Mayoral election

“ The chief function of the governor is really a negative one, that of affixing his veto from time to time on an utterly impossible law. The mayor, on the other hand, can shape things and leave the stamp of his personality on his city. In the state, as in the city, it often happens that the head of the executive and a majority of the legislative belong to opposite parties, and this not because the party issues are forgotten in the local elections, but because the methods of election are different. ”

“ Low as the first Mayor of our great new city one who will reflect credit and honor upon the community, who will conduct its government firmly on the lines of decency and order, and whose election and administration will be for years to come the highest vindication of the right of self-government by enlightened, intelligent American people. ”

“ This being the first election since the passing of the charter which made New York the second largest city in the world, each political party has been trying to get a man in for mayor who represented its own especial way of thinking. ”

“ It would if it ended there, but what I started out to tell you is this: the Municipal Club is beginning to take up city politics in earnest. They are organizing systematically in every ward to be ready for a fight for the council in next fall’s election, and, to cap the climax, I was told to-day that they had succeeded in getting Preston to run for mayor. Now you know they could hardly have picked out a worse man, so far as we are concerned. Preston is popular and strong, and he’s perfectly unapproachable. ”

“ In some American cities an attempt at a qualified dictatorship has been made; instead of the election of all civic functionaries, as required by the logical application of the manhood suffrage doctrine, the plan has been adopted of electing only a mayor, for four years, and giving him the unqualified power of appointment of all other city officials. Instead of the annual election of say ten heads of bureaus, or departments, a year, making forty appeals to popular wisdom, we have thus in four years only one such call for the vox populi. ”

“ Civil service reform principles cover the entire municipal administration. The city’s work is done under an eight-hour law.
An analysis of city election returns for the decade 1890-1899 showed that the interest of the citizens was greatest in the choice of a president; then, successively, in the choice of a mayor, a governor, the determination of liquor-license questions by referendum, and the settlement of other referenda. ”

“ But I am completely in sympathy with the purpose of the Citizens' Union to secure a Mayor for the great city who shall be 'free from all partisan obligations.' Such a Mayor, if elected, I shall certainly be. In making appointments it shall be my endeavor to fill every place with an eye single to the public good. The patronage of the city shall not be used, so far as it is in the Mayor's power to prevent it, for the purpose of either strengthening or weakening one party or another, or any fraction of any party. ”

“ The time when public office was held by the grace of God and the majority of votes has become almost a thing of the past. The official’s worth now is not measured by his good-fellowship and vote-getting capacity, but rather by his ability to produce results—not at the polls on Election Day, but in the City Hall every day. ”

“ But the stipulation carefully made in the Charter that the Mayor’s right to remove the heads of departments whom he has nominated shall cease six months after his election, is the most astounding illustration yet afforded of the deep-rooted distrust which the American of to-day has in all elected men. ”

“ The resulting effects on the personnel of Philadelphian politics were as obvious as they were lamentable. In other American cities, however, concentration often takes the form of the abolition of many of the elected boards and officials, and the substitution for them of a single elected Mayor, who administers the city by nominated commissions, and whose personality it is hoped can be made known during an election to all the voters, and therefore must he seriously considered by his nominators. ”

“ The ordinance having been passed by the Provincial Council, the citizens were called on to elect their first mayor, which was done on 21st July, 1865, when there were five candidates. The city was divided into four wards, for councillors, each having two members, who were chosen on 1st August. The election of mayor is annual, and is made by the ratepayers of the city. ”

“ But on the other hand, the Aldermen shewed by many reasons, that unto them belongs the election of Mayor, both because they, the Aldermen are the heads, as it were, and the populace the limbs, as also because it is the Aldermen who pronounce judgments in pleas moved within the City. Of the populace on the other hand there are many who have neither lands, rents, nor dwellings in the City, being sons of divers mothers, some of them of servile station, and all of them caring little or nothing about the City’s welfare. ”

“ In 1834, the Whig party, looking for a strong candidate for the Mayoralty of the City, offered the nomination to Verplanck, who accepted it. On the other side, the Democrats brought forward Cornelius W. Lawrence, a man of popular manners and unquestioned integrity. Those were happy days when, in voting for a Mayor, the citizen could be certain that he would not vote amiss, and that whoever succeeded in the election, the City was sure of an honest man for its chief officer. ”

“ Not unfrequently the canvass which precedes a municipal election is simply an appeal to political preferences and party associations. The real issue, to wit, the honesty and capacity of the several candidates to discharge the duties of the offices to which they aspire, receive next to no consideration, and in the end the success of party candidates is esteemed a fitting occasion for congratulations and rejoicing, even when the effect is to displace efficient officers by those who are inefficient. ”

“ Meanwhile election time approached, and amid the growing interest of politics it was thought unwise to deal with it. A great fight was arranged for locally, in which every conceivable element of opposition was beautifully harmonized by forces and conceptions which it is almost impossible to explain. Democrats, republicans, prohibitionists, saloon men and religious circles, all were gathered into one harmonious body and inspired with a single idea, that of defeating the mayor. ”

“ That is, the city was divided into municipal districts, and each district chose its own alderman. In that where Emil lived the workingman's candidate, so called, was almost invariably successful against the representative of the more conservative element of the two wards concerned, and a nomination was regarded as equivalent to election. Now there were two factions of voters belonging to the dominant party in the district, one in each ward, and for three successive years the alderman had come from the ward other than that in which Emil dwelt. ”

“ This is the most extraordinary campaign I ever witnessed; a struggle for good municipal government, in which we have to choose between two candidates for the Mayoralty who, both honorable men, profess to aim at the same ideals of municipal administration. ”

“ The most singularly illogical position in this respect is taken by some of the sound-money Democrats in New York, who, loudly professing to be in favor of good municipal government, still insist that the Mayor should be “a Democrat,” while at the same time they know, or at least ought to know, that they cannot elect a Mayor for the reason that he is a Democrat without again exposing municipal government to the deleterious influences of organization politics ”

“ The statutes define strictly the duties of officials; their terms are made short, and through the multitude of offices, important and petty, it is clear that one purpose runs to make each directly answerable to the voters. In every quadrennial cycle the voters of New York City engage in the election of over five hundred incumbents of offices, state and municipal. ”

“ The problem before the voters of New York, therefore, at this election is not simply to secure capable and honest administration of a governmental organization already in operation, but it is to install, over an immense territory, an entirely new City Government ”

“ On the contrary, the experience of the last two years has demonstrated that Mayor Strong's administration would have been stronger in public opinion, more harmonious, more effective in promoting the public good, more acceptable to the people, and more apt to secure the triumph of the non-partisan principle in coming elections, if he had made no appointments on partisan grounds at all. ”

“ The One Hundred, which the Nine were to complete, was to do the representing. But the One Hundred never was completed, and the ward committee, a feature of the first campaign, was abandoned later on. “The boss and the ring” was the model of the Nine, only they did not know it. They were not thinking of principles and methods. Work was their instinct and the fighting has always been thick. The next election was to be held in April, and by the time they were ready February was half over. Since it was to be an election of aldermen, they went right out after the aldermen. ”

“ As a citizen of Des Moines has described the proceeding, "after the primary has been held the general election is called, and in order to secure names for the ballot in the general election, we take the two candidates who have received the highest number of votes for mayor at the primary, and place their names on the ballot. In order to secure the councilmen, we take the eight candidates for councilmen who have received the highest number of votes at the primary and place their names on the regular election ballot. This gives us two opportunities to weed out undesirable men. ”

“ They were these, viz., that no mayor, sheriff, recorder, common sergeant, town clerk or coroner of the city of London or any steward of the borough of Southwark should be appointed without his majesty's approval under his sign manual; that if his majesty should express disapproval of the choice of a mayor made by the citizens a new election should take place within a week, and if his majesty should disapprove of the second choice he shall, if he so please, himself nominate a mayor for the year ensuing ”

“ His term of office is one year, but he is eligible for re-election. He may appoint a deputy to act during illness or absence, and such deputy must be either an alderman or councillor. A mayor who is absent from the borough for more than two months becomes disqualified and vacates his office. A mayor is ex officio during his year of office and the next year a justice of the peace for the borough. He receives such remuneration as the council thinks reasonable. The office of mayor in an English borough does not entail any important administrative duties. ”

“ He is elected by the people, usually for a two-year or four-year term, and the election campaign is in most cities conducted on a party basis. Occasionally men of high ability have served as mayors in various cities, but far more frequently the position has gone to active politicians who can be relied upon to use the powers and patronage of the office in promoting the interests of the party. ”

“ 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 likely to know something about them. Especially since everybody understands that the success of the government depends upon the character of the mayor, extraordinary pains are taken to secure good mayors; and the increased interest in city politics is shown by the fact that in Brooklyn more people vote for mayor than for governor or for president. ”

“ Suppose, however, that the municipality be large enough to be readily divided into as many wieldy districts as there are commissioners to the number of from five to nine. For instance, let us assume a city of to exceed 25,000 male voters and a population exceeding 150,000. Here the district is too unwieldy for the election at large of those candidates receiving the highest votes at a single election. It may be doubted whether the double election will produce satisfactory results in the way of securing a really intelligent vote. ”

“ No mayor could be elected unless he harmonized with and fostered all three of the above mentioned elements—some mayors lived in the red light district. Notwithstanding that righteous and well intending people were in a majority, the bravest of them were unable for many years to work any reformation, business and professional men being ostracised when demanding reform. ”

“ The purity of municipal legislation is assured by the election of a number of aldermen whose records as citizens warrant the prediction that they, joining with an already trusty minority, for the ensuing year at least, will conserve public rather than private interests, guided by the promptings of each individual conscience. There will be no opportunity to filch from them for party ends, or for personal advancement, due public acknowledgment of their integrity and ability. But the enforcement of the laws governing municipal administration in its several departments ”