"A large number of important offices have come to be filled by men possessing little, if any, fitness for the important duties they are called upon to discharge. . . . These unworthy holders of public trusts gain their places by their own exertions. The voluntary suffrage of their fellow-citizens would never have lifted them into office. Animated by the expectation of unlawful emoluments, they expend large sums to secure their places, and make promises beforehand to supporters and retainers to furnish patronage or place. The corrupt promises must be redeemed. Anticipated gains must be realized. Hence old and educated subordinates must be dismissed and new places created to satisfy the crowd of friends and retainers. Profitable contracts must be awarded, and needless public works undertaken. The amounts required to satisfy these illegitimate objects enter into the estimates on which taxation is eventually based, in fact they constitute in many instances a superior lien upon the moneys appropriated for government, and not until they are in some manner satisfied do the real wants of the public receive attention. It is speedily found that these unlawful demands, together with the necessities of the public, call for a sum which, if taken at once by taxation, would produce dissatisfaction and alarm in the community, and bring public indignation upon the authors of such burdens. For the purpose of averting such consequences divers pretences are put forward suggesting the propriety of raising means for alleged exceptional purposes by loans of money, and in the end the taxes are reduced to a figure not calculated to arouse the public to action, and any failure thus to raise a sufficient sum is supplied by an issue of bonds. . . . Yet this picture fails altogether to convey an adequate notion of the elaborate systems of depredation which, under the name of city governments, have from time to time afflicted our principal cities; and it is moreover a just indication of tendencies in operation in all our cities, and which are certain, unless arrested, to gather increased force. It would clearly be within bounds to say that more than one-half of all the present city debts are the direct results of the species of intentional and corrupt misrule above described."

2. The introduction of State and national politics into municipal affairs.

"The formation of general political parties upon differences as to general principles or methods of State policy is useful, or at all events inevitable. But it is rare indeed that any such questions, or indeed any upon which good men ought to differ, arise in connection with the conduct of municipal affairs. Good men cannot and do not differ as to whether municipal debt ought to be restricted, extravagance checked, and municipal affairs lodged in the hands of competent and faithful officers. There is no more reason why the control of the public works of a great city should be lodged in the hands of a Democrat or a Republican than there is why an adherent of one or the other of the great parties should be made the superintendent of a business corporation. Good citizens interested in honest municipal government cau

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secure that object only by acting together. Political divisions separate them at the start, and render it impossible to secure the object desired equally by both. . . . This obstacle to the union of good citizens paralyses all ordinary efforts for good municipal government. . . . The great prizes in the shape of place and power which are offered on the broad fields of national and State politics offer the strongest incentives to ambition. Personal advancement is in these fields naturally associated with the achievement of great public objects, and neither end can be secured except through the success of a political party to which they are attached. The strife thus engendered develops into a general battle in which each side feels that it cannot allow any odds to the other. If one seeks to turn to its advantage the patronage of municipal office, the other must carry the contest into the same sphere. It is certain that the temptation will be withstood by neither. It then becomes the direct interest of the foremost men of the nation to constantly keep their forces in hostile array, and these must be led by, among other ways, the patronage to be secured by the control of local affairs. Next to this small number of leading men there is a large class who, though not dishonest or devoid of public spirit, are led by habit and temperament to take a wholly partisan view of city affairs. Their enjoyment of party struggles, their devotion to those who share with them the triumphs and defeats of the political game, are so intense that they gradually lose sight of the object for which parties exist or ought to exist, and considerable proportions of them in their devotion to politics suffer themselves to be driven from the walks of regular industry, and at last become dependent for their livelihood on the patronage in the hands of their chiefs. Mingled with them is nearly as large a number to whom politics is simply a mode of making a livelihood or a fortune, and who take part in political contests without enthusiasm, and often without the pretence of an interest in the public welfare, and devote themselves openly to the organization of the vicious elements of society in combinations strong enough to hold the balance in a closely-contested election, overcome the political leaders, and secure a fair share of the municipal patronage, or else extort immunity from the officers of the law. . . . The rest of the community, embracing the large majority of the more thrifty classes, averse to engaging in what they deem the 'low business' of politics, or hopeless of accomplishing any substantial good in the face of such powerful opposing interests, for the most part content themselves with acting in accordance with their respective parties. . . . It is through the agency of the great political parties, organized and operating as above described, that our municipal officers are and have long been selected. It can scarcely be matter of wonder then that the present condition of municipal affairs should present an aspect so desperate."

3. The assumption by the legislature of the direct control of local affairs.

"This legislative intervention has necessarily involved a disregard of one of the most fundamental principles of republican government (the self-govern

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ment of municipalities). The representatives elected to the central (State) legislature have not the requisite time to direct the local affairs of the municipalities. They have not the requisite knowledge of details. When a local bill is under consideration in the legislature, its care and explanation are left exclusively to the representatives of the locality to which it is applicable; and sometimes by express, more often by a tacit understanding, local bills are 'log-rolled' through the houses. Thus legislative duty is delegated to the local representatives, who, acting frequently in combination with the sinister elements of their constituency, shift the responsibility for wrongdoing from themselves to the legislature. But what is even more important, the general representatives have not that sense of personal interest and personal responsibility to their constituents which are indispensable to the intelligent administration of local affairs. And yet the judgment of the local governing bodies in various parts of the State, and the wishes of their constituents, are liable to be overruled by the votes of legislators living at a distance of a hundred miles. . . . To appreciate the extent of the mischief done by the occupation of the central legislative body with the consideration of a multitude of special measures relating to local affairs, some good, probably the larger part bad, one has only to take up the session laws of any year at random and notice the subjects to which they relate. Of the 808 acts passed in 1870, for instance, 212 are acts relating to cities and villages, 94 of which relate to cities, and 36 to the city of New York alone. A still larger number have reference to the city of Brooklyn. These 212 acts occupy more than three-fourths of the 2000 pages of the laws of that year. ... The multiplicity of laws relating to the same subjects thus brought into existence is itself an evil of great magnitude. What the law is concerning some of the most important interests of our principal cities can be ascertained only by the exercise of the patient research of professional lawyers. In many instances even professional skill is baffled. Says Chief-Justice Church: 'It is scarcely safe for any one to speak confidently on the exact condition of the law in respect to public improvements in the cities of New York and Brooklyn. The enactments referring thereto have been modified, superseded, and repealed so often and to such an extent that it is difficult to ascertain just what statutes are in force at any particular time. The uncertainties arising from such multiplied and conflicting legislation lead to incessant litigation with its expensive burdens, public and private.' . . . But this is not all nor the worst. It may be true that the first attempts to secure legislative intervention in the local affairs of our principal cities were made by good citizens in the supposed interest of reform and good government, and to counteract the schemes of corrupt officials. The notion that legislative control was the proper remedy was a serious mistake. The corrupt cliques and rings thus sought to be baffled were quick to perceive that in the business of procuring special laws concerning local affairs they could easily outmatch the fitful and clumsy labours of disinterested citizens. The transfer of the control of the municipal resources from the localities to the (State) capitol had no other effect than to cause a like transfer of the methods and arts of corruption, and

to make the fortunes of our principal cities the traffic of the lobbies. Municipal corruption, previously confined within territorial limits, thenceforth escaped all bounds and spread to every quarter of the State. Cities were compelled by legislation to buy lands for parks and places because the owners wished to sell them; compelled to grade, pave, and sewer streets without inhabitants, and for no other purpose than to award corrupt contracts for the work. Cities were compelled to purchase, at the public expense, and at extravagant prices, the property necessary for streets and avenues, useless for any other purpose than to make a market for the adjoining property thus improved. Laws were enacted abolishing one office and creating another with the same duties in order to transfer official emoluments from one man to another, and laws to change the functions of officers with a view only to a new distribution of patronage, and to lengthen the terms of offices for no other purpose than to retain in place officers who could not otherwise be elected or appointed."

This last-mentioned cause of evil is no doubt a departure from the principle of local popular control and responsibility on which State governments and rural local governments have been based. It is a dereliction which has brought its punishment with it. But the resulting mischiefs have been immensely aggravated by the vices of the legislatures in a few of the States, such as New York and Pennsylvania. As regards the two former causes, they are largely due to what is called the Spoils system, whereby office becomes the reward of party service, and the whole machinery of party government made to serve, as its main object, the getting and keeping of places. Now the Spoils system, with the party machinery which it keeps oiled and greased and always working at high pressure, is far more potent and pernicious in great cities than in country districts. For in great cities we find an ignorant multitude, largely composed of recent immigrants, untrained in self-government; we find a great proportion of the voters paying no direct taxes, and therefore feeling no interest in moderate taxation and economical administration; we find able citizens absorbed in their private businesses, cultivated citizens unusually sensitive to the vulgarities of practical politics, and both sets therefore specially unwilling to sacrifice their time and tastes and comfort in the struggle with sordid wirepullers and noisy demagogues. In great cities the forces that attack and pervert democratic government are exceptionally numerous, the defensive forces that protect it exceptionally ill-placed for resistance. Satan has turned his heaviest batteries on the weakest part of the ramparts.

Besides these three causes on which the commissioners dwell, and the effects of which are felt in the great cities of other States as well as of New York, though perhaps to a less degree, there are what may be called mechanical defects in the structure of municipal governments, whose nature may be gathered from the account given in last chapter. There is a want of methods for fixing public responsibility on the governing persons and bodies. If the mayor jobs his patronage he can throw large part of the blame on the aldermen or other confirming council, alleging that he would have selected better men could he have hoped that the aldermen would approve his selection. If he has failed to keep the departments up to their work, he may argue that the city legislature hampered him and would not pass the requisite ordinances. Each house of a two-chambered legislature can excuse itself by pointing to the action of the other, or of its own committees, and among the numerous members of the chambers—or even of one chamber if there be but one-responsibility is so much divided as to cease to come forcibly home to any one. The various boards and officials have generally had little intercommunication;1 and the fact that some were directly elected by the people made these feel themselves independent both of the mayor and the city legislature. The mere multiplication of elective posts distracted the attention of the people, and deprived the voting at the polls of its efficiency as a means of reproof or commendation."

To trace municipal misgovernment to its sources was comparatively easy. To show how these sources might be dried up was

1 In Philadelphia some one has observed that there were four distinct and independent authorities with power to tear up the streets, and that there was no authority upon whom the duty was specifically laid to put them in repair again.

2 Mr. Seth Low remarks :-" Greatly to multiply important elective officers is not to increase popular control, but to lessen it. The expression of the popular will at the ballot-box is like a great blow struck by an engine of enormous force. It can deliver a blow competent to overthrow any officer, however powerful. But, as in mechanics, great power has to be subdivided in order to do fine work, so in giving expression to the popular will the necessity of choosing amid a multitude of unimportant officers involves inevitably a loss of power to the people."—Address on Municipal Government, delivered at Rochester, N.Y., February 1885.

A trenchant criticism of the prevailing systems of city government may be found in an article in Scribner's Magazine for October 1887 by Mr. G. Bradford. He argues forcibly in favour of having only one elective official, the mayor, of giving every executive function, not to a Board, but to one official only, appointed by the mayor, without confirmation by any one else, and of taking all share in executive administration out of the hands of committees of the city legislature.