Stadtholder

“ Let us make our own selections—or, rather, help our mayor to make hers—and show this town what can be done with an honest and sane council, every man of whom has at heart the framing of a model municipality and the development of an ideal city. ”

“ Or they were fighting a sturdy battle with the king's justices to preserve some ancient privilege, the right of the borough perhaps to "swear by itself,"—that is, to a jury of its own or its freedom from the general custom of "frank-pledge." As trade advanced commercial bodies grew up in the boroughs and formed themselves into gilds; and these gilds gradually drew into their own hands the government of the town, which in old days had been decided by the general voice of the whole body of its burghers—that is, of those who held land within its walls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a borough had won from its lord full rights of self-government, its battles were not yet over. The next effort of the town authorities was to secure complete power over all the inhabitants within their walls, so that they might compel all alike to submit to the town courts, and to bear their share of burdensome duties, such as the payment of taxes, the keeping watch and ward, the defence of the town, the maintenance of its trade, or the enlargement of its liberties—in fact to take their part as good citizens in all that concerned the common weal. ”

“ The ward or district method of electing city councilmen does not produce a body interested in the best development of the city as a unit, the best transit system for the whole city, the best park system for the whole people, the most complete playground system for all the children. Instead, forty units, more or less, with selfish ideas fostered by local business men and property owners, are represented each by a councilman whose best equipment is his ability to get things for his own ward, and the city plan develops like a crazy quilt. ”

“ There is nothing in England to-day with which we can compare the life of a fully enfranchised borough of the fifteenth century. Even the revival of our local institutions and our municipal ambition has scarcely stirred any memory of the great tradition of the past, of the large liberties, the high dignities and privileges which our towns claimed in days when the borough was in fact a free self-governing community, a state within the state, boasting of rights derived from immemorial custom and of later privileges assured by law. ”

“ Graft must be stamped out of the city administration, and a high order of men elected to the bench. Some big things must be accomplished in the city.
She had arrived at the conclusion that to most people the municipality is an industrial accident, its government rather a matter of police, fire and health administration, some public schools and a police court, a street and water department; that they wanted just enough of these things, and at the lowest possible cost, to enable men to go about their daily business. ”

“ In the first place, upon the desires of the lord mayor and court of aldermen, he is pleased to prohibit the hasty building of any edifice, till such speedy care be taken for the re-edification of the city as may best secure it from the like accidents, and raise it to a greater beauty and comeliness than formerly it had; the lord mayor and aldermen being required to pull down what shall, contrary to this prohibition be erected, and return the names of such refractory persons to his Majesty and his council, to be proceeded against according to their deserts. ”

“ I shall not attempt in these pages a treatise on municipal government, for if the task were rightly executed, it would be a history of civilization. Non-partizanship in municipal elections, municipal ownership, home rule for cities,—who is interested in these? I have discussed them in interviews— (“Is there to be a statement for us this morning, Mr. Mayor?”) —and speeches numerous as autumn leaves, and like them, lost now in the winds to which they were given.
After all, it is life in which we are all interested. ”

“ The city does not deceive itself into supposing that that great building is a unit from which the police are to keep out and the civic authority to be excluded, but it says: "These are public highways, and light is needed in them, and control by the authority of the city." ”

“ The first thing they did when they came to a Town, was to acquaint the Mayor thereof with their intent, producing their Patent which authoriz’d them. Having the grant of the Mayor, most commonly they were permitted the Town-Hall to play in. At first, commonly they had usually such great audiences, and got so much Money, that it undid them, for it made them insolent, idle, careless, always drunk and continually quarrelling, so that the Town and Countrey growing weary of them, their poverty also made them weary of the Town. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 corporate authority of said city shall be vested in one principal officer, styled the 'mayor;' in one board of aldermen, consisting of two members from each ward, who, with the mayor, shall be denominated the common council. ”

“ In spite of the complete control which a municipality has over the location and design of public structures and the creation and extension of its park system, the obstacles to the formulation of and adherence to a consistent plan are as persistent and often as effective as those which prevent the control of street development.
Expert suggestions have too frequently been disregarded by a purely political city council whose power of appropriation is a most effective check on the execution of city plans. ”

“ As to our city councils, the very name in our large cities has become malodorous. If one should explain to this audience that in German cities membership in the municipal council gives valuable social rank, an involuntary grin would ripple from the platform to the door. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Just as the larger experiment is designed to lead the nation into a juster and better system of land tenure and a better and more common-sense view of how towns should be built, so are the various pro-municipal undertakings of Garden City devised by those who are prepared to lead the way in enterprises designed to further the well-being of the town, but who have not as yet succeeded in getting their plans or schemes adopted by the Central Council. ”

“ Much of what we ordinarily regard as the city—its charters, formal organization, buildings, street railways, and so forth—is, or seems to be, mere artifact. However, it is only when and in so far as these things, through use and wont, connect themselves, like a tool in the hand of a man, with the vital forces resident in individuals and in the community that they assume the institutional form. As the whole the city is a growth. It is the undesigned product of the labors of successive generations of men. ”

“ In all the municipal corporations dealt with by the act, the town council was to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. The exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character, was placed under the control of the council. ”

“ THE MUNICIPAL CHEWERY
"Yes," said the Hatter. "The March Hare and the White Knight and I. We've started a city to do it with. We've sprinkled our streets with Rough on Copperations until there isn't one left in the place. Everything in town belongs to the People—street cars, gutters, pavements, theatres, electric light, cabs, manicures, dogs, cats, canary birds, hotels, barber shops, candy stores, hats, [Pg 12] umbrellas, bakeries, cakeries, steakeries, shops,—you can't think of a thing that the city don't own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Sometimes a borough threw its gates wide open and welcomed any new comer who would but choose one of the half-dozen avenues to citizenship that lay before him,—who would buy land, or marry a free woman, or pay the fixed price for his freedom, or serve his apprenticeship to a trade, or accept the franchise as a gift from the community; while a neighbouring town, looking on aliens with jealousy and hesitation, would close its doors and cling to some narrower system of enfranchisement [177] which kept its ranks pure from foreign blood, and its burghers free from anxieties of competition. ”

“ But the municipality of Garden City, besides setting its face against any attempt to embark upon too large a field of enterprise, will so frame its constitution that the responsibility for each branch of the municipal service will be thrown directly upon the officers of that branch and not be practically lost sight of because loosely thrown upon the larger central body—a plan which makes it difficult for the public to perceive where any leakage or friction may be taking place. ”

“ Down near the railroad station, where the "red-light [ 60] district" used to be, there has long stood a tract of several blocks of little buildings, dismal and dilapidated. They are coming down. Some of them have come down. And there, in that place which was the home of ugliness and vice, there now shows the beginning of the city's Municipal Group Plan. This plan is one of the finest things which any city in the land has contemplated for its own beautification. ”

“ As for the watchmen, they were ordered to desist not merely from that practice, but from monopolizing the moving business and from bossing weddings held in the Town Hall; likewise they must do no harm to drunken men in the street, but must help them home. One look at [Pg 206] the mug they drank from at council meetings and still keep at the Town Hall gives a clew to the wherefore of this last ordinance: the councilmen themselves might have some trouble navigating after a protracted session. ”