of

Attempt to

cure the interferrience of

evil by state

ple's attention was first drawn to the rapid and alarming increase of city indebtedness in various Increase of parts of the country. A heavy debt may city debts. ruin a city as surely as an individual, for it raises the rate of taxation, and thus, as was above pointed out, it tends to frighten people and capital away from the city. At first it was sought to curb the recklessness of city councils in incurring lavish expenditures by giving the mayor a veto power. Laws were also passed limiting the amount of debt which a city would be allowed to incur under any circumstances. Clothing the mayor with the veto power is now seen to have been a wise step; and arbitrary limitation of the amount of debt, though a clumsy expedient, is confessedly a necessary one. But beyond this, it was in some instances attempted to take the management of some departments of city business out the hands of the city and put them into the hands of the state legislature. The most notable instance of this was in New York in 1857. The results, there and elsewhere, have been generally regarded as unsatisfactory. After a trial of thirty years the experience of New York has proved that a state legislature is not competent to take proper care of the government of cities. Its members do not know enough about the details of each locality, and consequently local affairs are left to the representatives from each locality, with "log-rolling" as the inevitable result. A man fresh from his farm on the edge of the Adirondacks knows nothing about the problems pertaining to electric wires in Broadway, or to rapid transit between Harlem and the Battery; and his consent to desired legislation on such points can very likely be obtained only by favouring some measure which he thinks will improve the value of his farm, or

ence; expe

New York.

perhaps by helping him to debauch the civil service by getting some neighbour appointed to a position for which he is not qualified. All this is made worse by the fact that the members of a state government are generally less governed by a sense of responsibility toward the citizens of a particular city than even the worst local government that can be set up in such a city.1

Moreover, even if legislatures were otherwise competent to manage the local affairs of cities, they have not time enough, amid the pressure of other duties, to do justice to such matters. In 1870 the number of acts passed by the New York legislature was 808. Of these, 212, or more than one fourth of the whole, related to cities and villages. The 808 acts, when printed, filled about 2,000 octavo pages; and of these the 212 acts filled more than 1,500 pages. This illustrates what I said above about the vast quantity of details which have to be regulated in municipal government. Here we have more than three fourths of the volume of state-legislation devoted to local affairs; and it hardly need be added that a great part of these enactments were worse than worthless because

1 It is not intended to deny that there may be instances in which the state government may advantageously participate in the government of cities. It may be urged that, in the case of great cities, like New York or Boston, many people who are not residents either do business in the city or have vast business interests there, and thus may be as deeply interested in its welfare as any of the voters. It may also be said that state provisions for city government do not always work badly. There are many competent judges who approve of the appointment of police commissioners by the executive of Massachusetts. There are generally two sides to a question; and to push a doctrine to extremes is to make oneself a doctrinaire rather than a wise citizen. But experience clearly shows that in all doubtful cases it is safer to let the balance incline in favour of local self-government than the other way.

they were made hastily and without due consideration, —though not always, perhaps, without what lawyers call a consideration.1

York.

The experience of New York thus proved that state intervention and special legislation did not mend matters. It did not prevent the shameful rule of the Tweed Ring from 1868 to 1871, when a Tweed Ring small band of conspirators got themselves in New elected or appointed to the principal city offices, and, having had their own corrupt creatures chosen judges of the city courts, proceeded to rob the taxpayers at their leisure. By the time they were discovered and brought to justice, their stealings amounted to many millions of dollars, and the rate of taxation had risen to more than two per cent.

The discovery of these wholesale robberies, and of other villainies on a smaller scale in other cities, has led to much discussion of the problems of municipal government, and to many attempts at practical re

1 Nothing could be further from my thought than to cast any special imputation upon the New York legislature, which is probably a fair average specimen of law-making bodies. The theory of legislative bodies, as laid down in text-books, is that they are assembled for the purpose of enacting laws for the welfare of the community in general. In point of fact they seldom rise to such a lofty height of disinterestedness. Legislation is usually a mad scramble in which the final result, be it good or bad, gets evolved out of compromises and bargains among a swarm of clashing local and personal interests. The "consideration” may be anything from log-rolling to bribery. In American legislatures it is to be hoped that downright bribery is rare. As for log-rolling, or exchange of favours, there are many phases of it in which that which may be perfectly innocent shades off by almost imperceptible degrees into that which is unseemly or dishonourable or even criminal; and it is in this hazy region that Satan likes to set his traps for the unwary pilgrim.

form. The present is especially a period of experiments, yet in these experiments perhaps a New experigeneral drift of opinion may be discerned. ments. People seem to be coming to regard cities more as if they were huge business corporations than as if they were little republics. The lesson has been learned that in executive matters too much limitation of power entails destruction of responsibility; the "ring" is now more dreaded than the “ " and one-man power; there is accordingly a manifest tendency to assail the evil by concentrating power and responsibility in the mayor.

New govern

ment of

Brooklyn.

The mayor appoints, council, all executive

The first great city to adopt this method was Brooklyn. In the first place the city council was simplified and made a one-chambered council consisting of nineteen aldermen. Besides this council of aldermen, the people elect only three city officers, -the mayor, comptroller, and auditor. The comptroller is the principal finance officer and book-keeper of the city; and the auditor must approve bills against the city, whether great or small, before they can be paid. without confirmation by the heads of departments; and these executive heads are individuals, not boards. Thus there is a single police commissioner, a single fire commissioner, a single health commissioner, and so on; and each of these heads appoints his own subordinates; "so that the principle of defined responsibility permeates the city government from top to bottom." 1 In a few cases, where the work to be done is rather discretionary than executive in character, it is intrusted to a board; thus there is a board of assessors, a board of educa

1 Seth Low on "Municipal Government," in Bryce's American Commonwealth, vol. i. p. 626.

tion, and a board of elections. These are all appointed by the mayor, but for terms not coinciding with his own; "so that, in most cases, no mayor would appoint the whole of any such board unless he were to be twice elected by the people." But the executive officers are appointed by the mayor for terms coincident with his own, that is for two years. "The mayor is elected at the general election in November; he takes office on the first of January following, and for one month the great departments of the city are carried on for him by the appointees of his predecessor. On the first of February it becomes his duty to appoint his own heads of departments," and thus "each incoming mayor has the opportunity to make an administration in all its parts in sympathy with himself."

With all these immense executive powers entrusted to the mayor, however, he does not hold the pursestrings. He is a member of a board of estimate, of which the other four members are the comptroller and auditor, with the county treasurer and supervisor. This board recommends the amounts to be raised by taxation for the ensuing year. These estimates are then laid before the council of aldermen, who may cut down single items as they see fit, but have not the power to increase any item. The mayor must see to it that the administrative work of the year does not use up more money than is thus allowed him.

This Brooklyn system has great merits. It ensures unity of administration, it encourages promptness and economy, it locates and defines responsibility, and it is so simple that everybody can understand it. The people, having but few officers to elect, are more some of its likely to know something about them. Es- merits. pecially since everybody understands that the success