The government of American cities

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Contents

I-

Amxbican Mttnicipal Deviblopment • •

» . 1 n.

Chapter I

The mastery of any field of political science involves some knowledge of institutional history. Only by knowing, at least in a general way, what has gone before can one grasp the motives that have guided a people to its contemporary poUtical machinery, whether national or local; and only thereby can one reach a proper understanding of what future development the political features of a country are likely to have. American municipal institutions, of one form or another, have now put behind them two and a quarter centuries of history. This history covers a great variety of experiments in local government; there is scarcely a feature of popular administration that has not at some time been tried in one or more of our cities or towns. The coimtries of Europe have not made great changes in their machinery of municipal government during the past half-century; in this field America has been the world's chief laboratory for political experimentation. Though costly, the experiments have been instructive, and have in the end led to notable improvements in the administration of municipal a£fairs. By a study of the steps through which the present framework of American city

B 1 government has been evolved one may come to understand the chief features which characterize it at the present day. Borcmghfl ?* The beginnings of the American municipal system are ool^aiera. *^ ^® found in the incorporation of the colonial boroughs during the latter half of the seventeenth century. In this New York was the pioneer, receiving its first city charter from Governor Dongan in 1686.^' Albany followed a few months later in the same year, its first charter being substantially the same as that granted to New York. Both charters continued in force until the Revolutions^ Other rising colonial towns received similar recognition in due course, — Philadelphia in 1691,^ Annapolis in 1696,^ Norfolk in 1736,* Richmond in 1742,^ and Trenton, the last of the colonial list, in 1746.^ A dozen others of less importance scattered through the Middle and Southern colonies also obtained their charters during this interval. There were no active chartered boroughs in the New England colonies, for there the system of town government seemed 1 to be sufficient and satisfactory.^ In Massachusetts no city

' : ^ A burgher government, after the model of that maintained in the free

cities of Holland, had been established by Governor Stuyvesant in 1653 ; but I in 1665 the town passed into English hands and the government was changed

, to that of an English municipal corporation, though no formal charter was

I issued. Dongan granted a formal document in 1686 at the request of the

■! mayor and aldermen of the town. This charter, which in its printed form

^ covers only fourteen pages, is still preserved in the archives of the comp-

J troller in New York City. A copy may be found in the Colonial Laws of

i New York (5 vols.. New York, 1897), 1. 181. Some doubts having arisen as

to the validity of this charter, it was reissued under the royal seal in 1730. This confirmation, which made no very important changes, is commonly known as the Montgomery charter. It may be found ibid., II. 575.

* The Philadelphia charter of 1691 was replaced by a new one, granted by Penn in 1701, which remained in operation till 1776.

* David Ridgely, AnndU of Annapolis (Baltimore, 1841), 89.

* Virginia Statutes at Large (ed. W. W. Hening, 13 vols., New York, etc., 1819-1823). IV. 541.

* Ibid,t XI. 45. • New Jersey Historical Society, Proceedings^ IX. 152. 'Sir Fernando Gk>rges gave borough charters to Agamenticus and

Kittery, two Maine hamlets, in 1641 and 1647 respectively; but no y charter was granted prior to the Boston charter of 1822, and this change was made only because the community had become too populous to be any longer governed as a town, and not because new corporate powers were needed ; ^ for the New England town had, without any specific grant, substantially all the powers and privileges that a borough charter could confer.* The town required no charter to give it powers, and desired none to set limitations upon local - ^ freedom.

From first to last the governors of the thirteen colonies charters gave charters to twenty boroughs, or cities, as some places Re^utioi were called from the outset.' Fifteen of these were places of considerable importance.^/ It will be noticed that the charters were given by the governors and not by the colonial le^slatures, a local adaptation of the practice existing in England, where the incorporation of boroughs was always made by royal grant rather than by act of ParUament. The governor apparently acted upon the request of the

mmiidpal governments appear to have been organized under these grants. These charters may be found in Ebenezer Hazard's Historical CoOeeUans (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1792-1794), I. 470, 480.

^ The population of Boston in 1822 had passed the 40,000 mark, and the qualified voters numbered about 7000. "When a town-meeting was held on any exciting subject in Faneuil Hall, those only who obtained idaoes near the moderator could even hear the discussion. A few busy or interested individuals easily obtained the management of the most important affairs, in an assembly in which the greater number could have neither voice nor hearing. When the subject was not generally exciting, town-meetings were usually composed of the selectmen, the town officers, and thirty or forty inhabitants." — Josiah Quinct, Municipal History of Bottan (Boston, 1852), 28.

*The ]>owers which the New England towns possessed without any fonnal act d incorporation are best set forth in the case of Hill v. Boston, 122 Mass. 344. See also J. F. Dillon, The Law of Municipal Corporations (Mh ed., 5 vols., Boston, 1911).

* The list, with dates of grant and details, may be found in J. A. Fairlie's Bs9ay9 in Municipal Administration (New York, 1908), ch. iv. ; also in aa enay on "Municipal Ck>rporations, 1701-1901," by H. W. Rogers, in Two CmUwrie^ Orawth of American Law (Tale Bicentennial Publications, New Tctk. 1901), 20a-260.

burgesseS; or inhabitants^ and the charters were sometimes submitted to the latter for their acceptance before being put into operation. In the drafting of these charters no single model was followed. In general^ however^ all the boroughs were provided with a frame of government which approximated that of the English municipal corporation in the dsLys before the epoch of reform. In each case provision was made for a governing body, to which were given the corporate powers of the community. This governing body, usually styled "the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty" of the borough, consisted of a single council made up of a mayor, a small number of aldermen, and a larger number of councilmen, all sitting together. Except in the three close corporations, Annapolis, Norfolk, and Philadelphia, the councilmen were chosen at regular intervals by popular vote, and so were the aldermen, as a rule; but the mayor was commonly named by the governor of the colony. There were, in addition, some other borough officers, such as the recorder and the treasurer. None of these had to perform burdensome administrative tasks; for the boroughs were small, and provided for their inhabitants no public services of account. Boston was, from its foundation in 1630 until after the middle of the eighteenth century, the most populous community in, the New World. Philadelphia then took the lead, and retained it till after the Revolution.^ On the eve of the Revolutionary War there were only five cities and towns with populations exceeding 8000, and the combined strength of these was less than 100,000.^ When it is remembered that these five places contained less than three per cent of the total population of the thirteen colonies,

1 In 1700 tiie population of Boston was 6700, of Philadelphia 4400, of New York about 4500. In 1760 the figures stood, Philadelphifk 18,756, Boston 15,631, and New Tork about 14,000. See Bureau of the Census, A CwUury of Population Growth^ 1790-1000 (Washinfirton, 1909), 11-12.

> Ftdladelphia, New York, Boston, Charleston, and Newport.

the large part which their citizens took in the military and political events of the war period becomes the more remarkable. Even at this time the urban population was doing more than its proportionate share in moulding the course of national development.

The successful outcome of the Revolution and the adop- Effects of tion of the new state constitutions served to bring about tion. great changes in both the form and the spirit of municipal government. Municipal charters were henceforth granted, not by the governor alone, but by the state legislature. In other words, the city charter became a statute, which might be amended or repealed like any other statute. This involved a radical change in the relation existing between the mimicipaUty and the state. Under the regime of royal charters the mimicipaUties enjoyed almost entire freedom from legislative interference; under the new dispensation they were completely under the domination of the state legislature. ^With the aftermath of the Revolution, accordingly, one finds the way thrown open for that virtual extinction of municipal home rule which characterized the situation in American cities during the latter half of the nineteenth centuiy.^

Some of the boroughs that had received charters before charten 1775 abandoned them after the Revolution and received Re^u^oi new grants from the legislatures of their respective states. These new municipal constitutions differed considerably from the old ones. The old idea of the borough as a " close corporation'' was discarded, for instance, the new order resting upon the idea that admission to citizenship should be made easy and that the officials of borough government dunild be elected. The charter of Philadelphia issued in 1789 affords a good example of the change which was taking

1 See below, pp. 71-72.

6 GOVERNMENl' OF AMERICAN CITIES

place in the spirit of municipal government.^ By its provisions the government of the city was vested in the hands of the mayor, aldermen^ and common councillors^ sitting together in one body. Fifteen aldermen were to be elected for a seven-year term by the owners of freehold property, and thirty common-councilmen were to be chosen for a three-year term by the ^'freemen." These together made up the city coimcil. The mayor was to be chosen by the aldermen from among their own number, his post to be no more than that of a presiding officer. Such officials as might from time to time be found necessary were to be chosen by the council.

The decade in which this charter was granted has been very properly termed the critical period of American history. In municipal development it was a time of special crisis, an epoch of transition from the old English to the new American type of urban government. The disappearance of poUtical privilege and the making of local government essentially representative are the outstanding features of the Philadelphia document. In the frame of government which it provided only sUght departures from the English model were made. Other city charters of the period were of the same general type, diverging more in spirit than in form from those of the colonial era. They paved the way, however, for the charters which came at the threshold of the new century, and which embodied the more important ideas concerning governmental organization that had been recognized in the national and state constitutions, influenoe of In these constitutions two or three sahent features stand ^^ out prominently. Chief among them, of course, is the

^ The charter of 1789 is printed in Laws of the Commonwealth of Penn^ tyhania (ed. A. J. Dallas, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1793-1797). A summary of its provisions is g^iven by £. P. Allison and Boies Penrose, History oj PhOaddphia (Philadelphia, 1887), 60-62.

principle of divided powers, or of checks and balances, «-^ in other words, the doctrine that executive and legislative authority should be vested in separate and independent hands. Other features that may be regarded as corollaries to this fundamental axiom were the use of the executive veto, the establishment of double-chambered legislatures, and the intrusting of some executive functions to the upper of these two chambers. Since these new and native principles of poUtical organization were sanctioned in the organic laws of state and nation, it was only natural that they should make their way into the organic laws of the cities. ; The dominating factor in the development of municipal framework during the first quarter of the nineteenth century was, accordingly, the influence of the federal analogy. The charters represented the attempt, on the part of those who framed them, to impose upon the cities a miniature of that plan which on a broader scale had won the confidence of the electorate. Excellent examples of this procedure may be found in the Baltimore charter of 1796 ^ and the Detroit charter of 1806. In Baltimore provision was made for the election of the mayor by an electoral college, and for a two-chambered city council, one branch exactly representing the eight wards of the city by giving them two aldermen each, the other representing the citizens at large. Although in the distribution of powers the national model was not exactly followed, the influence of this analogy upon the general make-up of city government is clearly apparent. American municipal development had taken a course of its own, cutting somewhat adrift from earlier English influences.

It long since became apparent to thoughtful men that itsefPcot this radical swerve was unwise in its day and unfortunate mdpoi ^r in its consequences. No one will deny, of course, that the framers of the national constitution had defensible ground

1 Laws of Maryland, 1796, ch. 68.

for the recognition which they gave, in their great work, to the principle of divorcing administrative from legislative functions^ and for their action in establishing a bicameral legislature. Nor are the framers of the state constitutions to be criticised for having followed along the same lines. Although a century of experience has led many to the belief that, as a working principle of government, the muchvaimted doctrine of separation of powers is a delusion and a snare, yet in the days when it first gained recognition in American state and national administration there were many convincing arguments of a practical sort that could be put forward in its behalf. In the field of municipal government, however, the doctrine of divided powers never had a single sound prop to rest upon. Its chief professed virtue, that of providing a bulwark against executive or legislative usurpations to the detriment of civil liberty, can have relevance only in deaUngs with an ultimate political power. Those who design the structure of subordinate governments need not make the liberty of the subject their first care; that is the responsibility of those who mould the frame of higher authority in state and nation. If these have done their work rightly, the subordination of municipal to state government deprives the former of all the elements of permanent danger. But that was not the viewpoint of those who framed American city charters in the quarter-century following the establishment of the federal constitution. The principle of administrative and legislative autonomy became a fetich; it gained ready recognition ever3rwhere, and determined the main channd of later municipal development. The autonomous mayoralty, the bicameral coimcil, the executive veto, and the practice of aldermanic confirmation, — all of them native institutions, and all attributable to the influence of national theories upon local government, — made their appearance before the period closed. The first charter of Boston, adopted in 1822, with its provision for a mayor directly elected by the voters, shows quite cleariy another positive drift of the age.^

During this period (1790-1825) the cities of the United Growth oi States had made notable progress in nimiber, in popula- the Revoi tion, and in the scope of their municipal activities. In a new coimtry, as an authoritative writer on the distribution of population has pointed out, the rapid growth of cities is both natural and necessary; for no efficient industrial organization of a new settlement is possible unless there are industrial centres to carry on the work of assembhng and distributing goods.* In 1790 there were but five communities in the country with populations exceeding 8000, — namely, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. These together contained slightly more than 130,000 inhabitants, or less than three and one-half per cent of the nation's population. In 1820 the number of cities with 8000 people or more had nearly trebled; there were now thirteen, containing together nearly half a million inhabitants. New York, the largest of them, had passed the 100,000 mark, and was expending an annual budget amounting to about a dollar per capita. Boston on its admission to cityhood in 1822 contained over 40,000 inhabitants, a number which rendered the continuance of the town-meeting a physical impossibiUty.

Growth in population brought serious beginnings in i^e begi mtuucipal services. In 1825 New York had the rudiments mumoip«i of a police system, the city being divided into three dis-

^ Law9 of Ma88achtiȤU8, 1822, oh. 110. As pointed out by Profefuor J. H. Beale some years ac^) ( Proceedingt of the National Municipal League, for 1903), mMiy features ci Boston's first city government were adapted from town institutions.

* A. F. Weber, The Growth cf CiHm in the Nineteenth Century (New Toi^ 1809), 20.

tricts, to each of which constables were assigned for duty; it was not till 1837, however, that a regular system of day patrols was instituted. A water-supply service, established by Aaron Burr and his associates under their famous eh.rter,';^ abo in op^ation, and served the city, though not very satisfactorily, till the Croton supply became available in 1842. In most of the larger towns public sewers began to be erected to supersede the drains owned by individuals; pubUc lighting of the streets, at first by oil lamps but later by gas, became common ; and some attention was bemg paid to the cleaning of streets.^ Raised footways or sidewalks, usually of cobble-stones but sometimes of boards, were built in the main thoroughfares of the larger municipaUties. Fire protection was undertaken by volunteer companies; the system of pubUc education was formulating itself slowly; and in some places land was bemg set aside for recreation grounds. All in all, a good beginning in the provision of the chief municipal services was made during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

The ante- The third period in American municipal development, period. extending from about 1825 to the close of the Civil War, witnessed the elaboration of those administrative principles which had gained recognition in the preceding era. The new charter of New York, enacted in 1830, showed the direction in which the tide was running.* It divided the city council into two chambers, and expUcitly stated that this action was taken in order that the principles upon which the national government was based might be recognized. By this charter the mayor was invested with the

^ A system of public sewers was established in Boston in 1823 ; public lighting of the streets had been carried on long prior to this date, but lighting by gas was not introduced till 1834. See Nathan Matthews, The City Government of Boston (Boston, 1895), 59, 97.

' J. A. Fairlie, Municipal Administration, 83.

right to veto any order or resolution of the council; his veto to be overridden only by a two-thirds vote of both chambers. ''fUp to this time 'the pubUc services of the city had| so far as they went; been managed by the council through its committees. The unsatisfactory character of this method was evidently becoming apparent; however; for the new charter provided that these services should thenceforth be intrusted to administrative officials appointed for the purpose by the council. Notwithstanding this provision; the council committees continued for some years to exercise a large influence in administering the city departments. Wherever charter revisions took place in other cities during the forties and fifties; the same drift is observable. At various points one encounters the beginnings of a movement which aimed to make the mayoralty Popui a semi-independent organ of city government; chosen directly mayor by the people and exercising on a reduced scale the sort of powers given to the executive heads of state and national governments.^ Another interesting development of this period was the Widen

__ tno Bui

widening of the municipal suffrage. Prior to 1830 many of the states imposed a property, or tax-paying; qualification for the right to votC; whether in state or in local elections;^ but during the presidency of Andrew Jackson a movement for the abolition of these requirements obta^ed impetus in the general atmosphere of the new democracy; and before the middle of the century universal suffrage had; 80 far as the white population was concerned; become the

> See, for examples, the Boston charter amendments of 1854 (Laws of Mastachuaetts, 1854, oh. 448), which ^ve the mayor the veto power ; and the Philadelphia charter of 1854, commonly called the Consolidation Aet (February 2, 1854), which considerably increased the independent anthority of Uie mayor. For a discussion of this latter change, see Alii- ■on and Penrose, History of Philadelphia^ ch. iv.

' The list may be found in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (ed. D. C. Oilman, 2 vols., Now York, 1898), II. Appendix.

accepted policy in virtually all the states. The observant Tocqueville, writing in the early thirties, foresaw this outcome. "Where a nation/' he wrote, "begins to modify the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen that, sooner or later, the qualification will be entirely abolished. • . . Concession follows concession, and no stop can be made short of universal suffrage.'' Since the suffrage qualifications were, as a rule, alike in state and city, the extensions in one affected the situation in the other. Manhood suffrage came upon the cities, however, at a rather trying time, for close upon its adoption followed the large European immigrations to America. The foreigners, of whom the cities received the larger share, were admitted to voting rights as soon as they were naturaUzed, and the facility with which they often lent themselves to exploitation by unscrupulous poUticians unquestionably had an influence in breaking down some of the sound traditions which the cities had conserved till that time.

B mxnis It was at this stage in municipal development, moreover,

W0BD1.

that the spoils system gained its firm anchorage not only in the national and state administrations, but in the system of selecting city oflSicials as well. In the larger cities appointments to administrative posts rested, for the most part, within the power of the city council ; and, since the members of this body were usually chosen from wards, in contests conducted along party Unes, they readily fell into the habit of treating such appointments as poUtical patronage. Moreover, since the idea of rotation in office as a maxim of democracy made its way from national and state poUtics into city affairs, even office-holders of the dominant poUtical party had to give place when their terms expired. All incentive to the development of skill and efficiency in the conduct of municipal administration was thereby removed.

Anofher important feature in the evolution of municipal Separatio institutions during the ante-belliun era was the rise of the tratioutn independent administrative department. The New York charter of 1830, as has been seen, provided that the council should elect administrative officers to take charge of various city services; but the fact that these officials were appointed by the council kept the latter body in real control of their work and prevented any marked improvement. ^In 1849, however, a new charter changed the situation by prescribing that thereafter the officers in< charge of city departments should be chosen by popular vote.^ This gave them independence of the municipal legislature, and was an important step in the direction of divorcing the administrative arm of city government from the legislative. ^ New York, moreover, was not alone as an exponent of this policy; Chicago and Cleveland furnish Uke examples. In the latter city a board of improvements was established, consisting of the mayor, the city engineer, and three elective^ commissioners; and to this new commission was given the supervision of all public works.* In Philadelphia, Ukewise, the new charter of 1864 made the office of city treasurer elective; and in establishing the new post of city comptroller it made that elective also.' T^ But while some advantages came from the experiment of Apppintiv

offici&ls.

giving the administrative departments a position of independence, it was soon apparent that efficient heads for those branches of the city service could not be secured by popular election. In various cities, therefore, the selection of these officials was taken from the voters and given to the mayor, with the restriction that his appointments

s Lowt of New York, 1849, eh. 147.

* Municipal Oi^sanization Act, May 3, 1852, S 41. See also Charles Snavely, History of the City Government of Cleveland (Baltimore, 1902), 41. s Allison and Penrose, History of Philadelphia^ 172-175.

should be subject to confirmation by the upper chamber of the city council. New York made this change in 1857 ; * V Chicago and Baltimore followed within a few years. The idea of making the mayor responsible for the appointment of a municipal cabinet comprising the heads of the various departments soon gained popularity, partly because it seemed in consonance with the general plan of American government as exemplified in the larger areas of state and nation, and partly because the people of the cities were beginning to look upon the mayor as the pivotal figure in local administration. Indeed, the decline of popular confidence in city councils and the increasing confidence in the chief magistrate form the outstanding features of this period.

Jtricter A tendency to tighten the reins of state control over

ffi^^ city administration is another development of the same era, particularly of the later years of it. The ineflSiciency, wastefulness, and even dishonesty with which the various municipal services had been administered by council committees and by oflBcials elected by popular vote became texts for frequent protests on the floors of state legislatures. Particularly did the almost universal maladministration of municipal poUce departments, and the consequent failure of the cities to enforce the laws of the state, furnish a standing temptation to legislative intervention. This intervention came in several states during the late fifties. X In 1857 the legislature of New York established a state-appointed police board for New York, Brooklyn, and adjacent munioipalities, thereby displacing local control of the department.^ rThe legislature of Maryland saddled a state police

> Law8 of New York, 1857, ch. 446.

' "Dissatisfaction with the inefficiency of urban police and a desire to g;ain partisan advantage were the principal motives.'! — L. F. Fuld, Police AdminUtration (New York, 1910), 26.

. board upon Baltimore in 1860, state control of municipal police was established in St. Louis in 1861, and about the same time the legislature of Illinois put the poUce of Chicago in a similar strait-jacket. When the war broke upon the land in 1861, the poUcy of taking municipal police control into state hands was making rapid headway; but in due course the movement overreached itself and brought a reaction. The war disorganized local administration to some extent, but not to the degree that might have been expected. Occasional disorders connected with the forced drafting of recruits put added strain upon the poUce department in some cities ; but otherwise the public services, in regions outside the theatre of conflict, were carried on about as usual. Foreign immigration almost ceased, of course, and during the war years the cities moved forward in population much more slowly than before the struggle began. The close of hostilities marked the beginning of a new era in almost every department of economic and industrial life.

In tracing the history of American municipal development Munidpa] one may say that the fourth important epoch extended tion after through the years of national reconstruction down to about the year 1890. This era began inauspiciously, for the administration of the larger cities of the land appeared at the time incurably bad. The action of the state authorities in withdrawing powers from local hands seemed to have made things worse rather than better. New York, where the arm of the state had been most active, was properly pilloried as the most corruptly administered city in America, and one of the most corrupt in the world, its government being firmly in the clutches of the notorious Tweed Ring, a troop of plundering banditti who used their civic authority to turn public funds into private fortunes. There is no page in the annals of American municipal history more sordid than this.^ Nor was the situation in many other cities at this time much better. While the war lasted its effect was chastening^ and local public opinion was strong enough to keep the municipal authorities from gross extravar gance ; but with the end of the conflict came an extraordinary economic revival, — industry and commerce expanded, the tide of immigration returned, and the cities, as wac entirely natural, felt the first effects of the new prosperity. The tone of local opinion became one of pronounced optimism, an atmosphere in which opportunities for the abuse of pubUc trusts are usually abundant. Taxes rose, debts increased, and much of the money that came into the municipal treasuries was shamelessly squandered. A comprehensive investigation of conditions in American cities during the later sixties would probably have disclosed a state of affairs no better, and much more difficult to remedy, than those laid bare in the boroughs of England by the royal commission of 1833. [be turn of By 1870 the dangers of the situation had become so clear