the councils acts.1
its position During the first half of the nineteenth century, however.
firet'lfaif ° the council retained its dominating position in municipal
teenthmne~ anCa^rsji T^6 niembers of both its branches were elected by
century. popular vote, which came generally to mean manhood suf-
frage; and it had all the prestige attaching, in a vigorous
democracy, to an authority so selected. As administrative
functions developed, they were intrusted by the council to
its own committees ; and as the work expanded the com-
mittees multiplied. The police, fire protection, schools,
streets, and similar services went into the immediate charge
of council committees. Although the council retained
formal charge of the whole field of municipal administration,
these various committees naturally developed T in time, a
great degree of independence; for the councils had grown
so large that it was practically impossible for the whole
body to give detailed supervision to the work which de-
veloped with urban growth. By the middle of the nine-
its dom- teenth century, therefore, the city council had reached a
mating i • i A • ..," . . .
position place in the American municipal system quite as dommat-
*°* ing as that occupied by the borough council in the
English system at the present time. The mayor, it is true,
had acquired much independent authority; but in most
American cities the council not only constituted the munici-
pal legislature, but also, through its numerous committees,
directed the purely administrative functions of the city.
The period 1840-1850 may, accordingly, be said tfl ha.vp
marked the hevdav of conciliar supremacy in the frame of_
American city government.
1 See above, pp. 10-11.
THE CITY COUNCIL 183
Then came a reaction. The rapid growth of cities due The city
to the heavy immigration of the later forties put a new strain ^
upon the machinery of city government ; moreover, the
councils seem to have everywhere declined in the caliber
of their membership.1 Between the two causes the system
of administration by council committees soon encountered
trouble. The committees now had far more work to do,
and they were not so competent to do it as they had been ;
hence it was done poorly and the citizens complained. As_
important departments of city administration became de-
moralized through the inefficiency or the partisanship of
the committees that had them in charge, appeals were made
to the state authorities for intervention. The states re- state in-
sponded, but their responses took different forms. In some
cases the state legislature amended the city charter by tak-
ing the administration of various municipal departments
away from the council committees and giving it to newly
established administrative officials or to boards chosen by
popular vote.2 In other cities the administrative functions
of the mayor were expanded at the expense of the council ; s
and in still others some departments were removed from
municipal control altogether, and vested in the hands of
authorities appointed by the state.4
This movement for reducing the administrative authority
1 This decline has commonly been attributed to the influence of the
alien influx combined with the system of manhood suffrage ; but, as Pro-
fessor Goodnow has pointed out (City Government in the United States, 140-
141), the decline in caliber had begun before the tide of immigration
reached anything like its real strength.
2 An independent water board was established in Chicago by state law
in 1851 ; during the year following several administrative boards and
officers were provided for in Cleveland ; and in 1857 Detroit began the
creation of independent boards.
J This was the case in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore
during the years 1854-1857.
4 In 1857 the legislature established a state park commission and a
state police board for New York, Brooklyn, and the territory adjoining.
184
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
impair-
administra-
tive powers.
Differences
American
municipal
develop-
ment dur-
ing the
of the municipal council gained headway in all the larger
cities> until, before long, its progress resulted in confining
^he council's sphere of influence to local legislation. As
t ~
the council s powers dwindled, its membership declined in
quality; and as it grew less dependable in personnel more
checks were put upon it. In the thirty or forty years
following 1850 the council was in many cities transformed
from the dominant factor in the municipal system to a
body whose chief tasks were to make local by-laws and pass
the annual appropriations. Its other powers had gone to
the mayor, or to various executive officials and boardsT or.
in a few CftsesT to statft-appnintftfl nnmmissinna. A com-
parison of the Boston charters of 1854 and 1885 affords
a good illustration of the way in which the balance of power
had during the intervening three decades been shifted from
the council to the executive organs of city government.1
It is somewhat noteworthy that during the same period
nothing of the kind took place in the cities of anv other
country. In England the city council lost none of its powers
_—•—•••»»
during the second half of the nineteenth century, but man-
. . i • i • i •*
aged rather to increase the authority which it already pos-
sessed. The same is true of corresponding bodies in the
cities of continental Europe. In none has there been a
clear separation between legislative and administrative
powers, and in none has the executive encroached upon the
legislature. The English city still administers its various
public services through standing committees of the munic-
ipal council, just as it did three-quarters of a century ago ;
and, although central supervision of local affairs has mean-
time greatly increased its rigor, the English municipal coun-
cil has to-day more work to do, and more authority to do it,
than at any previous time. In American cities, on the
other hand, dissatisfaction with the conduct of municipal
» Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1854, ch. 448, and 1885, ch. 266.
THE CITY COUNCIL 185
affairs has wreaked its vengeance on the council, until, as
a result of persistent shearing, its powers are in general
scarcely a tithe of what they were half a century ago.
To describe the present-dav organization and powers Present
of the council in American cities is not easy, for the reason ticm'o^
that these features are alike in hardly any two of them. council3-
Each of the forty-eight states has its own laws relating to
these matters, and in most of them different arrangements
have been established by special charters for different cities.
Thus it has come to pass that even in the elements of or-
ganization there is no uniformity. Some cities have a
council of two branches; others have a single chamber.
It has been estimated that in the United States as a whole
only about one-third of all the cities of over 25,000 popula-
tion have the two-chamber system; and in the cities that
have populations below this figure the proportion is probably
even smaller. Of the ten largest cities in the country, New
York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, and San Francisco have
a single-chamber council; while an equal number, Phila-
delphia, St. Louis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo, re-
tain the bicameral system.1
The two-chamber system is defended upon various^ Merits
grounds. It is urged, for example, that as a check upon
hasty and ill-considered action the double chamber is as chamber
system.
appropriate in city as in state government ; but it may well
be doubted whether, when both branches of the council are
elected by popular vote, the bicameral system performs any
real service in this direction. In practice the same political
party is likely to dominate both branches of the council,
and when this happens the same machine leaders are almost
certain to dictate the action of both bodies. Under such
circumstances one branch is no check upon the other. On
the other hand, when different political organizations con-
1 A. R. Hatton, Digest of City Charters (Chicago, 1906), 74.
186
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Adapta-
bility of the
bicameral
system to
the city's
official
needs.
Single
chambers
too easily
controlled.
trol the two branches, they are liable to check each other so
effectually that only an understanding between the two party
machines can avail to release a permanent deadlock. Such
understandings, it is needless to say, are usually the fruit of
anteroom compromises in which the interests of the city are
sacrificed for the benefit of the party organizations concerned.
Again, it is frequently asserted that, owing to the varied
character of the tasks which a city council has to perform,
two branches of different structure and size are necessary.
Some things of a semi-executive nature which come before
the council with great frequency (such as the granting of
locations in the city streets) can, it is urged, best be handled
in a body of ten or a dozen members ; whereas other matters,
such as the voting of appropriations, ought properly to come
before a much more numerous branch, the members of which
represent every section of the city and every interest of the
citizens. In reply to this contention, however, it has been
pointed out that the first class of matters ought not to come
before the city legislature at all, or before any branch of it ;
that, being quasi-executive in nature, they belong to some
purely administrative board ; and that in any case their
proper handling scarcely demands a permanent division of
the city council into two bodies. Another persistent no-
tion is that, since a single chamber is more susceptible to
sinister influence, to domination by some powerful corporate
interest, the double-chamber system constitutes a useful
public safeguard. This idea, which is no doubt deeply
rooted in the public mind, overlooks two very important
matters of everyday fact. One is the commonplace of
political science, that the only public safeguard in such_
things is the personal integrity of the councilmen. Tf |fhf>
individual members of the council be deficient in this, it
matters very little whether their number be large or small,
or whether they be grouped into one or two branches. On
THE CITY COUNCIL 187
the other hand, if men of adequate moral fibre be put into
public office, it matters about as little whether they be few
or many, and whether they sit together or do their work in
different rooms.
The other phase of the question which this argument in Thebi-
favor of the bicameral council overlooks is the fact that council as
quite as many opportunities for evil arise from a council's
versatility in impeding business as from its power to rush
things through with unseemly haste. If a single chamber
can by malign pressure be too easily stampeded into a
vote which is not in the interest of the citizens, it is just
as true that a double chamber affords to every blackmailing
political influence an undue advantage in blocking the patfy
of measures which a.ra ]n thp! r.if.y's interest. The history of
American city councils furnishes quite as many examples
of malfeasance in one direction as in the other.1
It may be urged, furthermore, that the bicameral system The double-
engenders profitless delay and needless friction ; that it
precludes the city from pursuing the prompt and business- ^ucea fnc"
like methods of private organizations ; that it is out of
harmony with the arrangements which exist in the best-gov-
erned cities of other countries ; that the majority of American
cities, which do not have the system, get along quite as well
as the minority, which do have it ; and that no city which
has in recent years abolished the double chamber shows any
desire to restore it. In general the bicameral system has
been losing ground, and the strong probability is that it
will continue to do so.
When there is a two-chambered council, one branch is Nomencia-
usually called the Board of Aldermen, the other the Common councils.
1 For other arguments, pro and con, see a paper by the Hon. Samuel
B. Capen on "One or Two Legislative Chambers," and one by John A.
Butler on "A Single or a Double Council," in Proceedings of the National
Municipal League for 1896.
188
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Terms of
councilmen
Qualifies-
Council. Sometimes, however, another name is given to
the upper branch ; in Philadelphia, for example, it is called
the Select Council, and in St. Louis the House of Delegates.
In size there is great variation among city councils. At
the head of the list is Philadelphia, with forty-one members
in one branch of its council and one hundred and forty-
nine in the other. New York and Chicago have single
chambers, comprising seventy-nine and seventy members
respectively. San Francisco, however, has a council of
eighteen members, called supervisors; and the Boston
council contains nine members only. When a council has
two branches, the members of the upper branch are
usually elected for either a two-year or a four-year term;
members of the lower branch are in most cases chosen
for one or two years, the latter term being the more
common, except in the cities of New England, where
the practice of electing councilmen annually is still main-
tamed.1 When terms are short, reelections are common;
but in any event councilmen seldom serve more than six
or eight years. In this respect the traditions of American
cities differ very widely from those of English municipalities,
where service of ten or even twenty years at the council-
board is not at all unusual.
As a rule, any qualified voter may become a candidate for
election to either branch of a city council T but in some cities,
an additional residence requirement is imposed.2 In a few
places it is stipulated that aldermen and councilmen shall
be at least twenty-five years of age ; 3 and in at least one city,
1 A chapter in J. A. Fairlie's Essays in Municipal Administration (New
York, 1908), entitled "American Municipal Councils," contains much
carefully-compiled information concerning council organization in vari-
ous cities throughout the United States.
2 In Philadelphia four years, in San Francisco five years.
* In Philadelphia and New Orleans, for example. In St. Louis the age
limit is thirty.
THE CITY COUNCIL 189
Detroit, there is an elementary educational qualification
which is not exacted from voters, namely, that of being able
"to read and write the English language intelligibly." Many
city charters also contain the stipulation that a member of
the council shall not hold any other public office, that he shall
not be pecuniarily interested in any contract to which the
city is a party, and that no one who has ever been convicted
of any violation of a public trust shall be elected to the
board. In no city is a special property qualification
exacted, nor is any previous experience in
quired or even expected. The municipal council represents
the lowest rung in the ladder of American public life. It is
where many men begin what they hope will prove a political
career ; but not many of them manage to get much higher.
This is because the municipal council, especially in the larger
cities, does not attract men of real ability or business ca-
pacity, a fact which has been so often commented upon that General
it has ceased to excite any surprise. It does not get even municipal
fair material. Very rarely is it true nowadays that any m)"nacil"
considerable percentage of the councillors are owners of
property; indeed, it would probably be found, in most
large cities, that at least three-fourths of them contribute
nothing to the city treasury but an annual poll-tax. In
Boston, just before the common council of seventy-five mem-
bers was abolished, it was said that the total sum which
they paid in taxes did not equal the annual cost of a single
city laborer. Only a few of them owned any property at
all; the rest were assessed for poll-taxes, and even these
small sums could in some cases be collected only by de-
ducting them from the monthly stipends of the councilmen.
In many American cities about the only practical require-
ments for election to the council are that the candidate shall
have given proof of loyalty to his political party : that he
shall have no substantial hl|]fiinpgg "q™»g, fr>r h** ^11 pt
190 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
a large part of his time, not to the actual duties of his office;
but to his own rQle in the continuous vaudeville of ward
politics ; that he be glib of tongue, an active canvasser
for votes, not vindictive, not ungrateful., and not over-
scrupulous.
Pay of Most cities pay their aldermen and councillors. The al-
m™. dermen of New York receive $2000 per year; councilmen
in Boston and Chicago get $1500 ; in smaller cities the re-
muneration is $1000 or less. Of the largest cities, Phila-
delphia and Pittsburgh are the only ones that give their
municipal legislators no remuneration ; but many smaller
cities pursue this policy. The caliber of councilmen seems.
however, to be in no way related to the salaries paid. When
a substantial remuneration is given, places at the council-
board are often sought by men whose ability would not com-
mand such return in any private employment. On the
other hand, when cities pay only a nominal stipend, or noth-
ing at all, men who have other interests to engage their
attention are deterred from the sacrifice which service in
the council demands of them. Hence most of the candi-
dates for election come from the ranks of those who have
nothing to sacrifice and who hope to secure in a roundabout
way some recoupment for anv time they may give the city.1
It is coming to be felt that cities would find it profitable
to reduce their councils materially in size, and proportion-
ately increase the salaries paid to councilmen.
Methods of There are three systems of selecting members of mu-
nicipal councils, — election by wards or other districts, elec-
tion at large, and election by a combination of both these
methods. The first method is most commonly followed in
the choice of a single-chambered council, and it is also
1 This question is further discussed in a paper by J. N. Pryor, entitled,
"Should Municipal Legislators receive a Salary?" in Proceedings of the
National Municipal League for 1896.
THE CITY COUNCIL 191
almost invariably used in the selection of members for the
larger branch of a bicameral council. Under the ward
system each district of the city chooses oneT two, or three
councillors. Chicago, for example, elects two from each of
its thirty-five wards; Philadelphia chooses the one hun-
dred and forty-nine members of its common council from
its forty-one wards, each ward having representation in
proportion to its population. Boston and San Francisco
are about the only large cities that elect all their council-
men (numbering nine and eighteen, respectively) on a gen-
eral city ticket : but many cities that have two chambers
elect the members of the smaller branch in this way.
Much has been said and written concerning the relative Relative
merits of the ward and general-ticket systems of choosing
municipal councillors, and it is often alleged that the ward
system has been responsible in no small degree for the me- systems
diocrity of the men usually selected. Petty districts choose
petty men, — so the saying runs. The ward councillor
represents his own ward, and that alone. He forgets that
the city is more than the sum of its wards, and that the
public opinion of the city may be different from the total-
ity of neighborhood clamors. Ward divisions are at best
ephemeral ; unlike the French arrondissement, the American
ward has rarely any traditions and as a unit of area exacts
no spontaneous loyalty from the people who live in it.
What passes for ward loyalty is, more commonly than not,
local prejudice fostered by politicians to serve their own
personal ends. Moreover, the concentration of single
ethnic elements in particular sections of the nitv makes it"
practically certain that, under the ward system, some mem-
bers of the council will owe their election to nothing but their
proficiency in appealing to racial or religious or social
narrowness. The ward system likewise affords a standing
incentive to that most vicious of all American contributions
192 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
to the science of practical politics, the gerrymander: it
makes possible the control of a majority in the council by a
minority of the city's voters; and, unless redistricting is
resorted to frequently, it fosters gross inequalities in repre-
sentation. The term "ward" has accordingly come into
disrepute in the terminology of American government, a
somewhat curious fact, by the way, since in England, where
councillors are and always have been chosen from wards,
no such odium has been developed. Its presence here is
doubtless explained by the fact that in America ward repre-
sentation, ward politics, and ward organization have come
to be associated in the public mind with bossism, trickery,
and almost everything else that is politically demoralizing.
A feeling so deeply lodged can scarcely be without some
substantial foundation.
The ward One thing, however, the ward system has in its favor:
represents- it does secure what many voters seem to regard as the only
real representation of their special interests in the city gov-
ernment, and it does insure a certain amount of geographical
and political variety in the make-up of the municipal council.
It is the failure of the general-ticket system to afford ade-
quate guarantees on these points that has hindered its more
extensive adoption. Under a system of election at large
it is entirely possible for all the councillors to come from one
section of the citv. or at any rate from a few of the many
sections; and it is not only possible, but probable, that if
the municipal ballot bears party designations, as it usually
does, they will all come from one political party. When
nominations are made by political conventions, it can usually
be arranged to give the various geographical sections of the
city due recognition on the slate of candidates ; but when
nominations are made by direct primaries or by petition
this cannot very easily be done. In such cases some sec-
tions are liable to be left without representation among
THE CITY COUNCIL 193
the candidates whose names go on the ballot; and since,
when a political party stands loyally by its whole slate of
candidates, it will elect them all, the minority party is
wholly unrepresented in the council. In Boston, some years
ago, when the thirteen members of the board of aldermen
were elected at large, one political party regularly managed
to capture the whole quota, until the legislature intervened
and required by statute that voters should mark their bal-
lots for not more than seven candidates, although thirteen
were to be chosen.1 Thenceforth the majority party in
the city was assured of seven aldermen, while the minority
party secured the remaining six ; but the board was always
so closely balanced politically that deadlocks were fre-
quent, and the city's business was greatly obstructed in
consequence.
These objections to the system of electing councillors at Arguments
large merely beg the question as to whether either geographi-
cal or political representation is a thing to be desired. Are
not different sections of the city, however diverse they may real basis.
be in their racial or social or economic features, entirely at
one in their common interest concerning the city as a whole ?
Can any policy which is to the advantage of the whole body
of citizens be of permanent disadvantage to citizens of any
one race or creed or neighborhood ? The plea for ward repre-
sentation rests upon the affirmative of this proposition.
As for the service which the ward system is reputed to ren-
der in assuring due representation to a minority political
party, many persons are disposed to deny that it is a service
at all, since it rests upon the premise that the regular politi-
cal parties have a necessary place in municipal affairs and
hence should be officially recognized and their interests duly
1 Somewhat similar arrangements for securing minority representation
have at various times been tried in other cities, notably in New York and
Chicago. In no case have they proved satisfactory.
194
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Nomina-
tions of
candidates
for election
to the
council.
Election
machinery.
regarded in the composition of the city government. Such
doctrines are supported neither by reason nor by experience,
and they are quite out of harmony with the present-day drift
of public sentiment. Those American cities which have,
reorganized their administrative arrangements during the^
last ten years have, without exception, striven to lessen the
recognition given to political partiesT Important steps to
this end have been the reduction of the council in size
and the removal of party designations from the mu-
nicipal ballot. With the adoption of these features the
chief reasons for the ward system of election disappear.
Candidates for election to the council are nominated in a
variety of ways. In a few cities the ward or city caucus still
remains; in some the party convention chooses candidates
for election at large. Many cities have replaced both caucus
and convention by the party primary, each party holding
its own primary and choosing its own official candidates.
In Massachusetts (except in Boston and those cities that
have adopted the commission form of government) the joint
party primary is used, both parties choosing their candidates
on the same day and at the same ballot-boxes. During
recent years some cities, particularly those which have
adopted the commission type of government, have used the
non-partisan primary, at which candidates are selected
without regard to their party affiliations. Boston nominates
its nine councilmen by petitions bearing each the signatures
of at least 5000 qualified voters ; and the few cities that
elect councilmen by a system of preferential voting have
no elaborate nominating machinery at all. The merits
and defects of these various plans of nomination have been
discussed in a previous chapter.1
Elections for the city council are everywhere conducted
by secret ballot, and in almost all cases the so-termed
1 Above, ch. vi.
THE CITY COUNCIL 195
Australian ballot is used. In many cities the ballot contin-
ues to bear a party designation after the name of each candi-
date for election to the council, and thus puts a premium
upon party regularity among the voters. A plurality of
votes is sufficient to elect a councillor ; hence, as there are
usually more than two candidates for the same vacancy, it
very frequently happens that a councilman is chosen bv a
minority of the voters. Elections may be voided on the
usual grounds; but in most cities the council is the sole
judge of the qualifications of its members, and decides,
among other things, whether or not a councilman was
properly elected. Being a partisan body, it is more apt
to render its decision upon partisan grounds than upon
the real facts of the case. After election the councillors
qualify by taking a prescribed oath of office.
In organization and procedure municipal councils are Theorgani-
much alike throughout the United States.1 Regular meet- procedure
ings take place at the city hall, weekly in the larger cities,
fortnightly or monthly in the smaller. Special meetings
may be held when a certain number of members ask for them.
In a few cities, notably in Chicago and Providence, the
mayor presides at all council meetings ; but as a rule the^
council, or each branch of it, selects its own president. This is
done at the first meeting after an election, and a clear majority
of votes is usually necessary ; hence the selection of a pre-
siding officer is not infrequently delayed for weeks or even
months, through the inability of a majority of the members
to agree upon a choice. Where party discipline is good,
however, the selection is virtually made at a preliminary
caucus by the members of the majority party in the council.
The presidents of the board of aldermen and the common
council are usually chosen for a single year. The council,
1 There is a good discussion of this matter in Eugene MoQuillin's Law
of Municipal Corporations, II. ch. xiii.
196 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
furthermore, determines its own rules of procedure. At
its opening meeting it ordinarily readopts the regulations of
the preceding year, with such incidental changes as may be
deemed desirable. Each branch of a city council has its own
code of rules; but these rarely differ much, and methods
are more or less uniform in different cities. The rules are
usually capable of suspension either by unanimous consent
or by a two-thirds vote; and such suspensions are more
frequent, perhaps, than they ought to be.
Councfl Most of the routine work which a city council has to do is
performed through standing committees^ When there are
two branches of the council, there are joint committees
made up of members from each branch; but, if either
branch has special functions apart from the other, that
branch will also have some separate committees of its
own. In a large city the council will have from a dozen to
thirty or forty regular committees, each made up of from
three to nine members. The city council of Boston, before
its reorganization in 1909, had no fewer than forty-two
joint standing committees, fully half of which had only
nominal functions to perform. Some council committees
are very influential bodies, with many questions of real
importance to consider. Perhaps the best example is the
finance committee, or the committee on appropriations ; but
the standing committees on streets, police, health, water sup-
ply, and fire protection also have a great many important
matters to deal with every year. The committees on pub-
licity, statistics, sinking funds, or contingencies have, for
the most part, only perfunctory duties and often hold no
meetings at all.
How com- Very naturally, the councillors all want places on the major
chosen. committees, and more particularly chairmanships of them;
consequently, much pressure is brought to bear from all sides
upon the appointing authority. In a few cities this authority
THE CITY COUNCIL 197
is a committee chosen at the beginning of each year to frame
slates of standing committees ; but in most places all com-
mittees are appointed by the president of the council. When
there are two branches, the chairman of each names a quota
from his own chamber to serve upon the joint committees.
This system of course gives the presiding officer a great
deal of patronage, and too often is a means of enabling him
to pay the price of his election ; for not infrequently can-
didates for election to the presidency of city councils get
much of their strength by promising committee chairman-
ships or places on important committees to those councilmen
who are ready to support their candidacy. The committee
slates, accordingly, are more often framed with a view to the
fulfilment of ante-election pledges than with a purpose to
secure upon committees men who are best qualified to deal
with the special matters that will come before therrL This
being the case, it is not surprising that, as a rule, the reports
and recommendations of the council's standing committees
carry no considerable weight with the council as a whole.
Herein the English and American systems of committee English and
administration differ greatly. In the council of an English
city the recommendation of a standing committee on any committees
compared.
matter within its particular field of jurisdiction is practically
decisive. That is because the English city council chooses
its own committees, putting upon them the aldermen and
councillors who seem best qualified by training and experience^
to deal with the matters in hand, and endeavoring to keen
the same men on the same committees as long as thev
remain members of the council-1 The recommendations of
committees so constituted deserve and receive weight, be-
cause they embody the conclusions of men who, though
laymen, have become experts in their special fields of ad-
1 See the data on this point given in Munro's Government of Euro-
pean Cities (New York, 1909), 284-285.
198 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ministration. Members of American council committees,
on the other hand, chosen as they are not by the council but
by the presiding officer, have seldom any special proficiency
at the outset, and they are not usually allowed to serve long
enough to acquire it by experience.1 Realizing this, the
councillors as a whole are disposed to regard the judgment of
a committee as no better than their own individual opinions
upon the matter in question ; hence they set aside committee
recommendations without much compunction. This con^
dition of things has tended to deprive committeemen of an
adequate sense of final responsibility, to put a premium
upon haphazardness in committee work, and in general to
discredit the committee system. Yet large councils must do
much of their work through committees ; they are by their
very size precluded from handling directly the host of
matters which come before them and must be studied
with care. Accordingly, the propaganda for smaller citv
councils derives some of its support from the feeling that,
since the committee system cannot be made to serve the
cause of efficient administration, the only feasible alternar
tive is to remove the necessity for its existence.
Powers oi The powers of the American city council defy any attempt
counciL a* concise summary. In no two cities are they exactly
alike, and even in the same city they change from time to
time as the result of special statutory enactment. In most
municipalities, however, except those which have adopted
commission government, the powers of the council rep-
resent a residuum; they are no more than the remnants
of a once comprehensive jurisdiction which has been
1 Newly elected councilmen are at first put upon unimportant com-
mittees. After reelection they expect assignment to committees of
greater importance ; a councilman who serves three or four terms expects
a "promotion" in each term. This means that, unless he has proved a
failure in committee work, he is not left for more than"a single term on onj
commitj
THE CITY COUNCIL 199
steadily dwindling during the last forty or fifty years. Such
powers as still remain may be conveniently classified under
the two heads of legislative and administrative authority;
but, as the former group is much the more important, it
should for purposes of study be subdivided into various
subsidiary divisions.
The legislative powers of city councils extend, first of all, 1-
to such matters relating to the general structure of municipal
government as are not provided for in the city charter or
the general statutes. It may be laid down as a common,
rule of law that, when any power seems to appertain to a
municipal corporation and the city charter is silent as to
the manner in which such power shall be exercised, the
city council may determine the matter.1 This it usually
does by ordinance ; but it may, under certain limitations, («) general ;
proceed by mere resolution As a rule, the city charter and
the statutes cover all the essentials of municipal organization.
They determine the structure of government, the terms of
officers, their compensations, and their duties; but if they
fail to make detailed provisions on such points the city
council may do so.
In the second place the legislative powers of the city (&> ordi-
council usually include the riflht to make ordinances in
exercise of the municipality's police power.2 Within this pollce
•—••••• i r J IT i i r in power ;
rather broad field is comprised suitable local legislation for the
protection of life and property, as well as for the preserva-
tion of the public health and morals. Ordinances relating to
traffic in the streets ; the establishment of fire limits and the
regulation of fire hazards ; building laws ; sanitary and
health regulations ; ordinances providing for the inspection
1 Cascaden v. Waterloo, 106 Iowa, 673.
1 A full discussion of this topic may be found in the chapter on "Ordi-
nances exercising the Police Power " in J. F. Dillon's Law of Municipal
Corporations (5 vols., Boston, 1911), I. ch. xvi.
200 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
of goods offered for sale, or for standardizing weights and
measures ; restrictions upon the storage of dangerous ma-
terials; bill-board regulations; rules governing theatres and
other places of amusement : all these afford examples of
the exercise, by legislation, of the local police power. Au-
thority to make some of these regulations is now and then
intrusted to some special administrative board. Traffic in
the streets, for example, may be put within the jurisdiction
of the street commissioners or of the police authorities;
the making of sanitary regulations is often turned over to
the municipal board of health. But when such disposition
has not been made by the city charter or by other statutory
enactment, the power to regulate all these matters by
ordinance belongs to the city council, subject, of course, to
the general restrictions governing the validity of municipal
ordinances.1 In the larger cities the tendency has on the
whole been to take more and more of this authority away
from the council and to vest it in the hands of the adminis-
trative q.nt.hnritifia. State laws, moreover, are steadily
trenching upon the field, in some cases leaving very little
to be handled by any city authority.
(c) finan- The city council's legislative powers, again, include various
matters connected with municipal finance. In most cities
the council determines the annual tax-rale^ but it does not
decide what property may be levied upon, this matter being
almost always fixed by state law. The council often,
but not always, grants exemptions and abatements in
taxation matters. It also malces the annual appropriations.
Sometimes these appropriations are put together into a bud-
get and laid before the council by one of its own committees ;
more often the list is prepared by the mayor, and in a few
cities, including New York, by a board of estimate and appor-
tionment. But, however the appropriations may originate,
1 C/. above, pp. 86-89.
THE CITY COUNCIL 201
they can become effective only with the assent of the council.
The charters of a few cities, notably those of New York and
Boston, provide that the council may in no case increase
items in the budget, and shall not even have a free hand in
decreasing appropriations laid before it. In New York, for
example, changes in the budget even by way of decrease
may be made against the will of the mayor only by a
three-fourths vote of the council; in Boston the council
may in no case increase the estimates, and, save with the
mayor's approval, may reduce them only by a two-thirds
vote. In most other cities the council may augment or di-
minish the appropriations, subject, of course, to a veto of
such action by the mayor.1 The city council, again, con-
tinues to be an important factor in the exercise of the city's
borrowing powers. All loan orders, whether authorizing
temporary or bonded indebtedness, must as a rule have its_
assent. The council, it is true, is not the only authority
possessing power to borrow on the credit of the city. Not
infrequently the legislature gives this right to water boards,
park boards, or other administrative bodies. In general,
however borrowing projects must go before the council
for consideration.
Within the council's legislative jurisdiction, likewise, falls (d) fran-
chis68 *
the determination of many general matters relating to the
provision of public utilities.2 In most American cities
the municipal council has authority, usually under very strin-
1 For a discussion of many interesting matters pertaining to the methods
of making municipal appropriations, which cannot be considered here,
the reader is referred to the chapter on "Principles of Budget Making"
in F. A. Cleveland's Municipal Administration and Accounting (New York,
1909), and to the publications on this subject issued from time to time
during the last five years by the New York Bureau of Municipal Re-
search.
2 This branch of the council's powers is dealt with at length in O. L.
Pond's Municipal Control of Public Utilities (New York, 1906), especially
chs. viii.-x.
202 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
gent limitations prescribed by the state constitution or by
statute, to grant such franchises to pubUc-servicecorDorationa
as the convenience of the citizens may require, and to deter-
mine the duration and detailed provisions of such franchises.
On the whole, no municipal power has been more grossly
abused than this. It is as a franchise authority that the
city council has achieved its acme of inefficiency and in-
competence. Accordingly, in keeping with the usual policy
of depriving subordinate authorities of any power which
they show a disposition to abuse, many states have put
stringent limitations on the franchise prerogative of the
city councils. Sometimes by constitutional or statutory
enactments they forbid them to grant franchises for a longer
period than twenty or thirty years, or they make all votes
of councils relative to franchises subject to popular referen-
dum. Sometimes, again, they arrogate to themselves a part
at least of the franchise-granting power, and exercise it
directly. The role of the city council in this field has become
steadily less important. On the other hand, when the city
itself owns and operates any public serviceT such as a water
or a lighting plant, the council usually possesses the right
to regulate by ordinance the terms and incidents of such
service. In most cases the service is in the immediate
administrative jurisdiction of a special board or commis-
sioner, and the council merely determines broad matters
of general management. The question as to whether
the administration of municipal services by authorities
independent of the council is a policy which makes for
efficiency need not be discussed at this point. It will
be approached from a somewhat different angle in a later
chapter.1
(e) mis- Finally, there is a considerable group of miscellaneous
matters to which the ordinance power of the city council
1 Below, ch. x.
THE CITY COUNCIL 203
extends.1 These do not lend themselves very readily to
classification, but they embrace such things as the fix-
ing of locations for city buildings, the acceptance or rejec-
tion of permissive powers granted to the city by statute, the
passing of resolutions that indicate to the legislature the
city's attitude on matters of pending legislation, and so on.
Despite its narrowed authority, the average city council Thecoun
deals, therefore, with a goodly variety of matters, and
it is not surprising that its annual output of municipal lty
ordinances, orders f and resolutions is very large. The re-
vised ordinances of Chicago make up two solid volumes of
over a thousand pages each, and other large cities make a
nearly equal showing. Each year a good-sized document is
required to promulgate new ordinances and amendments to
old ones. No limit is fixed either by law or by public opinion
to the number of ordinances that a city council may enact
on matters within its purview ; the only requisites are
that the measures shall all be enacted in due form, and shall
not be unreasonable or oppressive in character, but general in
their application and consistent with the policy of the state
as expressed in its statute-books. Since, however, these
limitations have by judicial decisions been applied in different
states with varying degrees of strictness, it is only by a careful
study not only of the laws but of the precedents that one can
tell whether a council has or has not the authority to deal
with any given matter. Only a trained lawyer can give an
accurate answer to such a question, and even he cannot
always be sure of his ground. Hence it is that a council
rarely acts upon any new legislative project without first
ascertaining the scope of its rights from the city's law de-
partment. As for the ordinary citizen, he is presumed to
1 The exact powers of the council in any city can be ascertained only
by a special study of the municipality in question. Some useful informa-
tion, however, with references to authoritative sources, may be found in
A. R. Hatton's Digest of City Charters (Chicago, 1906), 107-228.
204 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
know both the laws and the ordinances of the community
in which he lives, a legal fiction that does not lose any of its
absurdity by reason of the fact that it is necessary as a work-
ing principle of judicial administration. The whole mass
of municipal law is set before the public with only a pretence
of classification; ordinances are passed, amended, and re-
pealed with bewildering frequency ; and the entire body of
city ordinances is no sooner codified than the oncoming
flood of amending enactments sweeps away much of its
value as a trustworthy guide. Narrowing the city council's
legislative juridiction has certainly not reduced its legislative
output.
2. Ad- Then there are the administrative powers of city councils.
^s a ma-tter of political theory, city councils ought to have
no administrative powers ; but as a matter of fact they do
perform such functions, and in many cities this part
of their work is of much importance. In some cities, both
large and small, the council still retains the right to make
appointments to certain municipal offices ; 1 in those in
whichthe mayor makes the appointment, the council (or,
where there are two chambers, the upper branch of it) must
confirm such appointment before it becomes effective. The
merits and faults of this system are discussed elsewhere ;2 but
wherever it exists it is a substantial power. In a few cases
contracts can be awarded only with the council's consent.
Most CJtV P.o^yiP.ila. fiir+.hprm^rA havfi thft rifrh^ to rftqiiirft
stated reports from the various administrative departments,
and they may investigate any of these departments when
they choose to do so. These powers are not intended
to give ihe council any right to interfere in the direct ad-
ministration of city departments, but not infrequently they
have been made to serve this purpose. As the report of the
1 The city clerk, for example, is usually chosen by the council.
* Below, ch. ix.
205
Boston Finance Commission disclosed, a large part of the
time of a city council may be spent in discussing questions
relating to contracts, to the hiring of labor, or to the mayor's
appointments, with none of which has it any legal right
to interfere.1 What the council cannot bring about as a
body, moreover, individual councilmen usually manage to
secure. Many of them spend their time in besieging the
mayor and the heads of departments to appoint their friends
to places on the city pay-roll^ to give out minor contracts to
political supporters, or to order supplies from favored
stores. If heads of departments, trying to perform the
duties laid upon them by law, refuse such appeals, their
official lives are made miserable by scurrilous attacks at
council meetings, where men can utter slanders under the
cloak of privilege, or can prefer trumped-up charges as the
basis of demands for council investigation into the affairs of
departments. In this extra-legal and wholly indefensible
fashion city councils have in matters of pure administration
often exerted powers which the city charter never intended
to bestow. The reason for all this is not far to seek. Patron-
age is administrative, not legislative. Councils that confine
themselves strictly to legislative functions not only find com-
paratively little that excites the real interest of their mem-
bers, but have small opportunity to give councilmen any-
thing that will serve to increase their own political strength.
The power to influence the patronage that usually goes with
administrative authority is what the councilmen in most
cities seem to want ; and they reach out after it even when
charter provisions attempt to put it far beyond their grasp.
The principle of separation of powers, as applied to The place of
local government, has come to mean that the city executive in contem-
shall have most of the real authority, and that, under the P°rary C1*y
government.
name of legislative jurisdiction, the council may have
1 Boston Finance Commission, Reports, II. 197 (1909).
206 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
whatever is left. The whole trend has been in the direction
of reducing the council to a body which makes minor ordi-
nances, passes the appropriations with no power to increase
them in amount, authorizes borrowing when necessary, and
does little more. The only marked reaction against this
tendency is to be found in those cities which, by adopting
the commission form of government, have cast overboard
the traditional principle of division of powers. Save in so
far as the city council may profit by the abandonment of this
principle, there are no signs that it will, in its orthodox
form, ever regain its former position of prestige and
influence.
REFERENCES
On the historical development of the municipal council in America there
is considerable material in the general references mentioned on p. 28,
above, particularly in J. A. Fairlie's chapter on "Municipal Development
in the United States," in his Municipal Administration (New York, 1901).
The organization, procedure, and powers of city councils can be accu-
rately studied only in the charters and ordinances and official handbooks
of the various municipalities ; but a useful summary of such matters may
be found in A. R. Hatton's Digest of City Charters (Chicago, 1906). J. A.
Fairlie's Essays in Municipal Administration (New York, 1908) contains
an excellent chapter on "American Municipal Councils"; and there are
informing general discussions of the subject in Professor F. J. Goodnow's
Municipal Government (New York, 1909), ch. x., and Municipal Problems
(New York, 1904), ch. ix., in D. F. Wilcox's American City (New York,
1904), ch. ix., and in E. D. Durand's articles on "Council Government
versus Mayor Government" in Political Science Quarterly, XV. 426, 675
(Sept., Dec., 1900). Several papers dealing with various phases of the
council's organization and powers have appeared from time to time in the
Proceedings of the National Municipal League. Among these may be
mentioned "The Reform of our Municipal Councils," by Henry W. Wil-
liams (1896) ; "The Legislature in City and State," by Horace E. Deming
1897); "Should Municipal Legislators receive a Salary?" by James
W. Pryor (1896) ; "A Single or a Double Council?" by John A. Butler
(1896); "Shall we have One or Two Legislative Chambers?" by the
Hon. Samuel B. Capen (1896); and "The Necessity of Distinguishing
Legislation from Administration," by F. J. Goodnow (1898). The Mu-
nicipal Program, issued by the National Municipal League (New York,
1900), contains some interesting recommendations in regard to the organ-
ization and powers of the council.
CHAPTER IX
THE MAYOR
As an independent organ of local government the mayor- The
alty is a distinctively American development. It does not
have any exact counterpart in the cities of Great Britain or
continental Europe, for there the chief magistrate of the
city is chosen by the municipal legislature and serves as
its presiding officer.1 The development of the office of
mayor to independence, and in the natural course of
events to power, has been the outstanding feature of the
nineteenth century in the evolution of American municipal
institutions, and is one of the most striking results of the
emphasis laid upon the doctrine of divided powers.
In the boroughs of the colonial period there was, as has its deveiop-
been pointed out in previous chapters, no attempt to separate
administrative from legislative functions in local govern-
ment.2 The sole organ of borough administration wfjp, t^*A
council ; and of thislaody the mayor was simply the presiding
officer, as he is in English boroughs at the present dav.3
Sometimes the mayor was appointed by the governor of the
colony in which the borough was located ; in other boroughs
he was chosen by the councillors from among their own i. in the
number ; and in a few instances he was elected by popular
vote, although this method was never in any borough a regu-
1 In the cities of Great Britain and France the mayor presides in the
single-chambered council ; in the cities of the German Empire the burgo-
master presides in the upper branch of the bicameral council.
*See above, ch. i., especially pp. 14-8.
J In some of the Southern boroughs the term "intendant" was used to
designate the chief municipal officer.
207
208 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
lar practice.1 The mayor of the colonial borough held office
for a single year only, and he served without pay.2 But
the distinguishing feature of his office was that it gave him no
special powers. He was, to be sure, the presiding officer at
meetings of the council, and, as a rule, he had a vote like the
other members; but he had no veto power, no exclusive
right of proposing expenditures, and no authority to nomi-
nate or appoint borough officers. In a few colonial towns,
notably in New York and Albany, he was intrusted with
certain minor functions, such as the licensing of taverns, the
supervision of the market, the determination of petty suits
at law, and the holding of coroners' inquests ; 3 but the pre-
Revolutionary American mayor could not in any sense be
regarded as an independent administrative officer like his
descendant of the present day.
2. After the The Revolution and the adoption of the national constitu-
te™ 1 tion brought in a new theory of administration, which soon
wrought a change in the position and powers of the mayor.
Ample evidence of this change appears in the Baltimore-
charter of 1796, which provided that the mayor should be_
chosen, for a two-vear term, by a miniature electoral college^
the members of which were fo be elected by the voters of the
TheBaiti- city, two from each of the eight wards. Only property-
owners were eligible to the office, and the mayor was
to receive an annual salary.4 In all this the influence of
the so-termed federal analogy appears very plainly. Even
more distinctly, however, it is shown in the extent and nature
1 In New York he was appointed by the governor ; in Philadelphia
he was chosen by the council from among the aldermen ; only in the
smaller boroughs was he ever elected, and even there not very often.
* In practice re-appointments were very common.
8 For a more detailed statement of powers vested in the colonial mayor,
see J. A. Fairlie's Essays in Municipal Administration (New York, 1908),
68-69.
* Laws of Maryland, 1796, ch. 68.
THE MAYOR 209
of the powers which the charter intrusted to the mayor.
In the first place, the mayoral veto here makes what is pre-
sumably its first appearance in a city charterj for one of the
provisions permitted the mayor to veto any ordinance or reso-
lution of the Baltimore council, with the limitation, however,
that the veto might be overridden by a three-fourths vote.
In the second place, the mayor was invested with certain
powers of appointment : but his discretionary authority in
this direction was, for the time being, closely restricted
by the requirement that he must make all his appointments
from lists submitted to him by the aldermen. Finally, by
the terms of this charter the mayor was charged with the
enforcement of all the city ordinances : he mi^ht call for,
financial statements from the officers of the city treasury
at any time^ and he was authorized to make recommenda-
tions to the city council.
It is at this early point, the closing years of the eighteenth influence of
century, that we find the principle of division of powers mak- analogy!
ing its way down from the national and state constitutions
into the charters of cities and gaining in the latter a firm
anchorage. The mayor is no longer a chief colleague among
the councilmen, with no special rights except that of presiding
at the council meetings. He begins to take rank as an inde-
pendent organ of local government, with powers that were
somewhat restricted, it is true, but of such a nature that
they were sure to increase in scope and importance. During
the earlier years of the nineteenth century several other
cities either obtained revisions of their old charters or
secured new ones, and in practically all of these documents
some of the more important features of the Baltimore charter
were embodied. The idea of choosing the mayor bv a
system of indirect election seems to have had little popularity.
however ; instead, most cities preferred and adnptft^ thft
plan oj electing their mayors bv direct popula^* vnfy}. Boston
210
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
3. During
the earlier
part of the
nineteenth
century.
4. During
the mid-
century
period.
was among the earliest to follow this course, which was en-
joined in her first charter, in 1822. Other cities followed,
Philadelphia in 1826, New York in 1834.
In extension of its powers the office of mayor can hardly be.
said to have made much headway during the first quarter of
the nineteenth century. The Boston charter 01 i»zz gave
the mayor somewhat broader appointing prerogatives than
those contained in the Baltimore charter of 1796, for in
Boston the mayor might appoint whom he chose, subject,
however, to confirmation by the aldermen ; but, on the other
hand, it gave him no veto power. Indeed, such extension of
mayoral powers as occurred during this quarter-century was
due not so much to new authority granted by charters as to
the personal aggressiveness of some of the men who held
the office. An interesting example is afforded by the
character of the second mayor of Boston, Josiah Quincy, who
showed during his term how expansive were even the re-
stricted charter powers when applied by one who cared to
exercise them fully.1
During the years prior to the middle of the century the
balance of power, as between mayor and council, was fairly
well maintained. The mayor was an influential, but not a
dominant, factor in city affairs ; for, even where he had gained
the veto and appointing powers, the council still held a firm
hand over the various municipal departments, supervising
them directly through its committees and retaining full control
over city finance. As time went on, however, the balance was
slowly but surely shifted over to the executive : the council
1 " The second mayor (Quincy) determined to use all the powers that
ingenuity could spell out of the city charter to the end of concentrating
responsibility and control. The means adopted by him to secure this
result was to make himself chairman of all the important committees of
the board of aldermen, and thus personally to become familiar with all the
details of the executive business of the city, and responsible for the man-
agement of them." — NATHAN MATTHEWS, City Government of Boston
(Boston, 1895), 166.
THE MAYOR 211
lost ground. The reason why it lost ground has already
been discussed.1 Where it lost, the mayor eventually gained.
Functions taken from the council were often given to newly-
established boards, which, although at the outset elected
directly by the people and still in some cases so chosen, were
in time usually transferred to the category of officers over
which the mayor's appointing powers extended.2 In other
cases, functions taken from the council were given to state-
appointed boards. In 1860, for example, the Maryland
legislature transferred the police administration of Baltimore
to a state board, and a year later the legislature of Illi-
nois did the same thing for Chicago. In 1865 the legis-
lature of New York took from the council of the metrop-
olis its control of fire protection, public health, and licensing,
and put all these powers into the hands of state boards.
But there soon came a reaction against this state interference
in the affairs of city departments, and in some cases the
legislature restored local control. Let it be noted, however,
that it restored control over these departments not to the
council, but to local boards, the members of which wer&
thenceforth, as a rule, to be appointed by the mayor. In
several cities, accordingly, a substantial increase hi the
mayor's powers came about through a term of state inter-
ference. The state took powers from the council, exercised
these powers for a time through its own appointive officials,
and then handed them back to the appointees of the
mayor.
1 Above, ch. viii.
2 The reason for this, as elsewhere explained, may be found in the fact
that popular election, as a method of selecting members of administrative
boards, proved a complete disappointment. As managers of city depart-
ments the council committees were inefficient and wasteful; and the
boards elected by popular vote in the larger cities were not appreciably
better, for they were too often composed of men whose qualifications were
simply and purely political, and who brought to the supervision of their
departments no administrative skill or capability whatever.
212
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
6. During
the last
fifty years.
Develop-
ment not
uniform
throughout
the United
States.
. Other extensions of the mayor's powers were made as the
second half of the century progressed. The practice of
requiring that his appointments should be confirmed by the
aldermen came to be looked upon with disfavor in some
cities, and in 1882 Brooklyn made bold to abolish it. New
York soon followed this lead ; other cities of the state came
into line a little later; and in time various cities in other
parts of the country adopted the plan of giving the mayor a
rather free hand in appointments. Even yet, however, the
old practice still holds firm in the great majority of American
cities ; but, as charters are revised, the drift is unmistakably
away from it. In the field of municipal finance the mayor
has also made substantial gains during the last few decades.
It was at one time the prevailing right of the council to pre-
pare the annual budget, but this right has now in many cities
passed to the mayor. So, too, have the power to approve
the award of contracts, and various other functions formerly
within the purview of the municipal legislature. Alonff with
all this has fione a, tendency to extend the term for which the
mayor is elected, to make his stipend larger, and to afford
him increased facilities for the ful^ exercise of his broad-
authority.
Now, while this development of the office of mayor to a
dominating position in American municipal administration
can be clearly followed in a general way when one views the
country as a whole, it has not proceeded so far in some cities
as in others. In places like New York and Boston the
powers of the mayor have dwarfed into insignificance the
authority of the municipal councils ; but of cities like Chicago
and Philadelphia this is not at all true, for the councils of
these cities still maintain a tenacious grip upon their con-
siderable share in local administration. It is impossible,
therefore, in describing the place and powers of the mayor in
American cities, to say anything broadly or without large
THE MAYOR 213
reservation. Any assertion as to the functions of the mayor
in one English city would hold true of English mayors in
general, and any outline of the authority possessed. by the
burgomaster of Cologne or Charlottenburg might be applied
without any important modification to any other Prussian
city. But of the^ larger cities of the United States it may;
almost be said that whatever functions are intrusted to the
mayor in one city are in another city quite likely to be
lodged in the hands of some one else^ There is, in fact,
hardly a single statement concerning the jurisdiction of the
mayor in this country that would hold true of anything like
all the cities, and very few statements that would apply to
even a maj ority of them. Nevertheless, the essential features
of the office can at least be set forth in general terms, though
any such description must necessarily wind its way through a
difficult maze of local variations.
The mayor is in practically all American cities elected Method of
by direct popular vote. Candidates for this office are e
nominated by the same procedure that is established in the.
various cities ipr the nomination of the other elective officers •
the election is everywhere by secret ballot ; and a plurality
of votes, except in one or two cities that have adopted the
system of preferential voting, is sufficient to elect. The Term.
term of office varies from one to five years. Many cities in
New England continue the annual term, a relic of town-
government days ; but most cities of medium size throughout
the land, and probably a majority of the entire number of
whatever size, have a two-year mayoral term. A very few
have adopted three years ; and a dozen or more, chiefly cities
of the largest population, have lengthened the mayor's
term to four years. Among the latter are New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, and Baltimore,
the six largest cities of the country ; but in Boston, as else-
where explained, the mayor may be recalled from office
214
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Tendency
toward
longer
terms.
Reasons
in favor
of longer
terms.
at the end of two years.1 Jersey City alone has adopted
the five-year term.
The tendency to give mayors longer terms in office has been
very marked during the last ten or fifteen years. Many
cities have lengthened the period from one to two years;
and those which now leave their mayors in office for four
years have, for the most part, changed to this policy during
the last decade. In the larger cities the impression that a
two-year term is unprofitably short has been and still is
gaining ground. As a rule, the mayor is eligible to reelec-
tion when his term has expired ; but in some cases the city
charter precludes this reelection, ast for example, in Phila-
delphia. On the whole, ree'lections are common : and in
many cities that have the two-year term there is a well-
grounded tradition that the mayor has the right of way to
renomination as the candidate of his own political party
if he so desires, a feeling which also operates in his favor at
the polling.
In large cities, where, as charters nowadays arrange things,
the duties and powers of the mayor are complicated and
responsible, the two-year term is too short to be satisfactory
either to the official or to the voters. When the two-vear
term exists, a mayor commonly spends the first year of hia^
tenure in feeling his way to acquaintance with the functions
of his office, and the second year in starting his campaign
for reelection. Consequently the voters are asked to give him
a second term, not because he has made a good record, but
because he has not had a fair opportunity to make a record
of any sort. The longer term of four years, on the con-
trary, affords him ample time to make and set before the
voters a record upon which they may pass a fair judgment.
1 In some other cities, notably in New York State, the mayor may be
jgmoved by the governor of the state, but only after a public hearing at*
which causeior removal has been shown.
THE MAYOR 215
It is, moreover, none too long for this purpose, in view of the
fact that in American, as distinguished from European, cities
the mayor more often than not brings no local administra-
tive experience into the office with him. He must, therefore,
avoid mistakes by going slowly, learning as he goes.. If it be
urged that the four-year term may mean a heavy penalty
for the city which makes an unwise selection, it may now
be replied that the recall procedure, as described in another
chapter, affords a practicable method of relief. The avail-
ability of this safeguard has, indeed, prompted several cities
to lengthen official terms.
To be eligible for election to the mayoralty of an American Quaiifica-
city one must in all cases be a qualified voter. Some
city charters impose no additional qualification. But in San
Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans jive
years' residence in the city is exacted, and no one can be
mayor of Denver unless he has been five years a citizen of
the United States. Several cities have a minimum age limit,
which varies from twenty-five years in Baltimore and Phila-
delphia to thirty years in New Orleans. Verv_few cities
still retain a property qualification; but in Baltimore a
property assessment of two thousand dollars is a requisite
to eligibility, and in Houston, Texas, no one may hold the
office of mayor unless he has been for two years the owner
of real estate within the city limits.1 No city requires that
the mayor shall have professional qualifications such as are
commonly exacted from occupants of the corresponding
office in Germany ; and nowhere is it necessary that he should,
have had any prior administrative experience.
As a matter of practice, the men who are elected to the The type
office in the smaller cities are usually drawn from those usually
who have already served the city in some other official ca- choaen-
1 For the qualifications demanded in other cities, see A. R. Hatton,
Digest of City Charters (Chicago, 1906), 246-248.
216
GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
Previous
municipal
experience
not
necessary.
pacity. In the larger cities this custom does not seem to be
by any means so common. Not that men who have had no
prior political experience are there very often chosen as
mayors ; only in very exceptional cases, indeed, has a man
been advanced directly from private life to the chief office
in a large city. But the experience that most of those elected
have had is not municipal experience. Frequently they
are men who have aspired to the office after having had some
share in state or national politics, — men, for example, who
have been in the state legislature or in Congress. At times,
as in the case of Mayor Gaynor of New York City, they have
served as judges in the regular courts. At other times they
have gained their proficiency in electioneering, not as candi-
dates for any office, but as active figures in the regular party
organizations of the city or the state. For all this there
are, of course, some good reasons. In a large city, like New
York or Philadelphia, the only commanding municipal post
is that of mayor. The tenure of subordinate city offices,
including membership in the city council, does not give the
occupant any secure place in the political limelight. Men
who serve in such posts do not easily command the public
eye or ear. They can achieve this prominence better from
other pedestals, — from offices in the nation or the state,
or even in the party organizations. Furthermore, one who
serves in any subordinate municipal office has a record f and,
whether it be good or bad, the possession of a municipal
record is usually synonymous with the fact that a man has
made a good many political and personal enemies in his OWIL
bailiwick. Such a person has, therefore, to some extent im-
paired his own availability as a candidate for the office of
mayor as compared with that of one who has had no mu-
nicipal service and no local record. It may be suggested that
service in other fields, state or national, also burdens the
candidate with a record. That is true enough ; but the
THE MAYOR 217
record is not so familiar to municipal voters, and in the mak-
ing it has probably not antagonized many interests among
them. Accordingly, in the opinion of those well fitted to
judge, the man who aspires to be mayor of a large city had
better not seek to qualify himself by service in a subordinate
municipal post. All this seems to be unfortunate, for it
means that the average mayor must acquire most of his
knowledge in local administrative matters after he has been
inaugurated ; but it is a situation that too often coincides with
the facts, and, so long as it exists, it forms a good reason for
lengthening the mayoral term to four years.
In some cases, but not very many, the mayoralty has The mayor-
proved a stepping-stone to higher posts in the public ser- tralnmg-
vice. The most noteworthy instance is, of course, that of j^e^en
Grover Cleveland, who as mayor of Buffalo gained much of
the reputation for vigor and independence that helped to
make him governor of New York and, later, president of the
United States. Theodore Roosevelt, who likewise attained
the presidency by way of the governorship, sought the mayor-
alty of New York City at an early stage of his political career,
but was unsuccessful. These, however, are exceptional
instances. How often has a man passed from the mayoralty
of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, or Boston to the gov-
ernorship of the state in which his city is located ? That
ought to be the order of events ; but the aualj|.ip.s whjfih
make one a good candidate for municipal office are not, as a
rule, the sort which carry a man much farther upward.
Moreover, the mayor who can serve a full term without
antagonizing either his party machine or the independent
element among the voters, and can thereby retain his full
strength as a candidate for higher office, is one rarely met
with in our generation.
In all American cities except the very smallest, and usually Salaries of
/v • t American
even in these, the office of mayor carries an annual salary, mayors.
218
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Salaries
do not
usually
cover out-
lay.
This may be fixed in amount by a provision of the charter ;
or it may be, and perhaps more commonly is, left to the dis-
cretion of the council, with the restriction that it is not to
be increased or diminished during the term of a present in-
cumbent. The amount of the mayor's salary varies roughly
with the size of the city : New York pays $15,000, Phila-
delphia $12,000, Chicago and Boston $10,000 per year.1 In
smaller cities the stipend ranges from the latter sum down
to $1000, or even less. Compared with the remuneration
of the corresponding office in the cities of other countries,
these salaries give no sign of municipal niggardliness. In the
cities of England and France the mayor receives no salary,
but only an allowance for actual expenses. In Germany the
burgomasters are paid, and are thought to be well paid, as
current German salaries go ; but, city for city, they are
dealt with less generously than their American colleagues.
Still, it is a fact, vouched for by most of those who have been
directly concerned, that, even though his stated remunera-
tion may be fair enough, the American mayor takes his
office and holds it at a financial sacrifice. When his term
comes to an end, he usually finds himself poorer in all but
reputation, and sometimes even in that. All this, however,
is not because the stipends are too small, but because the
demands upon his private purse are too heavy. Once
elected, he finds that the campaign from beginning to end has
cost him a good deal. — if not the whole of at least one year's
salary, he is accounted fortunate. In some cities the law
requires that candidates shall publish an accurate return of
their campaign expenses ; and these records give ample
evidence not only that those who can afford to spend money
1 In some cases the stipend is in excess of that which the governor of
the state receives. Thus, the mayor of New York City gets $5000 per
annum more than the governor of New York, and the mayor of Chicago
$4000 more than the governor of Illinois.
THE MAYOR 219
are expected to do it, but also that they often rise valiantly
to this expectation. The published returns of a recent Bos-
ton election showed that the two leading candidates ex-
pended between them, from their own pockets and for legiti-
mate expenses, sums amounting to about $150,000, or nearly
two dollars for every vote polled. And this, it may be noted,
did not include contributions from supporters of their re-
spective candidacies.
Nor does the demand upon the mayor's pocket abate with Demands
the closing of the polls. He is the subject of daily appeals m^yoJ's6
from every conceivable source. Unless he spends readily, purae-
he soon acquires a reputation for close-fistedness and is
rated as not being a good fellow, all of which is liable to mili-
tate against his chances of renomination and reelection.
The mayor is supposed to entertain the city's guests when
they comeT and although the city budget usually provides
a fund for the purpose, this does not always cover the out-
lav. It is not that the amount of each individual disburse-
ment is important, but the cases come so frequently that
the total at the end of the year is likely to surprise any one
who has not encountered the practice at close range. Fur-
thermore, it frequently happens that the mayor is the leader
of his local party organization. As such he is expected to
keep the machine running smoothly. In times which are
now largely gone by he did this by a shrewd use of his power
to fill city offices and to award non-competitive contracts;
but the increased strictness of charter provisions relating
to the mayor's exercise of these prerogatives has seriously
impaired his ability to serve the party organization in these
directions. Accordingly, he is nowadays often forced to
lubricate the party machinery at his own expense rather than
at the cost of the city. When everything is taken into ac-
count, the mayor's salary, even if it is fixed well up in the
thousands, can rarely be deemed anything more than a
220
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
How
mayors
recoup
themselves.
'General
increase of
alty in influ-
ence.
reimbursement for expenditures that are expected of him
during his election and after it.
Whatever may be the theory of the office, the actual fact
is that, in the great majority of cases, the mayors give
their own time to American cities without direct personal
gain. This is not meant to imply that mayors are, as a
rule, men of any uncommon altruism. On the contrary,
they are, like most other men, quite ready to forego direct
pecuniary advantage from their tenure of office so long as
recoupment comes to them, as it often does, in a roundabout
way. If a mayor, for instance, is connected with any form
of private business, he necessarily trails this with him into
the public gaze. He becomes, as it were, an effective press
agent in his own interests. Sometimes, indeed, he serves
the credit side of his private ledger in ways which, to say
the least, show a misty sense of official dignity. A mayor
who, while in office, continues his proprietorship of a weekly
newspaper which draws its chief patronage, both in circu-
lation and in advertising, from public-service corporations,
municipal contractors, and seekers for political preferment,
affords a good example of at least one way in which office-
holding can be made to yield an indirect profit. The actual
situation is thus unfortunate. The right sort of mayor
must hold his post almost always at a financial sacrifice :
the wrong sort can very easily make it yield a profit which
is none the less lucrative because it comes in an indirect
and unofficial way.,
The remarkable increase in the powers of the American
mayor during the last half-century has already been pointed
out. Before the Civil War the mayor was the weaker of
the two chief organs of municipal government; since that
era he has almost everywhere risen to local mastery. In
fact, the process of strengthening the mayoralty in relation
to the other arms of city government has had the proportions
THE MAYOR 221
of a general movement, and few cities have failed to feel its
influence. Whether this development has been altogether
salutary or only partly so is a matter upon which the doc-
tors disagree. At any rate, the facts to-day seem to war-
rant the assertion that in nearly all the larger American
cities the mayor is the chief figure in matters of municipal
^"••••••••••^•••••••••••••W*****^ ****• <*M(B^ • * •
administration, and that in many cities his direct influence,
even in the field of what is commonly termed municipal
legislation, is not to be disregarded. These powers, of course, Present-
vary in extent and importance from city to city. Some
of them are exercised in nearly every city, others are preroga- mayor-
tives of the office in only a few. Speaking broadly, however,
one may group the powers of the mayor under four heads :
namely, the power to recommend legislation, the veto power,
powers connected with appointments, and powers connected
with appropriations.
It has been the theory of municipal organization in i. The
America that the mayor ought to have no share in legis-
lation, that is to say, in the enactment of city ordinances ; le«ifllatlon
but with this theory the actual conditions have for a long
time failed to coincide. It is true that in a few cities, notably
in Chicago, the mayor is the council's presiding officer ; but
this is a practice quite out of accord with the general rule,
for in by far the larger number of American cities the council
chooses its own presiding officer, and the mayor does not
take any part in its sessions, or even attend them. This
does not mean, however, that the mayor has no influence
in shaping the council's actions. On the contrary, notwith-
standing the doctrine of separation of power, he has com-
monly more real influence in municipal legislation than any
councillor, or even than several councillors. This direct
influence on local legislation arises from his exercise of two
prerogatives, one positive and the other negative, one known
as the right to suggest ordinances by message, the other
222
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Channels
through
which this
power is
exercised.
The mayor's
messages.
known as the veto power. The practice of addressing the
council by message or communication has in effect become
a right to initiate measures in that body ; for a message from
the mayor is invariably referred to the appropriate council
committee for report, and this report puts the matter
squarely before the council for action. Moreover, among
the members of the council the mayor always has one or more
political friends who are known to be in such close touch
with him as to be in a sense his unofficial representatives.
These councillors usually see that matters recommended
in the mayor's communications get such support as they
can command ; hence, when the political affiliations of the_
mayor are identical with those of_a majority of the council-
men, it not infrequently happens that a recommendation
from the mayor's office is tantamount to council action.
It is to be remembered, moreover, that, since the mayor is
often the recognized leader of his party organization in the
city, his messages are understood to be the orders of the
political machine and are hence not to be disregarded
by those councillors who desire reputation for party
regularity.
The mayor's right to address the council by message or
communication is unrestricted. Ordinarily there is a long
enunciation of suggestions in his inaugural address. Then
from time to time follow shorter missives dealing with special
matters, and not infrequently accompanied in each case by
the draft of an ordinance prepared by the city's law officers
at the mayor's request. This the council is asked to enact
as it stands. Just how far the councillors heed these execu-
tive suggestions depends upon the caliber and personal in-
fluence of the mayor, upon the make-up of the council, and
upon the political relations between the two authorities.
When the mayor and the council represent different political
parties, executive recommendations may count for very
THE MAYOR 223
little; indeed, the very fact that the mayor favors a
project is in such cases likely to be regarded by the
majority of the councillors as the best reason for thwart-
ing it.
The negative influence of the mayor upon local legislation 2. The veto
arising from Jiis possession of the veto power can from its
nature be indicated with greater definiteness. Most city
charters make provision that any ordinance, resolution, or
other measure must, after it has passed the council (or the
two branches of the council, when such exist), be sent to the
mayor. If the mayor approves it, he signs it ; whereupon
the measure goes into force. If he does not approve the
proposal, he may return it unsigned to the council within
a prescribed time (usually five, seven, or ten days), and in
returning it he states his reasons for withholding his signa-
ture. When there are two chambers, he sends it to the one
in which the measure originated. After considering the The ma-
mayor's reasons, the council takes a vote upon the question the veto?
of sustaining his veto. If a prescribed majority of the coun-
cillors vote against sustaining it, the measure then goes into
effect without the mayor's assent. When there are two
branches of the council, the prescribed majority must be
obtained in each. ^A.s a rule, the mayor's veto may be over-
ridden by a two-thirds vote of one or both councils, as the
case may be ; but in some cities the requirement is even
more rigid. In Baltimore, for example, it is three-fourths,
and in San Francisco it is seven-ninths; a few cities,
notably Philadelphia, fix the ratio at three-fifths. If the
required majority cannot be had, the mayor's action
remains decisive and the council's project can advance no
farther.
In accordance with the practice in vogue in the national NO pocket
and state governments, it is usually provided that, if the m^mdpai
mayor neither signs nor returns an ordinance, resolution, g°vernment
224 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
or other measure within a certain period after it has been
sent up to him by the council, the measure goes into force
without his signature. But there is in the municipal sys-
tem no feature like what is commonly known in national
and state governments as the "pocket veto,"- — namely,
the provision that a measure becomes ineffective, owing to
lack of executive assent, if the legislature closes its sessions
before the expiry of the prescribed period in which this
assent may be given or withheld.
General It will readily be seen that in general lines the executive
executive ° ve^° *s alike in all three areas of American government, na-
yeto- tional, state, and municipal. It is a qualified, as distin-
guished from an absolute, veto power. As such it is a
distinctively American contribution to the science of gov-
ernment. In no other country does the qualified veto exist.
It is indigenous here, and to all appearances it is likely to
remain an exclusively American political practice; for,
although during the last century and a quarter many things
have been borrowed from America and woven into the polit-
ical fabrics of other countries, the qualified veto is not one
of them. Whatever may be the American estimate as to
the worth of this institution, the makers of political systems
abroad do not seem to have been impressed with its value.
Even in the United States opinions differ as to the useful-
ness of the arrangement, but not primarily as regards its
service in the national and state governments. The dif-
ference of opinion rather takes the form of a serious ques-
tion whether the veto has, or ever had, any proper place in
Genesis of the domain of local government. The institution, it is often
5to' urged, found favor with the framers of the national and
state constitutions because they desired to give the execu-
tive a powerful weapon wherewith to defend its own field
of authority. Having in mind the aphorism of Alexander
Hamilton, that legislatures are wont to become tyrannical,
THE MAYOR 225
they feared that, without some such weapon as that embodied
in the veto power, the appropriate balance between the
executive and legislative arms of the government might be
disturbed ; and to men who believed implicitly in the teach-
ings of Montesquieu, which came by way of Blackstone, such
dislocation spelled the subversion of popular liberties. Now,
in their effort to bolster the national and state executives
against anticipated onslaughts in future years, the fathers
of American government may have acted wisely and well.
At any rate, these executives have retained all their authority
unshorn, and on the whole they have not brandished their
weapon with undue frequency or with vindictiveness. But
injbhe field of local government no like excuse for the execu-
tive veto has ever existed. Even granting that the careful
apportionment of authority between executive and legisla-
tive organs was ever here a desideratum, as it probably was
not, there could have been no reason to fear that a disloca-
tion of the balance would be fraught with danger or would
lead to permanent misgovernment. For above the city and
its affairs stood the all-powerful arm of the state, with author-
ity to intervene at any moment in the interests of readjust-
ment. Indeed, if any local organ ever had need of a weapon
like the veto power wherewith to defend its own sphere of
authority, it is certainly not the mayoralty. It is, in fact
this branch of city administration which, through its steady
growth in strength, has made sorry work of the original
balance of powers.
As a matter of fact, the mayor's veto power, has not, on Defects of
the whole, contributed very greatly to the efficiency of the
American municipal system. It has, no doubt, served the mumciPal
• n i»i ' B " govern-
cause of economy and sound administration in a great many
instances, but it has quite as often been an effective instrur
ment of tftlfi pr*11'*-1'^] frnlly- Mayors have used it in cases
without number to bulldoze and browbeat councils into sub-
Q
226 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
mission. By vetoes and threats of vetoes councilmen have
time and again been forced to choose between the executive
assassination of their own measures and a policy of sub-
serviency to the mayor in other matters. Boards of alder-
men have been compelled to confirm appointments made by
the mayor under the threat that measures in which alder-
men and their constituents were interested would be decapi-
tated. The power has, in a word, been used as a mayoral
asset that might be traded for legislative compliance. It
has become an instrument of political jugglery. Its exist-
ence has allowed councils to evade responsibility for an or-
dinance or an appropriation by putting the burden upon
the shoulders of the mayor, and has allowed the mayor to
reciprocate by tossing it back to the council all this polit-
ical play serving no other end than to befuddle the tax-
I payer. Not least among the merits of the commission plan
of city government is the fact that it relegates the mayoral
veto power to the political scrap-heap.
3. The A third power of the mayor, and in many cities his most
power!*"18 important one, is that of making appointments to the higher
places on the city's pay-roll. In most American cities, large
and small, a few officers, notably those connected with the
financial department of the municipality, are still elected
directly by the people ; in some, a few officers are still chosen
by the council. Here and there a municipal officer is ap-
pointed by the state, and in a few rare instances by the higher
state courts. Most appointments to higher municipal posts
are, however, not made in any of these ways, but come within
the appointing power of the mayor. Not that he has an
entirely free hand in making such appointments ; ordinarily
he nominates, but before becoming effective his nominations
must be confirmed by the board of aldermen or bv the coun-
cji. The genesis of this arrangement is of course clear:
it is but another example of the influence which the federal
con-
THE MAYOR 227
analogy, has exerted upon the structure and functions of
local government. When it came to be realized that the The
work of appointing men to municipal office was an executive
function, this prerogative was, logically enough, intrusted ment8-
to the mayor as chief executive officer of the city ; but, in-
asmuch as the confirmation of executive appointments
in the national administration was given to the upper
house of the national legislature, it seemed fitting that in
those cities which had a bicameral system the confirming
power should be allotted to the smaller of the two council
bodies, commonly called the board of aldermen. Twenty-
five or thirty years ago this was the almost invariable prac-
tice in American cities, large and small; and it is still in
vogue in most of the medium-sized and smaller cities.
Within the last decade, however, the practice of requiring
conciliar confirmation of mayor's appointments has been
losing ground very rapidly.
It used to be thought that the system of having the mayor's Reputed
appointments confirmed by the board of aldermen (or, in
those cities which have a single chamber, by the council)
confirma-
had much in its favor. The policy seemed to be in keeping tion.
with the scheme of American government in state and na-
tion; it was thought to afford a salutary check upon pos-
sible abuses of the mayor's discretionary powers ; and it
was commonly justified on the ground that "it placed no
handicap upon a good mayor and set obstacles in the way
of a bad one." People nowadays, however, have come to be
much more sceptical concerning these alleged merits. Tt l^aa
been found that, more often than not, the system of alder-
manic confirmation has afforded a most convenient ar-
rangement for evading responsibility. Mayors have not its abuses
hesitated to wash their hands of all accountability for ap- aldermen.
pointing professional politicians to municipal office, by the
plausible and frequently accurate assertion that the aldermen
228 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
would not confirm any others than party spoilsmen. More
than once the system has enabled the aldermen to give the
mayor the unpalatable alternative either of rewarding hench-
men by places on the city's pay-roll, or of having posts left
vacant over periods so long as to impede the administration
of the city's affairs. In those cities where aldefmen are
elected by wards, and where, in consequence, petty prejudices
come into full play, the system has achieved its worst. It
has frequently become an effective instrument of political
blackmail, forcing the mayor to countenance extravagant
appropriations, pilfering contracts, or high-handed ordi-
nances on pain of having his appointments rejected. As
the experience of the past quarter-century abundantly shows,
the practice of aldermanic confirmation has proved to be no
effective barrier against the appointment of incompetents to
municipal office; its chief service has been in providing a
means of bewildering voters when they try to hold any one
accountable for official incompetency or misdemeanor.
its abuse It would be unfair, however, to convey the idea that only
mayor. the confirming authorities have been remiss. Mayors,
under the system of aldermanic confirmation, have too fre-
quently been ready to play politics. They have been
known to send forward names of well-qualified men who, as
they had already ascertained, were sure to fail of confirma-
tion,— a, ruse intended to mislead the more exacting ele-
ment in the community, and thereby to afford a plausible
excuse for the nomination of some political or personal
favorite a few days later. If aldermen have used their pre-
rogative of confirmation to force the mayors* hands, the
mayors have been just about as ready to trundle their own
political interests by foisting upon the aldermen respon-
sibility for anything that is likely to evoke antagonism from
some faction of the voters. In fact, this provision of the
old municipal system has probably been responsible for more
THE MAYOR 229
scurvy deals between the executive and legislative branches
of American city governments than any other feature.
And what has been said of aldermanip. confirmation in The system
appointments applies equally to the practice of requiring maSTon-
aldermanic concurrence in removals from office. Mayors currencem
«««nBB«*»«"»«»««>Mc»««B""«"e»«—"™""»«"«"««»^^ removals.
are commonly charged with the duty of supervising the
work of the various city departments. The efficiency
of these departments of course depends largely upon the
capacity of the officer immediately in charge; but if the
mayor is not allowed to exercise a free hand in removing
the head of a municipal department in whose capacity he
has no confidence, it is difficulff fo ^ how hf> r>a.n he held
accountable for departmental short comings. In those
cities where the mayor cannot without concurrence remove
a single patrolman, even for gross misconduct or misde-
meanor, it requires no intuitive political sagacity to under-
stand how police discipline becomes demoralized, or why
patrolmen often put more faith in the influence of an alder-
man than in their own records for good conduct and effi-
ciency. In all recent charters the confirmation and con-^ _
currence clauses have disappeared. They may well be
relegated to a place among the discards of political science ;
for not only have they rendered the cause of efficient munici-
pal administration no permanent service of any importance,
but they have often been actually pernicious in operation.
Cities that have adopted the commission type of govern- Mayoral
ment vest the power of appointment in the commission as J^^ti*.
a whole, not in the mayor : but those which have revised °ut c°n-
firmation.
their charters without adopting the commission plan leave
it still with the chief executive. In some of these places
he exercises the right to appoint all heads of municipal
departments and all members of city boards or com-
missions without the sanction of the municipal council or
of any other body. New York affords the best example
230 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
of this system. By her charter of 1898, as amended in
1901, the power and responsibility were concentrated in the
mayor, who was thereby invested with a discretionary au-
thority more extensive than that possessed by the chief
The Boston executive officer of any other city whether in America or
elsewhere. In Boston, by the charter changes of 1909, the
duty of passing upon the mayor's appointments was taken
from the board of aldermen and given to the state civil-
service commission. In general the new charter provisions
commit to the mayor the right to nominate all heads of de-
partments and all members of city commissions, whether
paid or unpaid, the only important exceptions being a few
officials and commissioners who are either chosen by the
council or appointed by the governor of the state, and the
school committee, which is directly elected by the voters
of the city. It is provided that, when the mayor makes
any such nomination to office, he shall file a certificate with
the city clerk, who shall transmit a copy to the civil-ser-
vice commission, which is a state board made up of three
members, each appointed by the governor for a three-year
term. In making the nomination the mayor is required to
certify that the person nominated is "a recognized expert
in the work which will devolve upon him/' or aa person
/ / specially fitted by education, training, or experience to per-
form the duties" of the office. Upon receipt of the nomina-
tion the civil-service commission proceeds to make a careful
inquiry into the qualifications of the nominee. If a majority
of the members of the commission decide that the person
named by the mayor is possessed of the designated quali-
fications, this decision is communicated to the city clerk
and the appointment goes into effect.1 If the commission
is not satisfied, it merely remains silent; and, by the
provisions of the charter, on the expiry of thirty days the
1 Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1909, oh. 486.
THE MAYOR 231
mayor's designation lapses. He may then submit another
name.
The Boston plan rests upon the conviction that alder- Rational
,, ,. vi .i_ • basiaoftho
manic confirmation as a check upon the mayor is an open Boston
farce, if nothing worse ; that the average mayor cannot be 8yatem-
safely trusted to appoint competent heads of departments
if he has sole responsibility in the matter; and that the
system of competitive civil-service examinations does not
procure, for department headships, men of adequate ad-
ministrative capacity or political vision. It gives the mayor
entire freedom of appointment so long as he keeps within
the ranks of those who have some qualification for the work
which they are expected to perform ; but it provides a means,
whereby his freedom of action may be promptly curtailed,
whenever he steps outside these bounds and attempts to pay
political debts from the city's salary account^ During the
first twelve months after the new Boston charter went into
operation the mayor sent to the civil-service commission
the names of seventy-one persons, all of whom were certified
as " recognized experts," or as persons qualified " by education, its actual
training, or experience" for the work which they were desig-
nated to do. The commission found that even under the
broadest interpretation of the terms only fifty could be
confirmed as meeting the charter requirements.1 Of the
others, many were recognized experts in nothing but poli-
tics. In one case the mayor sent forward, for appointment
to the office of fire commissioner, the name of a man whose
qualifications "by education, training, or experience" rested
mainly on the fact that a quarter of a century ago he had served
as a member of a volunteer bucket brigade. In other cases
1 Of the seventy-one nominations, forty were to paid positions and
thirty-one to unpaid. Of the twenty-one nominations which the
commission declined to approve, fifteen were to paid and six to unpaid
positions.
232
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
he relapsed to the evils of the old system of aldennanic
confirmation by presenting, in an apparent endeavor to
make political capital, the names of men who, as he must
have known, could not under any circumstances be certified
as competent.
itssatisfac- In Massachusetts, where officers appointed by the state
authorities can usually be relied upon to display the neces-
sary integrity and independence, the Boston plan has its
advantages. That it has secured -for the city a better set
of department heads than could be hoped for under the old
regime is beyond serious question.1 That it is thoroughly
unpopular with machine politicians is equally certain and
by no means surprising. But it may well be doubted
whether the system would insure any marked improvement
in the cities of those states which cannot be relied upon to
provide civil-service commissions with the necessary aloof-
ness from political chicanery. A plan that serves Boston
well might very conceivably prove a failure in Chicago or
Philadelphia.
4. The A fourth administrative function which fa frpqi1PTI*Vi
initiate*0 though not in the majority of American cities, intrusted
appropria- to the mayor is that of supervising the preparation of the
tions. «•••••• ••-«—•*•— •—•-i i m M i -i
municipal budget. There was a time when this task was
performed by the city council through one of its committees
commonly called the finance committee. That is the plan still
followed in English cities, but it has never worked very well
in America. Here members of the council manoeuvred for
positions on the finance committee in order to wedge into
the budget the appropriations in which they were person-
1 "Attempts on the part of the mayor to circumvent or override these
[civil-service] amendments have been repeated and persistent, but they
have been generally unsuccessful, and this feature of the charter has not
merely been justified but has shown itself an indispensable bulwark against
unfit appointments." — BOSTON FINANCE COMMISSION, Reports, VI. 16
(1911).
THE MAYOR 233
ally interested. The size of the various items in the list thus
reduced itself to a question of comparative efficiency in log-
rolling on the part of councillors, and the city treasury bore
the brunt of it all. Thus it came about that the initiative in
regard to the budget was often taken away from the council
altogether. In New York the work of preparing the budget, The New
jand thereby determining the annual tax-rate, is now vested tem. 8y8~
in a body known as the Board of Estimate and Apportion-
jment, composed of the mayor, the comptroller, the president
f the board of aldermen, and the five borough presidents,
f After the budget has been finally adopted by this board it
goes to the aldermen ; but the latter can make no changes
in it except by way of reduction, and even in this respect
their action is subject to veto by the mayor, whose decision
can in such cases be overridden only by a three-fourths vote.
In Boston the budget is drafted by the mayor alone. No The Boston
proposal to spend the city's money can be considered by the p ai
council unless it emanates from the mayor. The council
may reduce or omit any item, but it may not make any in-
sertions or increases. Under this system the undivided
responsibility for all municipal expenditures falls upon the
mayor. Unfortunately, however, this does not make
him directly accountable to the electorate for increases
in the annual tax-rate of the city ; for this rate depends not
only upon the amount of expenditures directly under the
mayor's control, but also upon the amounts levied by vari-
ous commissions which are appointed by the state to per-
form certain semi-municipal functions in and about the city,
and are authorized to assess on Boston either the whole cost
or a large proportion of it. It is easy enough to propound
the doctrine that complete and undivided responsibility for
the amount of the annual tax-rate should be centred in the
mayor; but so long as important obligations are continu-
ally saddled upon the city by some outside superior author-
234
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ity this centralization of responsibility is not so easy to
secure.
6. Mined- In addition to the foregoing powers, — those relating to
mino"8 ""* legislation, to the veto, to appointments, and to finances, —
powers. the American mayor has powers and duties of a rather mis-
cellaneous sort. In most cities he is intrusted with a gen-
eral supervision over the various municipal departments ;
but this in itself gives him no authority of consequence. If
the mayor has power to appoint and remove the depart-
mental heads, from the very nature of things he needs no
specific grant of supervisory authority over what they do;
and if he has not the power to appoint and remove, a formal
supervisory jurisdiction is of little use to him. By pro-
vision of the city charter, the mayor is often authorized to
receive reports from the administrative departments at
stated intervals or when he calls for them. In some cities
he has the right to inspect the accounts of city officers, or
to conduct investigations into the working of any branch of
the administration. In a few cities he may, when necessary,
call out the militia to aid the local police ; and in a number
of places he may pardon offenders who have been convicted
in the municipal courts, and may remit fines imposed there.
i Besides all this, the mayor is the official representative of
the city in all dealings with other municipalities or with
the state. In person or through some one delegated by
him he represents the city at legislative hearings and other
official conferences at which the city's attitude is presented.
Considerable demands are also made upon both his purse
and his patience, if he undertakes to do a tithe of what is
expected of him as the representative of the municipality
at numberless semi-official and private gatherings or func-
tions. The mayor of an American city, whether large or
small, need never be idle.
That the powers and duties which ordinarily attach to the
THE MAYOR 235
office of mayor have greatly increased during the last forty The steady
or fifty years has already been mentioned. In national gov- mayorai°
ernment the adjustment of executive and legislative powers, P°wera-
as originally established, has never been seriously disturbed.
The national executive may have increased its powers some-
what during the last one hundred and twenty years, but not
to any notable degree. So, also, with the balance of power
in state government : governors to-day take about the same
role in state administration that they took a century since.
But in the realm of municipal government the shifting of
power has been very marked indeed. From his original
place as a dependent and subordinate of the municipal
legislature, the mayor has risen steadily to a plane on which
he is at least coordinate with the council^ and very often,
superior to it, in scope of power and influence. This means,
of course, that the powers of the municipal legislature have
been correspondingly impaired.
Whether this development has served on the whole to Has this
increase the efficiency of municipal administration, or
whether, as some claim, it represents a half-century of grop-
ing along the wrong path, is a question too involved and per-
haps too controversial to have much discussion in a general
survey. It is safe to say, however, that the policy of taking
power from the other organs of city government and loading
it upon the mayor has not served to secure a degree of effi-
ciency or economy that is at all satisfactory to the people
who pay the bills. The mayors of American cities like New
York or Boston have more statutory power than the burgo-
master of Berlin or the Parisian prefects. Hence, if the
former cities represent failures in the American scheme
of popular government, it is not through any lack of power
on the part of the city executive.
236 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
REFERENCES
On the development of executive jurisdiction in American cities the
general references indicated at the close of Chapter I contain a good deal
of information. Particular mention should, however, be made of J. A.
Fairlie's chapter on " Municipal Development in the United States," in
his Municipal Administration (New York, 1901). Many details relating
to the term, salary, position, and powers of the mayor in various larger
cities, both in America and Europe, are given in A. R. Hatton's Digest
of City Charters (Chicago, 1906), especially pp. 246-272; but changes
have been very numerous throughout the country since the publication of
this volume. Useful general discussions may be found in F. J. Goodnow's
Municipal Government (New York, 1909), oh. xi. ; D. F. Wilcox's Ameri-
can City (New York, 1904) , ch. x. ; D. B. Eaton's Government of Munici-
palities (New York, 1899), ch. xiv. ; and in the Municipal Program (New
York, 1900), 74-87. Short articles of more than ordinary interest are
E. A. Greenlaw's " Office of Mayor in the United States," in Municipal
Affairs, III. 33-60, and E. D. Durand's "Council Government versus
Mayor Government," in Political Science Quarterly, XV. 426-451, 675-709.
The Reports of the Boston Finance Commission (7 vols., Boston, 1908-
1912), especially vol. II., pp. 211-230, contain facts and figures relating to
the actual administration of a mayor's office under a partisan regime.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS
THE administrative department as a self-standing factor
in city government, independent of the municipal council,
not chosen by the latter, and not made up of members from
.... ment.
it, is also an exclusively American institution. Like many
other features in the American system of urban government,
it is a by-product of that undue stress which was, during
the nineteenth century, laid upon the principle of division
of powers in local, as in state a.nH im.t.inTifl.1. fl.ffa.ira~ It
has been shown in a previous chapter that, during the
colonial era and for an interval after the Revolution, legis-
lative and administrative functions were not divorced in
the cities of this country. The city council had charge of
both ; and throughout the first four or five decades of the
nineteenth century the various tasks of local administration,
as they confronted the cities, were given over to standing
committees of the council. That was the plan pursued in
England, whence the cities of the United States first derived
their frame of government, and it remains unaltered in
English municipalities to the present day.1
A system of administering the various branches of a city's
business (such as police, fire protection, public works, schools, of a
and so on) through the direct agency of standing council -fr^fl by
COUDC1T^
committees has on general principles much to commend it. committees
In the first place, there is not enough purely legislative work
to keep a council employed. In the United States the activ-
1 The way in which this plan of department administration by council
committees works in the cities of Great Britain is explained in Munro's
Government of European Cities (New York, 1909), 282-294.
237
238
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ity of the state legislatures is so great and constant that
very little in the way of law-making, or anything closely
akin to it, is left for subordinate authorities. Fny t.hft lar^r
American cities, at any rate, the real law-making authority
is the state legislature. The few ordinances left for the
city to pass engage the attention of the average municipal
council hardly a tithe of its time. Hence it is that, when
councils are by the terms of the city charter reduced to the
plane of ordinance-making bodies, they sink to positions of
little importance in the general scheme of municipal govern-
ment and fail to attract to their membership men of any
ambition or capacity.
A citv council, moreover, does nnt, usually fl.nr.pnt, this
ouster from administrative influence with good grace. Its
members are commonly elected from the various wards of the
city ; indeed, the only representative which a certain ward
or district may have in the whole city government is not in-
frequently a member of the city council. When the ward
wants something from an administrative department, it looks
to its own representative to secure it. Through sheer pres-
sure brought upon them by the neighborhoods from which
they come, therefore, and despite charter provisions to the
contrary, the councillors are forced into attempts to exert
an influence and control over matters of administration.
Diversities of local interests are relative to administration
rather than to legislation. It is not that any part of the city
fears that it will fail to receive its due share of attention in
the ordinances; it is rather that each ward or district
jealously desires its full portion of what is to be spent for pub-
lic works, or police, or fire protection, or parks, playgrounds,
and so on. If the various parts of the city are represented
in only one branch of the city government, this body is ex-
pected to transmit local demands to those branches in which
localities as such are not represented. Hence it has almost
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 239
always happened that a city council which has been de-
prived by law of all direct share in administrative work will
nevertheless strive to exert a control in roundabout ways,
some of which have already been described.1 In any case,
friction between legislative and administrative organs is al-
most certain to be the outcome ; and when there is a clash be-
tween an elective body, such as the council, and an appointive
authority, such as the headship of an administrative depart-
ment must be if it is to be efficient, popular sympathy is
altogether likely to be with the former, despite any charter
provision which relegates the elective body to a place outside 3. Embod-
the realm of administration. The principle was well stated *
princile
by Lord Durham in his famous report upon the government
of colonies, but it holds with equal soundness in all spheres
of representative government. It is idle to expect, he de-
clared, that a body of elected representatives will suffer it-
self to be relegated by any theory of government to a position
of administrative impotence, while men who do not owe their
places to popular election control all the direct avenues
through which the people's money is spent.2
Now, as a matter of principle, the logical carrying out of The admin-
the policy which some reformers would have all American
cities pursue, — that is to say, the complete elimination of the
council from all part in administrative affairs (this includes the suprem-
acy of
the appointment of officials and the actual spending of all popular
moneys), and the intrusting of these affairs to heads of tives.
departments not elected by the people but chosen by some
sort of competitive civil-service test, — the logical outcome
of this policy would be the establishment of a natural an-
tagonism between the elective and non-elective branches of
government, an arrangement which, as Lord Durham pointed
out, cannot permanently endure in any representative system.
1 Above, pp. 204-205.
2 Report on the Affairs of British North America (London, 1839).
240 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The idea that one organ of city government, popularly elected
and intended to be a mirror of public opinion, will content
itself with a mere share in the making of local ordinances
while the real business of the city is carried on by heads of
departments who neither directly nor indirectly owe their
appointment to popular choice, — such an idea is a delu-
sion that experience ought long since to have shattered.
steps by But when administrative duties were first taken away from
the council the were not given to boards or officials selected
- *n *^s wav> The change was not dictated by a conviction
tive depart- that administration should be put in charge of experts chosen
ment has _.
been devel- by open competition. It was due rather to the feeling that
the various branches of the city's business could be managed
better by boards or officials directly elected than by commit-
tees of the council which were liable to be chosen by log-
rolling methods. Accordingly, independent administrative
officials and boards were for a time elected by popular vote.
It was soon found, however, that the system of popular
election did not serve the cause of efficiency. The next step.
therefore, was to transfer the responsibility of selection frorn^
the voters to the mayor, a change, it was argued, that did
not remove administration from popular control, inasmuch as
the mayor who appointed and might at any time dismiss these
boards and officials was himself an elected officer, responsible
to the voters. But even this transfer did not secure the
efficient direction of city departments ; for in mosfr cases
the mayor, using his appointive power as an agency of po^
litical patronage, put them in charge of men whose only^
qualification was consistent party service. By these steps
the quest for some arrangement that will insure a certain
degree of administrative competence in the heads of city de-
partments has proceeded to the scheme of selecting them
under civil-service supervision.
The most promising plan of this sort yet put into operation
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 241
is that adopted in Boston by the charter ai^eriHTnp.nt.g of 1 9f)9. The seiec-
By the terms of this legislation heads of departments and partment
members of boards in charge of departments are appointed heada-
by the mayor ; but these appointments do not go into effect
until approved by the civil-service commission, which is, as
has already been stated, a board of three members appointed
by the governor of Massachusetts. The initiative in appoint-
ments rests wholly with the mayor. He may select whom he The Boston
will, provided the civil-service commission assents ; and it is p "**
required by law to do so if it finds that the mayor's nominee
is qualified for the post by training or by experience. There
is no competitive test of any sort ; it is not necessary that
the mayor's nominee be the best man available, but only that
he offer reasonable promise of competency. During the
last few years this system has worked well, though it has
proved more successful in protecting the city against political
appointments than in securing experts as heads of depart-
ments. It seems to guarantee that the men put in charge
of departments shall frp «.*. ^^ tolerably competent, but
in the hands of a mayor who is not in sympathy with the
system i^^oes nn|, assure the city much more than that. On
the other hand, it preserves the forms of responsible appoint-
ment ; for the actual selection of administrative heads is its chief
made by the mayor, who is, in turn, elected by the people.
This is a matter of more than formal importance in deter-
mining the relations of these men, when installed in office,
both with the mayor and with the city council. The mayor
cannot disclaim responsibility for their success or failure,
since by sending their names to the civil-service commis-
sion for confirmation he must expressly vo^o.h for their
competence.
Many other cities of the United States have put most of ita basic
their officials into some sort of contact with civil-service p
machinery, but as yet Boston is the only one 'to do this in
242 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
case of the actual heads of city departments.1 And it
cannot be made too clear that the Boston system is not
competitive. Those who devised the plan were thoroughly
in sympathy with the policy of filling all subordinate posts in
the municipal service by competitive merit tests, but they
were not ready to adopt this method of selecting depart-
ment heads, who have the power to determine policies. This
distinction between officials whose tasks involve discretion
in the determination of departmental policy and those whose
duties are of a non-discretionary character seems to be sound
The place of in principle. Experts are needed, and very sorely needed,
dty*admia-n in the administrative services of American cities, and the
iatration. best practicable means of securing them is by open competir
tion ; but it does not follow that the place for the expert is at
the head of the department. The city's expert in the matter
of fire protection ought to be the fire chief and not the fire
commissioner. Professional expertness is imperative in
the medical health officer, but not in members of the health
board. It is essential to the efficiency of the city's educa-
tional system that the superintendent of schools shall be
skilled in school management; but no such qualification
1 Kansas City, by its freeholders' charter of 1909, provides for the classi-
fication of "all positions now existing or hereafter created of whatever
function, designation or compensation in each and every branch of the
civil service of the city, except such positions as are in the exempt service
or in the labor class." Provision is made that all such classified posts
shall be filled by competitive merit tests, devised and administered by a
civil-service board made up of three members appointed by the mayor.
This arrangement seems, on its face, to embody a great extension of civil-
service methods in municipal administration; but, on turning to the
"exempt service," one finds enumerated within this category not only the
members of the water, park, and health boards, but such officials as the
fire chief, the city auditor, the city clerk, the city assessor, the city coun-
sellor, and in some cases their deputies as well. The Kansas City plan,
despite_the_freciuency with which it is cited as an exampleoi
going civil-service reform, does not go so far in that direction as the
ragements made by the Boston charter amendments.
g
h
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 243
ought to be exacted from members of the school board,
even in cities where these members are appointed by the
mayor.
To the policy of selecting the heads of departments by sho
competitive tests several weighty objections have been raised,
In the first place, as President Lowell has pointed out, "the
' • " by competi-
broad intelligence and sound judgment required " from those, tm
who manage administrative departments "can hardly be
measured by any examination paper designed to test imme-
diate fitness for special duties." The competitive test,
however comprehensive and concrete it may be, must in-
evitably relate itself to the work which a candidate will be
called upon to perform and the responsibilities which he
will be expected to bear. Since the work of a department
head is specialized, the test must be somewhat special in
its nature. But special tests cannot determine general
capacity, and the theory that the most satisfactory head for
a department is one who displays the most accurate knowl-
edge of its routine functions will not square with everyday
facts. There are so many points at which a department
head must come into touch with the voters, with the city
council, and with other administrative officials that such
qualities as tact, prudence, firmness, knowledge of human
nature, ability to work with colleagues, a personality that
will inspire loyalty on the part of subordinates and con-
fidence on the part of superiors, these and many other per-
sonal traits are quite as essential to success as is expertness
in the technical work which the head of a city department
has to do.
The qualities of mind and character needed in the executive The quaii-
head of a city department have been well outlined by one
cient de-
1 In his article on "Permanent Officials in Municipal Government,"
printed in Proceedings of the National Municipal League, 1908, especially
p. 217.
244 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
who, in a professional capacity, has been in close contact with
city affairs in a large way. The department head should
have, first of all, " integrity and executive capacity. He
should be a man capable of managing business enterprises
upon business principles and by business methods. He must,
therefore, be a man of sound judgment and strong character,
equable and diplomatic in temperament, and a good judge
of men and of human nature. He must have the ability to
decide rightly and the firmness to stand by his decisions when
made. He should have had experience in public affairs and
business enterprises. Technical education or training is
not essential, though very desirable. ... To assume that a
man is fitted for executive work solely because he possesses
technical knowledge or experience is to make a grave mis-
take ; to assume that he is not a capable executive because of
his technical training is to make a still graver mistake." 1
Work that is professional in its nature, whether in private
or in public business, cannot be done satisfactorily unless
trained men are employed to do it. Much of the work in
every city department is professional in character, and must
therefore be done by men of skill if it is to be done well.
But there is also much that needs to be done with a respon-
siveness to public opinion which is not guaranteed by the
mere possession of expertness on the part of those who do it.
Hence it happens that the responsible head of a department
must have that general administrative capacity which is
necessary to make his branch of the city's business run in
popular, as well as in efficient, grooves ; otherwise, he is not
likely to remain in office very long.
The need In the adoption of a method of selecting department heads
traditions, there is one consideration which ought never to be overlooked.
This is the question whether the plan chosen is likely to
prove a final or only a temporary solution of a difficult prob-
1 Samuel Whinery, Municipal Public Works (New York, 1903), 20-21.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 245
lem. Whatever the immediate merits of anv system of
appointments may be, it does not promise a definitive means,
of putting the right man in the right place unless it paves the,
way to a development of sound traditions. The experience
of European cities is more illuminating upon this point
than upon any other. The men at the head of the various
branches of administration in these municipalities are of
unquestioned capacity, not because statutory checks have
been put upon the freedom of the appointing authorities,
but because public opinion would not brook the selection of
any other type. In America public opinion has not reached
the stage at which it can exert any such influence ; but this
is not to say that sound traditions in the matter of municipal
appointments cannot be developed on this side of the Atlantic
as well as on the other. Even in England they are almost
wholly the product of the last seventy-five years ; and in a
new country, where traditions develop rapidly when they
have fair opportunity, the time required ought not to be so
long. One of the merits of the Boston plan^ of securing de-
partment heads, accordingly, is that it attempts to set a
sound tradition in process of growth. It aims to force
the appointing authority into rational habits.
Election by popular vote, appointment by the city council, The prao-
appointment by the mayor with the concurrence of the coun- "
cil (or the upper branch of it), appointment by the mayor
alone, and appointment by the mayor with the confirmation
of a civil-service commission, — these are the various methods
by which heads of municipal departments are ordinarily
chosen. Election by the voters is still a common practice;
there are few large cities which do not choose some of their
chief administrative officials in this way.1 It is used mainly,
1 In New York the comptroller is elected ; in Philadelphia the comp-
troller, the city treasurer, and the recorder of taxes ; in Chicago the city
clerk and the city treasurer ; in St. Louis about a dozen department heads ;
in Baltimore the comptroller and the surveyor ; and so on.
246 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
but by no means altogether, as a means of selecting financial
officers, such as the city comptroller, the treasurer, or the
auditor. In general, however, it is the least satisfactory
way of choosing administrative officials, and during recent
years it has lost ground in the larger municipalities. Appoint-
ment by the council is still the method employed in many
Southern cities, and to some extent it is used in cities through-
out other sections of the Union.1 In cities under commission^
government the commissioners are themselves the heads
oT Tn?d5iei administrative departments. Appointment by
the mayor with the concurrence of the city council (or of
the upper branch of it, when there are two branches) remains,
on the whole, the most common method of selecting depart-
ment heads. Despite the organic and incidental shortcom-
ings of the system of aldermanic confirmation, the merits and
defects of which have already been discussed,2 the arrange-
ment still has a strong anchorage in the American scheme
of local government. A few cities, notably New York and
San Francisco, have given the appointing power to the mayor
alone, requiring no concurrence or confirmation of his
appointments, — a plan, all things considered, better than
most of those which preceded it. Boston is as yet the only
American city to put the appointment of department heads in
control of the mayor, subject to confirmation not by the city
council or any branch of it, but by a state civil-service
commission.
Selection by There are two other methods of securing department heads,
authorities, both of them involving action by authorities outside the
city. One of these is appointment by the governor or by
some other state authority. In three of the six largest cities
of the United States (Boston, St. Louis, and Baltimore) the
1 In New York and Boston, for example, where the council appoints th«
city clerk.
2 Above, pp. 227-229.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 247
head of the police department is named by the state. In
Boston this headship is vested in a single commissioner
appointed by the governor of Massachusetts;1 in St. Louis
the police department is in charge of a board made up of
four commissioners appointed by the governor of Missouri,
with the mayor as a member ex officio? In Baltimore the
three members of the board of police commissioners are
elected by the two houses of the Maryland legislature sitting
in joint session.3 Other examples of state appointment to
the headships of municipal departments can be found in
some cities, but they are now rare and are becoming steadily
more so.4 This is a form of state interference in municipal
affairs which is strongly resented by voters in the cities con-
cerned. Although it has in some cases given the munici-
pality a better type of official than would have been secured
by its own efforts, the principle involved in this method of
appointment is not palatable to the citizens, and an official so
named is therefore forced to do his work under a serious
handicap.
In a few instances appointments to policy-controlling, Appoint-
municipal posts are made bv the regular state courts. In rourts.y
Philadelphia the board of school controllers consists of
forty-two members, named by the judges of the court of
common pleas for the city and county of Philadelphia.
This board makes the annual school budget and elects the
superintendent of schools. In Chicago the South Park
Commissioners are named by the judges of the circuit court
of Cook county. In Boston the trustees of the Franklin
Fund are appointed by the judges of the supreme court of
1 Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1906, ch. 291, § 7.
2 Laws of Missouri, 1899, pp. 50 ff.
3 Charter of Baltimore, § 740.
* For example, the West Park Commissioners and the Lincoln Park
Board in Chicago, and the Licensing Board and the Finance Commission
in Boston.
248
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
the commonwealth. Similar instances are to be found in
other cities. The ostensible justification offered for this
plan is that in some cases it provides the only sure method of
removing a department from thainfliie^ce of partisan politics.
When no one else — the voters of the city, the city council,
the mayor, the governor, or the state legislature — can
be trusted to make strictly non-political appointments, the
courts seem to be the only other public authority to which
recourse can be had. But the policy embodies very dubious
wisdom at best, and if pursued on any comprehensive scale
would inevitably draw the judiciary into the orbit of partisan
politics^ It would subject the judges to political pressure,
and in the long run would both lower the personnel of the
courts and impair the efficiency with which they perform
their regular tasks of adjudication. Whatever benefits might
accrue to the city departments whose heads could be ap-
pointed in this way would, in the end, be more than offset by
the unwholesome reaction which the assumption of such
duties would force upon the courts themselves.1
There- Closely related to the system of appointing heads of
cfeplrtment administrative departments is the method of removing them
from office. When such officials are elected by popular
vote, there is usually no way of removing them (unless for
grave misconduct) until their terms are expired, except in
those cities which have made the recall arrangement appli-
cable to them.2 If the city council appoints, it can also
usually suspend or remove. When the appointment lies
with the mayor subject to confirmation by the council or by
some branch of it, the concurrence of this body is commonly
required to remove a department head from his post ; but
when the mayor alone appoints, he has usually the power of
1 For a further discussion, see D. B. Eaton, The Government of Munici-
palities (New York, 1899), eh. xvii.
1 See below, pp. 350-355.
heads.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 249
removal, either with or without a public hearing. In Boston.
where the mayor can appoint heads of city departments only
with the assent of the state civil-service commission, the
concurrence of this body is not necessary to removaL. In
a few cases provision has been made for the displacement
of higher city officials by a process of local impeachment.1
Most cities have made formal rules that aim to prevent thft
removal of-JhTsrh offif.ifl.1a . ..wfohmit— lust, caiise! these often
take the form of requirements that definite charges must be
made in writing before the removal can take place. Few of
these regulations have been of much avail, however ; for the
charges may be couched in terms too general to permit an
effective defence, and the^p fc nan ally nr>
impartial determination of the question as to whether or not
the complaints are well p;roun^ed.2
Much effort has been expended by the framers of city The only
charters to provide securities against unfair and improper
removals from higher administrative posts. If it were more
«——«———-— ^— wrongful
difficult to displace men who are already at the head of civic removals.
departments, the pressure for purely partisan appointments
would not be so great. If there were no removals except
for just cause, there would be no official spoils ; and if there
were no spoils, there could be no spoils system. Almost
\every improper appointment, it will be found, has come
lupon the heels of an unjust removal. Some securities for
permanence in office on the part of department heads are,
accordingly, much to be desired; but, like most other ef-
fective safeguards against the abuse of power, they are
very difficult to establish. Laws that forbid removals
either are of little avail or are liable to overreach them-
selves. They avail little when a hostile city council holds
1 For an illustration, see the provision in the charter of Denver, Colo-
rado, § 163.
2 See also below, pp. 286-287.
250 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
the purse-strings and can deny the appropriation for an
official's salary. They overreach themselves when they
operate to keep in office a man who no longer can work in
some degree of harmony with the elected representatives
of the voters. For the general direction of administrative
affairs the mayor is deemed responsible to the citizens.
To be properly accountable he must be in control, if he
has no right to remove chiefs of departments, he can all too_
readily disclaim responsibility for what they do. If these
officers are not elected, and are not held accountable to
the appointing authority, they are devoid of direct re-
sponsibility ; and power without responsibility is none
the less intolerable because those who wield it may have
been originally chosen on their merits. This principle was
recognized in the New York charter amendments of 1901
and in the Boston amendments of 1909, both of which gave
the mayor full power to remove heads of departments with-
out the concurrence of any other authority, either state or
municipal. That is the procedure followed in the cities of
Great Britain, where the council, which is the appointing
authority, may remove a city official at any time and for
any cause. The only security against the abuse of this dis-
cretion in English cities is a public opinion which requires
councillors to work in harmony with the administrative chiefs
and militates against the reelection of those who fail to do
so. A similar security is the only thing which can ever
permanently avail in the cities of the United States. Public
opinion, if developed in the right direction, can accomplish
what laws have thus far failed to do ; and one way to develop
public opinion is to throw the responsibility upon it.
tribution of American cities differ considerably in the number of ad-
fanctions1 nn'nistrative departments which they maintain. In New
among York there are fifteen regular city departments (not including
depart-
meats. the five borough administrations), besides almost a score
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 251
of boards and officials that do not come within the super-
vision of these regular departments.1 In Chicago there are
twelve chief departments, most of them organized under
ordinances of the city council. Philadelphia has only eleven
departments, all of them provided for in the city charter ; 2
St. Louis has sixteen, and Boston has more than thirty.3
Smaller cities usually find eight or ten departments ample,
and those which have adopted the commission type of govern-
ment are able to manage affairs with only five.4 In the or-
dinary municipality of medium size there are, perhaps, a
half-dozen distinct branches of administration requiring
separate management. These are, for instance, the munici-
pal jaw department, the department of finance (which may
include assessments, taxes, the treasurer's office, and audit),
the department of piifrliq safety (including police, fire pro-
tection, licensing, and building inspection), the department
of public works (including the construction and maintenance
of public buildings, streets, sewers, parks, playgrounds, and
so forth), the department of public health (including sanita-
tion, hospitals, inspection of foodstuffs, control of markets,
weights and measures, and similar matters), and the depart-
1 The regular departments are : (1) finance, (2) taxes and assessments,
(3) law, (4) education, (5) police, (6) fire protection, (7) street cleaning,
(8) water supply, gas, and electricity, (9) parks, (10) bridges, (11) docks
and ferries, (12) health, (13) tenement house, (14) public charities, (15)
correction.
2 These are : (1) education, (2) taxes, (3) city treasurer, (4) controller,
(5) law, (6) sinking-fund commission, (7) public safety, (8) public works,
(9) public health and charities, (10) supplies, (11) wharves, docks, and
ferries.
3 The reason for the large number of departments in Boston is to be
found in the fact that for many years prior to 1909 heads of departments
were about the only higher administrative officers exempt from civil-
service regulations. To provide for political spoilsmen, therefore, new
departments were frequently created by ordinance.
4 For the scheme of administrative organization in commission cities,
see E. S. Bradford, Commission Government in American Cities (New York,
1911), ch. xvii.
252
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ment of education, in charge of the municipal school and
public-library systems.
There seems to be no very good reason why, save in very
large cities, the whole administration should not be ap-
portioned in these six departments, each of which, again,
might be organized into two or more divisions or bureaus.
Apart from those municipalities which have simplified their
administrative machinery by the introduction of commission
government, there is scarcely a city in the country that does
not possess a departmental organization too complicated for
its needs.1 Not only does this result in a failure to get a
dollar's worth of service for a dollar's expenditure, but it pre-
vents the heads of departments from forming, as they might
profitably do, a sort of mayor's cabinet that might meet fre-
quently and by the frank discussion of current projects serve
to put more team play into the work of making the city's
revenue match its expenses. Five or six department heads
can do this ; fifteen or twenty cannot. That service which
cabinet meetings render to the national administration is
rarely obtained in city affairs.
Next to the general distribution of municipal work among
commission- departments, comes the question whether the citv depart-
ments ought to be put in charge of boards or single commi^-
sioners. There was a time when the board plan was more
in favor, but in recent years the pendulum of popularity
has swung to the one-man system of departmental supervision.
1 To determine just what scheme of administrative organization prom-
ises the greatest efficiency in any large city requires a large amount of
investigation and a careful consideration of the many interests involved.
A very good example of the way in which the problem ought to be ap-
proached is afforded by the report issued in 1909 by the Memphis
Bureau of Municipal Research : Memphis ; a Critical Study of its Munici-
pal Government, with Constructive Suggestions for Betterment in Organizes
tion and Administrative Methods. See also the various articles on " Effi-
ciency in City Government " in the Annals of the American Academy of
Social and Political Science for May, 1912.
boards
versus
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 253
Board administration has, however, some important ad- Advantages
vantages. In the first place, there are certain departments
which, from the very character of the work that comes within
their jurisdiction, are well suited to the board system. The
school department, quite obviously, is one of these. So is
the department of public libraries ; and so, likewise, although i. it is well
perhaps to a less pronounced degree, are the departments of
poor relief, hospitals, and public recreation. These are
branches of the city's business in which deliberation and
care are essential to success, in which different temperaments
and different points of view may contribute to prudent
action. On the other hand, the city's law department, its
police and fire-protection services, and some other like
branches of municipal administration, are quite as clearly
unsuited to competent direction by more than a single head.
In the same city there is_, accordingly, room for both systems^
each to be employed where the conditions demancL
Again, the board plan can be used to facilitate continuity 2. it can be
of departmental policy wherever this seems to be a requisite curecon^"
of satisfactory administration. A single commissioner, tiDui*yof
«••••••••••«"•• ' adnmua-
when his term expires, takes his policy out of office with trative
him; for his successor, particularly if he be chosen by a
new administration, is apt to depart from the beaten path
if only to advertise his own initiative. Hence, departments
in charge of single heads often fail to develop comprehensive
policies. They cannot map out plans over fair periods of
time, for things done during one term are likely to be undone
in the next. With a board of three or five members in
charge, on the contrary, a system of partial renewal at stated
times can be employed to prevent any loss of continuity.
Changes of policy will then come gradually, and not be
dependent upon the judgment or the caprice of a single indi-
vidual, obviously a very important consideration in depart-
ments like education and public improvements. It will be
254
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
3. It can be
used to
afford rep-
resentation
of diverse
interests.
found that in the interest of prudence, no less than in that
of sequence in policy, practically all large state and national
undertakings are intrusted to boards rather than to single
officials.
Furthermore, an administrative board may be so consti-
tuted as to afford representation to any interest, whether
geographical, social or pnlitinftl. whio.h mav seem to be.
entitled thereto. It may well be questioned whether there
are many city departments in which the representation of
several interests can be otherwise than harmful ; but there
are a few, at least, in which a denial of representation is sure
to provoke much popular opposition. In the administration
of the city's schools, for example, the board system
can be employed to allay the misgivings of those who
would be forever alleging religious and social discrimina-
tion, were a single commissioner, whatever his creed or class,
in complete control of the staff and curriculum. In the de-
partment which determines the location of public improve-
ments, again, the different geographical divisions of the
city are insistent in their demand for representation lest
their special needs be overlooked. Then there are some de-
partments that have tasks of a semi-political nature to per-
form, in regard to which both political parties want to be
heard. Such departments are those which have in charge
the listing or registration of voters, or the conduct of prima-
ries and elections. To put a single commissioner in full con-
trol of such matters is to intrust the decision of partisan
questions to one whose political affiliations or antecedents
inevitably come forward in the public mind as the real
motive of his acts. Not that bi-partisan boards have been
conspicuously successful in American cities ; they have, on
the contrary, too frequently been the centres of political
friction and chicane. But there is a flavor of unfairness in
intrusting functions that cannot be wholly withdrawn from
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 255
litics to anv single umpire whose affiliations
with one of the contestants. Hence the
bi-partisan board, even with its almost inevitable wrangles,
becomes a necessary concession to popular notions of fair
play.
Again, the board system can frequently be supported on 4. it often
the score of economy. In municipalities of any considerable
size the work of administering a city department is usually
enough to take the most of any one man's time. If it be in-
trusted wholly to one man, either he must be one whose
private wealth enables him to serve the city without mone-
tary recompense or he must receive a salary. As it scarcely
seems desirable that none but men of wealth should be
eligible to department headships, the single-commissioner
system involves the practice of paying substantial stipends.
In smaller cities these salaries, if paid in every department and
if fixed at figures sufficient to draw competent experts into
the municipal service, would involve a considerable drain
upon the city treasury. Moreover, as Professor Goodnow
has pointed out, it would probably mean the filling of higher
municipal offices by " men who make politics their profession,
obtaining their livelihood from the emolument of the various
offices they fill, one after the other." l This is exactly what
has resulted, in many smaller cities of the United States,
from the replacing of boards by single department heads.
Encouragement has been given, not to the professional_
administrator, but to the professional salary-seeker.
The, board system, furthermore, offers some advantaes in 5. it baa a
the way of bringing t.hft ordinary pitmen into contact with
civic affairs and thereby of incren-si"fy \\™ nyir> ^""q^onj value'
Resting upon the idea that the amateur has a place in the
city's administrative service, it permits men drawn from
the business and professional life of the community to
1 City Government in the United States (New York, 1904), 193.
256 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
take their share of public service without too much per-
sonal sacrifice. What may require the entire time of one
man need take only the leisure of five. There are always
some city departments in which the work is of such a nature
that it can be divided easily and even to advantage. The
various members of a board can be put in immediate charge
of the things for which their private vocations have best
fitted them or in which they happen to take most interest.
This, indeed, is the practice pursued by most boards ; hence
the idea that the board system tends to diffuse responsibility
is not often sustained by actual experience. On questions of
general policy administrative boards usually act as a whole,
but on the host of detailed matters that come before them
their action is more often determined by the advice of that
particular member who is most familiar with the special point
at issue. It is with this in mind that a mayor very often so
constitutes a board as to secure the representation of different
talents upon it.
The board The board plan can be made to operate satisfactorily,
however, only when the subordinate officials of the deartr
dent only ment are chosen by some well-ad rT^njfitered merit system.
officials are The latter is necessary not only to assure in the personnel
of the department that professional skill and knowledge
which members of the board cannot be called upon to supply,
but also to protect the latter against the pressure of patron-
age-seekers. When this safeguard is provided, the unpaid
board can render an important service by keeping adminis-
trative policy in touch with popular sentiment, by steering
the city's administrative methods from the ruts into which
professionalism is likely to run, and by standing as a buffer
between the political machine and the men who are on
the department pay-roll. The branch of American city
administration which has in general been managed most
efficiently, and has at the same time been most constantly
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 257
in tune with public opinion, is the school department. It
is in this field of administration, perhaps, that we have the
least to learn from the cities of Europe. Yet this depart-
ment has been almost everywhere intrusted to an unpaid
board. Under direct control of the board, however, is an
expert in educational administration usually called the
superintendent of schools, who supplies such special knowl-
edge as the board may need, and whose advice on technical
questions carries due weight with his lay superiors.
It does not follow, of course, that a similar system would Depart-
be best for the department of police or fire protection, where which the
promptness of decision, firmness in the maintenance of dis-
f f misaioner
cipline, and capacity for vigorous action are the qualities system is to
most to be sought for in departmental direction. In these ferred.
and some other departments the superior efficiency of the,
single-commissioner system can be so easily recognized as
to warrant the city in foregoing any incidental advantages
which the board form might provide. The latter still has
its place, however; and the ruthless way in which some
cities have displaced it seems to indicate that its possibili-
ties have not always been sufficiently emphasized. Profes-
sor Goodnow has suggested that the drift of American social
and business organization is unfavorable to the board idea,
since all big business enterprises are nowadays whirled on
a one-man pivot. It is the bank president, not its direc-
tors, who- in reality dominates the institution. Directors
who really direct have almost become figments of popular
imagination. Centralization of authority makes for effi-
ciency ; and when, as in business, the principle of organiza-
tion is not necessarily democratic, efficiency is likely to be the
controlling aim. In public affairs, however, this is a policy
which cannot wisely be followed without some deviation^
The terms of office given to department heads, whether The terms
of depart-
they be single commissioners or members of a board, ought ment head*.
258 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
to be longer than those usually provided. The prejudice
against extended terms is deeply rooted in the United States ;
it harks back to the days when public offices were every-
where regarded as prizes which lucky individuals ought not
to hold too long. The idea that city offices ought to go
round, ought to be passed along the line at intervals to those
who had borne the burden and heat of political battle, is
one of the hallucinations that were too long suffered to pass
muster as sound principles of democracy. When the office
of departmental chief is regarded as a difficult and none too
remunerative occupation which only capable men can oc-
cupy, and then only at some private sacrifice, there will be less
pressure in favor of shortening official terms. How long a
commissioner in charge of a city department should be ap-
pointed to serve depends somewhat upon the nature of the
tasks which he has to perform. If the department be one
which plans its work over a number of years, the head should
at least be retained for such space of time as may be neces-
sary to bring his own plans to fruition. If he is to be judged
by results, he should have time enough to make the results
his own. A term long enough to plan and produce returns,
yet not so long as to inspire a disregard of popular sentiment,
is what the head of a citv department ought to have,.. This
may well be six years ; it ought rarely, if ever, to be less
tnan tn7eeT*Where tenure of administrative oihce is con-
cerned, it is better in case of doubt to err on the side of
liberality. Indefinite terms are not regarded as satisfactory
either by the voters in general or by the officials themselves.
Too often they encourage persistent interference to secure
the removal of an officer.
Reappoint- More to be desired, however, than lon,g terms is the tradi-
tion of reappomtment. That such tradition can be de-
veloped is shown by the experience of some American cities
in which certain heads of departments have through sue-
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 259
cessive reappointments held their positions for ten, fifteen,
or even twenty years. Much has been said by American
writers on municipal government concerning the long periods
over which the chief officers of English city departments
have been suffered to remain unmolested ; but a detailed
examination of actual conditions in the cities of the two
countries would probably disclose that the difference in this
respect is not so great as is commonly imagined. It must
be remembered, moreover, that the facility with which a city
official can, for his own advancement, pass from municipal
to private employment is much less marked in England
than it is in this country. When the head of a city depart-
ment in the United States gives up his post after a few
years of service, it does not always mean that he has been
denied reappointment. Very often it is because he has
discovered a more lucrative opening in some other field.
A successful organizer and administrator in the city's ser-
vice soon catches the eye of some private corporation which
is willing to pay him more than the city is ready to offer.
The remedy for this would, of course, be to pay higher The salaries
salaries to successful heads of departments. But the scale menUieads.
of municipal salaries is not fixed on a basis of what the best
service is worth ; it is rather a question of what public opin-
ion is ready to tolerate. To the president and directors of
a public-service corporation ten thousand dollars per annum
is very little to pay for the services of a man who can do
large things easily ; to the eyes of the average voter it looks
like a small fortune. For what the American city wants,
and ought to have, in the way of efficient legal, engineering,
financial, sanitary, and educational skill, it will have to pay
more than it is paying at present. It must buy its adminis-
trative skill in the open market at current prices for a stated
quality. It must pay even higher sums than private em-
ployers of skill, for the expert who hires with the city must
260
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Gains in
efficiency
to be had
by a proper
coordina-
tion of
depart-
ments.
prepare to serve a fickle master. Compared with English,
French, or German municipalities, the American city may
seem to be paying its chief officials quite enough ; but that
is not the viewpoint from which comparisons should be
made. The chief officials of foreign cities take much of
their real remuneration in the honor that attaches to their
posts, in the security of tenure which they enjoy, and in the
liberal pension provisions that are made for them on re-
tirement. American cities give none of these things. The
only profitable comparison is that which may be made be-
tween the salaries paid for skill and service of the same qual-
ity in municipal and in private business. From this point
of view, the city's scale is too low in the higher branches of
its service and too high in the lower grades. On the whole,
much has been done in recent years to improve this situa-
tion; but the city's handicap is not yet by any means
overcome.1
While much of the responsibility for efficiency or ineffi-
ciency in the conduct of the city's business will always de-
pend upon the spirit and capacity of the men who are at the
heads of the various departments, not a little also hinges
upon the way in which the work is distributed to the several
administrative authorities, and upon the care with which
departments are themselves internally organized. A dis-
tribution of functions which leaves gaps, or which causes
overlapping, or which from its lack of definiteness gives
frequent basis for friction, is all too common in large cities
and proves a fertile source of wastefulness. Take the whole
field of municipal public works, for example. Reason and
experience both dictate that this entire branch of city ad-
ministration should be centralized in a single department;
yet very rarely is that policy followed. Street improvements
1 For a discussion in regard to pensions to city officials, see below, pp.
290-292.
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 261
are put in charge of one authority, sewer construction is in
the hands of another, and the extension of the water-supply
system is intrusted to a third. Each of the three then pro-
ceeds to its own work without reference to the plans of the
others, with the result that all too frequently there is over-
lapping of effort, or friction, delay, and unnecessary outlays
of both time and money. That most American cities have
more departments than they really need is a sufficient ob-
stacle to efficiency, but even worse than the multiplication
of these divisions is the failure of cities to make them work
in cooperation.
Another prolific cause of waste both in labor and in ma- Gains to be
terials is the faulty internal organization of individual de-
partments. In all successful business establishments two
or three fundamental rules of organization are observed as
a matter of course; yet by municipal corporations which
perform tasks of almost identically the same general char-
acter these rules are often disregarded altogether. One
of them is the commonplace principle that the lines of re-
sponsibility for every separate branch of a business should
converge in some one individual or group of individuals.
In other words, no subordinate officer should be allowed to
hold a place of isolation so far as his responsibility is con-
cerned. In large industrial enterprises the buying, manu-
facturing, and selling branches of the business are com-
mitted to separate departments, each with its own head.
These departments may be subdivided again, but the hier-
archy of accountability is always rigidly preserved. In the
management of the city's business, however, this principle
rarely gains anything like full recognition.1 The heads of
1 The report on "Business Methods of New York City's Police Depart-
ment," issued by the New York Bureau of Municipal Research in 1910,
affords abundant illustration of the way in which the ordinary rules of
everyday business are sometimes disregarded in the conduct of a munici-
pal department.
£262
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
some departments are chosen by the mayor and are re-
sponsible to him alone; the heads of others are chosen by
the city council and are responsible to it ; and the heads of
still others are elected by the voters and are responsible to
them. The inevitable result is inter-departmental jealousy
and often open antagonism. The street department puts
down a new pavement, only to find that the water or sewer-
age authorities have planned to relay their mains in that
particular thoroughfare. Friction between departments is
in some cities a matter of almost daily occurrence. Police
and licensing authorities failing to work in unison, the city's
sanitary department clashing with the board of health, the
fire department at issue with the department of buildings
inspection, — these are incidents that have become so com-
mon as hardly to cause comment outside of the administra-
tive circles immediately concerned. All this is fatal to the
development of economical administrative methods, for
with divided responsibility much duplication of work is un-
avoidable. The existing situation is all the more exasper-
ating from the fact that it continues for no other reason than
because political and personal influences are permitted to
stand in the way of desirable consolidations and readjust-
ments of departmental functions.
In modern city charters too little attention has been given
to the way in which the actual work of the municipality shall
be done. The task of organizing the various departments,
and of determining the branches into which these depart-
ments shall be divided, has usually been left to the discretion
of the city council. This body, unfortunately, has very
rarely shown itself capable of handling such matters without
regard to political considerations; and the result has been
the development of administrative machinery which no
private business could long maintain without ceasing to
pay dividends. The bestowal of more care upon what may
THE ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENTS 263
be termed the business provisions of city charters would,
probably find ample repayment in the results thereby
REFERENCES
Concerning the general organization and functions of administrative
departments in American cities very little trustworthy material has as yet
been brought together. The facts can be assembled only by a careful
examination of city charters, ordinances, and departmental regulations.
The best single source of information is A. R. Hatton's Digest of City
Charters (Chicago, 1906), especially pp. 272-351 ; but administrative
changes have been numerous since the publication of this useful volume.
Various reports issued during the last few years by bureaus of municipal
research and similar institutions have dealt with the problems of depart-
mental reorganization in individual cities. Quite the best among these
is the report entitled A Preliminary Survey of certain Departments of the
Government of the City of St. Louis, with Constructive Suggestions for Changes
in Organization and Method, prepared by the New York Bureau of Mu-
nicipal Research and printed under authority of the St. Louis city council
in 1910. Another suggestive study, compiled by the same bureau and
entitled The Organization, Duties, and the Administrative and Accounting
Procedure of the Department of the President of the Borough of Manhattan
of the City of New York (June, 1910), contains several excellent charts il-
lustrating the principles upon which municipal departments ought to be
organized. Many constructive suggestions for bettering the city's busi-
ness methods may be found in the report on the administrative organiza-
tion of Memphis, made by the Bureau of Municipal Research in that city
in October, 1909. Mention may also be made of the special number of
the Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Science on
"Efficiency in City Government (May, 1912). Reports of the same gen-
eral nature have been issued by the Bureau of Municipal Research in
Philadelphia, by the Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency, and by corre-
sponding institutions in several other cities. The Reports of the Boston
Finance Commission (7 vols., Boston, 1908-1912) also contain much
material relating to problems of local administrative organization.
A general survey of administrative organization and methods, which
retains considerable value despite the fact that it was written more than
a decade ago, is the chapter on "Administrative Officials" in J. A. Fairlie's
Municipal Administration (New York, 1901) ; and there is a good chapter
on "Public Works Administration" in the same author's Essays in Mu-
nicipal Administration (New York, 1908). Some general information may
also be found in F. J. Goodnow's Municipal Government (New York, 1909),
especially chs. xi.-xvi., and in his Municipal Problems (New York, 1904) ;
in M. N. Baker's Municipal Engineering and Sanitation (New York, 1902),
chs. xxxiv.-xxxv. ; Samuel Whinery's Municipal Public Works (New York,
264 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
1903), ohs. ii.-viii. ; and D. F. Wiloox's Government of Great American
Cities (New York, 1910), chs. iii.-vii. The rules of law relating to adminis-
trative organization and functions are set forth in J. F. Dillon's Law of
Municipal Corporations (5 vols., Boston, 1911), especially vol. I. §§ 98-
421 ; and in Eugene McQuillan's Law of Municipal Corporations (6 vols.,
Chicago, 1911-1912), II. 962 ff.
Some interesting judicial decisions in the same field are printed in
J. H. Beale's Selection of Cases on the Law of Municipal Corporations
(Cambridge, 1911), especially pp. 203-239.
CHAPTER XI
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES
THE proper handling of its labor force, skilled and un- The city's
skilled, is one of the most perplexing problems of routine jgmor prob~
administration in American cities. How should the great
body of municipal officials and employees, from the deputy
head of a department at a large annual stipend to the com-
mon sewer-digger at two dollars a day, be chosen from the
range of expert and crude labor available? How may the
maintenance of discipline among them be best assured ? By
what channels should suspensions and dismissals of the in-
competent be procured, and what adequate safeguards
against wrongful and partisan removals ought a city charter
to provide? What practical protection may a city obtain
through the laws and ordinances against the padding of
pay-rolls, the maintenance of sinecure posts, the pernicious
political activity of employees, and the other kindred sources
of waste and corruption ? How should officials and employ-
ees who have grown old in the city's service be taken care
of? These are some of the questions that every city must
answer satisfactorily before it can be said to have achieved
any approach to finality in the solution of its administrative
problems.
The modern city is a very large employer of labor, and Number of
with the steady extension of public services it is coming to
play a more and more important part in this capacity. If Clties'
one adds together the rank and file of the police and fire
departments, the teachers and other officers of the public
schools, the officials and employees of the street, water,
265
266 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
sewerage, parks, and various other departments, one finds
that the total number included within the category of those
who are either directly or indirectly dependent upon wages
from the municipal treasury is larger than most persons
imagine. In New York the number is about 65,000, or
nearly eight per cent of the registered voting population ;
in Boston it is nearly 15,000, or about twelve per cent of the
number of names on the voting-list. When it is further
borne in mind that municipal employees are proverbially
active in politics and rarely fail to vote, it will appear that
their actual political strength, numerically considered, may
not unfairly be estimated at from one-sixth to one-eighth
of the whole electorate. Add to this for good measure,
moreover, the fact that they always have relatives and
friends whose votes they greatly influence. This massed
political strength, direct and indirect, gives the army of
officials and employees what virtually constitutes the bal-
ance of power in most of the larger cities.
Labor and Now, the task of getting efficient service from several
thousand employees is one of considerable responsibility and
difficulty in even the best-organized private enterprise, and
makes heavy demands upon the skill of those who have the
hiring and management of labor in ultimate charge. How
much greater, then, must be the inherent difficulty in a
public business in which the employees are also shareholders,
and so constitute a large factor in selecting those who de-
termine the conditions of their employment ! It is, indeed,
from the simple fact that municipal employees are voters
and friends of voters that some of the city's most serious
labor troubles arise. As voters, the employees are in a posi-
tion to reward with political support those elective officers
of city government who bend readily to their demands as
employers. As voters, likewise, they have power to penalize
with their political opposition those who stand firm against
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 267
demands for higher pay, fewer hours of labor, frequent holi-
days, and lenient rules of discipline. As a political faction
they have interests that are, more often than otherwise,
diametrically opposed to the best interests of the taxpayers
as a whole. Yet there can be no serious thought of dis-
franchising municipal employees because as a class they
seek first at the polls what appears to be their own personal
welfare. Were the policy of denying the franchise to all
who are prone to use it selfishly on occasion to be inaugu-
rated, there would soon be very few names on the voting-
lists of some cities. In their attitude toward general ques-
tions of municipal policy, the men on the city's pay-roll are
no more apt to be warped by personal avarice than are many
other elements in the community. The chief difference is
that the interests of the latter, not being matters of public
record, are less plainly disclosed.
It has now come to be well recognized, however, that How the
many of the troubles which arise from the ability of mu-
nicipal employees to put political pressure upon the elective
organs of the city can be greatly lessened by improvements
in the framework and the administrative mechanism of city
government. The simplification of governing apparatus
by the substitution of a small one-chambered council for
the bicameral system now in vogue in many cities, the
lengthening of the mayor's term and the increase in the
scope of his appointing power, improved methods of nomi-
nation, the short ballot without party designations, — these
are some of the organic changes that serve to diminish the
sinister pressure which can be put upon the elected repre-
sentatives of the people. Businesslike organization of the
various administrative departments, efficient methods of
selecting department heads, the subdivision of work within
departments so that each official shall have his own definite
work and be directly responsible for it, the policy of appoint-
268 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
ing all officials (other than department heads) by well-ordered
competitive tests, due protection against wrongful removals,
standing rules of discipline impartially applied to all, a
system of superannuation or retiring allowances for aged
officials and employees, — these are some of the purely ad-
ministrative changes that would operate to the same end.
Some of these organic changes have been suggested in pre-
vious chapters; but, to secure the best results, most cities
must make a good many intra-departmental improvements
as well.
The theory Given a proper distribution of the city's business among
o?depart-1Ce *ne departments as already outlined,1 there must still be
mental provided such an internal organization in each department
orgamza- *•
tion. as will insure cordial cooperation among its various divi-
sions and among officials in the same division. It is of
course true that in most cities the organization of each ad-
ministrative department is already based ostensibly upon
the principle of making all responsibility converge in the
department head. The deputy head of a division or bureau
is directly under the orders of those above him, and he in
turn gives orders to those within his control. From the
head of the department to the minor employees there almost
always appears, at least on paper, a hierarchy of responsi-
bility. In practice, however, this chain of responsibility
is often badly broken. Subordinates who have political or
personal influence do not hesitate to put their reliance upon
the support of men above their own immediate chiefs ; hence
it not infrequently happens that a department contains
many men who are subordinates only in name. The head
of the department knows that these can practically set him
at naught by going over his head to the mayor or the coun-
cil, if occasion demands. By the reinstatement of officials
who have been discharged for good reason, the transfer of
1 Above, pp. 250-252.
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 269
subordinates from strict to lenient superiors, the granting
of requests for increased remuneration without consultation
with department heads, — these are but a few of the ways
in which officials who ostensibly have final authority in such
matters find themselves overruled from above. Political
exigencies and a desire to retain their positions have impelled
many department heads to accept this situation and to tol-
erate its continuance year after year, although the veriest
tyro in the municipal service knows how utterly demoralizing
it is to the maintenance of discipline in the ranks.
Carrying the process a step farther, one finds the same Thepoiiti-
independence of immediate authority among the minor of employ^*
employees. Not as individuals can these ordinary em- ees-
ployees venture successfully to defy the orders of their offi-
cial superiors, but as groups they can, and frequently do.
Rarely is the issue between official and employees raised in
such a way as to touch only one or two of the latter. Al-
most invariably employees are affected as a class, or they
think they are. In such cases, despite the theory that the
department head is responsible for the settlement of mooted
questions within his own field, an appeal can almost always
be taken to the mayor or to the city council. The coun-
cilmen, approaching the matter in the light of the effect
which a decision is likely to have on their own political
fortunes, are naturally disposed to grant demands made by
bodies of employees, even when such action involves a direct
rebuff to the officials immediately concerned. Differences
between employer and employees necessarily arise in public,
as in private, management ; but concessions to the wage-
earner are much more easily wrested in the public service.
City employees are well aware of the political influence which
they can exert, and they rarely fail to make it do full duty.
To render it the more effective, the employees of various mu-
nicipal departments in the larger cities have organized them-
270
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Inferior
quality of
municipal
labor.
selves into associations which are to all intents and purposes
labor unions, although they do not bear the name and are
not usually affiliated with the regular labor federations.
Often they take the guise of benefit associations, or even
of social clubs maintaining benefit funds and club-rooms.
The money needed to carry on these organizations is in
part secured by the levy of assessments upon members, but
generally, in larger part, by the holding of a policemen's
ball, or a firemen's tournament, or some similar money-mak-
ing affair in social guise. Such functions are made the occa-
sion of a general levy upon the public through the sale of
tickets by policemen, firemen, and others to persons whom
they are supposed to serve and protect. The whole prac-
tice is a trivial, but none the less reprehensible, form of petty
blackmail. Fraternal or social in outward appearance, these
organizations are for the most part nothing but machines
for putting political pressure where it will avail most in the
interest of members. Thus does the public, as usual, pay
its way both coming and going. The taxpayers of cities
yield the contributions which in their turn give the employ-
ees of the city added strength in pressing their frequent de-
mands for new concessions at the public expense.
But while the absence of businesslike adjustment among
departments, and the presence of friction, insubordination,
and political pressure within individual departments them-
selves, have all militated against efficiency in the municipal
service, a much greater obstacle to satisfactory results is
to be found in the quality of the labor, skilled and unskilled,
which usually gains a place on the city's pay-roll. In the
absence of strict rules relating to the selection of officials
and employees by competitive tests, appointments to all
places in the administrative service of the city are almost
certain to be regarded as the legitimate patronage of the
party in power. Save in the case of purely technical posi-
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 271
tions, little heed is paid to the personal qualifications of
individual applicants for vacant positions. The practice
of advertising for applications, so common in the cities of
Europe, is almost unknown in America. As soon as a mu-
nicipal job becomes vacant, a host of aspirants, each backed
by his friends, come forward to press their claims upon the
mayor or the council or the head of the department, — not
claims based upon special fitness or administrative experi-
ence, however, for most of the applicants possess none of
these, but claims to reward for party service and professions
of future political value to the administration. Thus the
administrative service of most cities becomes clogged with
men who have failed to make any headway in private vo-
cations, and who certainly can do no better in the lax dis-
ciplinary environment of public office-holding. Men of
the most mediocre attainments in engineering, law, account-
ing, and other professions, almost everywhere succeed in
putting themselves into municipal posts of large respon-
sibility for which the highest grades of professional skill
would be none too good. Times without number the tax-
payers of American cities have been mulcted heavily through
the failure of administrative officials to display even ordi-
nary skill and intelligence in the handling of important
matters intrusted to them.
In large cities the head of a department cannot give close The city's
, . . ,. . .,, . , . . . ,. ,. dependence
personal supervision to everything within his jurisdiction. up0n su
That would be a physical impossibility. For the decision dinates-
of many questions he must depend upon the judgment of his
subordinates, each of whom is supposed to have special skill
and knowledge in his own branch of work. Thus, the legal
advice which is tendered to the mayor and council in the
name and on the formal responsibility of the corporation
counsel or the city solicitor is in most cases based upon an ex-
amination of statutes, ordinances, or precedents made by the
272
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Municipal
and private
labor effi-
ciency con-
trasted.
assistant solicitor or by others in his office. It is upon the
diligence and intelligence of these latter, accordingly, that
the legality or illegality of whatever action the city may
take on many matters will largely depend. So in the de-
partment of public works. Specifications and contracts
must usually have the approval of the department head ;
but the actual work of drafting them is intrusted to some
subordinate, commonly an engineer, who submits his drafts
to the law department for its approval. After they are put
into preliminary shape, these documents seem rarely to
obtain more than a perfunctory scrutiny from any higher
authority; so that the interests of the city have in reality
been intrusted entirely to subordinates. Other departments
of the city's service furnish similar examples. Professional
skill and expertness are thus even more imperative for the
men who do the preliminary work, than for department heads
who carry the technical responsibility. Yet these are the
branches of the city's service where professional expertness
is least often found.
Rank for rank, the municipal departments compare un-
favorably with private business organizations in the quality
of the work performed by their respective staffs. For the
same salary the city almost invariably procures skill of an
inferior grade and diligence of inferior degree. That is why,
in its dealings with private corporations and even with in-
dividuals, the municipality has usually found itself saddled
with the short end of the bargain. It is outmatched in
skill, intelligence, tact, and loyalty. To offset this handicap,
for which the city has only itself to blame, municipal offi-
cers frequently resort to unfairness in dealing with private
concerns. They are very apt to ignore the principle that
parties to an agreement are to be deemed equal and are
entitled to equal consideration. The city, in its agree-
ments with public-service corporations or contractors, often
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 273
endeavors at all points to secure terms that put the latter
completely at the mercy of its own officials, a precaution
which is thought to be prudent in that it permits errors to
be set right later without any mulcting of the municipality
for the incapacity of its own agents. City engineers, for
example, have acquired the habit of stipulating that they
shall themselves decide all points of dispute arising between
the municipality and contractors.1 The result is that all
those who deal with the city take into account the fact that
they must perform their agreements according to interpreta-
tions put upon them by officials whose positions preclude
impartiality. Accordingly, they either lay plans to control
the officials to whom the right of deciding disputes has been
allotted by the terms of city contracts, or, when such officers
cannot be influenced in their favor, they include in their
estimates of cost an allowance for adverse decisions. In
either case the city pays heavily. The wh6le thing runs in
a curious circle. Officials in the city departments who are
appointed to pay partisan debts or to secure political ad-
vantage are rarely endowed with the intelligence, skill,
industry, and experience necessary to perform properly the
tasks intrusted to them. Realizing this, they manage to
shift the responsibility for inevitable mishaps upon the
shoulders of contractors, public-service corporations, or
others who have dealings with the municipality. As these
can shift it no farther, they take it aboard and charge the
city with the cost of carrying what ought to have been borne
by its own officials.
1 "This is usually done under the pretext, on the part of the municipal-
ity, that its interests must be protected in every practicable way from the
possibility of miscarriage or loss in dealing with the contractor. Con-
tracts for public work are often thus notoriously one-sided, and attempt to
place the contractor entirely in the power of the municipality. Take up
almost any such contract and every page bristles with clauses intended to
secure to the municipality rights that are denied the contractor.'! — SAM-
UEL WHINEBY, Municipal Public Works (New York, 1903), 73.
274 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The cost of Now, the entire cost of this official incompetency which is
tence!1* so cleverly shielded from the public wrath by a persistent
evasion of responsibility is something that can be neither
accurately estimated nor adequately described. One of
the best municipal accountants in the United States has
endeavored to figure up, in a general way, the proportion
of New York's municipal income that is annually wasted
through official incapacity and inattention to duty. He
estimates that in the pay-roll alone $12,000,000 is about the
price paid annually by the metropolis for collusion, in-
efficiency, and idleness in the various municipal departments.1
Nor does this represent even the greater part of the entire
waste. The city of New York spends each year about
$15,000,000 for supplies and materials ; but, though it buys
in very large quantities, it has received, as a rule, neither
wholesale rates nor cash discounts. In considerable measure
this is due to a lack of proper purchasing methods, but
in larger degree it results from the total failure of the city
to secure the type of servant who will guard the financial
interests of his master as his own.
Most of the Unquestionably, the root of this trouble lies in the manner
f rorn Inferior °f selecting most of those who are taken into the service of
•election01 *^e various municipal departments, and the remedy can
accordingly be found in a radical alteration of these methods.
The appointment of subordinate officials, whether by the
mayor or by the council or by the heads of departments at
their entire discretion, results almost invariably, and in-
deed, one may say, almost inevitably, in the purely partisan
selection of men who have no tangible qualifications for the
work which they are expected to do. The experience of
American cities on this point has been far too extensive to
leave any doubt in the matter ; no other maxim of municipal
1 F. A. Cleveland, Municipal Administration and Accounting (New
York, 1909), 2&-29.
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 275
science can draw more evidence to its support. Since, then,
entire discretion in the matter of selecting officials has al-
most always been abused when given to these authorities, The remedy,
there seems to be no satisfactory alternative other than to
take the discretion away. To do so is not in any way to im-
pair the full responsibility either of the elective branches of
the city government or of the department heads. Subordi-
nate officials are not policy-determining factors. Their
work lies within the plans mapped out for them by others.
Skill and diligence in carrying out their instructions are the
chief qualities demanded of them. The broader adminis-
trative qualifications so desirable in heads of departments
are not essential in the case of their subordinates. Hence
it is that practically all municipal administrative posts
other than headships of departments may very properly,
and, as experience proves, may with excellent results, be
filled by men who have been selected through the agency
of some competitive test.
This system of appointment by competitive test is in its The merit
broader application commonly known as the civil-service appoint?
examination. First tried in the national administration, men**°
7 mumcipMl
which derived it from England, this method of selecting posts,
administrative officials has made its way into several of
the states, and finally into a number of cities.1 At present
it is the method of choosing a considerable proportion of
the officials in all the cities of New York, Ohio, and Massa-
chusetts, and in certain cities of Pennsylvania ; it has also
been adopted for the selection of officials in the police and
fire departments of various municipalities in Wisconsin and
Illinois. In a good many others, chiefly those which have
1 On the history of the system before its appearance in America, see
D. B. Eaton, Civil Service in Great Britain (New York, 1880). The his-
tory of the system in the United States is traced by C. B. Fish, Civil
Service and the Patronage (New York, 1905).
276 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
adopted the commission plan of government, it has been ap-
plied to subordinate posts in all or most of the municipal de-
partments ; and the same is true of cities like Seattle, San
Francisco, New Haven, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Memphis,
and Detroit, which have in recent years adopted charters
of other types.1 During the last decade the extension of
the competitive system has been rapid, and there is every
reason to expect, from the present trend of public opinion,
that its spread in the next few years will be at an even
greater pace.2
The aims of Stated briefly, the purposes of a well-ordered civil-service
a civil-ser-
vice system, system are both preventive and positive. In the first place,
it is a system which aims to prevent those who have authority
to appoint municipal officials from using this authority to pay
political debts. It aims to remove from the category of par-
tisan spoils the administrative offices of the city. In the
second place, it seeks to provide an agency whereby properly
qualified officials can be secured for these posts whenever they
are wanted. This it does by establishing and conducting,
periodically, open competitions designed to test the qualifi-
cations of all who apply. These competitions, besides being
open, under certain reasonable limitations, to all who wish
to enter, are advertised beforehand and are conducted
publicly with all necessary safeguards for honesty and fair-
ness. The tests, whether mental, physical, or both, are
adapted to the duties of the office which is to be filled. The
system rests, in a word, upon three propositions, — namely,
that every administrative office demands certain qualifica-
tions, that the office should go to him who is best fitted to
fill it, and that the fairest way to discover such individual
1 The complete list may be found each year in the Proceedings of the
National Civil Service Reform League.
2 On the constitutionality of civil-service laws, see J. F. Dillon, Law of
Municipal Corporations, I. § 397.
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 277
is to establish an open competition. The chief function
of those who have the civil-service system in charge is, ac-
cordingly, to arrange the details of the competition and to
see that it is conducted fairly.
It becomes of great importance, therefore, that the author- Methods of
ities in charge of the system shall be free from the influence ciSi-sScf
of political pressure in the interest of candidates for office. commis-
f r sions.
Three methods of appointing such authorities are in vogue.
In some cities, as, for example, in Philadelphia and in
Chicago, the administration of the system is in charge of
a civil-service commission appointed by the mayor.1 This
is a plan which, though it exists in many cities, has little
or no justification either in principle or in practice. In
principle it is anomalous that a mayor should have the
appointment and removal of those whose chief function is
to keep patronage from his own grasp. In practice it has i. The
been found that a civil-service commission appointed by the ^^itn
mayor is little more than a tractable instrument for digni-
fying political patronage with the stamp of reform. With
the right sort of mayor in office such a commission will be
allowed to perform its functions fairly and well ; with the
wrong sort of mayor it can rarely keep itself intact except
by a supine obedience to the orders that come from the city
hall. In other words, it is least effective when it is most
needed.
A second method, pursued in the forty-eight cities of New 2. The New
York State, is to have the civil-service commission in each
municipality appointed by the mayor, but to provide that
1 The Philadelphia commission consists of three members appointed by
the mayor for a term of five years, not more than two of them to be from
the same political party (Laws of Pennsylvania, 1906, pp. 83-84). In
Chicago there are three commissioners appointed by the mayor for a three-
year term, one retiring annually (Revised Statutes of Illinois, ch. 24). In
New Orleans the civil-service commission is made up of the mayor, the
comptroller, and the city treasurer ex officio, together with two members
appointed by the mayor (Laws of Louisiana, 1900, p. 140).
278 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
these municipal boards shall do their work subject to the
supervision of a state civil-service commission appointed by
the governor. This latter body has authority to remove,
when necessary, any members of municipal civil-service
commissions who prove remiss in the performance of their
duties, and to appoint the successors of those who may be so
removed. The New York plan aims to combine local admin-
istration of the civil-service system with such central super-
vision as is necessary to prevent abuses ; and as a general
principle of popular government this policy is sound enough.
More emphasis, however, has been laid upon the local than
upon the central features of the system, with the result that
state supervision has not been sufficiently comprehensive
or strict to prevent a lax administration of the civil-service
rules in the interest of those who have purely political ends to
serve. Undue leniency toward evasions of the law by local
commissions has greatly impaired the safeguards which the
system potentially offers in every city of the state.
3. The The third plan is that which has been in operation since
8eUsSpian." 1884 in the cities of Massachusetts. The thirty- three cities
of this state have no municipal civil-service commissions, but
come directly under the jurisdiction of a state board made
up of three members appointed by the governor. This central
commission prescribes the tests, conducts them, and certifies
the results to the cities. When any municipal post within the
classified service is to be filled by appointment, the state
commission is asked by the city authorities to send down the
names of those who have stood highest at the tests. If there
are none who have already qualified, a competition is an-
nounced and candidates are called for. It will, of course, be
urged that this system is an infringement upon the principle
of municipal home rule, and it doubtless is so if by municipal
autonomy one implies a denial of the state's right to secure
the impartial enforcement of its own laws. But whatever
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 279
affront it may give to the shibboleths of politicians, the
Massachusetts system does possess, in actual operation, the
substantial merit of being effective. It removes the adminis- its merits,
tration of the civil-service system from the influence of local
politics, for neither directly nor indirectly can the appointing
officers of cities bring sinister pressure to bear on the state
commission.1 It is economical, in that it prevents that du-
plication of local and central effort which characterizes the
administration of the system in New York. As might be
expected, the professional politicians of Massachusetts pro-
claim perennially that the whole system is "undemocratic" ;
and they are perhaps consistent in raising this cry, for
their definition of democracy asserts that all men are equal,
and any form of fair competition is sure to prove that some
men are inferior.
Where, as in Massachusetts, the merit system has been Results of
put to fair trial, with its administration intrusted to men
who have both the will and the power to perform their func-
tions without fear or favor, there is no serious question as to
its substantial achievements. To obtain tangible proofs
of this, one need only compare the personnel and work of
those municipal departments which are under civil-service
regulations with those which are not. The results of such
comparisons, wherever they have been made, are so decisively
in favor of the former method as to leave no doubt that the
merit system is one of the most dependable of all the agencies
that help the city to get a day's work for a day's pay.
Comparison between the efficiency of the same department
before and after being put under merit-system rules leads to
1 It is, of course, not at all certain that this would, in other jurisdictions
be the result of intrusting the administration of the merit system to state-
appointed authorities. The outcome in Massachusetts is largely due to
local causes, particularly to the fact that the governors of the common-
wealth have maintained good traditions in the matter of state appoint-
ments.
280
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Objections
service re-
i. Tests
exactly the same conclusion. Such comparisons are, to be
sure, not always easy to make, for the reason that the intro-
duction of civil-service regulations is often accompanied by a
change in the general structure of city government, or by a
reorganization of administrative departments. In either of
these events it becomes nearly impossible to tell how much
improvement is due to one or other of the various changes
made. But the instances in which the merit system has
been put into operation without other organic changes are
sufficiently numerous to warrant the conviction that, even
of itself, the plan can be made the agency of marked im-
provement.1
Various objections have been urged against the extension
°f ^e civil-service system to all city officials and employees
other than heads of departments. Some of these objections
rest upon misunderstandings as to the way in which the
system is administered; others arise from the occasional
failure of civil-service authorities to apply their rules with
either judgment or tact ; and others, again, are objections of
more or less validity, which apply not only to civil-service
tests, but to all methods of selection based upon open com-
petition.
In the first place, the system of civil-service appointments
to posts in the municipal service seems to be inseparably as-
sociated in the public mind with the idea of written examina-
tions designed to test solely the intellectual qualities of
candidates, and conducted in academic fashion. For the
propagation of this popular notion civil-service examiners
have to a considerable extent been responsible. In the earlier
days of civil-service reform, and indeed even yet in many
jurisdictions, the tests applied have been too narrow. They
have laid too much stress upon examinations in elementary
1 For example, see the summary of results in Kansas City, in American
Political Science Review, VI. 91 (February, 1912).
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 281
composition, arithmetic, and history, and too little upon those
that relate directly to the work which the official will have to
perform. Those of us who have much to do with academic
examinations, in the way both of selecting questions and of
reading answers, are all too well aware of the fact that such
tests afford at best a very inadequate and undependable
means whereby to gauge the real quality of a young man's
mind or even to measure the extent of his information. Civil-
service authorities at the outset put too much faith in con-
clusions deduced from formal written tests upon matters
which are supposed to be part of an elementary education.
By so doing they brought upon the whole system much
criticism that might easily have been avoided.
But civil-service tests are not now wholly of this nature, The objec-
and not even largely so when the system is prudently admin-
istered.1 Physical examinations, tests designed to uncover wh®n th.e
J system is
a candidate's knowledge of the specific duties which he will wisely
adminis-
be called upon to perform, questions framed to display his tered.
soundness of judgment and powers of initiative, require-
ments that candidates shall present testimonials fr.om former
employers, — all these things form essential features of
competitions that are wisely managed. When the office to
be filled is technical or specialized in its duties (as the
post of draughtsman, analyst, milk inspector, ambulance
surgeon, or bookkeeper), the planning and application of
appropriate tests present no very difficult problems. But
when the duties attaching to the office are of a non-technical
or general nature, for which an applicant cannot ordinarily Difficulties
equip himself by any form of professional training, the per- testing
plexities become much greater ; and it is, unfortunately, into *uaiifica-
tions.
1 Some excellent specimens of the right type of civil-service examina-
tion questions may be found in the Civil Service Text Book (1910-1911),
issued by the city of Chicago. As stated in the preface, one of the reasons
for publishing this book was "to dispel the mistaken idea that examina-
tions consist of academic tests."
282 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
this latter category that most subordinate municipal positions
happen to fall. Take, for example, the post of patrolman.
Its duties cannot be learned through any of the ordinary
channels of instruction or apprenticeship, and the qualities
that insure the satisfactory performance of these duties are
much easier to define than to discover. Personal courage,
integrity, tactfulness, and a level head as well as intelligence
seem to be the essential qualities of an efficient police officer ;
they are obviously more important than proficiency in pen-
manship, geography, or arithmetic. A rigid physical ex-
amination is a great help to the examiners, for it is almost
a truism that bodily vigor goes with a clean mind and
good morals. Yet it can hardly be urged that any series
of formal tests will disclose with certainty the particular
candidates who possess these important qualities in the
highest degree. In spite of all this, however, the civil-
service authorities of some cities have been remarkably
successful in adapting the tests to the ends in view.1 When
the qualifications desired of an appointee can be clearly as-
certained and sufficient study can be given to the planning of
the tests, the examination can be made to serve, not perhaps
as an unfailing means of choosing the best qualified among
a list of candidates, but as a tolerably safe method of selec-
tion.2 Even at its worst it is superior in this respect to the
spoils system at its best.
1 This is frequently done by calling to the assistance of the regular
examining authorities outside experts, who help to plan the competition,
select the tests, and pass judgment on the results. This procedure has
been frequently used, during recent years, in New York, Chicago, Boston,
Kansas City, and elsewhere.
* For the selection of ordinary unskilled labor no formal tests are com-
monly used. The usual plan is to provide a waiting-list, upon which are
enrolled the names of all those who are seeking places in the city's labor
force. Men are certified from this list in order of their application, pref-
erence being usually given to veterans of the Civil War and to those who
have families depending upon them for support. It would seem as if a
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 283
No method of appointment will ever prove to be an
automatic winnower of the chaff from the wheat among
aspirants to posts in municipal departments. Guiding
hands there must be, and when these are controlled by
the spirit and ideals of a martinet no system can make very
rapid headway to a hold upon the public confidence. The
principles of civil-service reform, thoroughly sound in them-
selves, have sometimes been put into operation under the
guidance of men whose narrowness of vision precluded the
adoption of other than rule-of-thumb tests, poorly devised,
ill-adapted to the occasion, and calculated to impair public
faith in the merit system as a whole. Since these short-
comings are incidental, however, and not inherent, they may
usually be remedied by the exercise of a little patience. Year
by year the methods of examination have improved ; more
stress has been laid upon the previous training and ex-
perience of candidates ; the past records of all applicants
are nowadays carefully investigated ; indeed the whole sys-
tem is being vastly better administered to-day than it was
a decade or two ago.
In the second place, it is frequently urged that the system 2. Tests
of civil-service appointment should not be applied to officials beljpiied
in certain city departments who hold what may be termed t°°ffi.cial8m
J * J certain
positions of financial trust and for whose integrity the head financial de-
partments.
of the department is laid under personal bonds. Within this
class come the employees in the office of the city collector or
the city treasurer. Being personally responsible for the hon-
esty of these officials, the head of the department should have
a free hand, it is claimed, in selecting them. This, however,
physical examination of at least moderate stringency might be generally
applied in the case of applicants for positions as ordinary laborers, especially
since much of the city's difficulty in getting work done at fair cost results
from the fact that too many laborers are physically unable to do the hard
work required of them. Such tests have been used for some years in
Massachusetts with good results.
284 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
is a doctrine difficult to sustain on any rational ground. All
heads of departments are, in a sense, personally responsible
for the negligence or the dishonesty of their employees. Some
of them may suffer in reputation rather than in purse when
inefficiency or dishonesty is disclosed; but that difference
scarcely warrants the application of an exceptional method
of appointment for positions of financial trust. Besides,
there is nothing to prevent a city, if it so desires, from
putting the subordinate officials of a collecting or a treasury
department under individual bonds. It would cost some-
thing to do that, but in the end it would be far more eco-
nomical than to tolerate political interference in these
departments. Moreover, the exemption of one or two de-
partments from civil-service rules almost invariably makes
these offices the dumping-ground for inefficients who, for
personal or political reasons, must be provided with places
on the city's pay-roll. Exempted departments are usually
the most overmanned, the most expensive, and the least
satisfactory in the whole municipal service.
3. inflex- Other objections commonly encountered are to the effect
ible nature ,•• . M . , •,
of the ays- *nat civil-service commissions are prone to be so overzealous
tem- in hewing to the letter and disregarding the spirit of the
laws which they administer that in some instances they vir-
tually dictate the allocation of duties within a department,
by insisting that persons certified for appointment to definite
posts shall perform the duties of those posts only and not
even incidentally have anything to do with the work of any
others ; that the system encourages a bureaucratic attitude
on the part of subordinate officials toward the public ;
and that those appointed under its rules frequently display
a lack of amenability to departmental discipline. All of these
objections are to some slight degree justified by the facts,
but in large part they are without any real foundation what-
ever. In answer to them it may reasonably be urged that
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 285
civil-service authorities are appointed to administer the law
as they find it and not to exercise pretorian powers ; that
they must be ever on their guard against attempts to circum-
vent the civil-service regulations by readjustments within
departments ; and that such lack of amenability to discipline
as may come from security of tenure is not a tithe of what
results from the possession and use of political influence
by public employees, where civil-service rules are not in
force.
The merit system aims not only to provide securities for The merit
the appointment of fit and proper persons to municipal office,
but also to secure the enforcement of rational rules regarding
promotions and due safeguards against improper removals.
Civil-service control of promotions usually takes the form of a
requirement that efficiency records shall be kept in each city
department. These records are intended to show the degree
of competence or incompetence with which each official
does his work, and also to register whatever demerits may
stand against him. When a promotion is to be made,
the efficiency records of all the eligible candidates are ex-
amined, due weight being given to seniority and sometimes
to the personal judgment of the department head; and to
this information is added whatever can be obtained from
the holding of an appropriate competitive test. The candi-
date who makes the best average showing both on the records
and at the examination is recommended for promotion.1
A civil-service commission usually finds difficulty in carry-
ing out this system in its entirety; but it is a sound and
scientific plan, supported both by common-sense and by
experience. Its steady extension seems inevitable.
1 One of the very best examples of the way in which this plan may be
applied with absolute fairness to all concerned was afforded in the selec-
tion of the present fire chief of New York City. See the issues of Good
Government for July- August, 1911.
286
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The require-
ment of a
public
hearing.
Civil-service regulations that will afford to competent
officials a real security against wrongful dismissal, and at
the same time not preclude the removal of obvious misfits,
are the most perplexing of all to frame. Officers who prove
incompetent in the actual performance of their duties, or in-
capable of working in harmony with others, or unamenable to
reasonable discipline, secure places in the public employ by
way of civil-service competitions as by any other scheme
of selection, although of course not so frequently ; and it is
scarcely arguable that such officials, whatever qualifications
they may have displayed at the time of their appointment,
have any vested immunity from dismissal. But all that the
civil-service authorities of most cities can now require, and
all that they do require, is that reasonable cause for dis-
charge be shown. The time may come when public opinion
will everywhere insist that this reasonable cause be demon-
strated to the satisfaction of the civil-service commission (as
is now required in Chicago), or of some other authority
qualified to judge impartially between an official and his
superior; but that time is not yet. At present the civil-
service boards are usually constrained by the limitations of
law to let the head of the department or the mayor decide
whether there is good cause for the dismissal of a subordinate
official who has won his place in a fair and open competition.
Not infrequently it has been provided that the removal of
such an officer shall take place only after the specific reasons
for his dismissal have been communicated to him in writing,
and in some cases only after he has had a public hearing
before the removing authority.
These safeguards against unfair dismissals are far from be-
ing iron-clad, and they form not a moiety of what the logic of
a properly constituted merit system demands. Yet they are,
on the whole, somewhat more effective in actual operation
than they seem to be. The requirement, for example, that an
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 287
official appointed under civil-service rules shall have a public
hearing before his removal goes into effect affords greater
security than appears at first glance. Mayors and heads
of departments do not like public hearings upon questions
of administrative discipline. The official whose removal
is sought usually appears at the hearing with an array of
friends, and with the assistance of counsel who carry the war
into the enemy's country by filing countercharges against
some one higher up. There is likely to be a general airing
of departmental grievances, more or less exaggerated, which
the newspapers parade before the public eye. In the end the
removal of the recalcitrant is almost certain to be confirmed,
— that is a foregone conclusion from the outset ; but the man
yields his office only after a contest, which, however unequal,
at least serves to bring his own side of the case to public
attention. Those who sit in seats of judgment at the
city hall are prepared to go through this unpleasantness
when it becomes necessary ; but they do not want it very
often. Removal hearings, when they come frequently,
give too much ammunition to the foes of an administration,
and are liable to impair public confidence in the mayor's
ability to keep things going without undue friction. They
do not, of course, afford the degree of security which compe-
tent officials ought to have as a matter of right ; but in prac-
tice they do furnish safeguards of considerable value.
Not the least among the virtues of the merit system are Theby
what may be termed its by-products. The provision that
officials selected under it shall serve probationary terms reform-
before being permanently appointed is not an invariable
attribute of the system ; but it fits in well with the other
features, and some cities have found it useful. The practice
of announcing publicly the names of applicants for official
positions, and of requesting all those who have information
concerning their merits or faults to come forward with it,
288 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
is another appropriate means of insuring good results. In
Boston, for example, the names of all those who, after a
rigid physical and mental examination, are certified for
appointment to the police force of the city are posted in
every precinct station, with a general request that all
patrolmen or officers who have anything to say either for
or against the proposed appointees will forward their in-
formation to the police commissioner. If there is anything
faulty in a man's record, this procedure is very likely to bring
it to the front. When a patrolman goes into the ranks of the
Boston force, he does so with what is virtually a certificate of
clean personal record from every police officer in the city ;
and that in itself has contributed to the upbuilding of a whole-
some professional spirit throughout the personnel of the
department. Civil-service competitions, moreover, have
encouraged officials and employees to spend their spare hours
in study rather than in electioneering ; they have helped to
dignify municipal employment ; and they have eliminated a
great deal of double-dealing from the ranks of those who
serve the city for a livelihood.
Elimination Another incidental but much-to-be-praised achievement
°f civil-service reform has been the partial, and in some
instances the total, abolition of that vicious practice, so
common in the heyday of the spoils system, of levying
political assessments upon municipal office-holders. There
was a time in New York City when even the scrubwomen
who earned their dollar a day by hard labor in the city hall
yielded their toll to the party's war-chest as the price of
continued employment. That day has gone by. Where
civil-service regulations are rigidly enforced, the municipal
officials who contribute to the campaign funds of either
party do so, in most cases, of their own accord and not as
a matter of compulsion. The system likewise discourages
the active personal participation of city employees in poli-
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 289
tics ; for when an official's advancement is not secured by
party service his interest in the game of politics does not
seem to carry him very far. The civil-service system has
also put a damper upon the activities of those whose sole
interest in elections arises from a desire to gain a place
among the friends of an administration. In this direction
the system has rendered very acceptable service ; for cam-
paigning done by those whose only inspiration is the hope of
direct personal remuneration rarely helps even the party in
whose cause the work is done.
The merit system may also, through the machinery which The stop-
it provides, be used to secure the city treasury against vari- JJ-nop *
ous leakages that take the guise of payments for over- leaks<
time work, or wages to employees who are absent from their
posts, or sums paid to men who are alleged to have been
taken into the city's service for a few days at a time to meet
emergencies. These are but a very few examples of the
many ways in which municipal authorities who desire
to give employees more remuneration than the letter of
the law allows frequently manage to gain their ends. To
require that the weekly pay-sheets of the municipality shall
go before the civil-service commission and be certified by that
body before any payments are made, is a wise provision,
as both New York and Boston have found. If generally
applied it would unquestionably result in the saving of large
sums now squandered through the numerous channels in-
dicated.
In the general quality of the officials that it manages The city's
to draw into its regular service the average American city ^p^at
has not set a very high standard. This has been due in large employer,
measure to the use of inferior methods in selecting those whom
it employs, and to the insecure tenure which it has usually
afforded them. In part, however, it has resulted from the
city's failure to gain a reputation as a fair employer of labor.
290 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
Capable service it has usually underpaid and too frequently
allowed to go otherwise unrecognized. The competent fore-
man, draughtsman, bookkeeper, or mechanic is not likely, if
he has much ambition, to stay in the city's employ very long.
When he gets an opportunity to better himself in private
employment, he takes it. Consequently, the municipal staff
is made up to a large degree of men who are in point of fact
overpaid, that is, who get from the city more than their
abilities and industry would command elsewhere. To
enter the service of an American city is not, therefore, as
it is in Europe, to begin an administrative career which
leads to something worth while. It is rather to enter a
blind alley which leads nowhere. The city halls of the
country are filled with men well past middle age who serve
as clerks with a weekly wage of twenty or thirty dollars, and
are rarely worth it. For the quality of the service which
it procures for the city, the municipal pay-roll leans rather
to the side of generosity ; but the paradox remains that the
average city pays too little to secure the type of service
that it ought to have.
The care And there is still the problem of providing for officials
employees, and employees when they have grown old in the city's ser-
vice. Most foreign cities, and particularly the cities of the
German Empire, have solved this problem by establishing a
municipal pension system. In America only a very few cities
have pension arrangements of any sort; and even these
systems apply to none but such officials as police officers,
firemen, and schoolteachers. When, therefore, an official
or employee passes the point of further usefulness to the
city, only two courses are open. One is to dismiss him from
the service and let him fare through old age as best he can ;
the other is to retain him upon the municipal pay-roll to the
exclusion of some younger and more competent man. As
between these alternatives the city is apt to choose the latter.
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 291
Public opinion views with a great deal of leniency the practice
of carrying on the list of supernumerary clerks, or on the
rolls of the street-cleaning department, or as janitors or
messengers or in some other like capacity, officials and em-
ployees who by reason of long service have reached the stage
where they no longer give full return for the wages paid to
them. Nevertheless, the practice is both directly and
indirectly very expensive. Not only does it saddle the city
with a heavy pension-roll disguised as a salary and wage list,
but it spreads a demoralizing influence through the whole
municipal service. One need only watch the operations of a
street or a sewer gang, for example, to be convinced that the
pace at which city laborers do their work is usually determined
by the oldest and least competent among them; and the
same principle holds to some extent throughout the city
departments. The practice of carrying superannuated offi-
cials and employees in the active service slows up the whole
labor machine, and thereby conduces to the costliness of
everything that the municipality undertakes to do. A pen-
sion system applying to officials and employees in every
branch of the city's service would, therefore, amply justify
itself on the score of simple economy, provided it were prop-
erly safeguarded against abuse. To safeguard a pension
system, however, is not by any means easy, unless the system
is made to work hand in hand with some scheme of appoint-
ment that will prevent the old and the inefficient from getting
on the city's labor force at the outset. To the average voter,
moreover, the idea of providing pensions for men who have
had steady municipal employment for twenty or thirty years
savors of unfairness to men in private employments who
get no such generosity. When pension schemes have been
submitted at the polls, they have too often been decisively
rejected. It is a curious feature of electoral psychology that
the same public opinion which allows the city's pay-roll
292 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
to be made a medium of philanthropy, and thereby tolerates
a practice which is unbusinesslike, expensive, and unfair,
should balk so readily at proposals to give civil pensions
under their proper name.1
REFERENCES
There is an extensive literature relating to the problem of securing ca-
pable administrative officials for American cities, most of it listed under
the general head of civil-service reform. The best general work on the
genesis and rise of the spoils system, its paramountcy, and its steady dis-
placement in favor of the merit plan of appointment is C. R. Fish's Civil
Service and the Patronage (New York, 1905). Besides covering the gen-
eral field in a comprehensive way, this book contains a well-selected list
of references to other sources of information. The annual reports of the
civil-service commission of New York and Massachusetts regularly con-
tain very informing discussions of the problems which come to these
boards for solution each year ; and the annual publications issued by the
municipal civil-service boards in Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, and
other important centres very often deal with matters of great interest.
Special publications issued by the civil-service authorities from time to
time, such as handbooks for the guidance of candidates, often throw light
on the actual workings of the merit system. In this connection special
mention should be made of the Civil Service Text Book (1910-1911), issued
by the civil-service commission of Chicago.
A monthly periodical known as Good Government, published in New
York as the official organ of the National Civil Service Reform League, is
the best and most inclusive chronicle of what is taking place day by day
in the matter of improved appointing methods. The annual Proceedings
of the same organization also include reviews of each year's progress made
by the merit system. The charter provisions relating to civil service are
summarized, so far as the larger cities are concerned, in A. R. Hatton's
Digest of City Charters (Chicago, 1906) ; and so far as these provisions
have been inserted in charters of later date they are available in C. A.
Beard's Digest of Short Ballot Charters (New York, 1911). A good deal
of useful material relating to the employment of labor by cities, partic-
ularly in their water and lighting departments, is included in the National
Civic Federation's Report on Municipal and Private Ownership of Public
1 In 1910 the legislature of Massachusetts enacted a measure authoriz-
ing the thirty-three cities of the commonwealth to establish pension sys-
tems for their employees. Provision was made that, to be effective in
any city, the measure should be first accepted by the city council and then
adopted by the people at the polls. Up to the present time sixteen cities
have accepted the Act ; nine have rejected it ; and eight have taken no
action.
MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS AND EMPLOYEES 293
Utilities (3 vols., New York, 1907), especially in the chapter entitled
"Labor and Politics" by John R. Commons. The Reports of the Boston
Finance Commission (7 vols., Boston, 1908-1912) also contain numerous
statements of fact and opinion bearing on the vice of patronage in mu-
nicipal departments and on the methods of eliminating it. For general
discussions, see F. A. Cleveland, Municipal Administration and Account-
ing (New York, 1909), chs. ii.-iii. ; Samuel Whinery, Municipal Public
Works (New York, 1903), chs. ii. and viii. ; J. A. Fairlie, Essays in
Municipal Administration (New York, 1908), oh. iii. ; F. J. Goodnow,
Municipal Government (New York, 1909), ch. xi. ; and D. B. Eaton, Gov-
ernment of Municipalities (New York, 1899), chs. vii.-viii.
The rules of law relating to the rights and responsibilities of mu-
nicipal officials may be found in J. F. Dillon's Law of Municipal Corpora-
tions (5 vols., Boston, 1911), I. §§ 392 ff. Attention may also be called to
article iv. of the outline of suitable charter provisions relating to admin-
istrative officers that is printed in the National Municipal League's Mu-
nicipal Program (New York, 1900), 204-215 ; and to the " Draft of a Civil
Service Law for Cities," by E. H. Goodwin, in Proceedings of the League
for 1910, pp. 577-580.
On the general question of the proper internal organization of a city
department, data can be obtained from the publications of the various
bureaus of municipal research mentioned in the list of references ap-
pended to Chapter X above.
CHAPTER XII
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION
Theprm- IN the preceding chapters an outline has been given of
divided what may be termed the orthodox type of city government
powers in jn fae United States, a system which rests upon the principle
government, that legislative and administrative functions should be
vested in separate and substantially independent hands.
Down to the beginning of the twentieth century no city
(with the exception of the national capital) had permanently
departed from that principle. Powers were from time to
time shifted about among the several organs of local govern-
ment in the hope that better results might thereby be
obtained ; but in all cases the cities stood firmly upon the
doctrine that to concentrate legislative and administrative
powers in the same hands would be detrimental and dan-
gerous to the best interests of the citizens.
The com- City government by a commjsaion_ embodies, first of all, a
abaiidona1*11 radical disregard of this time-honored theory. It starts
this prin- with the idea that the principle of division of powers has
•••^•^M •MB-MMMM&M. .
no place in business administration, and hence, since the
work of city authorities is business, not government, that
the doctrine should not be recognized in the conduct of local
affairs.. Disregarding old notions concerning the usefulness
of checks and balances in governmental organization, it
puts all legislative and administrative authority into the
hands of the same group of men. To state it more exactly,
the commission plan abolishes the city's legislative organs,
and, on the ground that there is very little legislating to be
done in municipalities anyway, intrusts that little to the
294
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 295
administrative commission. Now, while this general prin-
ciple of governmental organization is out of consonance with
traditional theories of American government, it is no more
than an application to cities of a system which in several
states of the Union has long been in operation as respects the
government of counties. The county commission, exercising
both legislative and administrative powers, long since
established itself in various parts of the country.
In its application to city government the commission
plan, as is well known, first appeared in Galveston, Texas, a
little more than a decade ago. Prior to 1901 Galveston was
one of the worst-governed urban communities in the whole
country. Under the old system of jurisdiction by a mayor,
various elective officials, and a board of aldermen, its munici-
pal history managed to afford illustrations of almost every
vice in local government. The city debt was allowed to
mount steadily, and borrowing to pay current expenses was
not uncommon. City departments were managed waste-
fully; spoilsmen were put into places of honor and profit
in the city's service. The accounts were kept in such a way
that few could understand what the financial situation was at
any time. The tax-rate was high, and the citizens got poor
service in return for generous expenditures. The outcome
was that a considerable element among the voters had become
discouraged with the whole situation and had ceased to mani-
fest any interest in what went on at the city hall.
Affairs were in this condition when, in September, 1900, a
tidal wave swept in from the Gulf, destroyed about one-third
of the city, demoralized its economic organization, and put
the municipal authorities face to face with the problem of re-
construction. Before the disaster the city's financial condi-
tion was rather dubious ; now its bonds dropped in value,
and it was apparent that funds for the work of putting the
city on its feet could not be borrowed except at exorbitant
in Galves-
ton.
296 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
rates.1 It happened that much of the real estate in Gal-
veston was held by a comparatively small number of citizens.
Some of these, accordingly, went to the state legislature
and virtually asked that the city be put into receivership.
They requested that the old city government be swept away
root and branch, and that for some years, at any rate, all
the powers formerly vested in the mayor, aldermen, and
subsidiary organs of city government be given to a commission
of five business men. This drastic action they urged as a
means of saving the city from involvement in grave financial
difficulties, if not from actual bankruptcy.2 Acceding to
their request, the legislature passed an act empowering: the
governor to appoint three of the five
viding_that_the other two be elected. A year or two after
they had taken office, however, a constitutional difficulty
arose. In a matter which came before the courts it was held
that the appointment of city officers by the state authorities
was contrary to a provision in the Texan constitution ; 8
whereupon the legislature amended its act by providing that
all five members of the Galveston commission should be
chosen by popular vote.4 The same three commissioners
who had been holding office under the governor's appointment
were elected by the voters.
1 "City script sold at fifty cents on the dollar; and in addition to a
floating debt of $200,000, previously outstanding, the municipality de-
faulted in the payment of the interest upon its bonds, which fell to
sixty." — E. S. BRADFORD, Commission Government in American Cities
(New York, 1911), 4.
2 The Galveston business men who promoted the movement had before
them the federal Act which established the present government of the
District of Columbia, also the Tennessee law which in 1878 created the tax-
ing district of Memphis and placed it in charge of a commission until the
city had recovered from the yellow fever epidemic of that year. See the
article on "Commission Government in the South," by W. E. Scroggs, in
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November,
1911.
1 Ex parte Lewis, 45 Texas Criminal Reports, 1.
4 The change was made on March 30, 1903.
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 297
As thus amended in 1903, the Galveston charter provides The Gai-
for the popular election, every two years, of five commission-
ers, one of them to be entitled the mayor-president and all
to be chosen at large. The mayor-president is the presiding
chairman at all meetings of the commissio^ but otherwise he
has no special powers. The commission, by majority vote,
enacts all ordinances and passes all appropriations, the mavor-
president having no veto but voting like his fellow-com-
missioners. It further supervises the enforcement of its
own ordinances and regulates the expenditure of its own
appropriations. Likewise it handles all questions relating
to franchises and locations in the city streets, and all awards
of contracts for public works. In a word, it exercises all
the powers formerly vested in the mayor, board of aldermen,
and other officials, acting either singly or by concurrence.
The commissioners, by majority vote, apportion among
themselves the headships of the four administrative depart-
ments into which the business of the city is grouped, —
namely, the departments of finance and revenue, water and
sewerage, police and fire protection, and streets and public
property. The mayor-president is not assigned to the head
of any one department, but is supposed to exercise a coordi-
nating supervision over them all. Each of the commis-
sioners is thus directly responsible for the routine direction of
one important branch of the city's business. Appointments
to the higher posts in each department are not made by the
commissioner who is in direct charge, but by vote of the whole
commission. Minor appointments are, however, left to the
commissioner in whose department they may happen to fall.1
1 Charter of the City of Galveston as passed by the S8th Legislature of the
State of Texas and approved by the Governor, March SO, 1903 (Galveston,
1907) . A further discussion of these charter provisions may be found in
the author's paper on "The Galveston Plan of City Government," printed
in Proceedings of the National Municipal League, 1907, pp. 142-155, and
reprinted in C. R. Woodruff's City Government by Commission (New York,
1911), ch. iv.
298
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Extension
of the plan
to other
Texan
cities.
Its spread
northward.
It should be remembered that the Galveston plan was not
at first intended to be a permanent system of government for
the city. Its prime object was to enable Galveston to tide
over a difficult emergency just as Memphis had done many
years before. Prepared somewhat hastily, with very little
experience to serve as a guide, it vested in the hands of a
small body of men more extensive final powers than most
cities would care to give away; but the lapse of a few
years proved that the new system was a godsend to the
stricken community. The people's civic spirit was aroused,
the business of the city recovered rapidly, and in a remark-
ably short time the place was again on its feet, financially
and otherwise. Then developed the conviction that com-:
mission government was a good form to maintain perma-
nently. The other cities of Texas, noting conditions under
the new regime in Galveston, came forward and asked the
legislature for similar charters ; and in the course of a few
years commission charters had been given to all the impor-
tant cities of the state, including Houston, Dallas, El Paso,
Austin, and Fort Worth.
This development naturally attracted attention in other
states, and the reform organizations of various Northern
cities began to discuss the possibility of applying the scheme
to the solution of their own municipal problems. The first
municipality outside of Texas to accept the plan w«« T)pa
Moines. the capital city of Iowa. In 1907 the Iowa legisla-
ture passed an act permitting any city of the state having
a population of more than 25,000 to adopt a commission
type of government ; and forthwith the citizens of Des
Moines, by whom the act had originally been brought for-
ward and urged, took advantage of the new provision.1
1 Laws of Iowa, 1907, p. 48 (approved March 29, 1907, and adopted at a
special election in Des Moines on June 20, following). The Amendments
to the original Act may be found in Laws of Iowa, 1909, pp. 53-63, and in
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 299
The Des Moines plan of government by commission is TheDea
simply a new edition of the Galveston plan, similar in out- pi^ne£
line but embodying some novel features. In brief, it provides
for a commission consisting of a mayor and four councillors,
all elected at large for a two-year term by the voters of the
city. To this body is intrusted all the powers hitherto
vested in the mayor, city council, board of public works,
park commissioners, boards of police and fire commissioners,
board of waterworks trustees, board of library trustees,
solicitor, assessor, treasurer, auditor, city engineer, and all
other administrative boards or officers. Under the Des
Moines plan the business of the city is grouped into five
departments, namely, public affairs, accounts and finances,
public safety, streets and public improvements, and parks
and public property. By the terms of the charter the com-
missioner who is elected mayor of the city becomes head of
the department of public affairs^ each of the other com-
missioners is put at the head of one of the other depart-
ments by majority vote of the commission, or council, as
the body is called in Iowa. All officers and employees of
the various departments are appointed by the council, which
also has authority to choose a board of three civil-service
commissioners to administer, under its direction, the state
laws relating to civil service. Most of the city officers come
within the scope of these laws.
Thus far the system diverges but very slightly from the Differences
Galveston plan. The chief difference lies in the fact that c^veaton*1
the Des Moines scheme incorporates what are commonly »nd.Des
^-BB-M^BBBBB""""""^^** •• ••^•••••••^fcB Moines
termed the newer agencies of democracy r namely, the initia- plans,
tive, referendum, protest, and recall, and makes provision
ibid., 1911, pp. 37-40. The full text of the law is printed in E. S. Brad-
ford's Commission Government in American Cities (New York, 1911), 312-
338 ; also in C. R. Woodruff's City Government by Commission (New
York, 1911), 319-354.
300 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
for pominations by^ general non-partisan primary. The
initiative is the right of twenty-five per cent of the qualified
voters of the city to present to the council by petition any
proper ordinance or resolution, and to require, if such ordi-
nance or resolution be not passed by the council, that it be
submitted without alteration to the voters by referendum.
If at such referendum it receives a majority of votes, it be-
comes effective. The protest affords a means of delaying
the operation of ordinances enacted by the council until the
voters can have an opportunity to express themselves. By
this expedient no ordinance passed by the council (except
an emergent measure) can go into effect until ten days after
its passage. Meanwhile, if a petition protesting against
such ordinance, signed by twenty-five per cent of the voters
of the city, is presented to the council, it is incumbent on
that body to reconsider the matter. If the ordinance is not
entirely repealed, it must then be submitted to the voters
for their acceptance or rejection. The vote takes place at
a regular election, if there is one within six months ; other-
wise at a special election held for the purpose. If indorsed
at the polls, the ordinance becomes effective at once; if
rejected by the voters, it remains inoperative. It is further
provided in the Des Moines charter that, no public-utility
franchise of any sort shall he valid imt.il mnfirmpH fry thft
electorate. The recall provision permits the voters to remove
from office any member of the council at any time after three
months' tenure in office. Petitions for recall or removal
must be signed by at least twenty per cent of the voters,
and the question of recalling a councilman is put before
them at a special election. All nominations in Des Moines
are made at a non-partisan primary, and the ballots used at
the subsequent elections bear no party designations.
Results in The new regime in Des Moines seemed to begin inaus-
Moinee. piciously. Those citizens who had been behind the new
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 301
charter movement put forward their slate of candidates,
consisting of business and professional men of standing who
had not been prominent in the partisan politics of the city
under the old dispensation. A vigorous campaign for the
election of this group was undertaken, but when the ballots
were counted it was found that the opponents had proved
stronger at the polls. The first council under the new char-
ter was, accordingly, made up of men who had been more or
less closely affiliated with the old order of things, and some
of whom were thought to be more proficient as politicians
than as administrative experts. It was therefore assumed
in many quarters that the new machine had slipped a cog,
with the result that the city was likely to have an adminis-
tration of the old type under a new name. But the error
of this assumption soon became apparent; for the experi-
ence of a few years has proved that the caliber and quali-
fications of the men in office are not more important than,
the system under which they are expected to carry on their
work. There is little question that the administration
of affairs in Des Moines has been very much more efficient
since the commission took charge in April, 1908, than it was
during the years preceding that date.1
Since its adoption in Des Moines the spread of the re- Recent
vised commission system has been rapid. During the next
four years a great many cities, scattered about in more
than twenty different states, abolished the old system and
established the new one. Some of these are cities with popu-
lations exceeding 50,000, but in general the commission
1 A somewhat over-enthusiastic account of what the system has
achieved in Des Moines is given in J. J. Hamilton's Dethronement of the City
Boss (New York, 1910 ; later edition, under the title of City Government
by Commission, 1911). A more conservative summary of results may be
found in B. F. Shambaugh's Commission Government in Iowa: the Deg
Moines Plan, printed by the State Historical Society of Iowa (Iowa City,
1912).
302 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
plan seems to appeal more strongly to the smaller urban
centres. A list of the cities that have adopted the system,
or some variation of it, would contain at present the names
of more than two hundred municipalities.1 Perhaps half
as many more have projects of charter revision in hand, and
in all of these the commission scheme of government is re-
ceiving due consideration. It is worthy of remark, however,
that only one city with a population exceeding 200,000 has as
yet adopted the system, and that it has been put to trial in
only seven cities with populations exceeding 100,000. More
than half the total number of municipalities which have com-
mission government are places with less than 5000 people.
Thus far it seems to hq,v^ fiprvpH nhiVflv n.a a sr>hpmP nf l^w^
government. But almost everywhere the voters have taken
kindly to it, and wherever the question of adopting the system
has been put before the people at the polls they have, with
very few exceptions, accepted it. As yet there have been
no backsliders : no city has gone back to the old plan after
trying the new.
Variation Considerable variation in details will be found among
commission charters, but most of the points of difference
are of slight importance. The term for which commis-
sioners are elected varies from a single year to six years, but
two-year and four-year terms are the most common.2 Mem-
bers of the commission are usually paid, the annual stipends
ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per
annum. In nearly all commission cities the distribution
of administrative work among the members is made after
the commission has met and organized for business, but in
1 The list, as it stood on January 1, 1912, may be found in the Engineer-
ing News for April 4, 1912, pp. 638-639. Many of the more important
commission charters are printed in C. A. Beard's Digest of Short Ballot
Charters (New York, 1911).
1 In Gloucester, Massachusetts, the term is one year ; in Guthrie,
Oklahoma, it is six years.
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 303
a few cities the commissioners are elected directly to stated
departments ; that is to say, one commissioner is elected
director of public safety, another director of finance, and
so on.1 Something may be said in favor of each method;
but on the whole the plan of electing five commissioners with-
out any reference to the special administrative work which
each will have to do is almost sure to be the better one. This
is because the commission is not intended to be a set of ad-
ministrative experts; no body directly elected ever can be Itiaa
such. The__£Qininission is rather a small board of amateurs
who will secure expert officials and take advice from them. amateur
~i****~~~~~—-—~~~~*it~~-~*a~-~—*~~—~—~~~**~*mv-~a~~~m~ i and expert
If this fundamental principle be disregarded, if elective service.
commissioners attempt to conduct their departments either
without expert advice or in disregard of it, the new plan of
municipal government will hardly take us very far in the
direction of more efficient or more economical administra-
tion. When the voters are asked to elect men directly to
the headships of designated departments, they are almost
sure to look more or less for special qualifications on the
part of candidates who come forward. It is taken for
granted that the director or supervisor of finance, for ex-
ample, ought to be some one who before his election has
had a connection with financial affairs. Hence it is that,
under this system of choosing department heads, the candi-
date with special qualifications of an inferior sort is likely
to be preferred to the broad-gauge candidate whose claims
are of a more general nature but vastly better in quality.
It is -difficult to resist the impression, therefore, that com-
missioners elected to designated duties will usually be men
of rather mediocre capacity who happen to possess some-
thing that looks to the voters like peculiar fitness, but
is not so in reality. Under no plan of local government
1 This is the practice in Lynn, Massachusetts, and in Grand Junction,
Colorado.
304
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Merits of
mission*
ment.
i. Concen-
ought a second-rate engineer to be preferred to a first-rate
lawyer or physician or banker or mechanic as supervisor
of streets ; yet he undoubtedly would have some advantage
over the latter in any electoral contest where special quali-
fications happen to be thrust into the foreground. To
look for specialized skill in the individual commissioners
is to impair one of the strong features of the whole
commission plan, which is the combination of strictly ama-
teur with strictly expert administration, each operating in
its proper sphere.
In its actual working the new system has shown itself
possessed of many advantages. Of these the most strik-
mS one> °f course, arises from the fact that the plan puts
an en(j to that intolerable scattering of powers, duties, and
responsibilities which the old type of city government pro-
moted to the point of absurdity. By enabling public attention
to focus itself upon a narrow and well-defined area, it al-
lows the scrutiny which voters apply to the conduct of their
representatives to be real, and not, as heretofore, merely
perfunctory. The system does not guarantee that a city's
administration shall be always free from good ground for_
criticism, — no system can do that ; but it does guarantee
that, when the administration is faulty, there shall be definite
shoulders upon which to lay the blame. Under the com-
mission plan the responsibility cannot be bandied back and
forth in shuttlecock fashion from mayor to council and from
the council to some administrative board or officer. Issues
cannot be clouded by shifty deals among several authorities.
In thus eliminating a chaos of checks and balances, another
name for which is friction, confusion, and irresponsibility,
the new framework removes from the government of
American cities a feature which, to say the least, has in
practice been unprofitable from first to last.
Sponsors of commission government assured us, even be-
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 305
fore the plan had had a fair trial, that they proposed a scheme 2. Makes
of organization which would give cities a business adminis- ^thoS
tration. They pointed out that the management of a city's pp88^6 "»
J city admin-
affairs is not government, but business. The so-termed istration.
city government, they urged, is not primarily a maker of
laws and ordinances. It is a body which combines in one
the work of a construction company, of a purveyor of water,
sewerage facilities, and fire protection, of an accounting and
auditing corporation, of the people's agent in dealings with
public corporations, and so forth. Its day-by-day functions
can scarcely, by any stretch of the imagination, be termed
political or governmental. Go through the records of a
city-council meeting and catalogue the items that can be
classed as legislation, or that can in any way be said to de-
termine broad questions of administrative policy. The list
will be very short indeed. By far the greater part of a
council's proceedings have to do with matters of routine
administration which differ slightly, if at all, from the ordi-
nary operations of any large business concern. Now, no.
business organization could reasonably hope to keep itself
out of the hands of a receiver if it had to do its work
with any sucn clumsy and complicated machinery as
that which most American cities have had imposed upon
them. What would be thought of a business corporation
that intrusted the conduct of its affairs to a twin board of
directors (one board representing the stockholders at large
and the other representing them by districts), and gave to
an independently chosen general manager some sort of veto
power over them, besides subjecting his appointments to
their concurrence? How long, for example, would a rail-
road endure this sort of management without a cut in its
dividend rate and a demoralization of its service ? It is,
of course, quite true that a city is something more than a
profit-seeking business enterprise. The affairs of the mu-
306
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
3. Reduces
adminis-
trative
friction and
delay.
nicipality cannot be conducted in defiance of public opinion,
or even in disregard of it ; whereas business management may
or may not bend to popular pressure, as it may deem expedi-
ent, — and expediency is here another word for profitable-
ness. We have the testimony of Bismarck that public
opinion is the worst foe to expertness in diplomacy; and
in the same sense it may be termed the chief obstacle against
which expertness in any branch of public administration has
to contend. Any system of government that from its very
nature must yield to every passing gust of popular senti-
ment carries a serious handicap. To measure it in terms of
economy or efficiency with private business management is
therefore unfair, unless large allowances be made. It should
nover be-^rgottenthat a city must ^ive its people the sort
of administration they want, and that tips ia not always
synonymous with what is best or cheapest. All this is not
to deny, however, that there is much room for the appli-
cation of so-called business principles in city administration,
or that measures which simplify administrative machinery
always promote greater efficiency.1
The system of city government bv commission, it is con-
tended, enables a city to conduct its business promptly and_
without undue friction. There may be wisdom in a multi-
tude of counsellors, but the history of those municipalities
which maintain large deliberative bodies seems to warrant
1 It is to be feared that many commission-governed cities have allowed
themselves to be deluded into the idea that the mere establishment of the
new system is a guarantee of thorough improvement in the methods of
conducting public business. Many commission charters seem to take it for
granted that any able-bodied citizen can be transformed into a municipal
expert by popular vote, and that the mere act of putting the whole con-
duct of the city's business into the hands of five men who bear appropriate
titles will secure a complete change from slovenly to efficient methods.
At any rate, commission charters are too commonly deficient in the matter
of making definite provisions for the employment of genuine skill in the
various departments under the supervision of the elective commissioners.
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 307
the impression that this collective wisdom is not of very
high grade. Unwieldy councils have been put upon
American cities under the delusion that democracy some-
how associates itself with unwieldiness. There is a no-
tion in the public mind, and it is as deep-seated as it is
illusive, that a body cannot be representative unless
it is large to the pitch of uselessness for any effective
action. Even deliberative bodies, however, reach a point
of diminishing returns, and American municipal experience
seems to show that this point is not fixed very high.
Prior to the adoption of the charter amendments of 1909
the city council of Boston contained eighty-eight members ;
the board of aldermen had thirteen members elected at
large, and the common council seventy-five, elected three
from each of the twenty-five wards of the city. If mere
numbers give any assurance of sagacity or care for the public
well-being, this body should have afforded that doctrine some
exemplification. But in point of fact the council gave "no
serious consideration to its duties"; it was "dominated by
spoilsmen"; its efforts were "often directed to the pecuni-
ary benefit of its members" ; and the councillors were, for the
most part, men who were "not truly representative citizens
and would not be elected if their constituents knew the facts
and could vote for any one else." From the viewpoint of
facility in expediting business, an interesting commentary
upon the way in which the city council was organized
is afforded by the fact that it maintained forty-two
standing committees, not half of which met even once a
year. Its work on the annual appropriations consisted
of little more than a series of studied attempts to raise
the estimates to the maximum figures permitted by law,
especially in those departments which had the largest
patronage. Its alleged "deliberations" were mainly des-
ultory talk upon matters that did not come within its
308
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The short-
comings
of large
councils.
4. Improves
the quality
of municipal
officers.
Jurisdiction, such as the conduct of departmental heads,
the letting of contracts, and the hiring of city laborers.
For the salaries of aldermen and councillors, office ex-
penses, wages of clerks, stenographers, and messengers,
and for other charges, the city of Boston paid out nearly
$100,000 per annum, a large part of which was sheer waste.1
What has been said of the old council in Boston may
be said without much reservation of all large bicameral city
councils. They are ill adapted to the work which tdlfiY arft
expected to do. To say that they display greater regard for
the interests of the people, or more conservative judgment
in the handling of questions of policy, than do small councils
of five, seven, or nine men is to talk arrant nonsense. The
history of large councils is in general little more than a rec-
ord of political manoeuvring and factional intriguery, with
a mastery of nothing but the art of wasting time and money.
A council of some half-dozen men offers at least the possibility
of despatch in the handling of city affairs ; for its small size
removes an incentive to fruitless debate, and affords little
opportunity for resort to those subterfuges in procedure
which serve mainly to create needless friction and delay.
But the chief merit urged in behalf of the commission plan
is not that it concentrates responsibility and permits the
application of business methods to the conduct of a city's
affairs, important as these things are. In the last analysis,
municipal administration is as much a question of men as
of measures. Tocqueville once said that in his time the
men of Massachusetts could prosper under any sort of con-
stitution ; and even to-day the cities of England manage to
secure efficient and economical administration under a
system that seems on its face excellently adapted to promote
inharmony and extravagance. Efficiency in city adminis-
tration may be assisted by one form of local government
1 Boston Finance Commission, Reports, II. 196 ff. (1909).
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 309
or retarded by another, but in the long run it is not less a
question of personnel than of political framework. Much
depends, accordingly, upon the answer to the query whether
the commission form of government does or does not offer any
assurance, or even a reasonable prospect, that it will tend to
install better men in the city's posts of power and responsibil-
ity. This is, after all, the crucial question ; and the advocates
of the system answer it unequivocally. The plan will, they
feel certain, serve to secure better men. Indeed, it can
hardly help doing so, they assure us ; for it is almost a com-
monplace of political experience that the caliber of men in
public office is closely related to the amount of power and
authority which they exercise. When power is scattered
among many officers of government, no more of it is likely
to fall to the share of each one than might quite safely be
intrusted to a man of mediocre ability ; and when authority
can safely be given over to men of this type it almost cer-
tainly will be. Men of little experience and less capacity
have found it easy to get themselves elected to membership
in large city councils, for the reason that their presence
there could, even at the worst, do little harm, owing to the
numerous statutory checks put upon the council's power.
When membership in a city council means the exercise of
no more than one seventy-fifth part of less than one-third of
a city government's jurisdiction, it is not surprising that the
post of councillor appeals only to men whose standing in
the community is negligible. If, on the other hand, all
municipal authority can be massed in the hands of five
men, each of these individuals has an opportunity to
become a real power in the community, which is the only
motive that will draw capable men to the council-board.
Finally, as the sponsors of the commission plan remind us,
large councils mean, as a rule, the election of councillors by
wards or by petty districts, a method that has proved itself
310 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
a tolerably certain way of securing inferior men ; whereas a
small council can be chosen at large, on ballots that have no
partisan designations, and, if so desired, by some system of
preferential voting.
Has im- Now, the line of argument outlined in the preceding para-
irTtheme graph sounds reasonable, and it may be that in the two
citybofficl™ ^undred or more cities which have adopted commission
been se- government a marked improvement in the quality of elective
office-holders has on the whole been secured. Either to prove
or to disprove this proposition by trying to find out what
changes have taken place in all these cities would be a
difficult undertaking; but an examination of ten impor-
tant municipalities now governed under the new plan
discloses the fact that, out of the fifty commissioners at
present in office, no fewer than thirty-five were public offi-
cials in these places before the commission system was in-
troduced. This showing seems to carry the implication
that the plan is not revolutionary in regard to the type
of official brought into service. It would, perhaps, be
more in accord with the actual facts to say that the intro-
duction of the simplified form of municipal organization
proves its usefulness not so much in drafting a better class
of men into public office as in permitting the same men to^
achieve better results. It is, at any rate, the testimony of
those who have served under both the old plan and the new
that the latter gives greater opportunity and greater in-
centive ; and it is the experience of those cities which have
been under commission arrangements for several years that,
whatever may have been the effect upon the personnel of
the administration, the change has had a salutary influence
upon the whole tone of municipal affairs. The evidence
on this point is too extensive, and comes from too many
authoritative.sources, to be questioned.1
1 See references at the end of this chapter.
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 311
On the other hand, the commission type of city govern- objections
ment meets with some objections in all parts of the country, mission °n
According to its opponents, it is based upon a wrong prin- plan>
ciple and proposes a dangerous policy ; and it is accordingly
branded as oligarchical, undemocratic, and un-American,
Under such designations, however, it merely shares company i. General
with almost every other practical scheme for the improve- obiectlons-
ment of municipal administration that has come before the
public during the last quarter-century. To urge that be-
cause a governing body is small it must inevitably prove to
be bureaucratic in its methods and unresponsive in its at-
titude, is merely to afford a typical illustration of politicians'
logic. Whether a public official or a body of officials will
become oligarchical in temper depends not upon mere
numbers, but upon the directness of the control which the
voters are able to exercise over those whom they put into
office. And effectiveness of control hinges largely upon
such matters as the concentration of responsibility for offi-
cial acts, an adequate degree of publicity, and the elimina-
tion of such features as party designations, which serve to
confuse the issues presented to the voters at the polls. In
fact, it might almost be laid down as an axiom deducible
from American municipal experience that the smaller an
elective body the more tnorough its accountability to the
electorate. If one brushes away the shallow sophistry of
those who urge the retention of a large city council as a means
of insuring responsibility to popular sentiment, and regards
only the outstanding facts in a half-century of American
municipal history, one sees pretty readily that the supporters
of the old order are urging a high premium on mediocrity
in public office, a continuance of the vice of sectionalism in
city administration, and an arrangement under which re-
sponsibility directs itself to a few political bosses rather than
to the whole municipal electorate.
312 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
2. it offers Commission government, we are often told, is inadequately
no.secun y representative : five^jn£n^_cliQseji_at -Jfflge^— .cannot repre-
sentative sent the varied interests, nnlitical. p-pnfrra.rthina.1. raniftl. n.nrl
city govern- •^•••^••••••••••••••••^•••'^•••••'^•••^••^••'^••••^•'^
ment. economic, in any ^arg£_niunLcipalitv. If it l^o true tfrat in
the conduct of his local affairs a vjat^r-fi^uajiQlJ^^pqimtply
represented except by one of his own neighborhood, race,
religion, politics, and business interests, then this criti-_
cism is entirely reasonable. But 1,8 this not the reductio
ad absurdum of__tli£— representative principle ? Would not
a recognition of this doctrine absolutely preclude all chance
of securing a municipal administration loyal to the best
interests of the city as a whole, and reduce every issue to a
m$lee of sectional and personal prejudices? It has been
frequently proved that a single official, like the president of
the nation or the governor of a state or the mayor of a city,
may more truly represent popular opinion than does a whole
congress or state legislature or municipal council. Popular
sentiment is not difficul^ to ascertain when a public officer
takes the trouble to ascertain itr Five men can do it quite
as well as fifty, and they are much more likely to try. A
large council means ward representation, and ward repre-
sentation means that councilmen with narrowed horizons
must determine large questions of municipal policy. It does
not mean, in practice, that all the interests of the elector-
ate will be represented; on the contrary, it more often
means that some of the most important interests will have
little or no chance of representation at all. As a matter of
plain fact, a large council, with members chosen from wards,
means that the citizens who are not personally interested
in ward politics are quite likely to be represented in slim
fashion, if at all, whereas alert politicians with selfish in-
terests to serve are sure to be grossly over-represented.
Large councils can with reasonable certainty be depended
upon to give adequate representation to one interest and to
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 313
that only, — the machine of the dominant political party.
That they secure fair representation for a variety of non-
political interests is a fiction that has no existence outside
of the wardroom.
" It is almost a maxim that the smaller the body the easier 3. it pro-
can it be reached and influenced." Thus runs the gist of an actainStra-
argument commonly advanced by the opponents of the com- tio° dan«er-
mission plan. In other words, it is easier for large public-ser- ceptibie to
vice corporations, or for the liquor interests, or for the mere control,
seekers after loaves and fishes in city administ ration T to cor±
rupt or coerce five councillors than fifty ; hence, there is safety
in numbers^ The trouble with this argument is, however,
that it rests upon a false presumption. It assumes that sin-
ister influences exert themselves directly upon the councilmen
one by one, and hence that, where a large council exists,
the forces of corruption or coercion must deal with a large
body of men. That this is not the case, however, every one
who has had anything to do with municipal politics knows
very well. Large councils are, for the most part, made up
of men who owe their nomination and election to political
leaders to whom they are under permanent obligations and
from whom they take their orders. A few bosses, sometimes
a single boss, can control a majority of the council and can
deliver the necessary votes to any proposition when the
proper incentive appears. Corporations or contractors who
wish to get what they are not entitled to have do not ap-
proach the council through its members one by one; they
know the ways of the machine too well for that. They
deal with the middleman, — that is to say, with the political
leader who controls the votes of councilmen. Accordingly,
they have to do with perhaps five men, not with fifty, and,
what is more, with five men who have power without re-
sponsibility, who were not invested with authority by the
voters and are consequently not accountable to them for
314
Merits of
this objec-
tion.
the abuse of it. Under commission government, on the
contrary, a favor-seeking private interest has to deal not
with a few middlemen wno have thevotes of others to deliver,
but with five men who are free to act as they think best and
who act with the eves of the voters upon them. A small
council or commission means concentration of power, but
it also means centralization of responsibility. A large council
means an equal concentration of power, but of power that
too often is not so much in the hands of the councilmen as
in those of a few outside political bosses who are in a posi-
tion to dictate what the council shall or shall not do, — men
who have the power without the responsibility. Centraliza-
tion of power there will be in any case, and must be if busi-
ness is to be conducted with promptness and efficiency. No
matter what the frame of city government may be, the domi-
nating influences are pretty sure to gravitate into the hands
of a few men.
The issue as between a large and a small council hangs,
in the main, on the simple question whether these few men
shall be chosen directly by the voters at large and be di-
rectly responsible to them, or whether they shall be political
manipulators without any direct responsibility. Phila-
delphia has a municipal legislature which comprises, in both
its branches, 190 members ; yet there is no city in the United
States in which corporate interests, working through a small
group of political henchmen, have so completely and so
consistently dominated the city council's attitude upon
questions of municipal policy. It is not in the size of its
municipal council that a city may reasonably hope to find
assurance against malfeasance in the management of its
affairs, against the bartering away of valuable privileges
for inadequate returns, against the subordination of the
public welfare to private avarice. Its safety lies rather in
the size of the men who compose the council. There is more
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 315
security in five men of adequate caliber, working in the full
glare of publicity and directly accountable to the people of
the whole city, than in ten times as many men of the type
usually found in the ranks of large municipal councils.
Objections have been urged against commission govern- 4. it violates
ment on the ground that it puts into the hands of a single J^JjpL of
small body of men the power both to appropriate and to spend government
..." * a ' i *"" ' . . . . i .T by conceQ-
pubiic money, ouch an arrangement, it is said, and said tratingthe
truly, violates an established principle of American govern-
ment which demands that in the interest of economy and
•* powers in
honesty these two powers should be lodged in separate hands. the Bame>
bands.
In keeping with this dogma, Congress appropriates money
for the general expenses of national government, but the
executive disburses the funds so appropriated. The state
legislatures make appropriations, but the state executives
apply the funds as directed. Even in the government of the
New England town it is the local legislature or town-meeting,
and not the board of selectmen, which makes the annual
appropriations ; and in the usual type of city administration
the council grants the funds and the executive officials make
the actual outlay.
From this traditional division of powers the commission is this a
system proposes a radical departure. It commits to a sin- tlon? J<
gle small board the power of fixing the annual tax-rate, of
appropriating the revenues to the different departments,
and of supervising the detailed expenditure of the funds so
apportioned. Novel as this plan is, it is not necessarily
either dangerous or objectionable on that account. Many
novel features have come into American governmental methods
within comparatively recent years, — the Australian ballot,
for example, civil-service regulations, direct primaries, the
initiative, referendum, and recall, public-utilities commissions,
etc. ; and all have had to meet the cry that they involved
departure from the time-honored way of doing things in this
316 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
country. Moreover, the fusion of appropriating and spend-
ing powers in the organization of city government is not
unprecedented. This very principle is at the foundation of
the English municipal system ; and, as the world knows, it
has proved in operation neither a source of corruption nor
an incentive to extravagance. Furthermore, those Ameri-
can cities which have had the commission form of govern-
ment for several years find nothing objectionable in this
blending of the two powers ; on the contrary, their ex-
perience with it seems to indicate that it possesses some
important advantages over the old plan of separation, jt
appears toinsp|re greater care in making the appropriations,
and to promote greater success in keeping within them when
made^ Under its influence commission budgets are, so far
as recent experience goes, framed with a fairer regard for the
interests of the whole city than council budgets have usually
been, and commissions have unquestionably not proved to be
less capable in handling expenditures than were the uncoor-
dinated executive boards and officials that formerly had charge
of such work. The indictment of commission government
on this score is not supported by experience. It is a
sentimental objection, worth no more than such objections
usually are. Ward politicians can, of course, always be
counted upon to sob over this "departure from time-
honored American traditions" and "disregard of the wis-
dom of the Fathers," till one unacquainted with their
ways might almost be moved to regard the Declaration
of Independence as a document framed for the self-evi-
dent purpose of assuring to professional politicians, mainly
of alien extraction, an inalienable right to inflict a long
train of abuses upon the taxpayers of American cities.
One may add, finally, that even if danger should arise
from this feature of the commission form of government,
yet the cities which adopt the sysiem usually provide a_
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 317
means of recalling commissioners, if need bef as an additional
safeguard against the abuse of power. In this way, as
Montesquieu suggested, power is made a check to power.
A much more substantial objection to the commission 5. it does
plan arises from the fact that it practically abolishes the JJJfoS con-*
office of mayor, that it does not provide an apex for the clusionin
«•——«•—«—--—— -JiMM^>—^_-^--— •«—-—••—— -«LM— ——-•----— «—-—Ji—«»i "• concentrat-
pyramid of local administration. Now, the mayoralty is a
post that has established a fair tradition in America, and
there is a rational function for it to perform. It stands in
the public imagination as the one municipal office in
which all administrative responsibility can be centralized.
To lodge all such power and responsibility in the hands of five
men is better than to put it in the hands of fifty ; but to place
most of it in the hands of one man, duly surrounded by the
necessary safeguards, is better still. Nearly all the argu-
ments that can be advanced in favor of the five-headed exec-
utive can be urged with greater cogency for the policy of
concentrating all final powers of an administrative character
in the mayor alone. The small council or commission with-
out a mayor is apt to act like a machine without a balance-
wheel. If it is desirable to follow the oft-quoted example of
private business organizations, let it be borne in mind that,
although all large and successful business corporations
are in theory managed by boards of directors, the actual
power and responsibility rest almost invariably in the hands
of their chief.1
As is too frequently the practice of whose who stand General
, - . f . . conclusions.
sponsors for reform, the advocates of commission govern-
ment have in all probability promised more than their plan
can permanently achieve. It is true that the new adminis-
1 An interesting experiment somewhat along this line, in the way of
intrusting full charge of the city's administration to a general manager,
has been undertaken during the last two years by Staunton, Virginia.
This experiment is described in E. S. Bradford's Commission Government
in American Cities (New York, 1911), oh. xii.
318 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
trations have set about redeeming their promises in encourag-
ing fashion ; but a new broom sweeps clean, and in most of the
cities which have adopted the commission arrangements the
need of general municipal housecleaning was such as to show
at once the effect of even a slight use of the cleansing appa-
ratus. To hope that this or any other system will prove a
self-executing instrument of civic righteousness is, however,
to avow an optimism which betokens little knowledge of man
as a political animal. On the other hand, even though the
great simplification of municipal machinery which the
commission system of city government carries with it may
not quite eliminate inefficiency, it will at least disclose the
shoulders upon which the onus of incompetence should lie.
It will not extirpate the vice of partisanship from municipal
elections, or put the independent candidate for public
office upon an equal footing with the man who has an or-
ganized interest behind him. Under this system, as under
any other plan of democratic government, the advantage
will rest with the candidate who brings to bear upon the issue
at the polls an aggressive organization and a fatted wallet.
But it will at least afford independence and purely personal
qualifications a fighting chancer which is more than they have
had under the old municipal system. The commission
plan, moreover, links itself easily with a dozen features that
promise improvement in various branches of municipal
administration, such as nomination by non-partisan prima-
ries or by petition, the short ballot without party designa-
tions, the abolition of ward representation, preferential
voting, the merit system of appointment and promotion,
the extirpation of patronage, publicity in all official business,
uniform city accounting, and the concentration of responsi-
bility for injudicious expenditures of public money. It at
least promises a frame of city government which the average
voter can understand ; and a government that is to be re-
CITY GOVERNMENT BY A COMMISSION 319
sponsible to the people must first of all be intelligible to
them. However the commission propaganda may develop
in future years, it has at least rendered a real service in
directing public attention to the most urgent need of the
American municipal system, — the simplification of a ma-
chine which is far too complex for the work that it has to
do. As a protest against the old municipal regime it has
been effective; as a policy it has, despite incidental short-
comings, fulfilled much of what its sponsors
REFERENCES
The output of pamphlet and periodical literature relating to the govern-
ment of cities by elective commissions has been very large during the
last five or six years. By far the greater part of it, however, is of little or
no service to serious students of municipal problems ; for it represents no
more than the expressions of partisan opinion, based in the main either on
inadequate data or on no data at all. For what it is worth, this material
may be found listed in the bibliographies appended to the books mentioned
in the next paragraph.
Three useful monographs on the general subject of commission govern-
ment, two volumes of selected readings bearing on the history and workings
of the system, and one collection of commission charters have, however,
appeared from the press within the last two years. E. S. Bradford's
Commission Government in American Cities (New York, 1911) is a careful
analysisof theplanandof what it has accomplished. Dr.F. H.MacGregor's
City Government by Commission (Madison, 1911) is a less elaborate, but a
well-executed, study ; and J. J. Hamilton's Dethronement of the City Boss
(New York, 1910, and issued in 1911 under the title of Government by
Commission) contains a statement of what the author believes to be the
administrative miracles wrought by the commission system in Des Moines.
A volume of Selected Articles on the Commission Plan of Municipal Govern-
ment (ed. E. C. Robbins, Minneapolis, 1909), and another entitled City
Government by Commission (ed. C. R. Woodruff, New York, 1911), contain
discussions on several phases of the subject reprinted from the proceed-
ings of various civic societies, from magazines, and from the columns of
newspapers. In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science for November, 1911, there are several excellent papers
on the workings of commission government in different parts of the
Union. Professor C. A. Beard's Digest of Short Ballot Charters (New
York, 1911) includes all the more important commission charters thus
far adopted.
320 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
Official figures in regard to what the commission form of government
has actually accomplished are both scanty and of little service. The
regular reports issued by cities since the installation of the new adminis-
trative machinery are on the whole excellent, and some of them are
models of their kind ; but the reorganization of departments, and the
greatly altered methods of municipal bookkeeping which have come into
being with the new framework of government, make it very difficult to
determine just what any city has gained in its passage from the old regime
to the new. There are some interesting discussions of this matter, how-
ever, in Henry BruSre's New City Government (New York, 1912).
CHAPTER XIII
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL
A RADICAL departure from the principle of separation of Direct
powers in local government, as outlined in the preceding fa^fa™*
chapter, is not the only noteworthy feature of political
development in American cities during the last decade.
Closely connected with it has been a movement which aims to
provide the cities with machinery whereby local legislation
can be carried to enactment directly by the voters, without
the interposition of any representative body . This machinery
of direct legislation consists of the initiative and the manda-
tory referendum.
By the initiative is meant the right of a definite percentage Definitions,
of the voters in any municipality to propose charter amend-
ments or ordinances, and to require that these shall be sub-
mitted to the people at either a regular or a special election.
If such a proposal obtains at the polling a majority of the
votes actually recorded upon it, it becomes effective. By the
mandatory referendum (or the protest, as it is sometimes
called) is meant the right of a stated proportion of the
voters to demand that any ordinance passed by the city
council shall be withheld from going into force until the
opinion of the voters can be expressed upon it at a regular or
a special election.1 It is, accordingly, a species of popular
1 The referendum sometimes takes a more stringent form, i.e. one under
which measures (chiefly charter amendments) must in all oases be sub-
mitted to the voters, whether petitioned for or not. For a full discussion of
definitions and of variations in the use of these terms, see B. P. Oberholtzer's
Referendum, Initiative, and Recall in America (new ed., New York, 1911),
especially chs. ix., xiv.-xv.
T 321
322 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
veto. If a majority of the vote polled upon such an ordinance
is in the negative, the ordinance does not go into effect.
Reasons for The rapidity with which these so-termed newer agencies
democracy have been taken into use by cities throughout
United States is one of the most significant political
lation _ ( r
methods. phenomena of this generation; for, however opinions may
differ as to the merits and defects of direct legislation or as
to its compatibility with representative government, it is
at all events not to be denied that the initiative and referen-
dum have already gained a remarkable grip upon the public
confidence throughout large sections of the country. For
this growth in popular favor a twofold reason may be
assigned. In the first placer it is an omen of a declining
.faith in the integrity and good judgment of ele^ive law-
makers.1 The quality of the men who make the ordinances
in American cities, including ordinances which carry appro-
priations and grant public privileges, has steadily declined
Decline in during the last half-century. Some of the reasons for this
^represent- deterioration have already been discussed in a general
way, but the fundamental causes are too complex to per-
mit any statement of them in concise form. At any rate,
the symptoms of decline are too obvious to require any
testimony in regard to their existence ; the public has be-
come only too well aware of the fact that the men who secure
election to the councils of American cities cannot nowadays be
trusted to exercise final authority in matters of local legis-
lation. Instead, however, of adopting measures calculated
to remedy this trouble at its exact location by improving the
caliber of councilmen, a hundred or more cities have had re-
sort to the more drastic step of taking away from these
officials their final ordinance powers. In other words, they
1 For a discussion of this feature, see the instructive chapter on "The
Decline of Legislatures" in E. L. Godkin's Unforeseen Tendencies oj
Democracy (Boston, 1898).
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 323
are trying to secure proper administration of a trust, not by
changing the trustees, but by reducing the powers which the
trustees may exercise.
In the second place, the representatives of the people have The use of
themselves fostered the popularity of the referendum by_ dum^iau^
training the voters in its use. Both the state legislature and ln °r(|inary
• !• &•••••• statutes.
the city council have had to do their work of legislation
under serious handicaps. Apart from their deficient per-
sonnel, they have had to contend with a system of organiza-
tion and procedure which almost absolutely precludes satis-
factory results in the enactment of laws and ordinances. To
be a smooth-working and effective ordinance-making body,
a city council must have both leadership and clearly defined
powers ; but in most cases it has neither. Consequently,
there is opportunity for obstruction, intriguery, and all
manner of log-rolling tactics ; irrelevant issues are liable to
be dragged into matters under consideration; and council-
men often find that the only way to avoid antagonizing some
important section of the electorate is to turn the whole matter
over to the voters for their decision. In both state and
city the referendum has thus become an expedient for the
evasion of responsibility by those legislators whose first care
is for their own political futures. At first a very exceptional
procedure, the practice of passing bills and ordinances with
a referendum clause attached has become a sort of line of least
resistance in the solution of difficult legislative problems.1
The voters have been taught to believe that they alone can
settle such matters satisfactorily; and, having had this
function intrusted to them as a matter of policy, they have
come to demand it as a right.
Despite a prevalent impression to the contrary, direct origin of
the initia-
tive and
1 A good survey of the optional referendum may be found in E. P. Ober- referendum.
holtzer's Referendum, Initiative, and Recall in America (New York, 1911),
eh. viii.
324
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Their early
use in the
adoption of
American
state con-
stitutions.
Extension
to ordinary
legislation.
legislation is not new either in principle or in practice.
The initiative and referendum are new names for very old
institutions ; for, so far as there was legislation at all in early
democracies, it was direct legislation. As agencies of law-
making, both features have existed in Switzerland for a
long time; and even in America they are, as applied to
constitutional matters, among the oldest of indigenous in-
stitutions. As early as 1777 the first constitution of the state
of Georgia gave the people the exclusive right to propose
constitutional amendments; and other eighteenth-century
frames of government, including those of Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, established a sort of po-
tential initiative by reserving to the people the right to give
instructions to their representatives. Massachusetts used
the referendum in the adoption of her first constitution in
1779, and before long the practice of ratifying constitutions
and constitutional amendments in this way became almost
universal throughout the country. But even yet its use
is not everywhere mandatory as regards constitutional
changes, for three states of the Union have altered their
constitutions without popular approval within the last two
decades.1
The use of the referendum as part of the machinery of
ordinary, as distinguished from organic, law-making also,
began at a comparatively early date in American history. In
1825 the legislature of Maryland submitted to the voters of
that state a law providing for the establishment of free
primary schools, and made the measure operative as soon
as the electors should have pronounced their approval of
it. Other states followed the example, till in the course of
1 South Carolina in 1895, Delaware in 1897, and Virginia in 1902.
The best account of the development of the constitutional referendum
Is that given in W. F. Dodd's Revision and Amendment of State
tions (Baltimore, 1910).
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 325
time it became the practice to insert in state constitutions a
provision requiring legislatures to submit to the people all
matters that came within certain categories, as, for instance,
changes in the location of the state capital, alterations
in the suffrage requirements, measures pledging the credit
of the state, and modifications in the system of taxation.
Such classes of matters upon which the will of the electorate
must be ascertained before new laws affecting them can go
into force have steadily increased, until in some states they
embrace a wide range of important subjects.1
From the states the referendum passed to use in the cities. Applies to
Local antagonism to the practice of legislative interference^ c
with city affairs led to the insertion in state constitutions of,
various provisions forbidding changes in city charters with-
out the approval of the voters in the municipalities concerned ;
and even when such provisions were not put into the con-
stitutions, it nevertheless became customary for legislatures
to submit city charters to popular vote before enacting
them into law. In due course the list of matters to which
this policy applied was extended to include not only charters,
but also many other matters of general municipal policy.
When state laws provided changes in municipal boundaries,
or changed the legal status of a municipality, or authorized
the issue of bonds on the credit of the city, or gave some
public-service corporation a franchise, it came to be the
practice of the legislature to attach to such measure a clause
providing for its reference to the municipal voters before
it should become operative. The adoption of the local-
option policy in regard to the sale of intoxicants also carried
with it a large extension of the custom of submitting ques-
tions of local importance to the voters of the municipalities
1 The entire list may be found in F. J. Stimson's Federal and State
Constitutions of the United States (Boston, 1908), especially pp. 279-283,
341-359.
326 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
for their decision.1 It has come to pass, accordingly, that in
many states the municipal voters look upon their privilege.
of deciding such matters as a sort of inalienable right ; and
in some jurisdictions it is actually a right, guaranteed to,
them by provisions in the state constitution.
Early uses The use of foe initiative in the process of ordinary legisla-
hutia^ve. ti°n did no* come until the referendum had gained a firm
footing. Although r^nprnispH «.« a. mpf.hod of changing con-
stitutions, it was rarely used in this domain. In the making
of ordinary laws, however, a field in which it never had overt
recognition until recent years, it was employed somewhat
more commonly; for the initiative sometimes afforded the
only agency through which a certain type of laws could be
secured. When, for example, a state constitution prohibited
the legislature from enacting special laws for individual
cities, there seemed to be only two ways of providing munici-
palities with charters. One was to enact a general law
applying to all cities of whatever size, a system open to
grave practical objections. The other was to provide by
general statute that each city might, under proper safeguards,
propose and adopt its own charter. This plan, commonly
known as the home-rule charter system, brought the initiative
into real activity; for it proceeded on the principle that
a certain number of registered voters should by means of a
petition take the first official step toward the enactment of
a city's organic law.2 The adoption of the home-rule charter
system by Missouri in 1875 may, therefore, be said to have
brought the initiative directly to the front as an agency of
ordinary local legislation. The first establishment of the
institution on a state-wide basis, however, came in South
1 See the chapter on "The Referendum on Local Option Liquor Laws"
in E. P. Oberholtzer's Referendum, Initiative, and Recall in America (New
York, 1911).
1 See above, pp. 61-72.
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 327
Dakota during 1898 ; and since that time it has gained
recognition in ten other states of the Union.1
Hand in hand with the spread of direct-legislation Relation
provisions in these various states has gone the acceptance municipal
of similar arrangements in a large number of American reforms-
cities, where the movement has gained impetus from the
propaganda for the simplification of municipal machinery.
The spread of commission government, for example, has
given the initiative and referendum much of their vogue so
far as the field of local administration is concerned^ To
be more exact, one should perhaps say that each movement
has helped the other. A system of city government by a
small commission appeared, when it was first proposed,
to possess large possibilities of danger through concentration
of final powers in a very few hands ; and it probably would
not have secured approval in so many cities if no departure
had been made from the original Galveston type. But the
sponsors of the commission plan put forward the initiative,
referendum, and recall as instruments whereby the policy of
lodging great powers in a small board could be safeguarded
against possibility of abuse. The Des Moines scheme of
commission government, which has been followed by most
of the cities, is simply the Galveston plan plus the initia-
tive, referendum, and recall, together with provision for
non-partisan methods of nomination. The commission
plan thus gave direct legislation a good deal of momentum
in the realm of city government ; for of the two hundred
or more cities which have adopted it the majority have
accepted direct-legislation provisions as well.
Charter provisions concerning the initiative and referen-
iUtah, 1900; Oregon, 1902; Montana, 1906; Oklahoma, 1907;
Maine, 1908 ; Missouri, 1909 ; Arkansas and Colorado, 1910 ; Arizona
and California, 1911. The exact provisions may be found in C. A. Beard
and B. E. Shultz's Documents on the State-wide Initiative, Referendum, and
Recall (New York, 1912). * See above, ch. xii.
328
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
The ma-
chinery of
direct
legislation
in cities.
dum differ from city to city as to details, but their general
purport is everywhere much the same. They give the voters
of a city the right, by means of a petition bearing a stated
quota of signatures, to propose any ordinance or other local
measure which comes within the charter jurisdiction of the
municipality. The number of signatures varies from ten to
twenty-five per cent of the total electorate, but in some cities
the requirement is expressed in fixed terms and not as a
percentage.1 These petitions are filed with some designated
municipal officer, usually the city clerk, who examines the
signatures and certifies that the number is or is not adequate.
Thereupon the proposal set forth in the petition is submitted
to the voters of the city either at the next regular election
or at a special one called for the purpose. The general
practice is to submit such measures at the regular election,
if there is to be one before long ; but if no regular polling is
scheduled for several months from the date at which a peti-
tion is presented, a special election is usually provided for.
To become operativeT the measure must usually receive a.
majority of the votes polled upon the question, not a majority
of the votes cast in general. This is because, at regular
elections, the number of votes cast for candidates is usually
much larger than the number recorded upon any question
submitted to the electorate ; hence, to require a majority of
the general polled vote would be to put the affirmative of
any specific proposal at a serious disadvantage.
So, too, with provisions in city charters relative to the
protest, or referendum.2 It is usually arranged that no
1 In Memphis, Tennessee, the petition must be signed by 500 voters. A
table showing the percentage requirements in fifty cities is printed in
E. S. Bradford's Commission Government in American Cities (New York,
1911), 223-233.
1 The exact provisions, as they appear in the charters of a large number
of cities, are given in C. A. Beard's Digest of Short Ballot Charters (New
York, 1911).
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 329
ordinance or resolution of the city council (or commission) o>
shall go into effect for a certain period after its enactment. ^?__
Meanwhile a designated percentage of the voters may peti-
tion to have the measure submitted at the polls ; and, if the
petition is found to comply with the requirements, it is
brought forward at either a regular or a special election.
The number of petitioners necessary in the case of routine
ordinances ranges from ten to twenty-five per cent of the
whole electorate; but for ordinances that grant franchise
privileges or authorize the issue of bonds a different require-
ment is frequently provided. Sometimes a smaller percentage
of signatures is stipulated ; or a charter may even require
that such ordinances shall go before the voters without the
filing of any petition, — in other words, that a referendum on
such matters shall be compulsory. In any case, if the
voters pronounce by a majority against an ordinance, it
does not go into effect.
Both the initiative and the referendum have been freely Actual use
employed during the last half-dozen years by several of those tive and'*13
cities in which charter provisions have made their use referendum-
possible. Portland, Oregon, began in 1909 by referring
thirty-five questions to its voters; Denver, Colorado,
followed in 1910 with twenty-one; and during the last two
years a dozen other cities have joined the list, each submitting
from two to twenty projects at the annual election. Subjects
of every sort are brought forward, from important charter
amendments to matters so trivial that they seem hardly
worthy of regulation by special ordinance.1 Sometimes the
question is so simple and so plainly worded that it calls for no
special knowledge on the part of the voters. In other cases
it deals with so complicated a problem and is worded so
1 In Pontiac, Michigan, for example, the voters were last year asked
to decide whether bicycle riding should be permitted upon the city's
sidewalks.
330 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
trickily that it presents a very difficult task to the voter
who has not an intimate acquaintance with the exact facts
of the situation. It is extremely hard to judge from a mere
reading of such ballots just how important are the matters
printed upon them. Many of the questions certainly do
not appear on their face to deal with any broad questions of
municipal policy ; but interpreted in the light of local condi-
tions they may be of much greater account than they seem
to be.1
Data still Notwithstanding the freedom with which the initiative
for general!- &nd referendum have been called into action by many cities
during the last few years, it is not yet safe to make very
broad predictions from the data at hand.2 The tendencies
shown by voters at a time when a system is new to them are
not always the ones which become permanently established.
Discussions concerning the merits and defects of direct
legislation are still largely empirical, and must continue to be
so for some time to come, at least until the system has been
in operation long enough to create some definite traditions.
With an insufficient body of data to work upon, it is
only natural that current ideas as to the future of direct
legislation and its reaction upon the representative system
should differ widely; in fact, there is probably no topic
1 A careful study of the questions submitted at the Portland election
of June, 1911, is embodied in Professor G. H. Haynes's article on "People's
Ruie in Municipal Affairs " in Political Science Quarterly, XXVI. 432-442
(September, 1911).
1 A list of over 100 questions submitted to the voters of twenty Ameri-
can cities during the last three years shows that a large proportion of the
measures proposed by the initiative deal with changes in the general
structure of municipal government or with franchises. Other questions
in the list concern such matters as the widening of a street, the rebuilding
of a bridge, the use of direct primaries, the adoption of a new system of
assessing real estate, the publication of the city's financial reports, the
placing of the city collector under bonds, the relaxation of a rule forbidding
city officials to take municipal contracts, the increase of an appropriation
for street-paving, the building of a city hall, and the fixing of work hours
for city employees.
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 331
of present-day political discussion in regard to which differ-
ences of opinion are more marked, even though characterized
by entire sincerity on both sides.1 One reason for this is
that the direct-legislation propaganda embodies not only a_
policy but a protest. It is in this latter capacity, indeed,
that it makes its strongest appeal in certain quarters ; for it
begins with the assertion that the present machinery of legis-
lation is inadequate and cannot be made satisfactory other
than by a root-and-branch reform.2 This is a proposition
which at once challenges dissent ; for there are many who be-
lieve that ordinance-making by city councils and law-making
by legislatures have not by any means deteriorated to a
point that calls for the application of drastic remedies.
That widespread dissatisfaction with the ordinary methods The condi
of legislation exists in every part of the United States is
scarcely a matter for serious doubt. In the larger cities lation
to remedy
more especially the inefficiency of municipal councils in deal-
ing with the simple problems of legislation which come
before them is so generally acknowledged as to make men
marvel that it should have been tolerated so long. The
only reason why it was tolerated for so many years is be-
cause public opinion permitted itself to be dominated by a
faith in formulas, and hence accepted such features as
the separation of legislative from administrative functions,
the bicameral council, the ward system, the party designa-
tion on municipal ballots, and many other demoralizing
arrangements as inevitable incidents of any system of city
government. During the last ten years, however, popular
1 Cf., for instance, E. P. Oberholtzer's Initiative, Referendum, and Recall
in America (New York, 1911), and D. F. Wilcox's Government by All the
People (New York, 1912).
2 See, for example, the address of Governor Woodrow Wilson on "The
Issues of Reform," printed in the volume of selected articles entitled The
Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (ed. W. B. Munro, New York, 1912),
ch. iii.
332 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
interest in municipal affairs has been growing more active
and more discriminating. It is coming to be intolerant of old
formulas and impatient of slow-working reforms. The
public temper has reached the point of insisting that the
means shall be adjusted to the endf and it seems to care little
whether these means are orthodox or not. For the most part
it finds the old machinery inadequate for the effective expres-
sion of the new consensus, and the result is an impatient
demand for channels through which popular sovereignty
may fully and directly assert itself. When a considerable
element among the voters assumes this attitude, it is idle to
argue that for the flaws of representative democracy the
people are themselves in the last resort to blame. As a
syllogism of political science that is true enough ; but as a
matter of fact it is no more true than is the maxim of prac-
tical politics that the voters will never blame themselves
for a failure to get what they desire.
Popular Public interest in what is going on at the city hall having
wtti?tiiieoid become much more active in every American municipality
machinery. durmg the last f ew years, the shortcomings of the old munici-
pal system have been more apparent, and the electorate has
in many cases awakened to the fact that it has been tolerating
a mere travesty of popular government. Conditions which
have been shown to exist in dozens of municipalities afford
abundant evidence that the people have not been actually
in control of their local representatives, and have not been
getting from them the service that representatives are
supposed to supply. The absolute domination of many
city councils by organized interests, whether political or eco-
nomic, has been established beyond the slightest reasonable
doubt. It would, indeed, be a matter for some surprise if
the situation had turned out otherwise. Under a system
which for so long a period permitted councilmen to be nomi-
nated in party caucuses and elected by wards on ballots de-
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 333
signed at every turn to mislead the voters, there was no good
reason for expecting any better type of councilman than the
sort which most cities obtained. And since these council-
men and other elective officers of city government were set
to do their work under a procedure which rendered all real
localization of responsibility impossible and precluded all
opportunity for the development of effective leadership, the
actual democracy of city government very naturally became,
in perhaps the majority of American cities, little more than
a pleasant fiction. The real work of framing ordinances came
to be performed at the party headquarters, or at clandestine
conferences between a few political leaders and the represent-
atives of public-service corporations, rather than by the
council as a whole.1
The specific remedies for this situation were long ago The milder
pointed out by students of municipal government, but only
within the last ten or twelve years have their reiterated pro-
tests been able to make much impression upon the public
mind. For many years even the plea for the abolition of
party designations upon the municipal ballot came as a voice
crying in the wilderness. It is, in fact, only since about 1900
that whole-hearted attempts have been made to clear the
representative system of the various clogs which have im-
peded its proper working; and it is only within the last half-
dozen years that representative democracy has had a fair
and free trial in any large city of the United States. The
reduction of municipal councils in size, the use of non-partisan
nomination methods, the introduction of the short ballot
without party designations, the simplification of council
procedure, — all these features are essential to popular
control of municipal legislatures; yet cities that possess
charters embodying all of them are still in the minority.
1 Many specific instances illustrating this situation are given in F. C.
Howe's The City, the Hope of Democracy (New York, 1905), ch. vi.
334 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Where these features have gained recognition, the results
have been sufficient to warrant the hope that most of the
unresponsiveness to public opinion which has characterized
municipal government in this country can be eradicated
without recourse to direct legislation. But piecemeal reform
takes time and requires patience, more of both, perhaps,
than the voters of many cities seem in their present temper
ready to supply. In the last analysis, the movement for
installing jhe initiative and referendum as normal agencies of
local legislation is an evidence of growing public impatience
with all measures of municipal reform which come in homoeo-
pathic doses. In this respect public opinion seems to have
moved forward more rapidly during the last ten years than
it did during the preceding fifty.
The first argument in favor of direct legislation rests,
accordingly, upon the allegation that existing methods of^
framing municipal policy secure unsatisfactory results;
that representatives do not and cannot under present
arrangements represent the wishes of those who go through
the form of electing them ; and that this situation is not
likely to be fundamentally altered save by piercing the vitals
i. Repre- of the old system. To make representative democracy
government fulfil its professed functions, it is urged, the electorate
mad°tbe should use the weapons which direct democracy supplies.
gut the sponsors of the initiative and referendum do not rest
their whole case, or even a large part of it, upon this line
of argument. They go much farther, by claiming for their
proposals many positive merits which do not connect
themselves with the faults of a purely representative system.
They lay stress, for instance, upon the educative value of_
direct-legislation machinery. By means of initiative peti-
tions, they tell us, a spirit of legislative enterprise is pro-
moted among the voters ; men are encouraged to formulate
projects of their own, and to discuss the projects of others
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 335
as soon as they are broached. Proposals emanating from
any quarter are sure to get their due share of public
attention, and a fair hearing as well. If the city's interests
often suffer from the apathy of all but the professional politi-
cians, if the great body of municipal voters display little inter-
est in the making of ordinances or the granting of franchises
or the incurring of indebtedness, this state of things has been
brought about, we are told, by the feeling of utter helplessness
which the workings of the old system have ingrained in the
public mind.
To some extent, at least, this line of reasoning leads to a Awakes
proposition that can adduce much evidence in its behalf. est in local
Without doubt the enlightened element in the citizenship of meaaures-
many municipalities is to-day denuded of all interest in_
city administration through sheer discouragement. Public-
spirited men have so often endeavored to make their reason-
able projects materialize into action, they have so often
been able to demonstrate that popular sentiment is with
them, and yet have so regularly failed to make any sub-
stantial headway against well-intrenched politicians, that
many of them the country over have withdrawn in disgust
from all participation in the affairs of their own communi-
ties, thereby abandoning the field to those who are of all ele-
ments in the electorate the least prolific of progressive ideas.
It may be suggested that those who thus quit the arena
are deficient in civic patriotism; but, even if that charge
be true, it does not offer any solution of the problem.
One can hardly expect to turn the indifference of any elec-
tprai^lement into active interest by taunting it with a lack.
of fighting spirit when it declines to wage political warfare
upon grossly unequal terms. Men as a rule put forth ideas,
and come out actively in support of them, only when there
is a chance that these ideas may some day be carried to
fruition. Such chance, it is claimed, the machinery of
336 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
direct legislation guarantees. Political thought and discus-
sion can be stimulated among all classes by the assurance
that any public project, whatever its nature, can be sentenced
to oblivion only by the direct verdict of the people. The
way to get the voter interested in measures, we are told, is to
ask for his opinion upon measures, not for his opinion upon
men. The way to stimulate him to active participation
in the framing of municipal policy is to submit all important
proposals to him in person, and not to some one who merely
holds his proxy. The way to educate him in political
science is to give him tasks which cannot be performed
properly without knowledge. The educative value of the
ordinary ballot, where the suffrage has been granted to all,
has been so fully demonstrated both in America and elsewhere
that it is nowadays rarely questioned. To enhance this
value by making the ballot a more comprehensive political
catechism is what the friends of direct legislation are now
trying to do. At all events, they urge, the initiative and
referendum are agencies through which the voter can be made
to realize that he is a sovereign in fact as well as in name,
that his responsibility is ultimate and cannot be shifted,
and that there are no concealed obstacles to the progress of
any proposal which he may wish to put forth as his own.1
HOW pub- In harmony with the stress laid upon the educative value
secured. °f direct democracy, some of the states and cities which have
adopted the initiative and referendum provide for the print-
ing and distribution of information in regard to the various
questions submitted to the voter upon his ballot. This
information is issued in pamphlet form, and precautions are
taken to insure the publication of arguments both for and
1 For a full discussion of this feature, see the paper on " Direct Legisla-
tion" by Professor L. J. Johnson, printed in the volume of selected articles
entitled The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (ed. W. B. Munro, New
York, 1912), ch. vi.
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 337
against the projected measure, equal space being allowed
to advocates and opponents. A copy of the pamphlet,
which thus becomes a symposium of views, is mailed to every
enrolled voter, in the expectation that he will give it study
and thereby put himself in a position to render an intelligent
verdict at the polls. In addition to these official pamphlets
and supplementary to them, various city organizations,
such as good government associations or voters' leagues,
put forth literature on their own behalf with a view to giving
the voter additional guidance.1 Through these various
channels much information concerning the measures to be
submitted at the polls is literally forced ^pnn the voters. Cfl/X 1(
It is of course not improbable that, notwithstanding all
this pamphleteering, a great many of them will remain un-
informed through sheer inertia ; yet it will hardly be denied
that the majority of those who constitute the electorate are
likely to know more about mooted questions of public policy
if they are provided with all this controversial literature
than if they had no such facilities at all. There ought to
be no doubt in the minds of those who have watched the
workings of direct legislation in Western cities during the
last few years that this system does foster public interest
in even the details of legislative projects; and such public
interest cannot be without some educative value. But
whether this interest will wane as the system loses its novelty,
and whether it, after all, achieves its real end by equipping
the voters with information which they can and do use
profitably, are questions that cannot be fairly answered
at this stage of experience with the new machinery.
It is sometimes urged that the use of direct methods of 3. it
increases
popular
1 A good example of this type of political literature — a circular issued respect for
by the Taxpayers' League of Portland, Oregon, for the city election of thelaw'
June, 1909 — is reprinted in the Proceedings of the National Municipal
League for 1909, pp. 320-325.
z
338 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
legislation would increase popular respect for the law. One,
reason why people often manifest a deficient regard for rules
of conduct prescribed either by statute or by ordinance may
be found in the fact that many of such regulations do not
have the force of public opinion behind them, but have been
framed in the interest of some influential class among the
electorate* When this is the case, it is very difficult to en-
force such rules properly. The close and necessary relation
between law and public opinion in all well-ordered com-
munities is something not to be gainsaid ; it is, therefore,
indispensable that popular sympathy should be clearly in
line with the spirit of an enactment if the efficient adminis-
tration of it is to be insured. Measures put upon the
statute-book by means of the initiative and referendum
would, of course, bear on their face the stamp of specific public
indorsement, and from this very fact, it is contended, might
be more willingly observed by the people. Respect for the
law has also suffered somewhat by reason of the fact that so
many measures enacted in the ordinary way bear ample testi-
mony to the bad faith of those who were ostensibly respon-
sible for their passage. The prevalence of the so-termed
" jokers," or cunning verbal contrivances for defeating the
professed purpose of a law, has created a general impression
that legislators are too much given to the chicanery of taking
away with the left hand what they have just given with the
right. Measures proposed by initiative petition may some-
times be crude, it is admitted : but they may at least be^
trusted for their frankness and good faith. On this point it
is interesting to compare the laws that have been adopted
during the last few years under the new system with corre-
sponding measures earlier enacted by the legislature. Those
does* not wno *a^e ^e ^rouble *° make this comparison will readily
result in ill- discover that, for clearness of phraseology, conciseness, and
statutes, general conformance to the accepted rules of legal drafting,
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 339
the products of direct legislation are almost uniformly su-
perior to those obtained through the ordinary channels of
representative law-making.1 It has been too frequently
taken for granted that proposals which originate with the
voters will be put into shape for the ballot by amateurs in
the art of legal phrasing. It would probably be more in
keeping with the fact, however, to say that this is just what
happens in the case of most measures which originate in
representative bodies. The councilman or the council
committee that undertakes to frame an ordinance will with
reasonable certainty make a botch of the task. Prudent
councilmen seek the expert aid of the city's law department
in such matters; and those who are interested in securing
the popular adoption of measures initiated by petition take
similar precautions. The chief difference seems to be that
the legal skill employed in the latter case is superior to that
commonly found in a city solicitor's office.
Among the objections urged against the system of direct Arguments
legislation in municipal government three or four come for- j-^f*
ward most frequently. One is the assertion that the system legislation,
is antagonistic to the basic principles of representative gov-
ernment,2 that the regular use of it would deprive the council-
men of all due sense of responsibility, and the result would
Boon manifest itself in a further deterioration of the council's
ordinary work; that it would, furthermore, eliminate the
mayoral veto, and in taking away this power would free the
mayor from all responsibility in the most important matters
1 That "the atrocious grammar and painful obscurities to be found in
the texts . . . are, with few exceptions, [in] legislative, not initiative,
measures," is the conclusion of those who have gone carefully through a
great deal of this material. See C. A. Beard and B. E. Shultz, Documents
on the Slate-wide Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (New York, 1912), p. vi.
2 See the article on "Representative as against Direct Government" by
Congressman Samuel W. McCall, in Atlantic Monthly, October, 1911 ;
and the reply by Senator Jonathan Bourne, Jr., ibid., January, 1912.
340 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
i. it impairs brought before the city government. Poorer councilmen and
of represent- POOrer mayors, it is pre^ififrHJ) wrmlrl h
ativeflt come. Now, this is an objection which cannot be lightly
set aside ; for, if there is any maxim that American political
experience seems to establish, it is the doctrine which closely
relates the quality of elective officials to the degree of final
power committed to them. For a half-century or more the
decline in the personnel of municipal councils has gone stei)
by step with the reduction of the local powers intrusted to
these bodies. When the selection of incompetent officials
does not bring substantial penalties upon the people in the
shape of heavier tax-rates, or of increased indebtedness, or
in some other visible form, men of such stamp are very
likely to find their way into office; for municipal councils
cannot be shorn of their powers without the result showing
itself in a slackened popular interest at council elections
and a consequent increase in the ease with which men of
small caliber can secure places at the council-board. That,
at any rate, has been the history of the American city coun-
cil during the last fifty years ; and the chief reason why this
body to-day attracts to its membership so few men of any
capacity or public experience or business standing is because
it has in many cities ceased to be a coordinate branch of
the municipal government.1 Deprived of its more important
administrative functions and restricted to sundry tasks of
minor legislation, the average city council no longer attracts
the type of man that it drew into its membership a genera-
tion or two ago.
importance Now, the policy of direct legislation proposes that all the
queetion. organs of contemporary city government shall have their
final authority diminished still more; and if this further
depletion of powers possessed by local authorities would not
conduce to a further decline in the personnel of city gov-
1 See above, pp. 189-190.
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 341
eminent, then five or six decades of political experience have
been without their lessons. It is well enough to say that the
initiative and referendum concern themselves with measures
and have nothing to do with men, but in local government
measures and men cannot be so easily swept into separate
orbits. The kind of man that the voters will elect must
depend somewhat upon the measures which he is expected
to consider in his official capacity. All public measures
are human products and reflect the quality of those who
give them official adoption. How far direct legislation would
react upon the powers and the personnel of elective officials
becomes, accordingly, a question of very great importance
unless one is prepared to eliminate the representative
system altogether.
But, it is contended, the direct merits of the new system The answer
in the way of positive legislation would in any event be found argument,
to outweigh this objection. What representative democracy
might lose, direct democracy would gain ; for the real test qf
efficient legislation in a democracy is its popularity. It
matters little how patiently or how honestly a statute or an
ordinance may be framed by elected representatives of the
people ; it is not a good measure unless it embodies what the
greater number of the people desire. Judged from that
point of view, there have been a great many unsatisfactory
ordinances in American cities. Who would urge, for ex-
ample, that ordinances granting franchises in the city streets
have in any large measure reflected the wishes of the com-
munity ? This indifference to public sentiment, it is alleged,
results not only from the fact that city councils are deficient
in men of representative character, but from the additional
fact that the councilmen have in many instances failed to
apprehend the real functions of a representative. They
have not sought diligently to ascertain the sentiment of the
voters, and they have not always responded to it when they
342 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
saw its drift well enough. The only ordinances that can
be trusted to mirror public opinion with entire fidelity are,
accordingly, those which the people themselves frame and
enact directly. These, we are told, will constitute repre-
sentative legislation in the true sense. In other words,
the choice is asserted to be between representative legisla-
tion secured directly and unrepresentative legislation ob-
tained by the old indirect channels.
where the The flaw in arguments of this type can usually be found
in the ill-grounded assumption that the popular will is identi-
cal with whatever the ballot-box may disclose under any
circumstances, a delusion which is at least as old as the
age of Rousseau. The decision of a majority of a minority
among the voters ("which is what a referendum very often
secures) is not an expression of the p^n^ra! will- To allege
tnat it would be a true expression if substantially all the
voters would go to the polls, study the questions put before
them, and render a judicious verdict, does not in any way
alter the fact. As well might one reply to criticisms upon
the representative system by alleging that the agencies
which it provides would invariably insure a genuine ex-
pression of popular desires in the way of legislation if the
voters would only select the best men of the community,
and if these men would only remain unswervingly faithful
to the trust imposed in them. Representative and direct
legislation merely use different machinery for securing the
same professed ends. In neither case is the machinery
able, in actual practice, to show much approach to perfec-
tion. Under either system the results obtained depend so
largely upon the political habits and traditions of the elec-
torate that to leave these things out of account is to neglect
the key to the whole problem.
It has frequently been asserted that the presumable eager-
ness of persons to put their names upon anything that is
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 343
in the nature of a petition will make it easy for hobby-riders 2. it
to obtain, at public expense and inconvenience, considera-
tion for all sorts of profitless measures ; and it is true that ?f Prpmot-
ing class
some Western cities have not been at all careful in the use legislation.
of the initiative during the first few years following its es-
tablishment. As every element in a community has its
own axe to grind, the quest for signatures naturally gets all
the momentum of a selfish propaganda. If the proposal
has to do with the immediate interests of any organized fac-
tion, such as a labor union, a public-service corporation, a
political machine, or a racial or religious element, the machin-
ery for setting an initiative petition in motion is readily
at hand. If, however, it touches the pockets or the preju-
dices of none of these, but merely relates to the general
good of the everyday citizen who has no particular organiza-
tion to champion his cause, the task of promoting direct
legislation is liable to prove a difficult one involving con-
siderable expense. Whether a system which thus puts a
premium upon projects that interest an organized portion
of the electorate and a discount upon the advancement of
those which affect closely only the unaffiliated citizen can
ultimately lead to better things in local legislation, is a
question well worth raising.1
If the privilege of initiating measures by popular petition 3. it puts
is used freely, it means either that special elections must
1 An interesting commentary on this point is afforded by the actual
workings of the Boston system of nominating municipal candidates by
petitions bearing 5000 names. Such petitions, when circulated among
city employees, or at the meetings of labor unions, or among those who
are in the employ of public-service corporations, soon gather their necessary
quota. Likewise, organizations that are ready to pay five or ten cents
per signature can secure men to make canvass for names. But when
a candidate has neither an organization nor funds to help him, he finds the
requirement of 5000 signatures (which is less than five per cent of the reg-
istered electorate) a task of greater difficulty than most men would sup-
pose it to be.
voter.
344
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
be held at frequent intervals or that the regular annual
ballot must bear a formidable list of queries. In the first
case the vote is liable to be so small that a majority of it
will not be a true index of popular convictions. This fea--_
ture has been characteristic of special elections everywhere..
Voters will
not person-
ally inform
themselves
concerning
questions.
n the other hand, if many questions are submitted to the
voters at the regular elections, the task thereby imposed upon
them is likely to prove too intricate and burdensome to be
carefully performed. On the eve of an election the average
voter gives just about so much time and thought to political
matters. If he has thirty questions to attend to, he is apt
to give no more of his consideration to the lot than he would
give to three. More than likely, too, he will adopt the prac-
tice of turning for guidance to those organizations with which
he is affiliated, whether these be political machines, labor
unions, or business bodies. This, at any rate, is what
voters have already shown themselves ready to do in cities
that have put numerous questions on the ballot. In such
circumstances the real voting is done not by the voters, but
by the political committees, the taxpayers' leagues, the
labor locals, and the other associations which instruct their
respective members how to vote. These bodies issue cir-
culars containing categorical directions which the voters
are expected to take with them to the polls. In one case
the politicians provided each of their followers with a sheet
of limp cardboard cut the exact size of the ballot, with holes
punched in it at appropriate places. The voter, by laving
this card over his ballot and marking a cross in each hole,
thereby recorded himself just as the politicians desired, and
that without even reading his ballot-paper. This is no
doubt an extreme instance ; but it proves, at any rate, that
voters do not need to study the questions submitted to them
unless they desire to do so_. Indeed, the experience of Ameri-
can cities as regards the docility of large elements among the
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 345
voters scarcely justifies the hope that electoral independence
will ever be secured by means of a system which does not
virtually compel it. Much has been said as to the way in
which the old ballot, by its plethora of candidates, dis-
couraged independent voting; and the short ballot has
been aggressively, and rather successfully, put before us as
a means of making representative democracy efficient by
the removal of this handicap.1 But will it avail much if, in Relation of
taking off the names of thirty or forty candidates, we re- latfon tcfthe
place them by an equal number of set questions ? A ballot
which asks for more information than the average voter is
able to supply intelligently and of his own resources is un-
wieldy. Moreover, it makes little difference whether the
information concerns candidates or matters of policy; the
ballot is not a satisfactory one if iti encourages the voter to
accept directions as to how he shall mark it.
It has been pointed out, furthermore, that a referendum 4. The
is no more than a call for the yeas and nays, and that a "best so™
categorical answer to any general question is rarely a true
one. The new system assumes that all voters are ready to expression
••••••-••• " " of popular
record themselves definitely for or against a project in exactly opinion.
the form in which it appears on their ballots. This is far
from being the case, however. Few men hold unqualified
opinions on great questions of public policy, and those who
do are apt to be the ones least given to serious thought upon
such matters. When a majority of the electorate rejects a
proposal at the polls, this does not necessarily mean that a
majority is opposed to such proposal in its general outlines.
More than likely it means that the majority contains many
who find objections to the details of the project. With
a little compromise the measure might have secured
1 See, for example, C. A. Beard on "The Ballot's Burden" in Political
Science Quarterly, December, 1909; and R. S. Childs, Short Ballot
Principles (Boston, 1911).
346 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
a verdict in its favor. Now, this opportunity for
compromise, for discrimination between essentials and
details, and for the elaboration of measures which seem
to serve the greatest good of the greatest number, is
just what representative machinery provides and the
mechanism of direct legislation fails to supply. We are
often told that the orthodox ballot is deficient in that it
asks the voter to pass upon candidates in a narrow
way, — that it asks him to designate his first choice for an
office, and no more. The preferential ballot is, therefore,
urged into use because it records all shades of opinion among
the voters, because it gives them an opportunity to say
something more than yes or no to the claims of candidates.
But is a simple cross in the affirmative or the negative col-
umn any less open to this criticism when set opposite
a question than when marked against the name of a
candidate? Electoral opinions vary as much in regard to
measures as they do in regard to candidates. The objection
made to the categorical ballot, that the technical result of
the poll may be far from indicating the actual attitude of
the voters, seems to apply with equal force no matter
what the purport of the ballot may be.
5. Voters A study of the results of municipal referenda in America
actuated by shows that prejudice and capri™ nft.Pn takft t% pWg of
ere°udice judgment in determining the action of voters at the polls.
or caprice. It is well known to politicians who have kept closely in
touch with such matters that the affirmative side of any
question submitted to the voters has a distinct advantage
over the negative. Hence there has sometimes been a good
deal of jockeying between the supporters and the opponents
of a question as to the form of phrasing it.1 Just why
1 An interesting illustration of this feature was afforded in a well-known
New England city at the election of 1911. The voters were asked on their
ballots whether they were in favor of the erection of a city hospital. By a
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 347
the voters should display this rather curious illustration
of electoral caprice it is not altogether easy to explain, but
those who best know voters and their ways readily testify
to its invariable existence. The affirmative seems,, in fact,
to have a bonus similar to that enioved by the candi-_
date whose name appears at the top of the ballot. Nor is
this the only capricious tendency which experience with the
municipal referendum discloses. It is well known, for in- Some
stance, that voters carry with them into the polling-booth
a substantial antipathy to public-service corporations and
capitalistic interests in general. The average voter is apt
to register his voice against anything that looks like a con-
cession to this quarter. A cry against special privilege in
any of its forms is one pf fihp *>«>«"' Q°+. f^ raisef and when
raised it usually has considerable effect. It may be, of
course, that this anti-corporation prejudice among the voters
is the fruit of corporate misdoings, that corporate interests
by their reckless disregard of public opinion have brought
it upon themselves. But even if this be true, it does not
alter the fact that prejudice exists, nor does it change the
principle that government by prejudice is not safe govern-
ment. It must be remembered that, where large property
interests are concerned, measures which seem to be legis-
lative in form are often adjudicative in effect. Without
the tempering hand of the state upon it, the free use of
direct legislation in cities might well tend to render property
rights insecure.
majority of about 800 they replied in the affirmative. It was originally
arranged that they should also be asked whether they would authorize
the borrowing of funds for the purpose "outside the debt limit." The
opponents of the project, however, managed to have the wording of the
second question changed so as to read "within the debt limit." As the
city's borrowing capacity within the debt limit was already about ex-
hausted, the affirmative of the proposition thus stated an obvious impossi-
bility. By this device the voters were almost led to retract in their answer
to the second question the decision which they had passed upon the first.
348 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
What The two fields in which American cities have had most
experience experience with the referendum are the regulation of the
thTmatter ncluor trade and the borrowing of money. The application
of referenda. of the local-option policy to the sale of intoxicants usually
means that the voters of the town or city must each year de-
cide directly at the polls the question whether licenses shall
or shall not be granted in the municipality. This question
is so comparatively simple that, barring radical changes in the
composition of the electorate, the answer of the voters to it
ought not to be different from year to year if the votes re-
corded upon it really represented the matured convictions
of those who cast them. But the gyrations of local policy
in this field have been so marked that they are commonly
spoken of as "waves" of prohibition or anti-prohibition
sentiment. If any branch of local policy has been the play-
thing of passing gusts in the public temper, it is that which
relates to the regulation of the liquor traffic. In the matter
of municipal borrowing, in the second place, a large experi-
ence in city affairs has proved the unreliability of the refer-
endum as a means of securing prudent action. The partial-
ity of the voters for measures that propose to pay for public
improvements by loans rather than out of current taxes
has been demonstrated time and again the country over.1
It is only natural that men should desire to have present
conveniences paid for by future generations; hence, when
1 "At a recent election on the question of borrowing a large sum of
money in Philadelphia, to be applied to improvements in different parts
of the city, purely local and selfish considerations made themselves felt.
Those parts of the city which were to be directly benefited by the loan
returned large majorities for it, while in other sections it was viewed with
curious indifference. Not a few electors, upon being asked how they
had voted on the proposition, explained in all seriousness that they had
cast their ballots in favor of the bill because they believed it would put
more money in circulation and give the poor a chance to obtain some of
it." — E. P. OBERHOLTZER, The Referendum, Initiative, and Recall in Amer-
ica (New York, 1911), 282.
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 349
the voters are asked whether they will themselves pay the
cost of a public improvement or let their grandchildren do
it, their answer is in most cases not difficult to forecast.
It used to be thought that, since municipal councils are apt
to be prodigal of the city's credit, the necessity of submitting
all loan proposals to the people for their ratification would
prove a useful safeguard against unnecessary borrowing.
As a matter of fact, however, this requirement has afforded
no security of any account; if anything, it has rather fa-
vored undue borrowing by making no one responsible
for it.
Nor do the foregoing examples exhaust the list of matters
in regard to which voters have shown themselves prone to
be actuated by passing waves of opinion, or by purely selfish
motives not in the ultimate interest of the community,
or by simple prejudice or sheer apathy. Every one knows,
for example, the lenient attitude which the electorate takes
toward those who hold places on the city's pay-roll. For
securing higher pay, fewer hours of labor, and more favor-
able terms of service the referendum has proved itself a
very useful agency. The public feels ill-inclined to stand
out against the demands which come from its own employees.
That is why policemen, firemen, and others who press their
demands upon the city council are usually willing that
the matter should be submitted to the voters. In many
cases, too, the councilmen are no less willing ; for by shifting
their own responsibility upon the people in this way they
are able to escape the odium which is certain to come from
one quarter if the demands are granted and from another if
they are refused. Theco-
When one comes to balance the various merits and faults various
of the initiative and referendum as summed up in the fore- arguments
for and
going pages, one finds that much depends upon the indi- against
• in •» /r i i i • i i T •• direct legis-
viduar s point of view. Men hold widely divergent opinions, iation.
350
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
for example, concerning the extent to which representative
machinery in local government has fallen short of what can
reasonably be required of it; yet every man's attitude
toward direct legislation will depend, to a large degree, upon
the opinions which he has formed on this question. Much
also depends upon individual temperament. Those who
have great confidence in what the masses of the voters can
do, even without leadership and under difficult circum-
stances, will not be awed by practical objections to direct-
legislation methods ; but it is an interesting fact that those
who have had most to do with political affairs are not, as a
rule, sharers in this feeling of great confidence. Since
psychology is an inductive science, its application to people
in the mass can only be understood by a careful and pro-
longed observation of the electorate when it acts as an
individual answering yes or no to its political catechism at
the polls. On this point the next decade is likely to teach
us a great deal.
Linked in contemporary discussion with the initiative and
the referendum is the administrative weapon known as the
recall. This may be defined as an agency through which an
official may be removed from his post before the end of his
term. Although long in existence in some of the Swiss
cantons, the institution is novel in America, having first
made its appearance in the Populist platforms of two or three
decades ago under the somewhat forbidding name of "the
imperative mandate." It first gained official recognition
on this side of the Atlantic in the Los Angeles charter of
1903 ; and it has since made its way into the constitutions
of two or three states, into the general laws of several more,
and into the charters of more than one hundred cities, most
of them municipalities that have adopted the commission
form of city government.
In practically all the cities that have established the re-
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 351
call procedure the provisions relating to it are about the Machinery
same.1 Ordinarily it applies to elective officers only, but "au. e
in some cities it extends its scope to appointive officials as
well. The movement to recall an officer is always begun by
the preparation of a petition which sets forth charges against
him. This document, when it has been signed by the re-
quired quota of qualified voters, is presented to some desig-
nated municipal officer, usually the city clerk. The quota
necessary is from fifteen to twenty-five per cent of the total
number of votes polled at the last election; in a few cities
it is even higher. The signatures having been verified and
counted and all other requirements found to have been fully
complied with, a recall election is ordered. It is ordinarily
provided that the name of the official whose removal is
sought shall appear on the ballot unless he requests the
contrary. Other candidates for the office may be put in
nomination by the usual methods. So far as polling-places,
ballots, and general arrangements are concerned, the recall
election is conducted like any regular polling. Unless the
official who has been holding the office gets the highest num-
ber of votes among the several candidates, he is recalled;
that is, he vacates his post forthwith, and the balance of
his term is filled out by the candidate who does receive the
highest vote. To prevent an abuse of the recall procedure,
it is often provided that no removal petition may be filed
until an officer has been at least six months in his post, and
1 The chief exception to the general rule is Boston, which by the char-
ter amendments of 1909 established a modified recall system in con-
nection with the mayoralty (see above, pp. 213-214). The question of
recalling the mayor appeared on the ballots in November, 1911 ; but the
majority needed to effect the mayor's removal (more than one-half of the
total registered vote) was not forthcoming. As the total registered vote
in Boston is about 110,000, it would have taken 55,000 affirmative votes to
recall the mayor. The actual result stood : affirmative 37,262, negative
32,501.
352
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Arguments
in its favor.
1. It keeps
officials re-
sponsive to
popular
sentiment.
that thereafter a petition may not be set in motion more
than once in any year.1
The chief argument put forth in favor of the recall is its
reputed efficacy as a means of retaining popular control over
men installed in public office. Its existence is a standing
reminder to the office-holder that he is the servant and not
the master of the people. It compels every public officer
to view each of his own acts in the light of the effect which
it will have upon the voters at large. The recall provision
is based upon the idea that the relation between the voters
and the office-holder is that of principal and agent, and may
logically be terminated at any time by either party. An
unbroken responsiveness of all officers to that public opinion
which is supposed to govern their acts (but too often does
not) is what the sponsors of the recall claim for it.2
Now, it is hardly to be doubted that an official who is sub-
ject to the recall at any time is likely to be more deferential
to the wishes of the electorate than one who can count upon
serving out his full term, no matter how unpopular his ser-
vice may be. The deference of the office-seeker to public
sentiment is proverbial ; the change which often comes over
the successful candidate after he gets firmly seated in his
office is also a commonplace of American political life. It is
the aim of the recall provision to prevent this change in atti-
tude, to keep the official in that frame of mind which he pro-
fessed as a candidate. No doubt the recall can accomplish
this, if anything can ; but that is not the only point at issue.
The main question is whether responsiveness to public
1 The detailed provisions, as applied in various cities may be found
in C. A. Beard's Digest of Short Ballot Charters (New York, 1911). A
summary of the laws and of the judicial decisions is given in Comparative
Legislation Bulletin, No. 12, issued by the Wisconsin Free Library Com-
mission. This summary is, however, complete until December, 1907,
only.
2 A statement of the arguments in favor of the recall may be found in
D. F. Wilcox's Government by All the People (New York, 1912), ch. xxiv-xxvi.
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 353
opinion secured in this way is not gained at the cost of the
officer's efficiency in the discharge of his duties. When an
official has almost no other function than that of representing
his constituents (and that seems to be the only rational office
of councilmen elected from wards), the recall makes a strong
case in its own favor. But there are many city officers upon
whom is laid not only the duty of reflecting in their acts the
will of those who choose them, but a great deal more than
that. In all its administrative departments the city needs
skill and judgment no less than it needs a responsive attitude ;
it is, indeed, upon the former qualities that the emphasis
ought to be laid. As a matter of fact, however, the possi-
bility of recalling an administrative officer at any time lays
the emphasis elsewhere : it puts popularity before efficiency.
It may, of course, be contended that there is really no dif-
ference between the two, that an official who shows skill and
judgment in the performance of his duties is always respond-
ing to the wishes of a majority among the voters. Were
this a true statement of the situation as it actually exists
in most American cities to-day, the arguments in favor of
the recall would be well-nigh unanswerable. But it re-
quires very little contact with municipal politics to con-
vince one that the interests of the city as they may appear
to a competent official are very far from being always the
same thing as the wishes, whims, or emotions of the voters.
The chief weakness of the recall in relation to administra-
tive officers is that it puts the emphasis at the wrong point.
It is an entire negation of the principle which led to the
rilling of administrative posts by appointment rather than
by election.
An advantage frequently claimed for the recall is that it 2. it permits
permits the lengthening of official terms without exposing
a city to the danger of establishing an administrative bu-
reaucracy. The practice of giving short terms to executive
2A
354 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
officers has been one of the weak spots in American mu-
nicipal government. It points to one of the chief reasons for
the failure to develop sound traditions in local adminis-
tration. It has proved a barrier to the use of experts in the
city's service, and finds its only rational justification in the
assumed necessity of holding to direct popular account all
those who occupy public posts. If, therefore, this accounta-
bility can by means of the recall be reconciled with long
terms of office, the expedient will have much to commend
How far it. But the degree of service which the recall provision can
tage can&be render in this direction will depend partly upon the ease
realized. with which it can be invoked to remove an officer, and
partly upon the motives which, as a rule, actuate the voters
at recall elections. If proposals for removal can be put un-
der way very easily, and if partisan motives determine the
decision of the electorate, the outcome will be the ousting
of officers with little regard to the way in which they have
performed their administrative duties. If, on the other
hand, the electorate develops the conviction that men should
not be recalled except for clear inefficiency or dereliction,
the recall may provide a safeguard without impairing official
security of tenure. One of the notable defects of the short
official term is its tendency to make public officers spend
too much of their time and thought upon politics. It has
forced them to do everything with an eye to their own re-
appointment or reelection. With the possibility of a recall
election always on the horizon, would this situation be im-
proved by any formal extension of official terms? The
answer to this question depends wholly upon the policy which
the voters develop in relation to the recall ; and until more
facts are available this is not a matter upon which one can
safely venture any prediction.1
1 As yet the recall has been used in less than a dozen instances. In Los
Angeles it has been called into operation twice since its establishment in
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 355
Popular election as a method of getting capable men into Arguments
administrative positions has not found its efforts crowned recall!
with success either in America or elsewhere. Least of all
has it proved satisfactory in cities. Yet most of the objec-
tions that may be urged against this system as a means
of securing qualified officers may be urged against it as a
means of removing those who are not competent, unless
it be assumed that voters are governed by different motives
in the respective matters of selection and removal. When
one remembers, moreover, that the question of recalling an
officer is not put before the electorate as a simple proposition
to be determined upon its merits, but is almost always linked
up with the query as to whether the voters would favor some
other aspirant for the office, one sees little reason to hope
that electoral tendencies at recall elections will differ greatly
1903, in one case to remove a member of the city council for having voted
to award a contract for city printing in a way that was displeasing to the
majority of the voters in the ward which he represented, in the other case
to secure the removal of the mayor. The mayor, however, tendered his
resignation before the recall election could be brought about. San Ber-
nardino, California, removed two councilmen in 1907. In Dallas, Texas,
the members of the school board were recalled in 1909 ; in Seattle, Wash-
ington, the mayor was recalled in 1911, and his removal was followed in
the same year by an abortive attempt to recall his successor. The
mayor and two commissioners were recalled in Tacoma in 1911 ; and
an attempt to remove the mayor and the whole council of Huron, South
Dakota, failed at the polls in the same year. In several other munici-
palities as, for example, in Des Moines, Iowa, the use of the recall has
been threatened as a means of securing the enactment of various local
measures. For data on these matters, see the chapters on "The Recall in
Los Angeles" and "The Recall in Seattle," printed in the volume of
selected articles entitled The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (ed.
W. B. Munro, New York, 1912); H. S. Gilbertson's paper on "Con-
servative Aspects of the Recall," in National Municipal Review, I. 204-211
(April, 1912) ; and the article by J. D. Barnett on "The Operation of the
Recall in Oregon," in American Political Science Review, VI. 41-53 (February,
1912). There is a chapter on the recall in E. P. Oberholtzer's Referendum,
Initiative, and Recall in America (New York, 1911), and several chapters
are devoted to it in D. F. Wilcox's Government by All the People (New
York, 1912).
356 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
from those commonly displayed at ordinary pollings. This
is another matter in which everything hinges upon the
sort of traditions developed. A somewhat rapid develop-
ment is now in process ; and upon the ultimate product will
depend, in large measure, the usefulness which the recall
can display as an addition to the machinery of American
city government.
REFERENCES
A comprehensive bibliography, including not only books but pamphlets
and magazine articles, was issued by the Library of Congress in 1911 under
the title Select List of References on the Initiative, Referendum, and Recatt.
In the same year the Legislative Reference Department of the Ohio State
Library published a useful pamphlet called Initiative and Referendum (ed.
C. B. Galbreath, Columbus, 1911), containing the texts of constitutional
provisions relating to direct legislation, together with a well-assorted list
of printed material bearing upon different phases of the subject. Two of
the Comparative Legislation Bulletins issued by the Wisconsin Free Library
Commission (Nos. 12 and 21) contain digests of the laws and judicial de-
cisions, with brief lists of references.
Material illustrating the way in which provision for direct legislation
is made in the constitutions and statutes may be found in C. A. Beard and
B. E. Shultz's Documents on the State-wide Initiative, Referendum, and
Recall (New York, 1911). The same feature in its relation to municipal
government may be studied in C. A. Beard's Digest of Short Ballot Charters
(New York, 1911). Many interesting and useful documents are also in-
cluded in Senator R. L. Owen's Code of the People's Rule (61 Cong., 2 sess.,
Senate Doc. No. 603).
Two volumes of selected readings upon direct legislation and the recall
are The Initiative, Referendum, and Recall (ed. W. B. Munro, New York,
1912) and Articles on the Initiative and Referendum (ed. E. M. Phelps,
Minneapolis, 1909). These publications bring together practically all
the arguments for and against direct democracy that have been presented
from any quarter during the last few years.
Among books dealing with the subject in a historical and critical way
the best is E. P. Oberholtzer's Referendum, Initiative, and Recall in America
(New York, 1911). A much less useful work, which nevertheless con-
tains some interesting historical discussions, is C. S. Lobingier's People's
Law (New York, 1909). The arguments for direct legislation and the recall
are vigorously set forth in D. F. Wilcox's Government by All the People
(New York, 1912). From one point or another the question is approached
in many other works, such as W. E. H. Lecky's Democracy and Liberty
(2 vols., London, 1896), especially I. 287 ff.; Gamaliel Bradford's Lesson
of Popular Government (2 vols., New York, 1899), especially II. 189-201 ;
DIRECT LEGISLATION AND THE RECALL 357
F. A. Cleveland's Growth of Democracy in the United States (New York,
1898), 177-241 ; E. L. Godkin's Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy (Bos-
ton, 1898), 96-144; A. L. Lowell's Governments and Parties in Continental
Europe (2 vols., Boston, 1896), II. 238-300; John Stuart Mill's Repre-
sentative Government (New York, 1905), chs. iii.-vii. ; and W. F. Dodd's
Revision and Amendment of State Constitutions (Baltimore, 1910).
Trustworthy statistics relating to the votes at referenda in different
states and cities are not very accessible. No inclusive compilation of these
figures has as yet been undertaken, and the material that has been put
into print is badly scattered. For the present, at least, information in
this field must be drawn either from the public documents of a dozen
states and several times as many cities, or in fragmentary form from such
publications as the American Year Book, the World Almanac, and the
periodical known as Equity Series, issued at Philadelphia in the interest
of the direct-legislation movement.
CHAPTER XIV
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS
Thedefini- MUNICIPAL reform is the term commonly used to desig-
reform. na^e any kind of organized agitation which has for its aim
the improvement of existing conditions in some branch of
local administration. It is, accordingly, a hydra-headed
thing, and ought not to be approached as if it were a single
factor in public life with a fixed purpose and a uniform
method of attaining its end. Municipal reform is one of
the most comprehensive phrases in the vocabulary of politi-
cal science, comprising as it does a legion of separate agita-
tions which start from sources widely apart, which profess
different purposes, and which employ very dissimilar means
of carrying their aims to fruition. Movements for the simpli-
fication of municipal machinery by a reduction of the num-
ber of elective officials in city government, for direct nomi-
nation methods, for improvements in the ballot, for the
introduction of the initiative, referendum, and recall, for
the displacing of patronage by the use of the merit system,
for greater uniformity in accounting, for the replanning of
streets, for the extension of playground facilities, for im-
proved housing conditions, and for a host of other alterations
in the existing system of city government or administration,
are grouped together under the generic name of municipal
reform. It matters not that some of these movements are
irreconcilable with one another in purpose; that there
is, for example, a necessary antagonism between the short-
ballot agitation, which seeks to ease the ballot of its present
burdens, and the propaganda for direct legislation, which
358
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 359
would, if successful, make the ballot more cumbersome than
ever ; or between the sponsors of commission government,
who desire to have men elected directly to the headships of
municipal departments by popular vote, and the more aggres-
sive wing of civil-service reformers who insist that these
officials should be selected by competitive tests. However
poorly they may harmonize with one another, all projects
of civic betterment, from whatever source they may come
and whatever their merits, are thrust by popular usage
into the same broad category. They are stamped with the
generic label of reform, and those who urge them are called
reformers.
From this point of view all citizens ought properly to be Reform and
included within the ranks of municipal reformers, for it would progresa-
be difficult to find any one ready to declare his unqualified
satisfaction with civic conditions as they are. Men differ
widely, of course, in regard to the exact location of munic-
ipal ills and as to the cause of them ; and even more widely,
perhaps, they disagree as to the remedies that ought to be
applied. But the man who would assert that the United
States has reached finality in municipal organization, that
there is now no room for betterment in any branch of it,
would be either insincere in his expression of opinion or blind
to the facts about him. In the last analysis, therefore,
every citizen who is not absolutely devoid of political vision
must, in greater or less degree, be a partisan of reform ; or,
to put it in a more palatable form, he must be a friend of
progress wherever opportunities for progress appear. It is
quite in consonance with the tendency to anomaly in Ameri-
can political life, however, that those who proclaim from the
housetops their progressive temperament, and declare that
as the old order changeth it must give place to the new, are
the very ones who most resent the title of reformers.
For all this there is a good reason. Reform and reformers
360
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
Reform and
reformers
as the pub-
lic views
them.
The general
types of
reform
organiza-
tions.
I. National
and state
organiza-
tions.
1. With
general
programmes
of reform.
are words that have gathered a dubious significance in the
public imagination. A municipal-reform movement has
come to be regarded as something which men of good in-
tention launch from time to time into the arena of local
politics with little study of its practical merits, and attempt
to drive through without much attention to established
methods of procedure. The reformer, in consequence, is
commonly thought of as an empirical individual who gives
his allegiance to visionary schemes, who promises much and
performs little, and whose ways are those of a busybody.
Notions of this sort do not attach to men or to movements
without some cause, and for their existence the typical munic-
ipal reformer of the last few decades has been hi large degree
responsible. General impressions concerning any public
activity are apt to be derived from the outstanding
personalities connected with it ; and the men who have been
most often in the vanguard of reform movements have not
always been of a sort to gain much hold upon the public
confidence. The reason why this has been so will be
noticed a little later on.1
Municipal reform organizations have been of various sorts.
Some of them have been general hi scope; that is to say,
they have aimed to include many cities within their sphere
of influence. A few have been national in their range of
activities, trying to secure improvement in municipal condi-
tions all along the line. Organized agitation of this sort,
broad in its field of effort, may or may not be very definite
in the things which it seeks to accomplish. A few national
reform organizations have set no exact bounds to their work,
and do not, therefore, concentrate their efforts upon any
specific betterment in municipal administration. Of this
type the National Municipal League and the American Civic
Association afford good examples. The membership of
1 See below, pp. 382-383.
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 361
these associations is recruited from cities in all parts of the
country ; each maintains national headquarters from which
a campaign of education is carried on in various directions ;
and each professes adherence to a general programme of
civic improvement. Neither of them gives its entire alle-
giance to any single project of reform, but each endeavors to
lend a hand to every local movement which looks promising.
Such organizations render their chief service as channels of
information; they provide at their annual conventions
forums for the discussion of all matters which affect American
cities as a whole; and to the information thereby brought
together they give a wide currency through their printed
proceedings or other publications.1 They have been called
clearing-houses for the exchange of municipal ideas, and they
have, to some extent at any rate, fulfilled the functions im-
plied in this designation.
Narrower in the range of their membership, but similar
in general purposes and methods, are various state organ-
izations, such as the Municipal Government Association of
New York State, the Ohio Municipal Association, or the
Massachusetts Civic League, which are sometimes affiliated
with the national bodies and thereby secure a certain co-
ordination of work. The membership of all these bodies,
whether national or state, is made up mainly of laymen ; it
includes relatively few men who are or have been in mu-
nicipal office. Small annual dues are collected from mem-
bers, the revenue gathered in this way going to pay the
salary of a permanent secretary and to defray the cost
of the reform literature distributed. The office of the
secretary is the focal point in the association's enterprises,
1 The literature of the National Municipal League, for example, in-
cludes an annual volume of Proceedings, occasional volumes on special
topics issued in the National Municipal Series, a quarterly publication
known as the National Municipal Review, besides leaflets and clipping
sheets put forth at frequent intervals.
362 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
and in some of the state organizations the duties of this
official extend to such matters as the drafting of bills in the
interest of municipal reform and the promoting of these
measures before the legislature.
Another type of national reform organization, though as
broad geographically, professes more definite aims. Such are
the National Civil Service Reform League, the Short Ballot
Organization, and the City Planning Conference, which bend
their entire energies to the extension of the merit system of
appointment to public office, the reform of the old-style
ballot, and the betterment of urban physical conditions
respectively. These bodies also maintain national head-
quarters, but they accomplish a good deal of their work of
active propaganda through state and municipal organiza-
tions developed under their auspices. Being more specific in
their programmes of effort, they are able to obtain results which
are more direct and more tangible, if perhaps no more im-
portant in the long run, than the achievements of associa-
tions that spread their interest over wider fields. They are
aggressive and persevering in their campaigns of education,
and have not been daunted by obstacles that at times
appeared insuperable. On the whole, their actual success, as
indicated by the laws that have gone upon the statute-books
through their efforts, constitutes much more than a profitable
return for the time, patience, and money expended. This is in
part due to the fact that such organizations, unlike those
which give their backing to extensive and inchoate pro-
grammes, are able to mass all their resources upon what for
the moment seems to be a vulnerable point. Wherever, for
example, a new city charter is being framed, the efforts of
the Civil Service Reform League or of the Short Ballot
Organization are deflected to that point and remain centred
thereuntil the issues raised are determined for or against them.
As each experience in this direction improves the generalship
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 363
of the next attempt, a marked proficiency in the arts of the
political evangelist is in course of time acquired.
There is still another class of organizations which, though 3. Official
it does not commonly adopt the terminology of reform, ^ona?™
is none the less an active agency of municipal betterment. ?^niza~
Within this class are included the various associations of
municipal corporations or city officials, such as the League
of American Municipalities, the various state leagues of
municipalities, associations of city engineers or health
officials or police chiefs, and so on.1 Such organizations are
professional in character; their chief object is not the pro-
motion of any single reform or set of reforms, but only the
interchange of ideas for the mutual benefit of members. At
their meetings, which are held annually or oftener, papers
upon matters of professional interest are read and general
discussions, frequently on questions of technical administra-
tion, take place. The service rendered by bodies of this sort
in broadening the horizon of city officials is of great value, but
there is still room for much progress along this line. Similar
associations of city officials have attained to great usefulness
and influence abroad, particularly in England, where they
have had a considerable share in developing traditions of offi-
cial permanence in the administrative service of the boroughs.
All three classes of organizations named in the foregoing n. Local
pages, — namely, those which work for the improvement
of municipal conditions in general, those which give their
attention to improvement in one specific direction, and
those which afford opportunities for the officials of one
municipality to learn what other cities are doing, — all these
1 Some typical organizations of this type are the American Public
Health Association, the American Association of Park Superintendents,
the American Waterworks Association, the International Association of
Chiefs of Police, the Indiana Sanitary and Water Supply Association,
the Pacific Coast Association of Fire Chiefs, the Massachusetts Police
Association, and scores of others.
364 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
are inter-civic bodies whose activities are broader than the
bounds of any single municipality. They are national
or state or sectional associations. Another type of reform
organization, however, of which there are more numerous
examples, is the local reform society which carries on its
work within the limits of a single city. If one includes within
the category of municipal reform organizations all those
bodies which are engaged in some field of political or social
amelioration, the number would prove astonishingly large in
any of our great cities. In the metropolitan district of
Boston a census of such organizations, taken two years ago,
showed that there were 1658 of them in all. This number in-
cluded societies engaged in every field of reform, whether
political, social, educational, or aesthetic, and ranging in
size and importance from the Chamber of Commerce with
5000 members to neighborhood improvement leagues with
membership lists which sometimes did not include more
than a dozen names.1 In their professed purposes these
associations cover the whole arena of civic effort ; yet in
fundamental motive they are so nearly akin that most
of their aims could readily be formulated into a single reform
programme. An enumeration made on a less compre-
hensive scale in St Louis last year resulted in the publi-
cation of a directory of organizations which covers over
forty pages, without including societies that are purely
political, social, or charitable in their activities.2 It is
hard to say just where the line should be drawn between
bodies which ought to be reckoned as agents of municipal
betterment and those which ought not ; but even under the
strictest interpretation the category of the former is un-
questionably large in all great American cities.
1 Handbook of Boston-1916, 21.
2 Directory of Civic and Business Associations of Saint Louis, issued by
the Civic League of St. Louis, May, 1911.
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 365
Taking these 'local reform organizations as a whole, they i. Local
may be grouped according to their purposes and methods into
five classes. In the first place, there is the reform association
which assumes the role of a political party. An example of
this type was afforded for many years by the Citizens' Union
of New York. This body, organized in 1897 with a large
and influential membership, developed all the machinery of
a regular political party, put its own candidates in the field,
conducted a campaign for their election, and provided its
own campaign funds. It drew its adherents from both
the regular political parties, and at the outset was opposed
by both party organizations. At the New York municipal TheCiti-
election of 1897 it undertook to elect its own slate of candi-
dates without the aid of either one ; and, although it failed to
secure this result, it did succeed in drawing over 150,000 votes
to its nominee for the mayoralty. The experience demon-
strated what has since been shown in some other cities, — that
the task of electing municipal officers in the face of opposi-
tion from both the regular political parties is one of great
difficulty, unless there are outstanding issues upon which the
ranks of the regular parties can be badly broken. For an in-
dependent organization to provide the machinery and the
funds necessary for such a campaign is in itself a big under-
taking ; but to gain a majority of the votes at the polls is
more difficult still unless the circumstances are very excep-
tional.
More favored with tangible results are those reform or- 2. Fusion
ganizations which, instead of selecting and attempting to
secure the election of their own candidates independently,
work hand in hand with one of the regular political parties,
usually with the minority. This was the policy pursued
by the Citizens' Union in the New York campaign of 1901,
when, by joining hands with the Republican party in a
fusion arrangement, it achieved the election of a joint
366 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
slate. A similar plan has been followed, although not so
openly, by the Citizens' Municipal League of Boston and by
like organizations in other cities. From the nature of things,
success is more easily obtained by fusion or cooperation than
by independent effort. Cooperation with one of the regular
parties secures the services of an organization already in
existence, and guarantees the candidates a large number of
votes from straight party adherents. All that the reform
element has to do is to split off from the dominant party
enough votes to turn the scale, obviously a much easier task
than building up an organization from the ground and
mustering support enough to outvote both the established
parties. It requires less money for campaign expenses and
less individual effort.
But when fusion, whether avowed or not, manages to
succeed, its success is rarely productive of great improve-
ment in either the personnel or the work of municipal
administration. When a reform organization acts in unison
with one of the regular parties, it must perforce yield much of
its freedom in the selection of candidates ; it must give its
support to those who are acceptable to its ally. A fusion
ticket is, accordingly, one of mottled quality, bearing the
names of some whose personal claims do not entitle them
to a place upon it, but who are taken on as the price of par-
tisan support for the entire slate. Moreover, since the regular
party organization which takes a large part in the electoral
battle demands its share in the spoils of victory, a fusion
administration, when installed in power, is not likely to
be much less partisan than one which goes into office with a
plain party designation. That, at any rate, seems thus far to
have been the usual character of such administrations.
Even the so-termed " non-partisan " movements that have
been launched in many American cities represent in most cases
the rather thinly veiled attempt of a minority party to gain a
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 367
grip upon affairs at the city hall by professing to be what it is
not. Such movements occasionally succeed for a time ; but
the cloven hoof soon discloses itself, and the voters decline to
be further misled by the hollow professions of merely titular
non-partisanship. The reform organization which allies
itself with any regular party machine sells its own birthright
for the pottage of transitory success ; for the principles of all
municipal reform worthy of the name run counter to those
upon which regular party organizations are usually built.
When reform, therefore, yokes itself with a political machine
(which in municipal politics means almost always the state
organization), it sacrifices its claim to the allegiance of all
those who believe that municipal campaigns should turn
upon local issues. Government by a political machine
disguised in the garb of reform, non-partisanship, fusion,
or independence has been imposed upon us too frequently ;
but its day has now about come to an end. There are
situations, to be sure, in which the cause of municipal better-
ment can be furthered by the aid of an established political
organization; but as a matter of experience they do not
occur very often. In the long run it is better for the cause
of reform to avoid entangling alliances. To say that it can-
not make headway without combining its forces with bodies
whose ideals are at variance with its own is to confess that
reform, as reform, cannot succeed at all.
There is, however, one line of action whereby those who are 3. Non-
earnest in their desire for an improvement in the caliber of organiza
municipal office-holders can exert a very substantial in- *
fluence at the elections ; and this is the policy adopted by the
third type of municipal reform organization. The best
example of this class, and the one most commonly used as an
illustration, is the Municipal Voters' League of Chicago.1
1 A full account of the history, aims, and achievements of this organiza-
tion may be found in a pamphlet issued by it in 1910.
368 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
This association was established in 1896 by a committee
of one hundred citizens made up of one Republican and one
Democrat from each of the thirty-four wards then in the
TheMunici- city, and thirty-two members chosen from the city at large
League^ without reference to political affiliations. The League came
Chicago. ^0 existence at a time when the Chicago city council had
become so hopelessly inefficient in its management of the
city's business that well-founded rumors of corruption were
everywhere in the air. Several thousand voters were
enrolled as members of the new organization, and its work was
at once begun. For sixteen years the Municipal Voters'
League has steadily held itself aloof from the regular political
parties ; it has never put forward candidates either in its
own behalf or in avowed alliance with any other political
body. Its sole work has been to investigate the records of
candidates nominated by the regular party organizations,
and to publish the results of these investigations. Pro-
ceeding upon the principle that those who come forward as
candidates for elective office ought to be willing to have the
widest publicity given to their records, it obtains all the in-
formation concerning their capabilities and experience that
is likely to prove useful in guiding voters, and this informa-
tion, together with its own conclusions based thereon, it
presents in printed form to every voter in the city. It
advises the election of some and the defeat of others ; but
obviously it does not assume to guarantee the future capacity
or integrity of those whom it recommends to the voters, for
it has nothing to do with selecting the candidates. In a
few cases, when such action has seemed necessary to secure
at least one fit candidate in some ward, the Municipal Voters'
League has cooperated with citizens of the neighborhood in
persuading -some suitable aspirant to take the field,
itamachin- The machinery of the organization is simple. Its entire
membership, which numbers over 3000 voters, is never called
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 369
together ; the work is directed by an executive committee of
nine members elected for a three-year term, three of whom
retire annually. This committee has the sole authority to
commit the organization for or against any candidate or
measure. Each year the League, through its executive
committee, adopts a brief platform relating to current mu-
nicipal issues. This is presented to every candidate for his
signature, and information as to whether he gives or refuses
adherence to it is printed in the pamphlet sent to the voters.
An examination of the platforms adopted during the last few
years reveals the fact that, while most of the principles
enunciated in them are of a general and rather non-conten-
tious nature, some of them apply specifically to definite
issues pending before the public.1 Candidates who give
adherence to the platform do so by pledging that they will
work and vote both in committee and on the floor of the coun-
cil to carry out all the principles which it sets forth.
The work of the Municipal Voters' League has been so its success,
successful as to attract attention throughout the country.
1 Here are a few items from the platform of 1911 : —
' ' Sec. 6. The health and welfare of the people depend in a large measure
upon hygienic and sanitary conditions, and every alderman should strive
to have these constantly improved and maintained in the best possible
state. The public health should in no instance be sacrificed to special
interests.
"Sec. 7. The city in all its departments should have a thor-
ough and businesslike system of accounting and auditing. Through
periodic examinations, the employment of experts, and the technical study
of functions, administration, and requirements of the various branches of
municipal government, improved business methods should be introduced
into all of them; so that not only may economies be effected, but the
most approved and skilled service rendered to the people.
"Sec. 8. An alderman should uphold the strict enforcement of the
civil service law and the application of the merit system to municipal
employment.
"Sec. 10. No grant should be made for any public utility without
expressly reserving to the city the opportunity for municipal purchase, at
or before the expiration of such grant, upon fair terms and reasonable
notice. ..."
2B
370 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
In 1896, when it began its operations, it branded as corrupt or
unfit fifty-eight out of sixty-eight aldermen, some of whom
were eliminated at the very next municipal election ; and
by 1901 it had secured for Chicago a city council of which a
majority of the members bore the stamp of its approval.
During the last ten years this control has been maintained ;
at no time have the regular party organizations been able,
save in a few wards, to elect men whom the League has
designated as unfit. Since 1900 about eighty-five per cent
of the candidates receiving its indorsement have been
elected, and after fifteen years of active existence it remains
an exceedingly influential force in the politics of the city.
In view of the fact that the Chicago city council is a more
important arm of local government than are corresponding
bodies in most other large American cities, and that it has
had, during the last half-dozen years, several difficult munici-
pal questions (such as traction franchises) to deal with, the
service rendered by the League has been of incalculable
value. It is, indeed, due largely to its efforts that the mu-
nicipal council of Chicago is, for its size, one of the best in
the United States both in the average caliber of the men
chosen to it and in its methods of work.
Similar Several other large cities have reform organizations
tkM^iiT" somewhat similar in structure and in general activities, but
other cities. none have been so uniformly effective. The Good Govern-
ment Association of Boston has come to be a very influential
factor in the politics of that city since the municipal council
was reorganized in 1909. Of the nine councilmen now in
office all but one were elected with its indorsement, in most
cases after a clear-cut contest against candidates put forward
by a regular party organization. The Municipal Association
of Cleveland, the Civic League of St. Louis, and similar
bodies in various other cities also do good service. In addition
to their work of investigating and reporting upon candidates,
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 371
these organizations in some cases keep close watch throughout
the year upon everything that goes on at the city hall, and
publish the results of their observations for the information
of voters.
Organizations that confine their efforts to the fields The task of
above outlined are able to do very effective work without Ha
any great expenditure of money. The services of a perma-
nent secretary are required, there is some expense for liter-
ature, and at election time an outlay is necessary in order
to secure accurate information concerning the records of
candidates. But there are no campaign expenses in the
ordinary sense ; for such associations do not regularly
undertake to secure, through the ordinary channels, the elec-
tion of those candidates to whom they give their indorsement.
The ever-present danger is, however, that such an organiza-
tion in a city may be captured by active partisans. The re-
form association that gives its stamp to ill-qualified candi-
dates because of their party affiliations, or for the same reason
denies indorsement to others, very quickly loses its hold
upon public confidence ; and, since all men are partisan to
a greater extent than they commonly realize, it is no easy
matter to maintain a course of strict impartiality. When
the indorsement of a reform organization once becomes
a recognized political asset, machine leaders spare no
pains to capture this label for their own candidates ; and the
ways in which they seek to do this are sometimes very in-
genious. Not a few such organizations have failed to with-
stand the pressure brought to bear on them in the interest
of regular party candidates by men who are reputedly above
such tactics, but who have attained to influence in the coun-
sels of the reform cause by liberal contributions to its funds.
A fourth class of reform organizations includes that legion 4. Non-
of associations, clubs, leagues, federations, and so on which organiza
are chiefly civic in aim, but which do not participate actively tlon3*
372 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
in municipal politics by nominating or indorsing or cam-
paigning for candidates. These are commonly called
citizens' leagues, taxpayers' associations, improvement
societies, or reform clubs. Their activities are varied.
Most of them hold meetings from time to time and hear
addresses upon matters of current municipal interest ; some
issue pamphlets occasionally, and a few have regular bulletins.
Nearly all of them come forward at times with proposals
for the consideration of either the local or the state authori-
ties, and delegations from them are constantly pressing some
project of municipal betterment before legislative committees
or some municipal authority. Each association of this
type is apt to have its own specialty. One is most con-
cerned with civil-service reform, another with playgrounds
and places of recreation, a third with the abatement of
bill-board nuisances, a fourth with the problem of laying
adequate restrictions upon public-service companies, a fifth
with the reform of municipal accounting, and so on. The
methods pursued are adapted to the ends in view, and they
differ just as widely. All such organizations, of course, need
money for their work, and they usually obtain it either from
The work of membership dues or from general subscriptions. The total
these bodies amoun^ gathered in this way by the host of betterment or-
ganizations that exist in every great city must be enormous each
year ; yet the tangible results that come from its expenditure
are astonishingly meagre. One reason for this situation is
that much of the money is spent in ways that are wholly or
partly ineffective. Salaries and clerical expenses devour
most of the income which the average reform organization
is able to secure. A secretary is usually employed, and the
salary of this official, together with clerk hire and office rent,
may easily absorb two-thirds or more of the year's revenue.
Many reform organizations regularly present the curious
spectacle of a secretary who spends most of his time gathering
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 373
funds for the association and then uses most of these funds to
pay for the time he has spent in gathering them. Some of
these bodies seem to take it for granted that their mere exist-
ence constitutes a public service ; at any rate, the compla*-
cent lethargy which their paid officials frequently display
would not be tolerated in any regular municipal employees,
slothful as many of the latter may be. All our larger cities
fairly abound in organizations which bear impressive names
and whose officials from time to time put themselves for-
ward as the spokesmen of important elements in the commu-
nity, when, as a matter of plain truth, some of them do not
possess a corporal's guard of members and perform no public
service worthy of the name.
Municipal waste through the masterly inactivity of public Their lack
officials and through the failure of different departments to ^on. J
work in harmony has become proverbial. Yet it may be
debated whether public authority has displayed these short-
comings in a degree relatively greater than that shown by
civic-welfare organizations as a whole. The overlapping
of effort among these latter is so notorious as to warrant the
suggestion that the professed friends of municipal reform
should begin by setting their own house in order. Every
large city has within its bounds hundreds of betterment
organizations at work in the same general field of effort
without the slightest reference to one another. Actual
cooperation among them is almost unknown ; at best it exists
only as a principle to which they have, at some time or other,
given a perfunctory adherence.1 In Boston at the present
1The movement known as "Boston-1915" had as its principal aim
"to bring about the active cooperation of all organizations which are
trying to do something for the improvement of living conditions in Greater
Boston"; but its leaders soon found their task too great. In St. Louis
at the present time a similar attempt is being made, on a much less compre-
hensive scale, to secure cooperation among about thirty of the more im-
portant civic associations.
374
GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
5. Miscel-
laneous
organiza-
tions.
moment there are no fewer than six distinct organizations
investigating the housing conditions of the city with a
view to framing remedial measures. No one of these
investigations is at all likely to prove comprehensive,
thorough, or reliable, for the reason that the resources of
none of the individual societies suffice to make it so. Each
will cover the field in part, and each will doubtless reach its
own conclusions. Yet the energy and funds which are being
devoted to this task would, if concentrated under a single
directing authority, be ample to have the whole research
made in businesslike fashion. Thus it is that the organiza-
tions which so readily berate city departments for unbusi-
nesslike methods are themselves often open to the very
same criticism in greater degree. A clearing-house of reform
activities, — that is to say, a recognized centre at which
each association can find out what others are doing and
through which wasteful duplication of effort can be avoided,
— is one of the chief municipal needs of the present day.
Finally, there are organizations which, though avowedly
commercial, industrial, professional, or social in purpose,
regularly lend their support to movements for municipal
reform. The chambers of commerce, boards of trade,
and merchants' associations, the labor unions, the medical
societies and associations of architects, the city clubs which
have been established in the large municipalities, all afford
examples of this type. Many of these bodies, especially the
commercial organizations, maintain regular committees on
municipal matters, which follow closely all that is going on at
the city hall or the state capitol.1 Their point of view is of
course primarily businesslike or professional, but incidentally
they are useful agencies for calling public attention to pending
1 For examples, see the annual reports of the Boston Chamber of
Commerce, the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, and the New Orleans
Board of Trade.
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 375
proposals and promoting discussion among the various in-
terests affected. By passing resolutions and transmitting
them to the mayor or the city council, they manage to secure
a representation of their views. The labor unions in par-
ticular have adopted the policy of putting upon record their
opinions concerning municipal matters, and their resolu- ,
tions embodying such expressions of opinion carry con-
siderable weight with elective officials. Some of these
miscellaneous bodies, particularly the chambers of com-
merce and the professional organizations, have conducted
thorough investigations into various branches of local ad-
ministration and have put the results into publications
which are of permanent value. Although the attention
which all such associations give to strictly municipal matters
is rather incidental, it is nevertheless of great service,
for business and professional bodies are influential in mould-
ing public opinion. When several of these organizations
range themselves behind any public project, they give it
momentum ; but the trouble is that they are seldom found
ranged together.
An interesting development of the last two decades has been The city
the rise of the city club. New York led the way in 1892 club8'
by establishing an organization which endeavors to combine
the usual facilities of a social club with those pertaining to a
centre of civic activity. This club provides a forum for the
discussion of municipal questions, maintains several active
committees, examines and makes known the records of candi-
dates for public office, follows up complaints made by citizens
against officials, furnishes briefs to members of the legisla-
ture advising them of its attitude on all measures relating
to New York City, and issues a monthly bulletin which gives
due publicity to its work. Clubs modelled along similar
lines have since been established in Chicago, Philadelphia,
St. Louis, Boston, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Los Angeles,
376 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
and other cities. The greatest service rendered by these
societies consists in providing a rallying-point for all those
who are interested in municipal progress, no matter what
particular form their interest may assume. When main-
tained upon a popular basis, they serve to bring into direct
personal contact men who represent every element in the
citizenship of the community. By thus broadening the
realm of mutual acquaintanceship and encouraging the
interchange of ideas, they have become highly useful insti-
tutions of civic education.
In enumerating the organized forces of civic improvement
one should make particular mention of the various bureaus of
research now in operation in a dozen or more of the larger
cities of the United States. These institutions, organized
more or less closely upon the model of the parent bureau in
New York City, are a development of the last decade in
American municipal government. Sometimes, as in New
York and Philadelphia, they are supported by private
contributions and are under the control of citizen trustees or
directors. In other cities, as in Baltimore, Boston, and
Milwaukee, they are maintained by public funds and are
under official direction. In either case the bureau is an
institution for the thorough study of actual conditions in
its own city ; it possesses a staff of investigators who probe
their way into every branch of the municipal service and
emerge with data upon which they base recommendations
for improvement. The New York bureau, which is the
oldest among them, has completed six years of work
covering a wide range and carried on at a very large annual
expense. It has published a formidable amount of literature.1
1 A complete account of its work may be found in the publication en-
titled Six Years of Municipal Research for New York City, issued in January,
1912. See also the chapter on "An Agency of Citizen Inquiry" in P. A.
Cleveland's Municipal Administration and Accounting (New York, 1909).
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 377
These bureaus take it upon themselves to act as public ad- Principle
visers in matters that are, for the most part, too complicated these W
and too technical for the public to understand and form
opinions upon without assistance. Their very existence, in
fact, rests upon the idea that the greater part of the city's
business is technical, and hence that the city's treasury com-
monly suffers more from leakages due to inefficient methods
than from official dishonesty. They assume, quite properly,
that before these leakages can be stopped their exact loca-
tion must be disclosed, and believe that this is a task
involving patient study by trained men. After the sources
of waste have been plainly indicated to the voters by con-
vincing evidence, public opinion, they declare, may be trusted
to exert all the pressure that is needed to effect a reform.
In a word, the bureau of municipal research aims to provide
an effective centre of trustworthy information and to bring
this information to the ears of every citizen by a persistent
and usually a somewhat original publicity campaign.
Taking all these organizations together, national and Why has not
local, political, semi-political, and non-political, the battal-
ions of civic betterment make up an impressive array,
Why have they not accomplished more? Why does city
government remain, in spite of their efforts, the one con-
spicuous failure of the American democracy? These are
questions easier to propound than to answer, though some
of the superficial reasons for the habitual failure of reform
to achieve tangible results are not far to seek.
In the first place, until very recent years most organized its lack of
F i i .1 - f -i attention to
reform movements approached things from a wrong angle. fundamen-
They complacently accepted the stupefying formulas of local tajs'
government which they found in full sway, being always at
great pains to forestall any possible public misgivings by
professing their allegiance to the principle of divided powers
and other such orthodox canons of political science. They
378 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
assured the citizens that the existing machinery of city
government was not seriously defective, but that the trouble
lay wholly with the men who were in control of it. In their
eyes, therefore, the obvious remedy was to oust from office
those whose incompetence or lack of integrity had befouled
the administration, and to put capable, honest, high-prin-
cipled men in their room.1 Not the reconstruction but the
purification of municipal politics was long the goal of reform.
But campaigns of civic betterment starting from this assump-
tion and aiming at this result inevitably found themselves
confronted with great difficulties. For one thing, men in
office were not easy to dislodge; so long as patronage was
abundant, elective office-holders held their opponents under
a serious handicap. For another thing, the " honest, public-
spirited, capable, and well-trained men" whom it was deemed
so imperative to put into power almost always proved to be
of the type which looks upon all public service as a private
sacrifice. They were hard to draw into the arena of munic-
ipal politics, and rarely proved to be good campaigners
when they got there. The very existence of this situation
should have been ample proof to the leaders of reform that
they were proceeding on a faulty diagnosis. There are times,
no doubt, when, from no fault of the scheme of administra-
tion, circumstances may for the moment be such as to deter
capable men from willingly entering the service of the city.
But when such a situation becomes normal, when year in and
year out the efficient service of society means personal sacri-
fice even to men of proved public spirit, the trouble cannot
lie anywhere else than in the conditions under which the
service has to be performed. The cause of reform was long
1 In 1894 the Honorable Carl Schurz, one of the most valiant of munici-
pal reformers, declared that there was "not a municipal government in
this country, on whatever pattern organized," which would "not work well
when administered by honest, public-spirited, capable, and well-trained
men" (National Municipal League, Proceedings, 1894, p. 123).
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 379
misguided, therefore, by the notion that municipal ills were
personal matters, whereas in point of fact they lay far beyond
the mere personnel of city government. They were organic,
and their ravages continued despite year-to-year changes in
the occupancy of official posts.
Efforts inspired by the belief that individuals and not insti- Reform to
tutions were at fault naturally led to sterility in results. At fSmusfbe
times the reform organizations managed, in spite of handicaps, or«anic-
to put their nominees in municipal office ; then they would
rest upon their weapons to await the promised millennium.
But the anticipated results were rarely forthcoming. The
mechanic, however capable and honest, found that he could
not do effective work with the tools that were at hand. The
political shackles imposed upon the reform official in the
performance of his functions, the maze of legal restrictions
that he encountered at every turn, the small modicum of real
power intrusted to him, all combined to thwart his efforts
at constructive work. In a whole term of office, therefore, he
was usually able to accomplish no more than some penny-
saving improvements which were far from redeeming the
preelection promises so freely made by reform campaigners.1
In due time, however, the need of organic reform obtained organic
recognition, and movements for the simplification of munici- ^ng the
pal machinery began. New York made a start, during the last decade-
1 "In almost every American city the people, at one time or another,
have grown weary beyond endurance of partisan misrule and extravagance,
and have given expression to their indignation through some form of citi-
zens' movement, and good men of clean records have been given control of
city affairs. What has been the result ? The new officers have invariably
found a system of government so honeycombed with the greed and selfish-
ness of partisan politics and their actions so hampered by state legislation
that no permanent good could be done. The people were impatient for
results, and when not forthcoming, their enthusiasm waned, the tidal wave
of reform receded, the politicians quietly planned the next campaign, and
the unworthy and incompetent resumed control of the great public estate."
— T. C. DEVLIN, Municipal Reform in the United States (New York, 1896),
13.
380 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
last decade of the nineteenth century, with its agitation for
thoroughgoing charter changes; and other cities, like St.
Louis, San Francisco, and Boston, followed. In smaller
cities the striking success of the commission-government
propaganda was not long in showing the extent to which
public opinion had become intolerant of remedies that did
not go to the very vitals of the existing municipal system.
All this proves that reform has entered a new phase, and
one which gives promise of far more in the way of achieve-
ment. Not only the leaders of opinion but the rank and
file of municipal electorates have been brought to realize
that reform is not merely a question of putting capable and
honest men in office, but more particularly one of making
offices attractive to capable and honest men. People are
coming to see that they can make public office attractive
only by attaching to it an opportunity for real, unre-
stricted, constructive service to the community, and that
they can do this only by renouncing, first of all, that
slavish allegiance to the principle of checks and balances
in local government, as well as to other political formulas,
which for the last half-century has done nothing but mis-
guide. The magnetism of official power is so great that
few men in any community can resist its attraction; but
it must be real power and not merely the form of it. If the
pattern of city government becomes such as to afford to every
elective officer that opportunity which goes with power,
most of the difficulties that beset the paths of reform organi-
zations in earlier years will disappear. Reform has gained
in effectiveness as it has become impersonal, organic, and
reconstructive. Unlike the guerilla warfare of earlier days,
the charter reform campaigns of the last decade have been
well worth the efforts expended in them.
To secure even temporary improvements in city adminis-
tration is good, but to make them permanent is better.
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 381
Reform which aspires to finality must not content itself, Reform of
therefore, with a mere reorganization of the political frame-
work of municipalities. To suppose that a good charter *
and a staff of capable officials are the only things essential
to an efficient and thrifty municipal administration is to
overlook the fact that most of the city's difficult problems
are questions of business and not of government. Even
the best city charter provides for but a small part of the
machinery necessary to solve these problems correctly ; the
rest of the apparatus, which includes the whole interior
mechanism of administration, must be sought within the
range of general powers conferred by the charter. It is
just here, as has already been noticed, that the shortcomings
of municipal administration have been most numerous and
most costly. When a private corporation proves successful
in the conduct of affairs, the reason is usually to be found
not in the nature of the powers conferred upon it by charter,
or even in the capacity or honesty of the men who sit upon
its directorate, but rather in the efficiency of its internal
organization, in the skill with which it has adjusted the
various parts of the business machine, and the ability
which it has shown in getting the right subordinate in the
right place. If the city desires administrative success, it
must seek it in the same way. Reformers must realize,
therefore, that a final solution of the chief municipal prob-
lem of the American city, that of getting full value for
the city's expenditures, depends even more upon the
intelligent organization of business details than upon the
mere enunciation of sound political principles in city char-
ters. Too little attention has been given, and is still given,
to the functioning mechanism of city government, to those
things which in private business engage the care and skill
of the efficiency engineer ; but this will not be the case much
longer. The bureaus of research that have come into exist-
382 GOVERNMENT OP AMERICAN CITIES
ence during recent years are pointing the way to thorough-
going, permanent reform in this direction.
All that has been written in the last half-dozen pages may
be compressed into the assertion that municipal reform has
"reformer." been siow m achieving substantial results because it took a
surprisingly long time to get itself into motion along the
right track. But other factors have frequently helped to
keep reform movements from tangible and permanent
achievement. In earlier days, when reform had little more
in view than the ousting of politicians from municipal office,
the typical reformer was either a disgruntled politician who
sought to elbow his way into public office on a platform of
cant, or a henheaded theorist whose temperament contained
very few grains of practical political sense. In campaigns
directed against persons the chief weapon of the reformer
was personal invective. Absolutely sure that a successful
crusade against corrupt or incompetent aldermen would
result in setting everything right, the reformer took in his
hand the sword of vituperation and sallied forth to his quix-
otic conflict. Loud in his professions of non-partisanship,
he was in many, cases a bigoted partisan of his own class or
creed or theory. Not less vehement in his protestations of
public spiritedness and denials of self-interest, he was just as
often spurred forward by motives that appeared unselfish
to no mind but his own. Even at the present time the cause
of municipal reform numbers among its chief supporters in
every large city many men of this type. That they do not
themselves realize the incongruity of the situation is some-
thing that passes understanding. Yet the fact remains
that a municipal reform league or a taxpayers' association
will choose as its president the paid counsel of a public-
service corporation, and still expect the average voter to
swallow assurances that the organization has no connection
with the seekers of special privilege. The way in which
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 383
the outstanding figure in any political undertaking will
strike the public imagination is something which party
strategists never neglect to take into account. In the coun-
cils of reform, on the contrary, this consideration, despite
its important bearing upon the chances of success, often
receives no attention whatever.
Municipal reform has, moreover, suffered from the lack inherent
of team play among its friends. Reformers, as a recent Of reform"
writer has well said, are primarily protestants, and it is the °^mza"
nature of protestants to be insubordinate.1 It is tempera-
mental inability to tolerate the existing situation that makes
a man a reformer ; and it is the same trait that makes him,
as a rule, intolerant of all ideas except his own. Reformers
can always agree upon basic principles, for these are commonly
framed in such platitudinous form that even the most arrant
political pirate would not refuse open assent to them. But,
as occasion arises for elaborating these principles into
working rules of administration, it forthwith becomes ap-
parent that each reformer has his own interpretation
of them, and that all who disagree with him are lacking
in either intelligence or integrity or in both. Across the
history of nearly every municipal reform movement of the
last twenty years may be found written the tedious chronicle
of bickerings due to personal jealousy, class bigotry, and
the failure of reformers to realize that vindictiveness has no
place in the programme of a political agitation which seeks
to be successful.
From the experiences of the past reform organizations The
can draw abundant counsel for future action. To secure
achievements of permanent value they must seek far more
than mere change in the personnel of city government.
They must simplify the political framework where necessary,
1 Herbert Croly, The Promise of the American Life (New York, 1909),
146.
384 GOVERNMENT OF AMERICAN CITIES
and make it afford those opportunities for constructive
effort which are the only enduring attractions of public
service. They must adjust the administrative machinery
of the city to the work which it is called upon to do, a mission
which in any large city is a reform task of herculean propor-
tions and of corresponding value when performed. If
laborers in the cause of civic improvement desire to see in
concrete form the results of their exertions, they must also
adjust their methods to the conditions of political warfare in a
democracy ; which means specifically that they must recog-
nize the utter weakness of a house divided against itself,
the impotence of purist professions that do not square with
the facts, and the unerring certainty with which extravagant
pledges return to work injury upon those who promise, in the
way of public improvement, more than they can ever fulfil.
Municipal development during the last ten or twelve
years seems to show that the lessons of preceding decades
have not been altogether unheeded. Though stumbling
badly at times, municipal reform has persevered, until by
sheer persistence it has conquered many of the obstacles
in its path. Similar patience and perseverance it will have
to exercise for a long time to come ; but the outlook has never
been more encouraging than it is to-day.
REFERENCES
The literature of municipal reform is already large, and it is steadily
growing. The annual Proceedings of the National Municipal League (18
vols., 1894-1912) form the most comprehensive single source of information
on the history and methods of reform during the last two decades. Much
interesting material relating to the progress of reform movements during
the nineties may be found in the files of the periodical known as Municipal
Affairs, which appeared during the years 1897-1902. In following the
history of civil-service reform one finds of great value the monthly issues
of Good Government (published in New York) and the annual reports of
the National Civil Service Reform League and of the civil-service com-
missions in various states. The bulletins issued from time to time by the
American Civic Association, and the publications of state municipal
MUNICIPAL REFORM AND REFORMERS 385
associations or of state leagues of municipalities, sometimes deal carefully
with special phases of municipal reform and are of permanent value. In
many of the larger cities there are municipal-reform periodicals which
appear monthly or oftener, such as City Affairs in Boston, the Citizens'
Bulletin in Cincinnati, the Municipal League News in Seattle, the Civic
Bulletin in St. Louis, the Civic Bulletin in Pittsburgh, Pa., and the Munic-
ipal Bulletin in Cleveland. Likewise the regular bulletins of the city clubs
in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere furnish to some extent
a chronicle of municipal happenings in these cities. Most useful of all,
because most thorough in preparation, are the publications of such institu-
tions as the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, the Milwaukee
Bureau of Economy and Efficiency, the Legislative Reference Department
of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, the Boston Finance Commis-
sion, the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research, and the Chicago
Bureau of Public Efficiency.
The chief general periodicals devoting their attention to municipal
affairs in the United States are the National Municipal Review, which is
issued quarterly, the American City published monthly, the Municipal
Journal and Engineer which appears weekly. A list of other periodical
publications relating to American city government may be found in the
National Municipal Review, I. 406-410 (July, 1912).
Books relating to special fields of municipal reform, such as commission
government, direct legislation, the short ballot, the replanning of cities,
and so forth, are numerous, and nearly all the general works on municipal
government contain some discussion of reform movements. Most of these
have been mentioned in preceding pages. Two small monographs,
T. C. Devlin's Municipal Reform in the United States (New York, 1896)
and W. H. Tolman's Municipal Reform Movements in the United States
(New York, 1895), are more definite in scope, but are not of any con-
siderable value at the present time.
2c
ABATEMENTS, of taxes, powers of city
council in relation to, 200.
Abbott, Grace, "The Immigrant and
Municipal Politics," 35n.
Accident, death by, excess of in large
cities, 41.
Adams, H. C., Public Debts, 124.
Administrative Departments, inde-
pendence of, in American cities,
237 ; general organization of, 238-
242 ; relation of civil service to,
243-245 ; methods of selecting
heads for, 245—248 ; methods of
removing heads of, 249-250 ; num-
ber of, in American cities, 250-251 ;
distribution of work among, 252-
253 ; advantages of board system in
organization of, 253-257 ; advan-
tages of single-head system in,
257-258 ; salaries paid to heads of,
259-260 ; faulty internal organiza-
tion of, in most cities, 260-263.
Age, distribution of population accord-
ing to, 30-32.
Alabama, admission of non-citizens
to voting rights in, 107; exclusion
of negroes from suffrage by laws
of, 113.
Albany, first charter of (1686), 2;
early powers of mayor in, 208.
Aldermen, method of choosing in
colonial boroughs, 4 ; positions and
powers of, before the Revolution,
181 ; boards of, how organized,
188; confirmation of appointment
by, 227-229. See also City Council.
Aliens, strength of, in the population
of American cities, 32-37.
Allen, Philip, L., " Ballot Laws and
their Workings," 143n, 152.
Allison, E. P., and Penrose, B., History
of Philadelphia, On, lln, 13n, 28.
American Civic Association, its aims
and work, 360-361.
Andreas, A. T., History of Chicago, 28.
Annapolis, first charter of (1696), 2;
as an example of a close corpora-
tion, 4.
Appointments, municipal, powers of
city council in relation to, 204;
aldermanic confirmation of, abol-
ished in Brooklyn (1882), 212;
powers of mayor to make, 226-
232 ; under the Galveston plan,
297 ; under the Des Moines plan,
299. See also Administrative De-
partments, Mayor, Merit System,
Employees, Municipal.
Appropriations, powers of city council
in matters of, 200-201 ; control of
mayor over, 232-234 ; provisions
in commission charters relating to,
315-316.
Arkansas, admission of non-citizens
to voting rights in, 107 ; provisions
for direct legislation in the con-
stitution of, 327n.
Armenians, drift of, to large cities in
America, 33.
Arrondissement, in France, compared
with the American ward, 191.
Assessors, work of, in compiling munici-
pal voters' lists, 116.
Austin, Texas, adoption of commis-
sion government by, 298.
Australia, form of ballot derived from,
142-143.
BABSON, T. M., Statutes relating to the
City of Boston, 61n.
Baker, M. N., Municipal Engineering
and Sanitation, 263.
Baldwin, S. E., Modern Political
Institutions, 101.
Ballotage, system of, in Europe, 102.
Ballots, municipal, early history of,
in America, 142 ; introduction of
Australian, 143; growth of, to
unwieldiness, 143 ; improvements
in, 144 ; movements for the shorten-
ing of, 145-146 ; preferential, 147-
148 ; order of names on, 149 ; used
at elections of city councillors,
194-195.
Baltimore, charter of (1796), 7; popu-
lation of, in 1790, 9 ; state control
387
388
INDEX
of police established in (1860), 15;
present state control of municipal
police in, 75, 211, 246-247; state
and city elections held on the same
day in, 141 ; retains bicameral
system, 185; charter of 1797 in,
208; origin of mayoral veto in,
209 ; length of mayor's term in,
213 ; qualifications for mayor in,
215 ; mayor's veto power in, 223 ;
popular election of certain adminis-
trative officials in, 245n. ; Bureau
of Municipal Research in, 376.
Barnett, J. D., "The Operation of the
Recall in Oregon," 355n.
Beale, J. H., Selection of Cases on
Municipal Corporations, 53n, 81n,
83n, 92n, 94n, 95n, 97n, 98n, 101,
264.
Beard, C. A., Digest of Short Ballot
Charters, 79, 149n, 292, 302n, 319,
328n, 352n, 356; "The Ballot's
Burden," 152, 345n.
Beard, C. A., and Shultz, B. E., Docu-
ments on the State-wide Initiative,
Referendum, and Recall, 327n, 339n,
356n.
Bemis, E. W., Local Government in the
South and Southwest, 27n.
Bennet, W. S., "The Effect of Immi-
gration on Politics," 35n.
Bicameral system, introduced after
the Revolution, 6-7; adopted by
New York City hi 1830, 10.
Birmingham, phenomenal growth in
population of, since 1900, 26.
Birth rates, in urban and rural com-
munities, 37-38.
Bishop, C. F., History of Elections in
the American Colonies, 152.
Bismarck, on public opinion as the
foe of expertness, 306.
Blackmar, F. W., "The History of
Suffrage Legislation in the United
States," 105n, 124.
Blackstone, Sir YPilliam, transmitter
of Montesquieu's doctrines, 225.
Board of Estimate and Apportionment,
in New York City, 233.
Board of Trade, in England, 74.
Boards, administrative, work of coun-
cil committees superseded by, 240;
advantages of, over single com-
missioners, 253-257.
Boroughs, in the American colonies,
2-5; methods of granting charters
to, in England, 3 ; colonial, organi-
zation of councils in, 180-181 ; posi-
tion of mayor in, 207-208.
Borrowing, municipal. See Loans.
Bosses, municipal, their influence and
methods, 174-178.
Boston, importance of, as a colonial
town, 4; first charter of (1822), 9;
population of, in 1790 and 1822, 9;
state control of police established
in (1885), 19; nomination by peti-
tion in, 23, 194; death rate of, in
1700 and 1900, 39; special legis-
lation concerning, 61 ; state super-
vision of public utilities in the
metropolitan district of, 66; fre-
quency of proposals to amend the
new charter of, 67-68 ; state con-
trol of municipal police in, 75,
246-247 ; evasion of poll-taxes in,
115; methods of enrolling voters
in, 116; system of nomination by
petition in, 136-138 ; state and
municipal elections held on different
days in, 141 ; abolition of party
designations on ballots used in,
144-145; changes made by char-
ters of 1854 and 1885 in the govern-
ment of, 184 ; adopts single-cham-
bered council, 185; number of
members in city council of, 188;
caliber of councilmen in, 189 ; sal-
aries of councilmen in, 190 ; aboli-
tion of ward system in, 191 ; sys-
tem of minority representation in,
193 ; number of committees in
old council of, 196 ; checks on ap-
propriating powers of city council
in, 201 ; popular election of mayor
provided for in first charter of,
209-210; comparative powers of
mayor and city council in, 212 ;
length of mayor's term in, 213 ;
salary of mayor in, 218 ; expenses
of candidates for mayoralty in,
219 ; checks on mayor's appoint-
ing power in, 230-232 ; method of
making budget in, 233-234; selec-
tion of heads of departments in,
241 ; scope of mayor's appointing
power in, 246 ; appointment of
Franklin Fund trustees by judges
in, 247-248 ; removal of depart-
ment heads by mayor in, 249 ;
number of administrative depart-
ments in, 251 ; proportion of munic-
ipal employees to registered voters
in, 266 ; appointments to police
force under merit system in, 288;
scrutiny of municipal pay-rolls by
state civil service commission in,
289 ; character of old city council
INDEX
389
in, 307-308; quest of signatures
for nomination petitions in, 343n;
attempt to recall mayor in, 351n;
number of betterment organizations
in, 364 ; Citizens' Municipal League
in, 366; Good Government Asso-
ciation of, 370; City Club of,
375.
Boston Finance Commission, its
methods, 78; on the work of city
councils, 204-205.
Bourne, Jonathan, Jr., "A Defence of
Direct Legislation," 339n.
Bradford, E. S., Commission Govern-
ment in American Cities, 149n,
251n, 296n, 299n, 317n, 319, 328n.
Bradford, G., Lesson of Popular Gov-
ernment, 357.
Brookings, W. D. B., and Ringwalt,
R. C., Briefs for Debate, 124.
Brooklyn, state police control over
(1857), 14; aldermanic confirma-
tions abolished in (1882), 212.
Brooks, R. C., Corruption in American
Politics and Life, 152.
Bryce, James, The American Common-
wealth, 16n, 11 In; on the texture
of urban population, 49.
Budget, of New York City, in 1820, 9 ;
procedure in framing, 232-234.
Buffalo, retains bicameral system, 185 ;
Grover Cleveland elected mayor
of, 217.
Bureau of Municipal Research, in
New York City, work of, 376.
See also Philadelphia.
Burgomaster, powers of, compared
with mayors, 235.
Burr, Aaron, obtains water franchise
in New York City, 10.
Bushee, F. A., Ethnic Factors in the
Population of Boston, 52.
Butler, J. A., "A Single or a Double
Council," 187n, 206.
CALIFORNIA, home-rule charter system
in, 63 ; illiteracy a bar to voting
rights in, 1 12 ; first attempts to
regulate caucuses and conventions
in (1866), 128.
Canada, methods of nominating mu-
nicipal officers in, 138.
Capen, 8. B., "Shall we have One or
Two Legislative Chambers?", 187n,
206.
Caucus, use of in earlier stages of
municipal development, 126 ; its
abuses, 127 ; use of in city councils,
195.
Cemeteries, municipal, liability of mu-
nicipal corporations for torts of em-
ployees in, 96.
Charming, E., Town and County Gov-
ernment in the English Colonies of
North America, 27.
Chapman, J. J., Causes and Conse-
quences, 179.
Charleston, population of, in 1790, 9.
Charters, of colonial boroughs, 2—5 ;
changes in after the Revolution,
5-6; home-rule, provisions for,
in state constitutions, 54 ; granting
of, by special law, 55 ; rules of the
New York constitution relating to,
59; methods of drafting, munici-
pal, 76—79 ; rules concerning in-
terpretation of, 80-82 ; absence of
business provisions in, 202-203.
Chase, H. N., A Report to His Excel-
lency the Governor of Massachusetts
. . . concerning . . . Municipal
Debts and Revenue, 73n.
Chicago, rise of separate administra-
tive departments in, 13 ; state
police control established in (1861),
15 ; administrative changes in,
during early seventies, 16-17 ;
strength of foreign-born element in
population of, 33 ; political ten-
dencies of foreign-born voters in,
36-37 ; protection against special
legislation for, in the constitution
of Illinois, 59-60 ; street railway
situation in, 66-67 ; representation
of voters in, 117; state and city
elections held on different dates
in, 141 ; maintains single-chambered
council, 185 ; number of members
in city council of, 188; salaries of
councilmen in, 190 ; retention of
ward system in, 191 ; mayor pre-
sides at council meetings in, 195,
221 ; output of council ordinances
in, 203 ; state police control pro-
vided for, 211 ; comparative powers
of mayor and city council in, 212 ;
length of mayor's term in, 213 ;
salary of mayor in, 218; popular
election of certain administrative
officials in, 245n ; appointment of
South Park Commissioners by
judges in, 247 ; number of adminis-
trative departments in, 251 ; ad-
ministration of merit system in,
277 ; removals of employees in,
286 ; Municipal Voters' League of,
367-369; City Club of, 375;
Board of Public Efficiency in, 376.
390
INDEX
Childs, R. S., Short Ballot Principles,
146n, 152, 345/1.
Cincinnati, state control of municipal
police established in (1871), 19;
strength of foreign-born element in
population of, 33.
Citizens' Union of New York, its at-
tempts to divorce state and munici-
pal issues, 159-160; its transi-
tory success, 161 ; its work, 365-
366.
Citizenship, as a qualification for vot-
ing, 106-107; methods of obtain-
ing, 107-109.
City clubs, work of the, 375-376.
City planning, increased interest in, 24.
City Planning Conference, aims and
work of, 362.
Civic League of St. Louis, 370.
Civil service, objections to the policy
of selecting department heads un-
der system of, 243-245. See also
Merit System.
Civil service reform, campaign for,
started by Charles Sumner, 17;
progress of, during period 1880-
1895, 21.
Civil War, effect of, on relations of
state to cities, 15.
Classification of cities, in Ohio, 55—56.
Cleveland, development of adminis-
trative departments in, 13 ; its
difficulties under the uniform code,
57 ; maintains single-chambered
council, 185 ; Municipal Associa-
tion of, 370.
Cleveland, F. A., Municipal Adminis-
tration and Accounting, 201n, 274n,
293, 376n; Growth of Democracy
in the United States, 357.
Cleveland, Grover, mayor of Buffalo,
217.
Clubs, political, in New York and
elsewhere, 163-164.
"Colonization" of voters, 118.
Commission, government by, appoint-
ing power under, 229 ; number
of departments in cities under, 251 ;
city government by, 294-320; in-
troduction of, in Galveston, 295—
298; in Des Moines, 299-301;
principles underlying, 302-304; its
merits, 304-310; objections to,
311-316; conclusions on, 317-
319. See also Reform, Municipal.
Committees, of city council, their
origin, 196 ; power of presiding
officer in naming, 197 ; English
and American system of compared,
197-198 ; administrative function
of, in early stages of American mu-
nicipal development, 237-238.
Commons, John R., "Labor and
Politics," 293.
Comptroller, post of, established and
made elective in Philadelphia (1854),
13.
Confirmation. See Appointments, Al-
dermen.
Congress, power of, in matters of nat-
uralization, 106-107.
Connecticut, enacts civil service re-
form law (1897), 21; abolition of
property qualification for voting
in, 105 ; educational tests required
of voters in, 112.
Constitution, federal, checks on state
legislatures in, 53-54.
Constitutions, state, limitations upon
the power of state legislatures to
deal with cities in, 54-56.
Contract, liability of municipal cor-
porations in actions of, 91.
Conventions, nomination by, 126-127.
Cook County, appointment of South
Park Commissioners, by judges
of, 247.
Corporations, municipal, composition
of, in colonial boroughs, 4 ; change
in idea of, after 1775, 5 ; municipal,
derivative nature of, 53 ; definition
of, 80 ; private and municipal
compared, 81-82 ; municipal, pow-
ers of, 82-83 ; liability of, in actions
of contract, 91 ; liability of, in
actions of tort, 91—99 ; liability
of, for management of property,
98-99.
Corrupt practices, securities against,
at municipal elections, 150-151.
Councils, city, history of, in colonial
days, 180-181; after the Revolu-
tion, 181-182; in the nineteenth
century, 182-183 ; loss of powers
by, 184-185; present organization
of, 185 ; single and double cham-
bers compared, 185-187 ; quali-
fications for election to, 188-189;
caliber of members in, 189 ; pay-
ment of members in, 190 ; method
of apportioning representation in,
190-191 ; evils of the ward system
in connection with, 191-194 ;
methods of nominating and elect-
ing candidates for election to,
194-195 ; procedure at meetings
of, 195-196 ; committee system
of, 196-197; American and Eng-
INDEX
391
lish councils compared, 197-198;
powers of, 198-206 ; administra-
tion through committees of, 237—
239 ; power of, to remove adminis-
trative officials, 248 ; character of,
in Boston, before 1909, 307-308;
decline in caliber of, 322.
Councilmen, method of choosing in
colonial boroughs, 4.
Courts, appointment of municipal
officers by the, 217-218.
Crime, ratio of, in cities and urban
districts, 45-46.
Croly, Herbert, The Promise of Ameri-
can Life, 383n.
Croton aqueduct, opened in 1842,
10.
DABNET, C. W., "The Illiteracy of
the Voting Population in the United
States," 119n.
Dallas, A. J., Laws of the Common-
wealth of Pennsylvania, 6n.
Dallas, Texas, rapid growth in popula-
tion of, since 1911, 26; extension of
commission government to, 298 ;
use of recall in, 355.
Dallinger, F. W., Nominations for
Elective Office, 128n, 151.
Death ratio in urban and rural com-
munities, 38—41.
Debts, increase in municipal, during
period after the War, 19. See also
Loans.
Declaration of intention. See Nat-
uralization.
Delaware, abolition of property quali-
fication for voting in, 105 ; educa-
tional tests for voting in, 112.
Delegation of legislative power, 84.
Deming, H. E., The Government of
American Cities, 79, 174n; "The
Legislature in City and State,"
206.
Denver, qualification for mayor in,
215 ; use of direct legislation in,
329.
Des Moines, first use of non-partisan
primary in, 131 ; adoption of com-
mission plan by, 298 ; provisions
for initiative, referendum, and re-
call in charter of, 299-300; threat-
ened use of recall in, 355.
Detroit, charter of (1806), 7; educa-
tional qualification exacted from
councilmen in, 189 ; merit system
in, 276.
Devlin, T. C., Municipal Reform in the
United States, 379n, 385.
Dillon, J. F., The Law of Municipal
Corporations, 3n, 79, 80n, 81n, 85n,
86n, 87n, 97n, 98n, 101, 199n, 264,
276n, 293.
Direct legislation, its spread in Ameri-
can cities, 23 ; effect of, on duties of
electorate, 103 ; definition of, 321-
322 ; reasons for the spread of, in
America, 322—323 ; development
of, 324-327 ; in actual operation,
329-330; conditions sought to be
remedied by, 331-333 ; arguments
in favor of, 334-339 ; arguments
against, 339-349 ; general conclu-
sions concerning, 349-350.
Disfranchisement of voters, 115.
Disqualifications from voting, 115.
Dodd, W. F., Revision and Amendment
of State Constitutions, 324n, 357.
Dongan, Thomas, governor of New
York, grants first charter of New
York City (1686), 2.
Drummond, Henry, on the making of
cities, 51.
Durand, E. D., "Council Govern-
ment versus Mayor Government,"
206, 236.
Durham, John George Lambton, first
Earl of, on popular responsibility
of administrative officers, 239-240.
EATON, A. M., "The Right to Local
Self-Government," 79.
Eaton, D. B., The Government of Mu-
nicipalities, 162n, 236, 248n, 293;
Civil Service in Great Britain,
275n.
Education, municipal, beginnings of,
10 ; relative progress of, in rural
and urban communities, 43—44.
Elections, time of holding state and
municipal, 22 ; municipal, date of
holding, 139-140; places of poll-
ing at, 141 ; ballots used in connec-
tion with, 142-143 ; ballot abuses
at, 143-144; desirability of shorter
ballots for, 145-146; use of pref-
erential ballots in, 147-148; order
of names on ballots at, 149-150;
securities against corrupt practices
at, 150-151. See also Ballots,
Municipal.
Electorate, municipal, in America and
and Europe compared, 102-104;
its importance, 102; in Europe and
America, 103-104: history of, in
America, 104-105 ; composition of,
105-106; organization of, in early
part of nineteenth century, 104r-
392
INDEX
106; not made up exclusively of
citizens, 106-107 ; residence as a
requirement for admission to, 111-
113; illiterates in, 112-114; owner-
ship of property by, 114; payment
of poll-tax by members of, 114-
115; disfranchisement from, 115;
methods of enrolling, 115-119; pro-
jects for improving, 120-124.
Electric lighting plants, liability of
municipal corporations for torts of
employees in, 96.
Eliot, C. W., American Contributions
to Civilization, 124.
Ellis, W. E., The Municipal Code of
Ohio, 56n, 79.
El Paso, Texas, extension of commis-
sion government to, 298.
Employees, municipal, liability of mu-
nicipal corporations for the torts of,
91-99 ; problems connected with,
265 ; number of, in large cities,
265-266; impossibility of dis-
franchising, 267 ; organization of,
in administrative departments, 268 ;
political influence of, 269 ; inferior
caliber of, 270-271 ; dependence of
cities' interests on, 271-272 ; com-
pared with private employees, 272—
273 ; heavy cost arising from in-
competence of, 274; methods of
selecting,. 275-286; methods of
protecting against unjust removals,
286-287; inferior quality of, 288-
290; pensions for, 290-292.
England, slow increase of population
in, 41 ; basis of municipal suffrage
in, 121-122 ; methods of nominat-
ing municipal officers in, 138; use
of Australian ballot in, 143 ; pre-
vention of corrupt practices at
municipal elections in, 150 ; virtual
identification of state and munici-
pal parties in, 158-159 ; attitude
of voters toward election campaigns
in, 168 ; continuance of committee
system in cities of, 184 ; no salary
given mayors in cities of, 218;
traditions of official permanence
in cities of, 245 ; securities against
wrongful removal of administrative
officials in cities of, 250 ; traditions
of reappointment in cities of, 269;
origin of the merit system in, 275 ;
frame of city government in cities
of, 308 ; organizations of municipal
officials in cities of, 363.
Experts, need of, in American cities,
242.
FAIRLIE, J. A., Municipal Adminis-
tration, 3n, lOn, 28, 206, 236, 263;
Essays in Municipal Administra-
tion, 28, 56n, 79, 188n, 206, 208,
263, 293; The Centralization of
Administration in New York State,
75n.
Fanning, C. E., Selected Articles on
Direct Primaries, 152.
Federal analogy, influence of the,
after the Revolution, 7 ; influence of,
in Baltimore charter of 1797, 208.
Fire department, immunity of mu-
nicipal corporations for liability for
torts of employees in, 93-94.
Fire protection, by volunteer com-
panies, 10.
Fish, C. R., The Civil Service and the
Patronage, I8n, 2ln, 275n, 292.
Fisher, Irving, Bulletin of the Committee
of One Hundred on National Health,
40n.
Ford, H. J., The Rise and Growth of
American Politics, 18n, 179.
Foreign born, in American cities, 32-
37; political exploitation of voters
among, 35-36.
Fort Worth, Texas, extension of com-
mission government to, 298.
France, broad grants of power given
to cities in, 90; methods of nomi-
nating municipal officers in, 138 ;
relation of state to municipal par-
ties in, 158 ; no salaries given mayors
in cities of, 218.
Franchises, exclusive, cannot be given
without statutory authority, 89 ;
rules governing, 99-100 ; powers of
city councils over grants of, 201-
202.
Franklin Fund, trustees of, appointed
by judges of Massachusetts Su-
preme Court, 247-248.
French Revolution, echoes of, in Amer-
ica, 105.
Fuld, L. F., Police Administration, 14n.
GAFFET, F. G., "Suffrage Limitations
at the South," 114n.
Galbreath, C. B., The Initiative and
Referendum, 356.
Galveston, Texas, establishment of
commission government in (1901),
22 ; tidal wave in, 295 ; adoption
of commission government by,
296-297.
Gas plants, municipal, liability of
municipal corporations for torts
of employees in, 96.
INDEX
393
Gaynor, William J., mayor of New
York City, 216.
Georgia, provisions for initiative in
constitution of, 324.
Germany, methods of nominating mu-
nicipal officers in, 138; relation of
state to municipal parties in, 158;
salaries of burgermeisters in, 218;
pensions for municipal employees
in the cities of, 290.
Gerrymander, relation of, to ward
system; 191-192.
Gilbertson, H. S., "Conservative As-
pects of the Recall," 355n.
Gloucester, Massachusetts, term of
commissioners in, 302n.
Godkin, E. L., Unforeseen Tendencies
of Democracy, 322n, 357.
Good Government Association, of Bos-
ton, 370.
Goodnow, F. J., Municipal Govern-
ment, 30n, 40n, 79, 206, 236, 263,
293 ; Comparative Administrative
Law, 76n; Municipal Home Rule,
79, 91n, 97n, 98n, 101; Munici-
pal Problems, 79, 124, 206, 263;
Politics and Administration, 175n,
179 ; City Government in the United
States, 183n, 255n; "The Neces-
sity of Distinguishing Legislation
from Administration," 206; on
the professional office-holder, 255 ;
on the drift away from the board
system of administration, 257 ff.
Goodwin, E. H., "Draft of a Civil
Service Law for Cities," 293.
Gould, E. R. L., Local Government in
Pennsylvania, 27.
Governor, in colonies, grant of borough
charters by, 3 ; loses power to
grant charters after Revolution, 5.
Grand Junction, Colorado, use of pref-
erential ballots in, 148 ; assignment
of functions to commissioners in,
303n.
Greeks, drift of, to American cities, 33.
Greenlaw, E. A., "Office of Mayor in
the United States," 236.
Grosser, H. S., Chicago, 28.
Guillou, Jean, L'emigration des cam-
pagnes vers les villes, 30n.
Guthrie, Oklahoma, term of commis-
sioners in, 302n.
HALL, P. H., Immigration, 35n.
Hamilton, Alexander, on the habits
of legislatures, 224-225.
Hamilton, J. J., The Dethronement of
the City Boss, 301n, 319.
Hatton, A. R., Digest of City Charters,
72n, 79, 185n, 203n, 206, 215n, 236,
263, 292.
Haynes, G. H., "Educational Quali-
fications," 124n; "The People's
Rule in Municipal Affairs," 330n.
Hazard, Ebenezer, Historical Collec-
tions, 3n.
Health department, liability of munici-
pal corporations for torts of em-
ployees in, 94.
Hearings, on removals of officials, 287.
Hening, W. W., Virginia Statutes at
Large, 2n.
History, of municipal institutions in
the United States, 1-27; of cities,
(1790-1825), 5-10; of American
cities (1825-1865), 10-15; of Amer-
ican cities (1865-1890), 15-21; of
American cities (1890-1912), 21-27.
Hobson, J. A., The Evolution of Modern
Capitalism, 45n.
Holcomb, W. P., Pennsylvania Bor-
oughs, 27.
Hollander, J. H., The Financial History
of Baltimore, 28.
Holyoke, Massachusetts, excess of female
population in, 30.
Home-rule charters, provisions for, in
state constitutions, 64; origin of,
in Missouri, 61-62 ; procedure in
obtaining, 62-63 ; objections to
system of, 63-66; advantages of
system of, 68-72; burden imposed
upon legislature, 68—69.
Houston, Texas, property qualification
for mayor in, 215; extension of
commission government to, 298.
Howe, Frederick C., The City, the
Hope of Democracy, 179, 333n.
Howe, W. W., The City Government of
New Orleans, 28.
Hull, R. M., "Preferential Voting and
How it Works," 149n, 152.
Huron, South Dakota, use of recall in,
355.
ILLINOIS, legislature of, establishes
state police control in Chicago
(1861), 15, 211; enacts civil ser-
vice reform law (1895), 21 ; pro-
visions in the constitution of, relat-
ing to government of Chicago, 59-
60; Traction Company, extent
of its operations, 66-67 ; supervision
of local civil service administra-
tion in, 74 ; merit system of select-
ing certain city employees in,
275.
394
INDEX
Illiteracy, in cities and rural districts,
43-44; as a bar to voting rights,
112-114; figures of, in United
States, 119.
Immigration, from rural districts to
cities, 31 ; foreign, 32-37.
Indiana, enacts civil service reform
law (1895), 21 ; admission of non-
citizens to voting rights in, 107.
Indianapolis, City Club of, 375.
Initiative and referendum. See Direct
Legislation.
Iowa, first use of non-partisan pri-
mary in, 131 ; legislature of, author-
izes adoption of commission plan,
298.
Italians, settlement of, in American
cities, 33.
Ivins, W. M., Machine Politics, 179.
JACKSON, ANDREW, democratic ten-
dencies during presidency of, 11-12 ;
rise of spoils system during presi-
dency of, 17 ; attacks congressional
caucus, 126.
Jelf, E. A., The Corrupt and Illegal
Practices Prevention Acts of 1883
and 1895, 152.
Jersey City, length of mayor's term in,
214.
Johnson, L. J., "Direct Legislation,"
336n.
Jones, C. L., Readings on Parties and
Elections, 131n, 139n, 152.
Jones, D. A., The Negligence of Munici-
pal Corporations, 96n, 101.
Jones, T. J., The Sociology of a New
York City Block, 52.
KANSAS, admission of non-citizens to
voting rights in, 107.
Kansas City, civil service system in,
242n, 276.
Kingsley, Charles, "Great Cities, and
their Influence for Good and Evil,"
46n.
LEAGUE of American Municipalities,
aims and work of, 363.
Lecky, W. E. H., Democracy and
Liberty, 124, 356.
Legislative control of city affairs, 71-
74.
Legislature, assumes charter-granting
functions after the Revolution, 5 ;
increased interference of, in city
affairs, 14; state checks on the
supremacy of, in dealing with
cities, 53-55.
Levasseur, Emiln, La population fran-
faise, 52.
Liability of municipal corporations.
See Contracts, Property, Torts.
Lighting, street, first establishment of,
10.
Limitations, constitutional, on state
legislature in relation to city affairs,
53 ff.
Lithuanians, drift of, to cities, 33.
Loans, municipal, special elections to
authorize, 106; powers of city
councils in the matter of, 201.
Lobingier, C. S., The People's Law, 356.
Local Government Board, in England,
74.
Local option, frequent use of referen-
dum in, 325-326; use of direct
legislation in, 348.
London, death rate in, during Middle
Ages, 38 ; relation of state to mu-
nicipal parties in, 158-159.
Los Angeles, California, phenomenal
growth in population of, since 1900,
26 ; merit system in, 276 ; adoption
of recall by, 350; City Club of,
375.
Louisiana, enacts civil service reform
law (1896), 21 ; exclusion of negroes
from suffrage in, 113.
Lowell, A. L., The Government of Eng-
land, 152, 159n ; on qualifications
of department heads, 243 ; Govern-
ments and Parties in Continental
Europe, 357.
Lowell, F. C., "The American Boss,"
175n.
Lowell, Massachusetts, excess of female
population in, 30.
Ludington, Arthur, "Ballot Laws in
the United States," 143n, 152.
Luetscher, G. D., Early Political Ma-
chinery in the United States, 126n,
151.
Lynn, Massachusetts, assignment of
functions to commissioners in, 303n.
McCALL, S. W., " Representative as
against Direct Government," 339».
McCrary, G. W., Treatise on the Ameri-
can Law of Elections, 112n, 152.
MacGregor, F. H., City Government by
Commission, 319.
McMillan, D. C., The Elective Franchise
in the United States, 124.
McQuillin, Eugene, The Law of Mu-
nicipal Corporations, 64w, 79, 80n,
84n, 85n, 86n, 87n, 101, 195n,
264.
INDEX
395
Macy, Jesse, Party Organization and
Machinery, 166n, 179.
Macy, John E., Selection of Cases on
Municipal or Public Corporations,
88n, 101.
Maine, educational testa for suffrage
in, 112 ; provisions for direct legisla-
tion in constitution of, 327ra.
Maine, Sir Henry S., Popular Govern-
ment, 124.
Maltbie, M. R., "City-made Char-
ters," 62n, 79 ; " Municipal Politi-
cal Parties," 156n, 161n.
Manchester, New Hampshire, excess
of female population in, 30.
Markets, municipal, liability of munici-
pal corporations for torts of em-
ployees in, 96.
Marriage rate, in urban and rural com-
munities, 38.
Maryland, legislature of, establishes
state police control in Baltimore
(1860), 14-15, 211 ; appointment of
Baltimore police board by legisla-
ture of, 247 ; early use of ordinary
referendum in, 324.
Massachusetts, assumes state control
of Boston police (1885), 19; enacts
civil service reform law (1884),
21 ; special legislation for cities in,
61 ; restrictions on municipal bor-
rowing powers in, 66 ; applica-
tions for new charters by cities of,
67 ; failure to enforce rules relating
to municipal finance in, 73 ; state
control of local civil service in,
74 ; metropolitan commissions in,
75 ; abolition of property qualifi-
cations for voting in, 105 ; special
suffrage at school elections in, 106;
residence requirements for voting
in cities of, 111 ; voters required
to read and write in cities of, 112;
voters required to be assessed for
poll-taxes in, 114; registration of
voters in, 116; names of voters
kept on rolls int 1 18 ; system of
joint primaries in, 130 ; simplifica-
tion of ballot in, 144; use of joint
primary in, 194; appointment
of Boston police commissioner
by governor of, 247 ; appointment
of Franklin Fund trustees by su-
preme court of, 247-248; merit
system of selecting municipal offi-
cers in, 275, 278-279; administra-
tion of merit system in, 278-280;
right to instruct representatives
provided for in constitution of, 324.
Massachusetts Civic League, aims and
methods of, 361.
Matthews, Nathan, The City Govern-
ment of Boston, lOn, 28, 210n.
Mayor, position of, in colonial boroughs,
4, 181 ; after the Revolution, 6 ;
increased powers of, in New York
City by charter of 1830, 10 ; popu-
lar election of, 11 ; increase in
appointing power of, 14; position
of, in Municipal Program, 21n;
power of, to accept or reject state
legislation in New York, 59 ; powers
of, in colonial boroughs, 181 ; pre-
sides at council meetings in Chi-
cago and Providence, 195 ; office
of, in American cities, 207-236;
early powers of, 208; increase of
powers of, during nineteenth cen-
tury, 209 ; increase in powers of,
after 1850, 210-211; method of
electing, 213-214; term of, in
varous cities, 213—214 ; qualifica-
tions for office of, 215—216; office
of, as a stepping-stone, 216-217;
salary of, 217-218; demand on
private purse of, 219-220; powers
of, 221-235; veto power of, 223-
226; appointing powers of, 226-
232; power to frame budget, 232-
234 ; appointment of administra-
tive boards by, 240 ; power of, to
remove department heads, 248—
249 ; appointment of civil service
authorities by, 277-278; tradition
attaching to the office of, 317 ; at-
tempted recall of, in Boston, 351n.
Mayo-Smith, R., Emigration and Immi-
gration, 35n.
Memphis, merit system in, 276 ; earliest
experiments with commission gov-
ernment in, 298; percentage of
signatures required for initiative
petitions in, 328n.
Merit system, origin of, 275; aims of,
276; administration of, in differ-
ent cities, 277-279 ; results of, 279-
280; objections to, 280-285; pre-
vention of unfair dismissals under,
286-287 ; beneficial achievements of,
287-289 ; inadequate provision for,
in commission charters, 306n.
See also Appointments, Removals.
Merriam, C. E., Primary Elections,
128n, 129n, 151.
Meuriot, Paul, Des agglomerations ur-
baines dans VEurope contemporaine,
3 In, 52.
Meyer, E. C., Nominating Systems, 151.
396
INDEX
Michigan, abolishes state police con-
trol, 19; provisions in the new
constitution of, concerning special
legislation for cities, 60; free-
holders' charter system in, 63 ;
alien voters in, 107 ; residence re-
quirement for voting in cities of,
111.
Militia, power of mayor to call out,
234.
Milk inspection, relation of, to urban
death rates, 40.
Mill, John Stuart, on the "magic of
property," 48; Representative Gov-
ernment, 124, 357.
Miller, G. A., "The Home Rule Law for
Michigan Cities," 79.
Milwaukee, City Club of, 376.
Mining industry as a counteracting
influence upon the urban influx,
34.
Minnesota, home-rule charter system
in, 62.
Mississippi, exclusion of negroes from
suffrage in, 113.
Missouri, admission of non-citizens to
voting rights in, 107 ; appointment
of St. Louis police commissioners
by governor of, 247 ; relation of
initiative to home-rule charter sys-
tem in, 326 ; provisions for direct
legislation in constitution of, 327n.
Montana, provisions for direct legis-
lation in constitution of, 327n.
Montesquieu, influence of, 225; on
the checks to power, 317.
Moral standards, of urban and rural
areas, 45-46.
Mortality at various ages in cities,
31-32; among infants in large
cities, 39-40.
Moses, Bernard, The Establishment of
City Government in San Francisco,
28.
Municipal Voters' League, of Chicago,
367-369.
Munro, W. B., The Government of
European Cities, 103n, 159n, 180n,
197n, 237n; The Initiative, Referen-
dum and Recall, '33 In, 336n, 355n,
356.
Myers, G., The History of Tammany
Hall, 163n, 179.
NATIONAL Civil Service Reform League,
aims and work of, 362.
National Municipal League, issues a
Municipal Program (1899), 21n;
its aims and work, 360-361.
Naturalization, of aliens, prime interest
of cities in, 37 ; rules of law relating
to, 106-109 ; fraudulent practices
in, 109-111.
Nebraska, admission of citizens to non-
voting rights in, 107.
Negroes, admission of, to citizenship,
107 ; methods of excluding from
suffrage in southern cities, 113-
114.
New Bedford, Massachusetts, excess
of female population in, 30.
New England, absence of chartered
boroughs in, 3 ; one-year mayoral
term commissioner in cities of, 213.
New Hampshire, percentage of illit-
eracy in cities of, 1 19 ; constitu-
tional provision concerning right
of people to instruct negroes in,
324.
New Haven, merit system in, 276.
New Jersey, abolition of property
qualification for voting in, 105.
New Orleans, age qualification of
mayor in, 215.
New York City, population of, in 1790,
9 ; police system of, in 1825, 9-10 ;
charter of (1825), 10; charter of
(1849), 13; provision for adminis-
trative officials in charter of (1830),
13 ; change in methods of selecting
administrative officers made in
1857, 14 ; state police control es-
tablished in (1857), 14; govern-
ment of, in years following the
War, 15 ; provisions against pat-
ronage in charter of (1873), 17;
political tendencies of foreign-born
voters in, 36-37; special legis-
lation relating to, 61 ; naturaliza-
tion of aliens by the courts of, 110;
registration of voters in, 117; work
of Citizens' Union in, 159—160 ;
party organization in, 162-163 ;
adoption of single-chambered coun-
cil in, 185; number of members in
city council of, 188; salaries of
aldermen in, 190 ; work of Board
of Estimate and Apportionment in,
200; limitations on appropriating
powers of city council in, 201 ; early
powers of mayor in, 208; popular
election of mayor introduced in
1834, 210; state police provided
for, 211 ; comparative influence
of mayor and city council in, 212 ;
mayor's term lengthened to four
years in, 213 ; salary of mayor in,
218 ; appointing powers of mayor in,
INDEX
397
229-230 ; method of making appro-
priations in, 233 ; election of comp-
troller in, 245n ; scope of mayor's
appointing power in, 246; provis-
ions concerning removals in present
charter of, 250 ; number of admin-
istrative departments in, 250-251 ;
number of civic employees in, 266 ;
cost of official incapacity in, 274 ;
political assessments in, 288 ; certi-
fication of pay-rolls by civil service
commission in, 289 ; Citizens' Union
in, 365-366 ; City Club of, 375.
New York, legislature of, establishes
state police board for New York
City (1857), 14; abolishes state
police control (1870), 19 ; enacts
civil service reform law (1883),
21 ; classification of cities in, 58—
59 ; special legislation for cities in,
61 ; restrictions on municipal bor-
rowing powers in, 66 ; public utili-
ties commissions in, 74 ; supervision
of local civil service systems in,
74; abolition of property qualifi-
cations for voting in, 105 ; special
provision for convicted voters in,
115; percentage of illiteracy in
cities of, 119; regulation of party
caucuses in, 128; provides state
police for New York City, 211;
merit system of selecting municipal
officials in, 275, 277-278; appoint-
ment of civil service commissioners
in cities of, by mayors, 277-278;
Municipal Government Association
of, 361.
Nomination by petition, in Boston, 23.
Nominations, municipal, early stages
in history of, 125-126 ; abuses in,
127-128; by party primaries, 128-
130 ; by open primaries, 131-132 ;
objections to the primary, 132-136 ;
by petition, 137-138 ; of city coun-
cillors, 194.
Norfolk, first charter of (1736), 2; as
an example of a close corporation, 4.
North Carolina, exclusion of negroes
from suffrage in, 113.
OBEHHOLTZEK, E. P., "The Progress
of Home Rule in Cities," 79 ;
The Referendum, Initiative, and Re-
call in America, 321n, 323n, 326n,
33 In, 348n, 355n, 356.
Ohio, assumes state control of Cin-
cinnati police (1886), 19; provisions
in the constitution of, relating to
city charters, 55; home-rule pro-
visions adopted by constitutional
convention in, 58 ; amount of
time given by legislature of, to
city affairs, 68 ; merit system of
selecting certain city officials in,
275 ; Municipal Association of, its
aims and methods, 361.
Oklahoma, home-rule charter system
in, 63 ; provisions for direct legis-
lation in the constitution of, 327n.
Ordinances, definition of, 85; formali-
ties to be observed in the enact-
ment of, 86; must be reasonable,
86—87 ; must not make improper
discriminations, 87-88 ; must not
unduly restrain trade, 88-89 ; lia-
bility of municipal corporations
for non-enforcement of, 92—93 ;
powers of city councils in enact-
ment of, 199-200; multiplicity of,
in larger cities, 203 ; veto of, by
mayors, 223-225; making of, by
the machinery of direct legislation,
329.
Oregon, admission of non-citizens to
voting rights in, 107 ; establish-
ment of direct legislation in, 327n.
Orth, S. P., The Centralization of
Administration in Ohio, 75n.
Ostrogorski, M., "The Rise and Fall
of the Nominating Caucus," 126n;
Democracy and the Party System,
127», 175n.
Owen, R. L., The Code of the People's
Law, 356.
PARDON, mayor's power of, in police
court cases, 234.
Paris, France, distribution of popula-
tion in, according to age, 3 In.
Parks, department of, liability of the
city for the torts of employees in
the, 94.
Parties, effect of identity of state and
municipal election days on, 139—
140; need of municipal, 153-154;
relation of municipal to state, 154—
155; methods of divorcing state
and municipal, 155-161 ; obstacles
in the way of strictly municipal,
156-158 ; experience of New York
City in the matter of independent,
159-161 ; organization of, in large
cities, 162-164; in Philadelphia,
164-165; in Boston, 165-166; in
other cities of the United States,
166-167; their work, 167-168;
raising of funds for, 169-171 ; ex-
penditures of, 171-172 ; control of
398
INDEX
patronage by leaders of, 171-174;
place of the boss in the organization
of, 174-178. See also Reform,
Municipal.
Patronage, nature of, in large cities,
172-173; its vicious results, 173-
174 ; its use by municipal bosses,
174-178 ; interest of councilmen
in, 205. See also Merit System.
Pennsylvania, special legislation for
cities in, 61 ; residence require-
ments for voting in, 111; voters
required to have paid state taxes in,
114; names of voters kept on lists
from year to year in, 118; merit
system of selecting certain city
officials in, 275-277 ; right of people
to instruct their representatives
provided for in constitution of,
324.
Pensions, for municipal employees,
290-292.
Petition, the system of nomination by,
136-138 ; nomination of councilmen
by, in Boston, 194.
Phelps, P. M., Selected Articles on the
Initiative and Referendum, 356.
Philadelphia, first charter of (1691), 2;
importance of, in later colonial
era, 4; new charter of (1789), 5-6;
special legislation relating to, 6 ;
population of, in 1790, 9 ; changes
made by charter of 1854 in, 13;
foreign-born element in the popu-
lation of, 35 ; registration of voters
in, 117; framework of party or-
ganization in, 164-165 ; retention
of bicameral council in, 185 ; Select
Council of, 188; non-payment of
councilmen in, 190 ; retention of
ward system in, 191 ; adopted popu-
lar election of mayor in 1826, 210 ;
relative powers of mayor and
municipal legislature in, 212 ; length
of mayor's term of office in, 213 ;
qualifications of candidates for
mayoralty in, 215 ; mayor's salary
in, 218; executive veto in, 223;
popular election of certain adminis-
trative officials in, 245n; appoint-
ment of school authorities by judges
in, 247 ; number of administrative
departments in, 251 ; appointment
of civil service commissioners in,
277 ; unwieldy nature of city coun-
cil in, 314; experience with refer-
enda on municipal borrowing in,
348n; City Club of, 375; Bureau
of Municipal Research in, 376.
Phillips, J. B., Educational Qualifications
of Voters, 114n, 124.
Physique, effects of urban concentra-
tion on racial, 41-43.
Pittsburgh, administrative changes in,
during early seventies, 16; retains
bicameral council, 185.
Poles, influx of, to larger American
cities, 33.
Police, organization of, in New York
City, during earlier part of nine-
teenth century, 9-10; state con-
trol of, established in New York,
Baltimore, St. Louis, and Chicago,
15; abolished in New York and
Chicago, 19 ; liability of the city for
the torts of, 94-95 ; intrusted with
work of listing voters in Boston, 116.
Pond, O. L., Municipal Control of
Public Utilities, 89n, lOOn, 101,
201n.
Pontiac, Michigan, use of direct legis-
lation procedure in, 329n.
Poor relief, liability of municipal cor-
porations for the torts of adminis-
trative officials in the department
of, 94.
Population, of colonial boroughs, 4 ;
of American cities in 1790, 9 ; in-
crease of cities in, during period
1865-1890, 18; increase of, in cities
since 1890, 25-26 ; causes of rapid
growth of, in urban centres, 26-27 ;
of typical urban and rural units
compared, 29 ; distribution of,
according to sex, 29-30; distribu-
tion of, according to age, 30-32 ;
distribution of, according to race
and nativity, 32-37 ; normal growth
of, in urban and rural areas, 37-41 ;
physical development of, in town
and country, 41-43 ; ratio of illit-
erates in urban and rural elements
of, 43-44 ; moral standards of
different elements in the, 45-46;
ownership of property by city and
country, 47-48.
Populists, early advocacy of the recall
by, 350.
Portland, Oregon, use of direct legis-
lation methods in, 329 ; Taxpayers'
League of, its part at referenda,
337n.
Pratt, E. E., Industrial Causes of the
Congestion of Population in New
York City, 52.
Prefect, office of, in France, 74 ; powers
of, in Paris, compared with powers
of American mayor, 235.
INDEX
399
Preferential voting, 147-149. See also
Ballot.
Primary, spread of the non-partisan,
in American cities, 23 ; different
types of, now in use, 129-132; ob-
jections to the, as a method of
nominating municipal officers, 133—
136. See also Nomination.
Progressives, in London, 158—159.
Property, ownership of, by urban and
rural voters, 47-48 ; municipal
liabilities connected with the hold-
ing of, 98-99 ; ownership of, as a
qualification for voting, 105; by
municipal voters in Rhode Island,
114.
Providence, Rhode Island, place of
the mayor with reference to the
city council in, 195.
Prussia, broad grants of power given
to cities in, 90.
Pryor, J. L., "Should Municipal Legis-
lators receive a Salary?", 190n,
206.
Public service corporations, relation
of the city to, 99-100; contribu-
tions made by, to party funds, 170.
See also Franchises.
Public utilities, relation of the council
to, 201-202.
Public works, departments of, faulty
organization of, in many cities,
260-261.
QUALIFICATIONS, of councilmen and
aldermen, 188-190; of candidates
for the mayoralty, 215 ; of depart-
ment heads, 243-244. See also
Merit System.
Quincy, Josiah, second mayor of Bos-
ton, 210; Municipal History of
Boston, Bn, 28.
RAWLES, W. A., Centralizing Tendencies
in the Administration of Indiana,
75n.
Recall, spread of the, in cities, 23 ; in
Des Moines, 300; origin of, 350;
machinery of the, 351-352 ; argu-
ments for the use of, 352—354 ; argu-
ments against the use of, 355-356.
Recorder, office of, in colonial boroughs,
4.
Reform, municipal, progress of, before
1890, 20; progress of, since 1890,
25 ; definition of, 358 ; types of
organizations working for, 360-
377 ; difficulties encountered by
movements for, 377-383.
Reformers, in London, 158-159.
Registration, of voters, in various
cities, 115-119.
Removals, of city officials, aldermanic
concurrence in, 229 ; of department
heads, 248-250. See also Merit
System.
Residence, as a requirement for nat-
uralization, 108; as a require-
ment for the suffrage, 111-112.
Revolution, effects of the, on city
charters, 5-6 ; on the organization
and functions of city councils,
181-182 ; on the office of mayor,
208. See also Federal Analogy.
Rhode Island, property qualification
for voting at city council elections
in, 114.
Richmond, Virginia, first charter of
(1742), 2.
Ridgely, David, Annals of Annapolis,
2n.
Ringwalt, R. C., Briefs on Public
Questions, 124.
Robbins, E. C., Selected Articles on
Commission Government, 319.
Robinson, C. M., The Call of the City,
32n.
Rogers, H. W., "Municipal Corpora-
tions," 3ra, 28.
Roosevelt, Theodore, New York, 28 ;
Practical Politics, 179 ; unsuccessful
candidate for mayoralty of New
York City, 217.
Rose, J. C., "Negro Suffrage," 114n.
Rotation in office, principle of, its
working in city administration, 12.
Rowe, L. S., Problems of City Govern-
ment, 101.
SALABIES, of aldermen and councillors,
190; of department heads, 259-
260.
San Bernardino, California, use of the
recall in, 355n.
San Francisco, state and municipal
elections held on different days in,
141 ; maintains single chamber
system, 185 ; number of members
in city council of, 188 ; abolition
of ward system in, 191 ; qualifica-
tions for the office of mayor in,
215 ; executive veto in, 223 ; scope
of mayor's appointing power in,
246; rise of merit system in, 276.
Scandinavians, migration of, to rural
districts, 33.
Scharf, J. T., History of St. Louis, 28.
Schenectady, New York, rapid growth
400
INDEX
of population in, during last decade,
26.
Schools, use of, as polling places, 141 ;
advantages of the board system
in the administration of, 256—257.
Schurz, Carl, on the importance of
personnel in city government, 378.
Scroggs, W. O., "Commission Govern-
ment in the South," 296n.
Seattle, rapid increase in population of,
since 1900, 26; extension of merit
system in, 276; use of recall in,
355n.
Separation of powers, the principle
of, introduced after the Revolution,
7 ; its vicious effects upon the or-
ganization of local government,
8 ; its application to the authority
of city councils, 205; disregarded
in the commission plan of city
government, 294; its merits and
defects as a working principle, 315.
Sewer department, liability of the
municipal corporation for the torts
of employees in, 96.
Sexes, distribution of national popula-
tion according to, 29-30.
Shambaugh, B. F., Commission Gov-
ernment in Iowa, 301n.
Shaw, Albert, Local Government in
Illinois, 27.
Short ballot, need for and merits of,
145-147. See also Ballot.
Short Ballot Organization, aims and
work of the, 362.
Sioussat, St. G. L., Baltimore, 28.
Sites, C. M. L., Centralized Adminis-
tration of the Liquor Laws in Ameri-
can Commonwealths, 75n.
Slavs, influx of, to American cities, 33.
Snavely, C., History of the City Gov-
ernment of Cleveland, 13n, 28.
South Carolina, exclusion of negroes
from suffrage in the cities of, 113.
South Dakota, admission of non-citi-
zens to voting rights in, 107.
South Park Commissioners, in Chicago,
appointed by judges of Cook
County, 247.
Sparling, S. E., Municipal History and
Present Organization of the City of
Chicago, 28.
Spencer, D. E., Local Government in
Wisconsin, 27.
Spoils system, genesis of the, 12 ; early
attacks on, 17 ; relation of, to re-
movals from office, 249-250. See
also Merit System.
Spokane, Washington, rapid growth in
population of, during last decade,
26 ; use of system of preferential
voting in, 148.
Sprague, H. H., The City Government
of Boston, its Rise and Development,
28.
Staunton, Virginia, administrative ex-
periments in, 317n.
Steffens, Lincoln, The Struggle for Self-
Government, 179.
Stephenson, G. T., Race Distinctions
in American Law, 113n.
Stimson, F. J., Federal and State Con-
stitutions of the United States, 325n.
St. Louis, state control of municipal
police established in (1861), 15;
administrative changes in, during
early seventies, 16-17 ; strength
of the foreign-born element in the
population of, 33 ; present police
commission in, 75 ; retains bicameral
council, 185 ; House of Delegates
in, 188 ; length of mayor's term in,
213 ; popular election of various
administrative officials in, 245n ;
present relations of state to city in,
236-247 ; number of administra-
tive departments in, 251 ; civic
betterment organizations of, 364 ;
Civic League of, 370; City Club
of, 375.
Streets, liability of municipal corpora-
tions for the torts of employees in
the department of, 96-97.
Strong, Josiah, The Twentieth Century
City, 45n.
Suffrage. See Electorate.
Sumner, Charles, begins fight against
spoils system, 17.
Switzerland, use of direct legislation
in, 103, 324.
TACOMA, Washington, use of the recall
in, 355.
Taxation, relation of, to legal residence,
111-112; relation of, to voting
rights, 114-115; evasion of, by
those assessed for poll-taxes only,
121; powers of city councils with
reference to, 200.
Tennessee, payment of poll-taxes a pre-
requisite for voting in, 114.
Terms of office, for heads of depart-
ments, 257-258 ; for commissioners,
302-303. See also Appointments,
Removals, Merit System.
Texas, admission of non-citizens to
voting rights in, 107 ; legislature
of, provides commission plan of
INDEX
401
government for Galveston, 296-
297.
Thayer, J. B., Cases on Constitutional
Law, 88.
Thompson, S. D., Cases on Municipal
Negligence, 98.
Tocqueville, Alexis de, views of, on
suffrage extensions, 12 ; Democracy
in America, 11, 124; on the im-
portance of the personnel in admin-
istration, 308.
Tolman, W. H., Municipal Reform
Movement in the United States,
385.
Torts, liability of the municipal cor-
poration for, 91-99.
Treasurer, office of, in colonial boroughs,
4 ; post of, made elective in Phila-
delphia (1854), 13.
Trenton, New Jersey, first charter of
(1746), 2.
Tweed, W. M., Tammany boss of New
York City, his dependence upon
the illiterate element of the voters,
120.
Tweed Ring, in New York City, its
operations, 15-16.
Tyson, Robert, "Preferential Voting,"
149.
UTAH, provisions for direct legislation
in constitution of, 327n.
VETO, mayoral, its appearance after
the Revolution, 8-9; first appear-
ance of, in municipal charters,
208-209; mayoral, procedure in,
223-226. See also Mayor.
Voters. See Electorate.
Voters' lists. See Registration of
Voters.
Voting, qualifications for, in American
cities, 102-124.
WANAMAKER, JOHN, Speeches on Quay-
ism and Boss Domination in Phila-
delphia Politics, 179.
Wards, system of election by, 190-191 ;
its merits and defects, 191-194.
Wash houses, municipal, liability of
municipal corporations for torts of
employees in, 96.
Washington, educational tests for vot-
ing in, 112.
Water supply, of New York City, be-
fore 1842, 10.
Weber, A. F., The Growth of Cities in
the Nineteenth Century, 9n, 27,
35n, 50n, 52.
West Virginia, report of commission
in, concerning special charter laws,
68.
Whinery, Samuel, Municipal Public
Works, 244n, 263, 273n, 293; on
qualifications of department heads,
244 ; on methods of dealing with
municipal contractors, 273n.
Whitten, R. H., Public Administra-
tion in Massachusetts, 75n.
Wigmore, J. H., The Australian Ballot
System, 143n, 152.
Wilcox, D. F., Municipal Franchises,
101 ; The American City, 124, 206,
236 ; The Government of Great Ameri-
can Cities, 264.
Williams, H. W., "The Reform of our
Municipal Councils," 206.
Wilson, J. G., Memorial History of the
City of New York, 28.
Wilson, Woodrow, "The Issues of
Reform," 331.
Wisconsin, enacts civil service reform
law, 21 ; public utilities commission
in, 74; alien voters in, 107n; use
of open primary in, 131 ; merit
system of selecting certain city
employees in, 275.
Women in industry, effect of, on urban
death rates, 40.
Women's suffrage, 123.
Woodburn, J. A., Political Parties and
Party Problems, 179.
Woodruff, C. R., City Government by
Commission, 297w, 299n, 319.
Woolston, H. B., A Study of the Popu-
lation of Manhattanville, 52.
Wyoming, educational tests for voting
in, 112.
ZUKBLIN, CHARLES, American Munici-
pal Progress, 24n; A Decade of
Civic Improvement, 24n.
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