Municipal reform

“ All political action was drawn into the mill which turns out Presidents, Congresses, Tariffs, Bank Acts, etc., and the mere by-product of Mayors, Aldermen, and City Ordinances which it drops incidentally into the cities, receives almost no stamp of quality or design from the local mind. Until the wheels of local government are loosened in some way from the clutch of the great party machines, and can work independently, under motive forces of their own, to produce the satisfaction of local needs, interests, and aims, there will be little success in undertakings of municipal reform. ”

“ The movement for the reform of the civil service of cities is going hand in hand with the movement for general municipal reform, those reformers regarding the merit system of appointments as not merely the necessary and only safe bulwark to preserve the results of their labours, but also as the most efficient means for bringing about other reforms. Hence civil service reform is given a leading position in all programmes for the reform of state and municipal governments. ”

“ There was also great need of municipal reform, since in many cities the taxpayers had no voice in the management of local affairs, and the city officers sometimes spent the income of large charitable funds in feasting and merrimaking while the poor got little or nothing. ”

“ In conclusion, Honorable Judges, the solution of the American city problem will be best promoted by a program of reform which strikes at the real causes of the evils, instead of the universal overturning of all traditions and theories of government in the hope of finding a short-cut road to municipal success. ”

“ The Reform of Municipal Governments.—Having reviewed the principal causes for the evils of municipal government, let us now consider some of the conditions that are necessary for bringing about reforms.
(1) National politics should be entirely separated from city affairs. It may be impossible to prevent the nomination of candidates by the regular political parties; but within each party local issues, not national, should determine the selection of candidates. At the polls the voter should cast his ballot independently of party considerations. ”

“ I believe, however, that the widest possible application of civil service reform principles to all the departments of municipal government is not merely a desirable, but an indispensable complement of all the other reforms, for it touches the most of the evil ”

“ In the municipal life of the city it has urged improvements in the fire service, the water supply, the lighting service and the betterment of streets and interested itself in various other spheres of municipal government reform, among them the securing of the great modern amendment of the city charter which has necessitated the reduction of the number of aldermen to one for each ward, and the creation of a board of five commissioners for the disbursement of money, the awarding of contracts and the purchase of material. ”

“ During the generation which began with the Reform Act of 1832 the Liberals, indeed, extended the franchise to the middle classes, reformed the poor law, overhauled the criminal law, introduced a new and more satisfactory scheme of municipal administration, instituted public provision for elementary education, enacted statutes to safeguard the public health, removed the disabilities of dissenters, and assisted in the overthrow of the protective system. ”

“ The trend of the decade here, too, is obviously toward system,—toward a municipalization of lower courts, an expansion of the health service, an association of charities, a city system as against a vestry system of schools, a civic improvement commission that will focalize public sentiment in all movements for municipal improvement. ”

“ The city is organized, like the state government, on the plan of distributed powers and diffused responsibility. It contains, as a rule, an elaborate system of checks which affords little opportunity for the prompt and effective expression of local public opinion in the administration of municipal affairs. At the same time, it gives the municipal authorities power to inaugurate and carry out policies to which local public sentiment may be strongly opposed. This is seen in the control which the mayor and council quite generally exercise over the matter of municipal franchises. ”

“ A politically regenerated state would guarantee in its constitution a much larger measure of home rule to the cities than they now enjoy, while at the same time the reformed legislative authority would endeavor to secure the edifying exercise of these larger powers, not by an embarrassing system of supervision, but by the concentration of the administrative power and responsibility of the municipal authorities. ”

“ Why do you suppose men went into the town council? To represent the taxpayers, the townspeople? No, but to look after their own interests; to safeguard themselves; to get what they could out of it. The whole policy of the old councils was one of—there's only one word for it, Mr. Brent, and that's only just becoming Anglicized—graft! A municipal government is supposed to exist for the good, the welfare, the protection of a town, but the whole idea of these Hathelsborough men, in the past, has been to use their powers and privileges for their own ends. ”

“ The word I especially wish to speak, as to charter reforms, is that the reform of the city council is more imperative by far than anything else, taking all the cities of the country together—and that the existing evils of city legislation are by far the most crying evils of city government. ”

“ But we have advocated numerous reforms and have pointed out countless instances of municipal success under various forms, yet all based upon the same fundamental principle, that there be separately constituted departments of government. One of the fatal objections to the gentlemen's proposition is that they are attempting to blanket the whole country with one arbitrary form, regardless of differing conditions. They have completely ignored our cases of successful city government. We demand that they explain them. ”

“ But to a burgher of the middle ages the care and protection of the State were dim and shadowy compared with the duties and responsibilities thrown on the townspeople themselves. For in the beginnings of municipal life the affairs of the borough great and small, its prosperity, its safety, its freedom from crime, the gaiety and variety of its life, the regulation of its trade, were the business of the citizens alone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ City officials have confined their efforts to the routine affairs of their office, and have so often spent their spare time and the city's money freely for the satisfaction of their personal interests that municipal government has gained the reputation of being notoriously corrupt, and has been left to ward politicians by the better class of citizens. Nevertheless, municipal government represents the principle of control and stands in the background as the preserver of the interests of all the people. ”

“ If there is a corrupt council, the remedy is not its supersession by an independent executive. Such an executive is the abrogation of popular government. “Good and efficient government is possible under almost any form of organization. More depends upon men than devices.... But ... if we believe that the functions of deliberation or determination of municipal policy and of administration [Pg 63] or the execution or carrying out of that policy should be kept distinct, we cannot avoid the conclusion that a city council is a necessary part of the municipal organization.” ”

“ Because municipal government is closer to the people and affects them in more ways than the government of any other political subdivision, and also because our citizens are now taking a keener interest than ever before in community work, it is to-day almost useless for a public official to attempt to escape responsibility or to excuse his shortcomings. He must be efficient and constantly apply his efficiency. ”

“ Needless to say, they take good care to choose a man who is in thorough sympathy with their own ideas. Now the late mayor was convinced that this system led to nothing but—well, to put it mildly, to nothing but highly undesirable results. He claimed that the municipal government had the right to deprive the existing town trustees of their power, and to take into its own hands the full administration of the borough finances. ”

“ How many municipalities in the countryside are not at the mercy of the lords, or of the priests, or of some notables! How many, in the small towns, are not dominated by the credit of the principal townspeople! Let us expect nothing from these administrations that are too weak to remain independent; the only way to emancipate municipal authority is to distribute it in larger masses, and to make the bodies that will be its depositories more enlightened and more powerful, by making them less numerous. ”

“ The aim of all organized business is to secure a profit, but the purpose of city administration is to promote the well-being of the citizens. It must be conducted in compliance with the desires of the voters, whatever these desires may be, and must give them what they want. Business can sometimes be managed without any heed to public opinion, but municipal administration cannot. The science of municipal government is, to a considerable extent, that of keeping the people satisfied. ”

“ A bill to incorporate a city and provide for its government may, without conflicting with the constitutional clause, contain provisions relating to the various subjects upon which municipal legislation may be required for the preservation of peach, good order, and health within its limits, the promotion of its growth and prosperity, and the raising of revenue for its government. ”

“ Yet the municipal machinery of the average American state permits anything but a fair trial of the democratic principle. For, every student of contemporaneous municipal conditions knows that, barring those progressive communities that have adopted some form of commission government, city government is still cursed with the curse of divided responsibility, is still in the hands of men who can not apply the rules of municipal efficiency because they are bound by the rules of the partisan game. ”

“ Regulation by the state has the advantage of making the provisions apply uniformly to all cities within its borders and is obtained by no more effort than is required to get an ordinance through the Council of a single municipality. On the other hand, the municipal ordinance has the advantage of being secured by residents of the community who are intelligently concerned in the local problem and who will therefore take an active interest in having its provisions enforced. ”

“ It has already been discovered that one of the chief sanctions, one of the main objects for municipal direction of such work is being a municipal enterprise, a part of the city administration, a wing of its manifold governmental functions, it challenges most effectively the co-operation of all public authorities. ”

“ The constitution of a municipality assumes that citizens will give, freely and without pay, such time as is wanted for the conduct of the municipal affairs. In local government the Settlement carries on a quiet work which is perhaps more effective than its classes and its lectures. ”

“ I do not mean centralisation or the removal of that proper control which every local authority should maintain over its own officers. I would maintain intact the great principle of local government, which has been the bulwark of our social and political freedom. But local government may degenerate, and in small towns deteriorate into littleness: local affairs are too frequently avoided by those who are most fitted by intelligence and social standing to take part therein. ”

“ Members of the legislature are largely from the rural districts and can not in reason be expected to understand the perplexing problems of municipal government. Yet, to these men, untrained in the intricacies of municipal administration, unfamiliar with actual city conditions and busy with many problems of state policy, has been intrusted the tremendous task of controlling the city's administrative development. It is no reflection upon the ability or intelligence of our legislators to say that they are ill-fitted for this task of absentee law-making. ”