LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. <2lFT OF Ctes THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN THK UNITED STATES. AN ADDRESS GIVEN BEEORE THE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION OE CORNELL UNIVERSITY, MARCH 16, 1887, BY THE HON. SETH LOW. PUBLISHED EOR THE UNIVERSITY BY ANDRUS & CHURCH, ITHACA, N. Y. THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. AN ADDRESS GIVEN BEFORE THE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY, MARCH 16, 1887, BY THE HON. SETH LOW. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PUBLISHED FOR THE UNIVERSITY BY ANDRUS & CHURCH, ITHACA, N. Y. THE PROBLEM OE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. Municipal Government, from its nature, is a problem every- where. All the tendencies of the times are sending the population of the fields into the cities, not alone in this country, but in all civilized lands. Everywhere this aggre- gation of population besets the authorities of cities with problems of one kind or another. The question of an economi- cal and healthful disposition of garbage, which solves itself so readily in the country, or in small villages, in the great city becomes a problem difficult in proportion to the size of the city. The difficulties of it continue to increase with the city's growth ; and what is true of that is true of the simplest matters of daily life. To procure water for a household is an easy thing, but to supply a large city with water, always is a most costly thing, and oftentimes is attended with the greatest difficulty. The questions that arise in connection with it are questions that never would be thought of until the multiplication table brings them into prominent view. Not long ago the Governor of one of our States told me of a novel point that had been raised against a city's water supply. The outlying towns, whose factories depended upon water power, while willing to admit that the city was entitled to water for drinking purposes, questioned the right to draw water from its natural channels for manufacturing purposes within the city. The problem of supplying a city with water is great enough, but the problem of meeting a city's waste of water, except by meters, never has been solved. Such ques- tions as these, while legitimately a part of the problem of city government, are in no way peculiar to Municipal Government in the United States. The problem which we are asked to 207751 1 consider to-night is distinctively a political one. We are asked to consider the peculiar difficulties attaching to the effort to secure good city government under popular institu- tions. In a general way, we are apt to believe that if these institutions have broken down anywhere, they have broken down in cities. For myself, I am not willing to admit that they have broken down completely even there ; but it cer- tainly is true that the failures in city government in the United States have been grave enough to justify a most care- ful search for the cause of these failures and for the remedy. Before committing ourselves to this enquiry it will be well, if possible, to obtain a just idea of the extent to which failure is fairly chargeable to our institutions. It is not just to compare any of our cities, even the greatest of them, with the great cities of Europe. London, Paris and Berlin, for example, with which New York most often is compared, are the seats of National Government. They were cities when New York was an island inhabited only by savages. Many of their most splendid monuments and most useful works have been executed, in whole or in part, by the general government of the nation of which each is the capital. Berlin since 1870, it is true, has grown almost as rapidly as New York, but its growth has been the incoming of a homo- geneous people. The city has not been the receptacle of a tide of emigration flowing from all parts of the world, bring- ing into the city a host speaking different languages, trained in foreign ideas, and not a homogeneous but a most hetero- geneous multitude. Even London, vast as it is and cosmo- politan as it is, presents nothing like the confusion of tongues and variety of peoples which are to be heard and seen in New York. Paris, even more than London, is populated by a single people only. It is true that none of our other cities are perplexed with this especial problem to the same extent as New York, but all of them are compelled to face it in a degree sufficiently great to mark it as one of the peculiar elements of the problem of City Government in this country. It is not unfair to claim that it is a difficulty attaching to city govern- ment here, which attaches to it in no city of Kurope. This same influx of population has given rise to another peculiar difficulty in Municipal Government here. Cities, instead of being the growth of centuries, as they have been in Kurope, with us are the growth of of decades. The City of Brooklyn and the City of Chicago have just turned their fifty years of municipal life. In these fifty years each has grown from a small settlement to be a city of 700,000 people or more. No city in Great Britain, except its vast metropolis, notwithstand- ing the centuries which have entered into their lives, is so large as either Brooklyn or Chicago. A growth so rapid as this means that everything which makes the city has to be created, as it were, out of nothing. I referred a moment ago, to the wonderful growth of Berlin since 1870. It is, I think, the only city in Europe presenting anything like a parallel growth to that of our American cities. But Berlin in 1870 had been a city for hundreds of years. The Great Elector, and Frederick the Great, and his successors, had made it the pride of their reigns to beautify and ennoble Berlin. As a result, there was a nucleus in the city of great wealth, giving it at once the credit and the ability necessary to provide for the needs forced upon it by this unusual growth. But Brooklyn and Chicago had no such nucleus of wealth upon which to build their fortunes. They sprang, as it were, out of the very soil ; and the same few years which have seen so large a population gather under one City Government, have seen each city supply itself with all the comforts and conveniences of life in these modern times. When one goes to Europe, the first matter to attract one's attention and to make him mourn the condition of things at home, are the streets. The uniformly good pave- ments, and the uniformly clean streets abroad, are the admi- ration and the envy of the dwellers in nearly all American cities. It often is charged against our cities that they fail conspicuously in these palpable respects. But it is forgotten that the era of good pavements and consequently of clean .streets, in most of the European cities is less than thirty 6 years old. In Berlin, I believe, it dates from a period more recent than 1870. I would not exculpate our city officials from any fault justly chargeable to them in regard to the paving and cleaning of our streets ; but in forming an esti- mate of what the true measure is of the break down in our political institutions in the government of cities, it is fair to bear in mind that if we do not yet equal European cities in these most desirable respects, the reason is to be found, in part, in the heavy obligations for permanent plant, forced upon our cities by their rapid growth. Time is an element in making a city as well as in the accomplishment of any other great purpose, and we must not charge to our institu- tions, failures that really spring from the shortness of time in which they have been at work. Indeed, I think it fairly may be claimed for our institutions, as exemplified in City Govern- ments in the United States, that they have shown themselves equal in many ways to grapple with very great and very difficult problems. It is curious, I think, to travel along the border between the United States and Canada, and to note how, wherever one finds a house on the Canadian side, one finds a hamlet on this ; where Canada boasts a village, on our side, one finds a town ; where Canada grows into a town, upon the American side is a city. Partly no doubt, mostly perhaps, this is simply the vigorous life of the nation express- ing itself, even at its boundaries. But I fancy also, this claim can be made, that our popular institutions lend them- selves readily to the growth of cities, because the ability to provide the necessary comforts and conveniences of city life is within easy reach of the population. As a rule, it is not necessary, for instance, to convince a distant authority of the need for a sewer before it can be constructed ; nor, can the objection of a few, who possibly hold the purse-strings, long decline to yield to the demands of the many. In other words, our institutions, even in cities, lend them- selves with wonderfully little friction to growth and develop- ment, and to the assimilation of new and strange populations. Our cities, as a whole, have a more abundant supply of wa- ter than European cities, and they are much more enterpris- ing in furnishing themselves with what abroad, might be called the luxuries of city life, but which here are so common as almost to be regarded as necessities. Especially is this true of every convenience involving the use of electricity. There are more telephone wires, for example, in New York and Brooklyn than in the whole United Kingdom. The problem of placing these wires under ground, therefore, to take another illustration of the difficulties of city government, is vastly greater than in any city abroad, because the multi- plication of wires is so constant and at so rapid a rate, that as fast as some are placed beneath the surface, those which have been strung during the process seem as numer- ous as before the underground movement began. ' I speak of these things because it is important for us to define accurately wherein our failure does lie, in order that we may consider wisely what may be the remedy. It is manifest that we must not assume that everything of which we justly complain in our cities is due to the failure of American institutions, expressing themselves in city life. While I have been thus careful to concede everything that may be urged in mitigation of conclusions unfavorable to our city governments, the fault with which they are justly chargeable is grave enough. The struggle in city government in the United States, is not so much to secure the doing of a necessary thing, as it is to procure the doing of it economically, efficiently and hon- estly. It may be a hard word, but the struggle in city gov- ernment at present, so far as I know, in every city, is to se- cure simple honesty on the part of its officials, as a whole, as towards the people. I do not mean that all city officials are personally dishonest, nor even that the majority of them are. It , would be impossible to deny, in the presence of the re- cent developments in New York City, tiiat a percentage of dishonest men do obtain positions of trust and influence in city governments. How large that percentage may be, it is idle to speculate. The difficulty is much more deeply rooted than that. The whole city government is chosen under con- ditions that make the highest conception of service to the people, almost an impossibility. First of all, nominations are made upon party lines, which lines are drawn along questions in which municipal issues have no part. As a con- sequence of this, officials, when they are elected, find them- selves presented with the choice of two masters, their party or their city. If the party lines had been drawn upon city issues, the interests of the two might fairly be supposed to be identical. This not having been the case however, the offi- cial, almost invariably, places the interest of his party first, and the interest of the city second. Citizens may complain of this, but, so long as they choose their officials by the ordinary party machinery, this tendency will be too strong wholly to overcome. Nor is it a very illogical thing on the part of the officials. From five to ten per cent, more citizens vote for the President of the United States, at every election, than vote at a corresponding time for city officials. Both by the number of votes cast, therefore, and by the method pur- sued in the actual nomination and election of city offi- cials, those officials, when chosen, find themselves faced with the fact that the great body of their constituents, take more interest in their party than in the well being of their city. This would be discouraging enough to good service, under the most favorable conditions, but, when city officials, in ad- dition to this, find themselves exposed to all the pressure which the party machinery can bring upon them in their offices, a situation exists, from which it is not reasonable to expect that the city will be the first care, even in the minds of its own officers. This is the underlying difficulty which makes it so hard to imbue our city officials, practically, with the idea that ' ' public office is a public trust. ' ' The com- munity from which they take their powers, does not act as though the community itself believed it. This being a fun- damental trouble, it is easy to see how difficult it will be to devise any adequate remedy. The first and most natural suggestion is to separate mu- 9 nicipal elections from all other elections . and to hold them at different times. In Boston, for example, the charter election follows the November election, in December. In Philadelphia, on the other hand, the charter election is held in the Spring. Theoretically, this is an improvement ; but practically, it generally has transpired that fewer citizens cast their votes, at such times, than would vote upon election day. Furthermore, in Boston, the antagonisms of the No- vember election are very apt to repeat themselves in Decem- ber, because the dates are so close together ; while in Phila- delphia, an approaching election in the Fall, gives color to the Spring election, because the latter is considered a straw to show which way the tide is running. This, of course, illustrates again, the disadvantage to the city, of choosing its officials along party lines, bearing altogether upon outside questions. I believe, however, that the balance of argument is in favor of separate municipal elections. If it could be made practicable, by a constitutional amendment, I should prefer to see the terms of State officers so adjusted that city elections throughout our State might be held at the usual November election, but in alternate years as regards elections for State and National officers. Even so, I should not ex- pect to see them escape altogether the influence of the stronger tide of party politics, but I think that influence would be re- duced to its minimum of strength, as compared with the strength of the fight that might be made, under such circum- stances, upon city issues. In any case I prefer a separate city election, because it tends to emphasize to the minds of the citizens, their separate interest in good city government, as distinguished from their concern in good State and Na- tional government. I have great faith in the ability to edu- cate American communities to the acceptance of ideas which in themselves are sound, provided the opportunity is given to impress the lesson distinctly and free from misleading complications. For this reason, it would be, in my mind, a substantial advantage to have separate city elections. Let us consider now, the Legislative Body of Cities. Boards 10 of Aldermen in some cities, have so far disappointed public trust, as to lead to various methods of choosing such a Board, in the hope of finding some method which would give a satisfactory result. But such cities, unfortunately, seem to return Boards, under every system, which lead to the condemnation of all systems alike. In New York City, which is the most extreme case of all, practically every power, except the right to grant franchises, has been taken from the Board of Aldermen, and lodged in a Board of Apportion- ment, consisting of the Mayor, the Comptroller, the President of the Board of Aldermen, and the Tax Commissioner. The Board of Apportionment, speaking generally, exercises all the financial oversight and control of taxes and their appli- cation, which, in other places, would have been exercised by the Aldermen. New York, of course, has peculiar difficul- ties to contend with. Her voting population is continually swollen by new recruits from abroad, under conditions the least favorable that can be imagined for enabling them to appreciate the duties and responsibilities attaching to the use of their ballots. The shape of the city is such as to concen- trate similar elements of the population in the same locali- ties ; to produce many districts with a large population having very small opportunities to acquaint themselves with the proper use and care of large sums of money ; and a few districts, where the population so largely abounds in wealth, as greatly to neglect the proper discharge of their duties as citizens of no mean city. The same elements, enter into the problem, unquestionably, in all our large cities, but they enter into it to a greater extent in New York than anywhere else. Boards of Aldermen, it is found, and not in New York only, largely fail as prudent guardians of the public interests in financial matters, because they are com- posed of men who have no experience fitting them for the discharge of such duties. It was suggested by the City Com- mission appointed by Governor Tilden, that the only effectual remedy for this condition of things, was the election of a second Board, chosen by tax-payers only, who should II possess the veto power on all questions of a financial nature. I confess that I should feel greatly discouraged if the only remedy for the trouble lies in this direction, because, I see no reason whatever to believe that this particular remedy is practicable. Our American institutions make the man the unit and not the dollar, and I do not expect to see great cities, containing immense masses of men, made exceptions to this rule. Somewhat that is helpful in this particular, we have gained already from experience, by limiting the amount of debt which a city is permitted to create. In several of our States, cities are limited by the constitution, to a debt ranging from three per cent, to ten per cent, of their assessed valuation for the preceding year. Whether the limit be high or low, it is a great point to have that limit definitely fixed. In my observation, the amount of pecuniary wrong which cities suffer through the Tax Levy, is comparatively insig- nificant. The tax bill the citizens see every year, and the officials who are responsible for the items which make up the budget, are most unwilling to permit any items to enter, which swell it to an unreasonable amount. I think I am not mistaken in saying, that whatever plundering may have been done, has been effected chiefly through concealing the consequences of extravagance and fraud by postponing the resulting burden in the form of debt. Therefore, this simple device of limiting the credit of a city, puts a stop at once to the most serious inroads upon its tax payers. In New York City, as I have said, all powers practically have been taken from the Board of Aldermen except their right to grant franchises. It would not be surprising if this right also should be withdrawn within a few years. In New York, already, franchises must be sold at auction. One way to secure payment to the city for the value of franchises, which seems to me to promise quite as well as the sale pf franchises at auction, would be to refer each proposed fran- chise to the Board of Assessors to estimate its value, and to forbid the granting of it below their estimate. In view of the fact that competition for franchises is necessarily limited, this 12 seems to me a practicable way at least of determining upon an upset price. Practically, so far as my experience goes, the Board of Alder- men is useful in a large city, under our modern conditions, in only one respect. Matters brought before them and referred to a committee can be considered in public before action is had upon them. Very often, it is true, that just in those cases where deliberation and publicity are most desirable, this course is the least followed. If that comes to be the rule, in any city, rather than the exception, I would say, without hesita- tion, that the New York plan of referring the control of financial expenditure, to a Board made up of the chief officials of the city, would be the better plan. In that case I should go the whole length of the idea and give to that Board all necessary powers still left with the Common Council with reference to franchises, because, as it stands otherwise, the Common Council * does not retain power enough to attract to itself, even by accident, effective elements of strength. The most dangerous of all public bodies are those which possess considerable power to do harm and little capacity to do good. Of course, it sometimes happens that the chief officials of the city are themselves as untrustworthy as any Board of Aldermen could be ; but, unless my experience has been exceptional, I should say that the chief officials in all large cities would average better than their aldermen. When I say better, I mean better in intelligence and in the elements of character which go to make up efficient and honest officials. The larger the constituency to which the candidate is obliged to appeal, as a rule, the larger man the candidate has to be. Our wards all the time elect men, who would stand no chance of election, could they even be nominated, in the city at large. Especially is this so if they were to run, not as members of a large Board, but on their own merits as candi- dates for a specific office known to be of great importance to the city. The Common Councils of Cities unquestionably are the greatest of the organic municipal problems. So far as I 13 know, there is only one experiment as to the make up of Common Councils of large cities, which has not been tried and found wanting. I do not know of any city where there is a Common Council consisting of a large number of mem- bers, whose duties are strictly confined to deliberative and legislative functions. There have been large Common Coun- cils in some cities, consisting even of two houses, but unless my impression is incorrect, they have also possessed large power of interference with the Executive. Under these cir- cumstances, I do not know that the results with large Com- mon Councils, have been any more satisfactory than with small ones. In one direction however, I think experience has led to progress even in connection with the Common Councils of cities. In the early part of our history, almost every city charter, gave to the Common Council great powers of interference, to say the least, with the Executive. In al- most all our large cities, that power has been taken away from the Board of Aldermen, and where it has not been taken away entirely, it has been very greatly modified. Cities used to be given charters framed as though they were little States, but experience has shown conclusively, that they are to a much larger extent, great corporations. In consequence, the checks that have been thought necessary where men's political rights were at stake, have been found to be unnecessary in the administration of cities. Indeed, they have been found to be a source of great inconvenience and damage, because, having no substantial foundation in the genuine need of the community, they have only served to enable the legislative body to hamper and thwart the execu- tive. I should consider it as one of the indisputable lessons of our experience in connection with city government, that legislative and executive functions, be clearly divided. This brings us naturally to a consideration of the experi- ence of cities on the executive side. Until very recently, our cities have endeavored to govern themselves by a system, which never could give good results anywhere. In almost every city, the Mayor has been little more than a figure head. He -14- has had, generally, the right to nominate the heads of de- partments, but the value of this right has been nullified by lodging with the Common Council the power to confirm. In all our large cities the confirming power has become the nom- inating power. It always has been able to produce a dead- lock, which after a time, in most cases, has been broken by a deal. Nothing more demoralizing to the public service is conceivable than this method of filling high administrative offices. It is singularly at variance with the good sense of the American people, that they have so long permitted such a system to obtain in their cities, while in the infinitely great- er concerns of the United States, a much larger discretion has been given to the President. It is true, that the appoint- ments made by the President ultimately come for confirma- tion, before the Senate, but the President has power to re- move and fill vacancies, such as no mayor has enjoyed until within the last few years. In one other respect also, of equal importance, the char- ters of our cities have departed from the wise rule of the government of the United States. The fathers of the repub- lic knew better than to lodge executive powers in a Board consisting of several members. They understood perfectly that one man for executive work, was the rule in all depart- ments of human activity, where efficiency was either sought or hoped for. But our cities when they met with harm through the inefficiency or misdeeds of an executive official, have frequently sought, or been compelled to accept, the ad- ministration of a Board in the place of the administration of one man. Indeed, except in the cities of Brooklyn in our own State, and in Philadelphia, and possibly in Chicago, I am not sure that the care of police affairs to-day, is not en- trusted almost everywhere to more than one man. One might as well expect an army to be successful under four Generals as to expect efficient and economical administration of a Police Department under four Commissioners, whether these Commissioners be non-partisan or otherwise. Boards of officials have their proper place, where duties are to be discharged involving the element of discretion and judgment, but certainly not where the discretion and judgment is purely that of an executive. For example, it seems to be eminently proper that there should be a Board of Assessors or a Board of Education, because in those cases, the element of judgment is the principal thing ; but I believe that all our large cities, ultimately, as some of them have already done, will come to the system which prevails in Brooklyn, of committing each executive department to the care of one man. There is, of course, a great difference in the executive power of individ- uals, and a poor executive will seriously affect the efficiency of a department ; but he must be a singularly inefficient man, who will produce worse results than the best Board that ever sat. If the members of such Boards were to enter upon their duties with the most single-minded purpose possi- ble, the nature of the work entrusted to them must very shortly produce one of two results : either the members of the Board will get at logger-heads with one another, resulting in great disadvantage to the service ; or, the members will keep in harmony with each other by mutual concessions. In no case does the best judgment of any one member, nor the prompt action of any one, come with the same direct efficien- cy, as when the full power is lodged in single hands. When to this inevitable tendency, resulting from division of execu- tive work, is added the confusion springing from the lack of high principle, which sometimes is witnessed in public life, it becomes apparent, I think, that the effort to procure good results through the division of executive powers must always be fore-doomed to failure. No army could succeed under such a system ; no railroad could succeed ; no business of any kind could succeed under it ; and there is nothing so sin- gular about the business of a city, that good results can be hoped for in a city from methods which defy the experience of mankind. There is still another particular in which the govern- ment of the United States might usefully serve as a model for our cities. All great administrative departments of i6 the government are not only under the control of one man, but this one man, by custom amounting to law, must always be in sympathy with the President. As a matter of fact, he forms one of his cabinet ; and when, for any reason he finds himself out of sympathy with his chief, he at once tenders his resignation. The resignation is accepted as a matter of course, under these circumstances, without its implying any- thing derogatory to either official. It simply is a case where the two men can not work harmoniously together, and the common sense of the nation has understood, that under these conditions, it is the right of the President, as the responsible head of the country, to enjoy the aid of a subordinate in en- tire sympathy with his own ideas. In our cities, the effort has been made to procure satisfactory results by precisely the opposite system. The heads of executive departments, some- times are elected directly by the people, and, therefore, feel entirely independent of the Mayor, who in name,,., at all events, is the chief executive of the city. Where they are not so elected by the people, they often have been appointed for terms overlapping the terms of service of the Mayor in both directions, beginning before his term began and outlast- ing him in his office. The direct result of this system is that each department considers itself an integral part of the city government, without relations to the other parts of the city further than it may be pleasant or agreeable for the respect- ive heads of each to concede. An illustration will show how detrimental to the public service such a situation may be. The Police Department, in its administration, touches di- rectly, and every day, these four departments of city service, the Department of City Works, or the department by what- ever name it may be known, which has charge of the paving and cleaning of the streets, and all other matters touching the care of the thoroughfares of a city ; the Building Depart- ment ; the Fire Department ; and the Health Department. In every city, ordinances affecting all four of these depart- ments, depend upon the police in a large measure for effective enforcement. I have known it to be the case that the head of the Police Department and the head of the Health Depart- ment have been carrying on a prolonged controversy in the newspapers, each finding fault with the other. How is it possi- ble to secure an efficient administration of the health laws under these conditions ? And if the different officers, or Boards, get out of sympathy with each other to a greater extent, owing no allegiance to the Mayor as the chief executive of the city, it is apparent that there again a situation has grown up which can not, by any possibility, produce satisfactory results. But it is only within the last few years that, in any of our American cities, the lesson has been learned of the necessity of having the responsibility of the Mayor extend to each administrative department. I do not hesitate to say that this responsibility ought to extend to the same length that it does in the United States Government, so that the administration of the city, for the time being, should rest absolutely in the power of the Mayor. I understand, of course, that this involves power to do great harm, as well as power to do the greatest good, but that is an incident of power in all departments of life. The locomotive may do great damage if it is not properly controlled, but no one would think of de- priving the locomotive of its power, because, without a com- petent or trustworthy engineer, it might become an instrument of mischief. Power always brings with it responsibility, and great responsibility exercised in the face of the community is a very sobering influence. In my opinion , no Mayor weighted with such responsibility, moving, as he is compelled to do, in the focus of public observation, will permit matters to go wrong, as much as they will go wrong all the time under better men when hampered by the system which has prevailed in our cities hitherto. It is to be remembered, also, that a system of concentrated responsibility accompanied by corresponding power and opportunity appeals to all that is best in a man. If there is no possibility of throwing off upon others blame for mistakes or misdeeds, there is equally no one to claim the credit of commendable achievements. Consequently, the man occu- pying the Mayor's chair, is appealed to by two of the most i8 powerful motives to be found in the human breast. On the one hand, every high aspiration to do well is encouraged by the cer- tainty of its reward ; and every temptation to do ill is discour- aged by the inevitableness of the blame. Under the system of divided responsibility the typical situation is that which was illustrated long ago by the inimitable pencil of Thomas Nast, when, in the days of the Tweed regime, he pictured a ring of of officials, each pointing to the other as the man who was to blame. I believe, therefore, in the government of cities, on their executive side, by a Mayor who is given the power to appoint and remove all the executive heads of departments. I believe the charter of Brooklyn is right also, in providing that these heads of departments shall be appointed by the mayor for a term contemporaneous with his own, so that each succeeding Mayor enjoys the opportunity given the President of the United States of making an administration, for which he is not only willing to be responsible, but for which he must be responsi- ble. These conditions are important in my view, not only for the efficient administration of the city, but also to secure com- plete control over their city government for the people. How- ever possible it may be, as a matter of theory, for every citizen upon election dav to cast a ballot with reference to any num- ber of officials, based upon a discriminating knowledge of the duties of each candidate, as a matter of fact it is not possible for the citizen, whose time is largely engrossed in his private affairs, to obtain the detailed knowledge necessary for such an act. The best such an one can hope to do, is to form his general opinion of this or that man, from the newspapers, or from conversation with such friends as he may chance to meet. But if it is possible to say to the voters of a city, whichever of these two men you elect Mayor will have the right and power to administer the affairs of the city in all de- tails for the period of his term, then you have propounded a proposition upon which the most ignorant citizen may hope to form an opinion. It is not often that two men are so equally adapted to work of this sort, that a voter can make 19 no choice between them. x Besides this, the very fact that the office is made important, makes it possible to obtain the best men in the community as candidates ; because, under such conditions, it is worth while for any man to be the Mayor of a great city ; while, under conditions where the Mayor is a figurehead only, no man having a regard for his own reputa- tion can afford to accept the place, even could he be elected to it. It is a matter of record, I think, that in those cities where the Mayor has been made a controlling po\ver under the charter, more citizens have voted in the choice for Mayor, than ever have voted before for city officers. The fact that the man elected is so completely influential in shaping the policy and destiny of the city during his term, more than anything else brings the citizens to the polls to express their wishes upon a matter so palpably important to them. In my own city of Brooklyn, under such conditions, more men have voted for the office of Mayor, than have voted for the office of Governor, a result never realized until the Mayor was made the practical head of the city government. It is clear, I think, that the tide of legislation in regard to cities is run- ning in this direction, because it is so clearly the teaching of experience, and because it is so closely in line with the Gov- ernment of the United States. I expect to see the current sweep on until this system prevails in all cities of any mag- nitude. To turn now to another point. In New York State, especially, our cities have suffered from the tendency of the Legislature constantly to change their charters, and to inter- fere in the details of the city's work in ways altogether un- warrantable. The practice sprang up, I presume, from the fear entertained in some quarters of the consequences of en- trusting to the people of New York City the administration of their own affairs. Unquestionably, experience did dem- onstrate the necessity, as I have already said, of modifying the powers of the Common Council in that city in many particulars, but the pendulum swung equally too far, and 20 equally to the disadvantage of the city, in the other direc- tion. There is no possibility, in my view, under our Ameri- can system of government, of procuring good government for any city, by outside interference in details. Our system is all based upon trust in the people, and I believe the way to achieve the best results, is to follow out that trust to its logi- cal conclusions. Changes of method whereby the will of the people can be more efficiently executed, or their interests more securely protected, are always in order ; but methods which simply substitute the will of the State for the will of the locality in local matters, are not beneficial. Lest I should be misun- derstood, let me illustrate what I mean. I conceive it to be no departure from the true principle of Home Rule to limit the debt which a city can create. It is a singular circumstance, that at the moment it has been made more easy for a commu- nity to run into debt, through their incorporation as a city, at that moment, the Legislature, hitherto, haslet down all the bars restraining the use of the public credit. The facilities for debt making in towns and villages, do not begin to compare with the opportunities which cities have enjoyed for discount- ing the future, until limited by constitutional amendment. On the other hand, I conceive it to be a flagrant departure from the idea of local self-government, and a departure also which never will work to the advantage of a city, for the Legislature of the State to order a specific work to be done, which competent authorities in the city government do not think ought to be done. To my view, it is equally a depart- ure from a proper theory of Home Rule, when unusual work is to be done, for the Legislature to designate the person or persons by whom it is to be executed. All such Legislative acts should lodge the power of appointment and removal with the Mayor, precisely as though the work to be done were a part of the ordinary functions of one of the city departments. When the Legislature names a commission, it is wholly irre- sponsible ; nobody but the Legislature itself can call it to account in any particular. If a commission is named by the Mayor, however, and is removable by the Mayor, there is 21 always a power at hand to call the commissioners to account. I understand the possibilities of danger involved in such power ; but my contention is, that they are greatly less than the possibilities of danger and harm involved in the other method. Everything which tends to strengthen the pride of the people in their city, is an important element in procuring good city government. Everything which tends to lessen that pride and to decrease the sense of responsibility, is a blow at good city government. The doing of city work by commissions appointed by the Legislature, in my judgment, is a grave mistake, for this reason if for no other, and I hope to see the day when our people will have confidence enough in the ideas which underlie all our institutions, to be true to them in this respect. It may be that the path to good gov- ernment in a given city would lie through a costly experi- ence ; but I verily believe, that at the end of that experience, would come a prolonged period of really good government. Under the system of appealing from ourselves to the central authority of the State, there is no hope for permanent good results. At the beginning of this paper, I claimed that many of the palpable grounds for dissatisfaction with the con- dition of affairs in our cities, were chargeable to elements of their situation in no way connected with our popular in- stitutions. The succeeding discussion, I hope, has been suf- ficiently convincing to show that a perceptible percentage of the evils which we have endured in our American cities have been due to causes which are remediable, through amendments to our city charters. In so far as our failures in city gov- ernment can be traced to such causes, the matter is not fatal. There would be ground for despair, only, in the event that we were forced to conclude the root of the trouble was entire- ly beyond our reach under the popular institutions which we enjoy. For myself, I do not entertain this view. Time, I think, will teach us how to mitigate even those evils di- rectly traceable to party spirit. In many and very import- ant respects, the government of our large cities, has greatly 22 improved within the last ten or twenty years. I think life and property is more secure in almost all of them than they used to be. Certainly, there has been no such decrease of security as might reasonably have been ex- pected to result from the increased size of the cities. Less than a score of years ago, it was impossible to have a fair election in New York or in Brooklyn, or perhaps in any other large city. To-day, and for the last decade, under our system of Registry Laws, every election is held with sub- stantial fairness. The health of our cities, unless I am mis- taken, does not deteriorate, but on the average improves. So that in the large and fundamental aspect of the question, I have a feeling that our progress, if slow, is steady in the direction of betterment. I do not expect to see the history of the next twenty years in the affairs of our cities repeat all the scandals that have marked the past twenty years. It is not strange that a people conducting an experiment, for which there is absolutely no precedent, should have to stumble towards correct and successful methods through experiences which may be both costly and distressing. I see no other road towards improvement, in the coming time, but I think it certain that in another decade we shall look back on some of the scandals of the present, in city government, with as much surprise as we now regard the effort to control fires by a volunteer fire department, which was insisted upon in New York until within twenty years. In other words, I take no gloomy view of the situation. I see nothing in the gen- eral condition of affairs which is absolutely incurable, unless it be the unwillingness of the people themselves to choose their local officials along divisions on local lines. I confess that it is here that the problem appears to me the most diffi- cult. I hope for good results in this direction, however, from the growth of sentiment in favor of civil service reform, whereby patronage shall become less and less powerful in the determination of election contests ; from legislation which, in controlling to some extent, the cost and methods of con- ducting canvasses, may reduce to a minimum the mischief 23 wrought by the improper use of money. I do not expect to live long enough to see the government of cities in America anything other than a pressing problem, but as I stated at the outset, it is a problem everywhere. During the last spring, I staid for four months in the City of London, and I had not been long in the habit of reading the newspapers there before I became aware that the administration of their local affairs was seemingly as unsatisfactory to the people of London, as the administration of any of our large cities. They have, it must be conceded, better pavements and cleaner streets, but it is to be remembered that the work of a London parish, in the parts of the city already built up, is practically confined to care for the current necessities of liv- ing from day to day. They are not engaged in the construction of large and costly improvements, as all of our large cities are, but all of their attention is concentrated upon the effort to provide adequately and economically for the daily comfort of the citizen. As our cities grow in stability and provide themselves, so to speak, with the necessary working plant, they approximate more and more to similar physical conditions ; and, as they do so, it is reasonable to expect that our pavements will im- prove and the cleaning of our streets will be more satisfac- tory. In other words, as I said at the outset, time is a neces- sary factor in the procurement of many of the things we most want. But the progress of cities towards economical and efficient administration, necessarily must be a matter of growth, and all enduring growth is slow. To sum up I believe, that the ideal city charter should be founded upon the theory of separation of the legislative and executive functions ; that the Board of Aldermen should have no more power of interference with the Executive than the House of Representatives has ; that the Mayor should have the power of appointment and removal of executive officers during the time for which he is responsible for the government of the city ; that the extent to which cities may incur debt, should be fixed absolutely by constitutional limitation ; that 24 the Legislature should be deprived of the power of passing mandatory bills, compelling cities to undertake public works ; and that all public work undertaken in conformity with special authority from the Legislature, if executed by special commission, should be under the charge of a commission appointed by the Mayor, the members of which should be removable by him at any time. Given such a charter as this, with such constitutional protection from debt making on the one hand and from compulsory expenditure on the other, I think a city should be permitted to work out its own salva- tion, and to suffer, if need be, the consequences of poor gov- ernment, if that is the only government which the virtue or intelligence of its citizens will procure. Individuals in this world are compelled to learn by experience, and communities should be subject to the same law. A city does not deserve any better government than its own people will get for it, and when a chance has been given to them, under a form of charter, the best that experience can dictate, I believe they can be trusted to produce better results for themselves, than can be produced for them by the most benevolent outside power. OF THE ( UNIVERSITY ) 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWS LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. 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