Chapter 7

An efficient cabinet cannot, as a rule, be secured by popular election. Men who possess the ability to direct a city department acquire such capacity only after years of preparation, and such men will not endure the uncertainties of a career dependent upon the favor of the public. The commissioner of finance who understands the intricate problems of accounting will not coddle the people to insure his election. Popular judgment, no matter how enlightened, cannot be entrusted with the selection of such men. The old board system proves this conclusively. Here, the choosing of the heads of the important city departments was placed in the hands of the people. The system stands condemned.

A commission form makes the additional blunder of uniting completely the two functions of legislation and administration in the same body. This makes the commissioners representative in character. But this condition is disastrous to successful administration. Whenever the people desire even the slightest change in their local policy, the stability and continuity of the city departments must be upset. Representation is secured at the expense of efficiency. Administration becomes saturated with politics.

Again, Honorable Judges, the management of a city should be subjected to the criticism and control of a reviewing body. Both the welfare of the people and the interests of good administration demand it. Administrators, no matter how valuable their technical knowledge, make poor legislators. Being interested in their work, they very naturally exalt and magnify their departments. Just a few years ago, the city of Cleveland found it necessary to take even the preparation of the budget from the heads of the departments concerned and to place it with a board which could view with impartiality the demands of the various department chiefs. Think of turning over all the functions of a city like St. Louis to an executive cabinet without even the oversight or criticism of an impartial body.

And, Honorable Judges, the whole experience of government proves the absolute necessity for a separate legislative department. Look where you will, and in each case there is an executive cabinet, based upon appointment, untrammelled by the burdens of legislation, and subjected to the criticism and control of a reviewing body. In Europe, the city councils are elected by the people, and the administrative departments are made up through a process of selection and appointment, together with the assurance of reasonable permanence of tenure, responsibility, and adequate support. Likewise in America, the larger cities are already organizing their cabinets upon a somewhat similar basis. The six largest cities of New York, all of the cities of Indiana, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, and many others are securing their important administrative officials through appointment by the mayor. This is the general plan advocated by the National Municipal League. It centers responsibility for the administration in one man. On the other hand, some of the cities of Canada follow more closely to the German system. There the cabinet is selected by a representative council. In practically all of these instances, men of special ability have been obtained, the departments of administration have been properly correlated, responsibility has been concentrated, and the general principle, that successful administration depends upon a separately constituted legislative body, has been firmly established.

It is plain then that a commission form violates the fundamental principles of successful administration. It first attempts to secure a cabinet by popular vote. It then upsets the stability of the city departments by completely uniting both the legislative and the administrative functions. Finally, it destroys the responsibility of that prime essential of successful administration, namely, a proper reviewing body.

In the second place, Honorable Judges, the permanent adoption of a commission form must necessarily mean a sacrifice of legislation and the ultimate destruction of local self-government. Even though the city may be subordinate to the state, nevertheless, it has a broad field of independent action. Otherwise, why give it a separate personality and a separate organization? Cities are permitted to exercise vast powers of police and of taxation. It is idle to say that a few commissioners can give satisfactory legislation. They cannot represent community interests. Their executive functions will naturally bias their judgment. Moreover, each commissioner, knowing little of the needs of the other departments, will naturally take the word of its administrative head, especially since he desires the same freedom. This was actually the case in Sacramento, Cal., where the commission plan was tried for fifteen years and given up as an abject failure. Says the Hon. Clinton White of that city: "In almost every instance, the board soon came to the understanding that each man was to be let alone in the management of the department assigned to him. This resulted in there being in fact no tribunals exercising a supervisory power over the executive of a particular department." Honorable Judges, a reviewing and legislative body is indispensable in city government and a commission makes no such provision. Weak in administration, wholly lacking in matters of legislation, dangerous as a theory of government, it cannot help but result in the complete subjection of local government to the state. The inevitable result of its permanent adoption will be that the important local legislative functions will become a mere administrative board with discretionary power as in the case of Washington, D.C. In the words of Professor Goodnow: "The destruction of the city council has not destroyed council government. It has simply made local policy a matter of state legislative determination." If we wish to destroy the life of the city, make it impotent to discharge the functions for which it was organized, then, and then only, it might be feasible to place over it a commission.

But, Honorable Judges, authorities are agreed that cities must be allowed greater freedom of action in local affairs, that municipal home rule is indispensable. The governments of our large cities have been dominated to such an extent by the state legislatures, usually partisan and irresponsible to the locality concerned, that in many cases self-government has become a term, hollow and without meaning.

The gentlemen condemn the city council, yet they pass over the real cause for its decay. Restore to the city its proper legislative powers, confine the work of the council to legislation instead of allowing it to go into details of administration, reduce the number of councilmen, if necessary, adjust the method of representation, introduce needed electoral and primary reform, establish responsibility by means of uniform municipal accounting and publicity of proceedings, and we ask the gentlemen in all earnestness why American city councils will not take on new life just as the city councils of every other country have done in the past.

The two great problems of American city government are: first, administration; secondly, municipal home rule. The solution of both depends upon the existence of two separately constituted departments of government. This principle is being emphasized by the leading scholars of political science, as illustrated by the program of the National Municipal League. In fact, Honorable Judges, every deep-seated reform in our large cities for the past quarter of a century has tended toward this cardinal doctrine of municipal success. The Ohio Municipal Code Commission, after two years of careful study and observation, presented a bill based upon the principles which we defend tonight, namely, a separation of administration from legislation, and secondly, municipal home rule.

In direct opposition to this, the gentlemen present and advocate as a permanent scheme for the organization of American cities, both large and small, a commission form, a quasi-legislative and administrative board patterned to give mediocrity in the performance of both functions, success in neither; a form which destroys forever the possibility of developing an efficient executive cabinet and is entirely out of harmony with the advancing idea of municipal home rule.

Mr. George Luxford, the third speaker on the Affirmative, said:

It has been made very clear by my colleagues that the present shameful condition of many of our American cities is due in large measure to the peculiar form of the government patterned after a scheme which is adapted to a sovereign government like the state or nation. The Negative demand an isolation which history shows, so far as our American cities are concerned, leads to a complete confusion of functions, with a consequent loss of responsibility. Knowing the inadequacy of the scheme they then demanded municipal home rule; but we have shown that the Affirmative are thoroughly committed to municipal home rule which under the commission form alone can be safely intrusted to cities. State interference in city government is the child of the form of government for which our friends of the Negative are sponsors. Thus far the gentlemen have failed to disprove the points which we have presented that the theory of checks and balances when applied to American cities has failed; that the plan of concentrating municipal authority under one head as advocated by the commission plan is in complete harmony with modern industrial and social development, and that the plan is superior from a legislative standpoint. It shall be my purpose to show that it is superior from the standpoint of administration. We believe this because the commission lends itself to the application of business methods. The plan provides for a comparatively small body of men who meet in daily session and who give their whole time to the work of governing the city. At present, too often the real business of the officials is anything else. They give their spare time to the city and we have seen the results. Honorable judges, we claim that there is a special virtue in the very smallness of the number inasmuch as they are properly paid, devote all their time to their work, and are made in fact governors of the city. They have a great deal of work to do and they do it, while under our present systems the councilmen have comparatively little to do and they fail to do that little efficiently.

The reason why this small body can administer with dispatch and efficiency is seen at a glance. Each commissioner is the head of a department for which he is personally responsible. He is not hindered as is the executive at present by an inefficient and meddling council which has more power, often, than the executive himself. He knows the laws for he has helped to make them. It is his business to see that they are executed, and if they are not, he cannot escape blame. He cannot plead ignorance, lack of responsibility, or lack of power as do present administrative officers.

Moreover, this body is admirably constituted for effective carrying out of city business. It is larger than the single headed executive and possesses, therefore, a division of work which makes the administration far more effective. At the same time it is smaller than the old council and for that reason is more efficient in enacting the city's peculiar kind of legislation. In actual practice, and that seems to be the real test of city government, both administration and legislation are accomplished with accuracy and dispatch. For instance, every spring for the last decade carloads of "dagoes" with their dirt and disease have come to Cedar Rapids. Every year protests have gone up to both mayor and council, but without result. Cedar Rapids has adopted a commission form of government. Last spring when the "dagoes" came the same complaints went up as usual, that because of their insanitary methods these people carried with them filth and disease. But the petitioners did not go to the city council which met once in two weeks, nor were they referred to a committee which met less often. They went directly to the commissioners who had charge of the city health and in less than twenty-four hours the "dagoes" had been notified to either clean up or leave, and they left the city. But, say the opponents of this plan, this could have been done under the old system. To be sure, but the burning fact remains that in spite of the protests of the people, it was not done.

In Houston the government was both inefficient and dishonest. For years the annual expenditures had exceeded the income a hundred thousand dollars. The city adopted a commission form and a four hundred thousand dollar floating debt was paid off in one year out of the ordinary income of the city. At the same time the city's taxes were reduced ten per cent. In the health department alone there is a saving of from $100 to $150 per month, while a combination in the operation of the garbage crematory and pumping station saves the city $6,000 annually. These results have been accomplished under a commission plan by the application of common, everyday business principles.

Galveston adopted a commission plan, and although its taxable values were reduced twenty-five per cent by the storm of 1900, yet within six years its commissioners not only put the city on a cash basis, made improvements costing $1,000,000 annually, but actually paid off a debt of $394,000 which had been incurred by the old council, and all this was accomplished without borrowing a dollar, issuing a bond, or increasing the rate of taxation. Other cities which have adopted a commission plan are accomplishing equally as beneficial results. Hence, we maintain that the commission form of city government is superior from the standpoint of efficiency in administration.

The commission plan is superior in administration for it is adapted to the city's financial problem. The same body of men are held responsible for the levying and collecting of taxes and for the spending of the money. This is desirable because the administrative body which is to spend money knows, accurately, the city's need of revenue. They are in a position to know; it is their business. A legislative body, whether council or a board, cannot know the city's needs for money without getting the facts from the administrative body. F.R. Clow says the council does not pretend to know the city's revenue problem and they adopt the recommendation of the administrative departments. The Negative's system of division of powers simply divides the responsibility between the legislative and administrative departments for the thing which in fact has been done by the administrative department itself. Since the administrative department really dictates the budget, it should be held directly responsible for it. Therefore, we contend that the commissioners, knowing best what the budget should contain because as administrators they know the city's need for money, are the body of men preeminently fitted to handle the city's budget.

The commission plan is adapted to the city's financial problem because it fosters economy. Economy is the result of understanding. The commissioners knowing the city's government, not from the administrative side alone, but from the legislative side as well, are in a position to economize and in practice they have done so. The running expenses of Galveston under the commission plan have been reduced one-third. In Houston it costs $12,800 a year less to run the water and light plants than formerly, while by a combination of work in the different departments there is a saving of $9,000 annually. In Cedar Rapids, since the adoption of the commission plan, there has been a reduction in the paving contracts let of ten and one-fifth per cent, in sewerage contracts, fourteen and two-sevenths per cent, and in water contracts, twenty per cent. Immediately after the adoption of the commission plan in Des Moines the annual cost of each arc-light was reduced five dollars. Reports from all the cities using the commission plan show that by the use of business principles the commissioners have economized in the administration of the city's government.

The commission plan is adapted to the city's finances because it provides a superior safeguard. Legislative bodies in our cities have been depended upon to represent the citizens' best interest. In practice, as we have pointed out, they have not done so. Never in the history of our municipal affairs, says Henry D.F. Baldwin, has a legislative body stood out as the representatives of the people against the administrative department. Why then continue a representative body which does not in fact represent? Instead of the withered form of a council or legislative body standing between the citizen and his government the commission plan simply removes this useless obstacle and allows the citizen to participate directly in the government. This is directly in harmony with the well-established economic principle that the self-interest of the taxpayer will control where responsibility is fixed.

Mr. Charles Briggs, the third speaker on the Negative, said:

It will be well while the matter is fresh in our minds, Honorable Judges, to make a brief examination of one matter of which the Affirmative are making a feature, that the commission form affords unusual safeguards for the financial and economic interests of the city. Now, in all fairness to the scheme which is doing quite well in a very few of our smaller cities, the question ought to be raised as to what other form of city government could be devised which would provide greater opportunities for graft and corruption. A little group of autocrats is the ideal form for which the ardent corruptionists might pray. They have it in the commission form. Exemplary men in office or a constant civic interest, may prevent the commissioners from becoming a band of robbers; but are these two preventives likely always to exist? Human experience says "No." The history of New Orleans and Sacramento confirm that decision. Civic interest is bound to subside; corrupt men are sure to become commissioners. Then the oligarchy advocated by the Affirmative becomes not a "safeguard" but a band of raiders equipped by the very form of government to loot the treasury. We must insist, at this point, that our opponents have failed in their assault upon our main contention:

First, that the evils in American city government are not attributable to the fundamental principles of that government; second, that the principles underlying the proposed form are in themselves wrong and are not consonant generally with American ideals. It remains to be shown that the commission form is impracticable as a general scheme for the government of all American cities.

We can very well agree that where the commission form of government has been tried it has been productive of some good results, and further, that in certain homogeneous communities of high culture and intelligence it might work with considerable success; but that the result obtained in cities where the commission form has been tried would warrant the universal adoption of it by American cities we must deny.

We deny the wisdom of adopting the commission form for it results in inadequate responsibility; third, it could never work in the vast majority of American cities. These reasons are apparent from examinations of the commission form where it has been and is being tried, and are inherent in the plan itself.