" and the latter,

we shall not have any these hundred years; "One-fourth of the annual revenue of the colony is laid out in maintaining free schools for the education of our children." The disparity was prolonged and intensified in the South by the existence of slavery. Now that slavery has gone, the South makes rapid advances; but the proportion of illiteracy, especially of course among the Negroes, is still high.

The apparent complexity of the system of local government sketched in the last preceding chapter is due entirely to the variations between the several States. In each State it is eminently simple. There are few local divisions, few authorities; the divisions and authorities rarely overlap. No third local area and local authority intermediate between township and county has been found necessary. Especially simple is the method of levying taxes. In most States a citizen pays at the same time, to the same officer, upon the same paper of demand, all his local taxes, and not only these, but also his State tax; in fact, all the direct taxes which he is required to pay. The State is spared the expense of maintaining a separate collecting staff, for it leans upon and uses the local officials who do the purely local work. The tax-payer has not the worry of repeated calls upon his check-book. Nor is this simplicity and activity of local administration due to its undertaking fewer duties, as compared with the State, than is the case in Europe. On the contrary, the sphere of local government is in America unusually wide, and widest in what may be called the most characteristically American and democratic regions, New England and the North-west. Americans often reply to the criticisms which Europeans pass on the faults of their State legislatures and the shortcomings of Congress by pointing to the healthy efficiency of their rural administration, which enables them to bear with composure the defects of the higher organs of government, defects which would be less tolerable in a centralized country, where the National government deals directly with local affairs, or where local authorities await an initiative from above.

Of the three or four types or systems of local government which I have described, that of the town or township with its popular primary assembly is admittedly the best. It is the cheapest and the most efficient; it is the most educative to the

citizens who bear a part in it. The town meeting has been not only the source but the school of democracy.1 The action of so small a unit needs, however, to be supplemented, perhaps also in some points supervised, by that of the county, and in this respect the mixed system of the Middle States is deemed to have borne its part in the creation of a perfect type. For some time past an assimilative process has been going on over the United States tending to the evolution of such a type. In adopting the township system of New England, the Northwestern States have borrowed some of the attributes of the

Middle States county system. The Middle States have developed the township into a higher vitality than it formerly possessed there. Some of the Southern States are introducing the township, and others are likely to follow as they advance in population and education. It is possible that by the middle of next century there will prevail one system, uniform in its outlines over the whole country, with the township for its basis, and the county as the organ called to deal with those matters which, while they are too large for township management, it seems inexpedient to remit to the unhealthy atmosphere of a State capital.

1 In Rhode Island it was the towns that made the State.

CHAPTER XLIX

THE GOVERNMENT OF CITIES

THE growth of great cities has been among the most significant and least fortunate changes in the character of the population of the United States during the century that has passed since 1787. The census of 1790 showed only six cities with more than 8000, and only one with more than 40,000 inhabitants. In 1880 there were 286 exceeding 8000, 40 exceeding 40,000, 20 exceeding 100,000; while the census of 1890 showed 443 exceeding 8000, 74 exceeding 40,000, 28 exceeding 100,000. The ratio of persons living in cities exceeding 8000 inhabitants to the total population was, in 1790, 3.35 per cent, in 1840, 8.52, in 1880, 22.57, in 1890, 29.12. And this change has gone on with accelerated speed notwithstanding the enormous extension of settlement over the vast regions of the West. Needless to say that a still larger and increasing proportion of the wealth of the country is gathered into the larger cities. Their government is therefore a matter of high concern to America, and one which cannot be omitted from a discussion of transatlantic politics.

We find in all the larger cities

A mayor, head of the executive, and elected directly by the voters within the city.

Certain executive officers or boards, some directly elected by the city voters, others nominated by the mayor or chosen by the city legislature.

A legislature, consisting usually of two, but sometimes of one chamber, directly elected by the city voters.

Judges, usually elected by the city voters, but sometimes appointed by the State.

What is this but the frame of a State government applied to the smaller area of a city? The mayor corresponds to the governor, the officers or boards to the various State officials

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and boards elected, in most cases, by the people; the aldermen and common council (as they are generally called) to the State Senate and Assembly; the city elective judiciary to the State elective judiciary.

The mayor is by far the most conspicuous figure in city governments. He holds office, sometimes for one year, but now more frequently for two, three, or even five years. In some cities he is not re-eligible. He is directly elected by the people of the whole city, and is usually not a member of the city legislature. He has, almost everywhere, a veto on all ordinances passed by that legislature, which, however, can be overridden by a two-thirds majority. In many cities he appoints some among the heads of departments and administrative boards, though usually the approval of the legislature or of one branch of it is required. Quite recently some city charters have gone so far as to make him generally responsible for all the departments (subject to the control of supply by the legislative body), and therewith liable to impeachment for misfeasance. He receives a considerable salary, varying with the size of the city, but sometimes reaching $10,000, the same salary as that allotted to the justices of the Supreme Federal Court. It rests with him, as the chief executive officer, to provide for the public peace, to quell riots, and, if necessary, to call out the militia. He often exerts, in practice, some discretion as to the enforcement of the law; he may, for instance, put in force Sunday Closing Acts or regulations, or oinit to do so.

The practical work of administration is carried on by a number of departments, sometimes under one head, sometimes constituted as boards or commissions. The most important of these are directly elected by the people, for a term of one, two, three, or four years. Some, however, are chosen by the city legislature, some by the mayor with the approval of the legislature or its upper chamber. In most cities the chief executive officers have been disconnected from one another, owing no common allegiance, except that which their financial dependence on the city legislature involves, and communicating less with the city legislature as a whole than with its committees, each charged with some one branch of administration, and each apt to job it.

Education has been generally treated as a distinct matter,

with which neither the mayor nor the city legislature has been suffered to meddle. It is committed to a board of education, whose members are separately elected by the people, or, as in Brooklyn, appointed by the mayor, and who levy (though they do not themselves collect) a separate tax, and have an executive staff of their own at their disposal.

The city legislature usually consists in small cities of one chamber, in large ones of two, the upper of which generally bears the name of the board of aldermen, the lower that of the common council. All are elected by the citizens, generally in wards, but the upper house occasionally by districts or on what is called a "general ticket," i.e. a vote over the whole city. Usually the common council is elected for one year, or at most for two years, the upper chamber frequently for a longer period. Both are usually unpaid in the smaller cities, sometimes paid in the larger. All city legislation, that is to say, ordinances, by-laws, and votes of money from the city treasury, are passed by the council or councils, subject in many cases to the mayor's veto. Except in a few cities governed by very recent charters, the councils have some control over at least the minor officials. Such control is exercised by committees, a method borrowed from the State and National legislatures, and suggested by the same reasons of convenience which have established it there, but proved by experience to have the evils of secrecy and irresponsibility as well as that of disconnecting the departments from one another.

The city judges are only in so far a part of the municipal

1 Some large cities, however (e.g. New York and Brooklyn, Chicago with its 36 aldermen, San Francisco with its 12 supervisors), have only one chamber. 2 In some few cities, among which are Chicago and (as respects police magistrates and school directors) Philadelphia, the plan of minority representation has been to some extent adopted by allowing the voter to cast his vote for two candidates only when there are three places to be filled. It was tried in New York, but the State Court of Appeals held it unconstitutional. So far as I can ascertain, this method has in Philadelphia proved rather favourable than otherwise to the "machine politicians," who can rely on their masses of drilled voters.

3 Sometimes the councilman is required by statute to be a resident in the ward he represents.

4 Boston and Cincinnati give no salary, St. Louis pays members of both its councils $300 a year, Baltimore, $1000. New York pays and Brooklyn does not. The Municipal (Reform) League of Philadelphia advocate the payment of councilmen.