Government by commission; or, The dethronement of the city boss: being a study of the commission plan as begun in Galveston, developed and extended in Des Moines, and already taken up in many other cities, east and west

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Contents

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CHAPTSR

I — City Government by Commission a New Anchorage FOR Democracy II — Pertinent Facts about Des Moines III — General View of the New Plan IV— The Ward System Aboushed V — Partizanship Euminated VI — ^Direct and Undivided Responsibility VII — Popular Supremacy Reestabushed VIII — PuBUciTY Guaranteed by Law . IX — ^The Merit System Extended and Strengthened ......

II Pertinent Facts About Des Moines

The city of Des Moines, which, in April, 1908, entered upon the interesting experiment in municipal government of which this volume treats, is old enough and large enough and has had a municipal experience sufficiently varied and t3rpical to make the success or failure of its new charter — ^widely known as " the Des Moines plan " — a matter of importance to all American cities which contemplate making fun- , damental changes in their forms of government. It has been the capital of the state of Iowa for more than half a century and its metropolis for nearly a generation. It had a population of 75,626 in 1905, when the last state census was taken, and has since steadily and rapidly grown. The sources of its population, as ascertained by the federal census of 1900, present an example of the extremely complex processes of city-building in this country that is not only interesting in itself, but valuable in justifying the assumption that a charter which will give good gov" emment to Des Moines is not unlikely to prove satisfactory to other cities.

PERTINENT FACTS ABOUT DES MOINES

Of the 54,193 native bom persons residing in Des Moines in 1900, Alabama contributed 46, Arizona 6, Arkansas 49, California 61, Colorado 86, Connecticut 130, Delaware 24, District of Columbia 26, Florida 8, Georgia 29, Idaho 8, Illinois 4,029, Indiana 2,065, Iowa 32,693, Kansas 614, Kentucky 427, Louisiana 29, Maine 152, Maryland 156, Massachusetts 272, Michigan 450, Minnesota 346, Mississippi 52, Mis* souri 1,803, Montana 12, Nebraska 672, Nevada 7, New Hampshire 72, New Jersey 157, New Mexico 4, New York 1,767, North Carolina 77, North Dakota II, Ohio 3403, Oklahoma 9, Oregon 17, Pennsylvania 1,862, Rhode Island 38, South Carolina 16, South Dakota 104, Teimessee 173, Texas 48, Utah 9, Vermont 256, Virginia 375, Washington 19, West Virginia 142, Wisconsin 857, Wyoming 15, states or territories not specified, 459; while two were bom at sea under the United States flag and 47 were born abroad under conditions consistent with American citizenship. No state was unrepresented.

Of the 7,946 foreign-born inhabitants, Africa was the native country of 2, Asia (aside from China, Japan and India) 44, Australia 10, Austria 68, Belgium 6, Bohemia 30, Canada (English) 494, Canada (French) 39, China 5, Cuba i, Denmark 240, England 909, Finland 9, France 36, Germany 1,432, Greece 4, Hoiland 66, Hungary 7, India 6, Ireland 902, Italy 195, Japan 3, Luxemburg 2, Mexico i, Norway 296, Pacific Islands 5, German Poland 3, Russian Poland 295, Poland, not stated, 20, Roumania 47, Russia 380, Scotland 234, South America i, Spain i, Sweden 1,907, Switzerland 76, Turkey 16, Wales 133, West Indies 14, other countries i ; born at sea 8. These figures do not, of course, include the second generation.

Des Moines was, until recently, a city of slow growth. It grew compactly, like an eastern or oldworld city, until the '8o's, when increasing taxes and rapit transit prompted several thousand of its inhabitants to build homes just outside the eight square miles which constituted its original area. By 1890, this evasion of civic responsibilities had become an acknowledged evil; and an act of the legislature enabled the city to annex large areas adjoining it on all sides. Its present corporate limits extend six miles north and south by nine miles east and west, enclosing fifty-four square miles. This encourages an expansion which involves the opening, paving and sewering of a large mileage of streets and corresponding expense to clean the streets and provide fire and police protection and public service of all kinds.

The city is located at the confluence of the Des

PERTINENT FACTS ABOUT DES MOINES

Moines and Raccoon rivers. The valleys of these fine streams afford convenient levels for large business districts and for the tracks and yards of the railroad systems and several interurban electric lines which reach out in all directions to grasp the traffic of the richest agricultural and stock-raising region in the world. Back of these commercial and manufacturing districts, gently rising slopes, covered with native elms and oaks^ accommodate the residence sections^ which extend in some directions out upon the high prairies.

The public schools of the city are not controlled by the municipality, but are managed by a board of directors elected by the same constituency, acting at large; the elections being by common consent nonpartisan. The park system was formerly under a separate corporation, coextensive with the city, but was brought under municipal control when the new charter was adopted. It has already been suggested that the schools be brought under the jurisdiction of the city council, with a sixth councilman at their head, but no active measures have as yet been taken looking to that end. One of the grievances of the citizens against the old system, or rather lack of system, was that the taxpayer was at the mercy of numerous independent and unregulated taxing boards, whose levies were based upon no comprehensive view of the public needs and the resulting revenues expended without system or restraint.

All of the public utilities of Des Moines are owned and operated by private corporations. The street railway system radiates from a central station at the heart of the city, the individual lines running out like the spokes of a wheel. Universal transfers and six fares for twenty-five cents bring intra-mural transportation of passengers within the reach of all. The water supply is derived from galleries in a subterranean stream under the bed of the Raccoon River and the works are operated by a direct system and standpipe. A single company furnishes gas for lighting and fuel at the uniform price of one dollar per thousand cubic feet. There have been two telephone systems for many years, but they are now in process of consolidation. The several plants serving the city with electric lights, heat or power present no noteworthy variations from those rendering like service in other cities.

The problems of municipal government in Des Moines are those common to all American cities. They include the maintenance of order; the care of the public health; sources and regulation of the water supply; protection from fire; intra-mural transporta-

PERTINENT FACTS ABOUT DES MOINES

tion; disposal of garbage and sewage and the cleaning of streets; regulation of saloons and suppression of vice ; dealing with the smoke, noise and billboard nuisances and overhead wires ; paving, sewers, bridges, viaducts, etc., and the dangei's from grade crossings; control of auctioneers, hucksters, pedlers and licensed dealers generally; parks tind public playgrounds and their regulation and control; supervision of libraries, hospitals and to some extent, public charities; public, private and cooperative services such as lighting, heating and telephones, and a multitude of other matters in which the city controls or participates with the county and state in control. It can hardly be doubted that a charter which brings success in the government of Des Moines will prove valuable in any other city, large or small, in the country. No two cities have exactly the same problems to solve; but the principles underlying the administration of all are the same. What is wanted everywhere is a combination of democracy, official responsibility and efficiency. Des Moines* most important departure from the norm of municipal practise has been its policy of securing all classes of public service through private corporations, whereas many cities own and operate their own water works. On a close analysis, however, it will be seen that,

[3Vl after all, this difference is not really fundamental. The municipality must see to it that its water supply is unpolluted and that the service is adequate. It has the intermediary company to deal with, but the problem is not essentially more or less difficult on that account. It is an exceptional city, too, that is not as greatly concerned as is Des Moines in the maintenance of just and satisfactory relations with one or more public service corporations.

Ill

GENERAL VIEW OF THE NEW PLAN

Under the Des Moines plan of municipal government the business of the city is conducted by five administrative departments, designated by law as follows :

1. Department of public affairs.

2. Department of accounts and finance.

3. Department of public safety.

4. Department of streets and public improvements.

5. Department of parks and public property.

The department of public affairs is superior to the four other departments in both authority and compensation. It is in charge of the mayor, elected by the people as such, and given general supervision over the four coordinate working departments. The mayor is ex-officio a member and president of a council composed of the heads of the five departments, and has a vote but no veto> He is relieved of practically all merely routine duties save those necessarily arising from his position as official head and mouthpiece of the city, giving him ample time and opportunity for the important labor of cooperation with and supervision over the labors of his four associates. The mayor's salary is $3,500 ; that of the four coundlmen, $3,000 each.

The superintendents of the four coordinate departments are in the first instance elected simply as councilmen^ They and the mayor, acting together as a council, at the beginning of their two years' term of office, designate the department which each of the four shall superintend, and divide practically all the detail work of the municipality among the four departments along lines broadly indicated by their names ; retaining in the council only those which pertain to the city as a whole.

This small, directly responsible administrative body, resembling the board of directors of a private corporation, takes the place of the mayor, council and various boards among which the powers and duties pertaining to municipal administration have been divided in the past. All other officers and employees of the city are selected by the council.

The five members of the council are elected by the people of the city acting as one constituency, regardless of ward lines. The choice is made at a double election, from which partizanship is strictly excluded, and under restrictions reducing the temptations to and opportunities for corruption to a minimum.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE NEW PLAN

At the primary election, any citizen may become a candidate for mayor or councilman without consulting any committee or submitting to any requirements save that of a petition signed by at least twenty-five qualified voters attesting his good moral character and fitness for the office. The names of all candidates go on the official ballot in alphabetical order, without partisan emblems or designations. The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes for mayor and the eight candidates receiving the highest number of votes for councilmen are declared to be the nominees; and these ten names, and no others, are printed on the ballots for the second and final election, held two weeks later, at which the mayor and four councilmen are elected.

Immediately taking charge of the city government, the new council assigns the four unallotted councilmen to their several departments and defines the powers and duties of each, subject, however, to change whenever it appears that the public service would be benefited thereby. The organization is purposely made elastic, the council being also empowered to assign particular officers and employees to one or more of the departments or to require that they perform duties in two or more departments.

The merit system is given the largest practicable application in the selection of officers and employees. The council by majority vote elects a city clerk, solicitor, assessor, police judge, treasurer, auditor, civil engineer, city physician, marshal, chief of fire department, market master, street commissioner, three library trustees and other necessary officers and assistants ; but all officers and employees must be elected or appointed with reference to their qualifications or fitness and without reference to their political faith or party affiliations. No officer or candidate for office is permitted to promise any person any position, employment, benefit or thing of value for the purpose of influencing his vote or obtaining his support. All subordinate employees, except common laborers, election officials and a few assistants, etc., properly excepted, must be appointed from the civil service lists. A board of civil service commissioners is provided, to conduct examinations of a practical character to determine the fitness of applicants. The fullest publicity as to campaign expenses is required, both the source and manner of expenditure to be reported under oath. No officer or employee is permitted to be interested, directly or indirectly, in any contract with the city or any public service corporation, or to accept any free service therefrom.

All meetings of the council at which any person

GENERAL VIEW OF THE NEW PLAN

not a city officer is admitted, must be open to the public.

No franchise or right to use the streets, highways, bridges or public places of the city can be granted, renewed or extended except by ordinance; and every franchise or grant for interurban or street railways, gas or water works, electric light or power plants, heating plants, telegraph or telephone systems or other public service utilities must be authorized or approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon at a general or special election.

Every motion, resolution, and ordinance of the council must be in writing and the vote of every member of the council for and against it must be recorded.

The council is required to print and effectively distribute, in pamphlet form, each month a detailed itemized statement of all receipts and expenses and a summary of its proceedings during the preceding month. At the end of each year the council must cause a full and complete examination of all the books and accounts of the city to be made by competent accountants, and publish the report in pamphlet form.

Every ordinance or resolution appropriating money or ordering any street improvement or sewer, or making or authorizing any contract, or granting any franchise must be complete in its final form and remain on file with the city clerk for public inspection at least one week before its final passage or adoption.*

To enable the citizens to prevent the council from fastening objectionable legislation upon the city, provision is made whereby, Upon protest of 25 per cent, of the number of electors voting for mayor at the last preceding regular election, the council must either reconsider and repeal the ordinance objected to or submit it to a vote of the people for acceptance or rejection.

To make public sentiment in favor of specific legislation effective, the charter requires that upon petition of 25 per cent, of the number of electors voting for mayor at the last regular election any proposed ordinance must either be passed without alteration by the council or submitted to the people at a general or special election for adoption or rejection as law; a 10 per cent, petition being sufficient to secure submission at a regular election.

To insure good service from the council and to enable the city to purge that body of the membership therein of unworthy persons, provision is made whereby upon a 25 per cent, petition, any mayor or councilman may be compelled to face a special election upon the question of his continuance in office;

* See page 75.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE NEW PLAN

his name going on the ballot as a matter of course and candidates against him by a lo per cent, petition — ' the highest vote electing for the remainder of the term and failure to receive it having the effect of removing the inctunbent.

[39 1;

IV

An experience of more than fifty years with the system of representation by wards in Des Moines demonstrated it to be a hopeless failure; and no feature of the new plan was more heartily welcomed than its method of electing all members of the city's governing body by the community at large, giving every voter a voice in the selection of every councilman as well as of the mayor. No matter how the ward lines were arranged — ^and one conspicuous effort had been made so to divide the city as to make every ward a "good" or at least a "respectable" ward-rsome wards would invariably elect weak, vicious or incompetent aldermen, maintaining a nucleus of inefficiency and dishonesty which survived from one administration to another and nearly always showed a tendency to spread and increase. In many cases, a show of intense devotion to the ward and its supposed interests was ostentatiously maintained, and this imposed upon the unthinking, who do not always realize that an alderman cannot be

**a good man for his ward" without being faithful to the city as a whole and capable of intelligently looking after both local and general interests at the same time.

The ward system is essentially vicious in that it perverts the political education of the electors and encourages a local selfishness destructive of the general, and ultimately of the local, interests as well. No city can be well governed or its business competently administered whose governing body does not consider the city as a unit and its general interests paramount to local and private selfishness. Every ward fares best in a city in which ward lines are lost sight of in a determination to do at all times the best things for the whole city.

The philosophy which insists upon treating the city as an organic whole is unassailable. The city is physically, socially and economically a unit. It occupies a certain territory geographically and is the abiding place of a definite population. There is a common mind in the community, voiced by the local newspaper press and by it daily supplied with data which, when digested, constitute the basis for the prevailing public opinion. There is, too, at every moment, a dominant public sentiment on every question pending in the community — ^not always unanimous, but usually well defined and, most fortunately, usually sound morally and right intellectually. This does not mean that the highest ideals are invariably recognized and accepted, but that that which is decent and honest and of good report is almost always upheld. There is not a city in the United States in which the dominant note of public opinion is not in favor of honesty and efficiency in administration. The worst governed city in America — a. large, rich and populous city in which the worst elements remain dominant— daily utters through its press with popular approval a desire for better things, and is held in degrading bondage by fraudulent registration, voting and counting or return of votes, false pretenses of integrity on the part of its corrupt leaders and above all by the breaking up of its local unanimity along ward lines and through excessive partizan allegiance. Great masses of people can act effectively together only along simple and direct lines; but when so acting, they quickly gain enormous momentum.

It has been questioned whether the Des Moines plan of city government would accomplish the same excellent results in the largest cities as in cities of small or medium size; but every consideration which has justified its adoption in places of small population applies with added force to the problem as developed in the largest. We have democracy on an enormous scale in this country. Our nearly a hundred millions express their judgments as to men and measures every two years, and especially every four years, with admirable ease and promptitude; and there is no city within our borders so large that, were it given an opportunity to elect five men to be responsible for the conduct of five great, definite departments of its business, could not make the choice with a good degree of intelligence as to the character and capacity of the men; and every known principle of social action gives emphasis to the belief that the directness and simplicity of the issue, the concentration of public attention on the same candidates in all parts of the city, the clearer realization of the importance of the interests at stake, the dignity and value of the individual ballot as reaching to every part of the administration and counting as a city instead of a ward factor, would give a conquering impetus to the wave of popular sentiment evolved in such a contest. Public sentiment once fully aroused and united in an American city has an electric quality which sweeps all before it. IMvided into many petty currents, it is wasted and defeated ; gathered in one grand stream, it becomes irresistible.

Election by the city at large acts favorably on both the candidate and the voter. The former, to command the attention and hold the support of a large constituency, must have certain conspicuous personal qualities. He must be a man of good repute and of very fair abilities. He must have much personal force of some kind, otherwise he cannot impress himself upon a large number. He comes into competition, too^ with all the candidates from all parts of the city and must bear comparison with them. This comparison eliminates, at the start, most of the weak and notoriously unworthy candidates — itself a vast gain over the old system, which persistently and unerringly favors the worst and weakest.

The individual elector, too, is elevated to a new plane and his responsibility to the entire city and his power to take part in its affairs to the fullest extent can scarcely fail to further his civic development and increase his self-respect. By the inherent merit of the new system, he is compelled to take a larger view of his duty as a voter. He is relieved from the buttonholing of the petty local magnate, who has been unable to project himself or his creatures into the running. He cannot, even if he will, bestow any substantial reward through his vote upon the small politician who has given him a " job " at the public expense or sent him a turkey at the latest holiday season. To just the extent that he uses his ballot as a personal perquisite, giving his vote to some nearby good fellow, he eliminates himself from the determining forces of the contest. Indeed, the pressure upon him thus to abase himself has ceased by reason of the involuntary elimination of the merely neighborhood candidate from public consideration. To have a part in the selection of the men who shall control the municipality, he must of necessity cast his ballot for five of those candidates whose character and abilities have enabled them to command general attention. The American people, during many generations of self-government, have acquired a sixth sense whereby the trend of a political campaign is intuitively discerned. The picture we have just given of the individual voter's situation as modified by the abolition of the ward system is not simply deduced from the necessary change in his attitude. The returns of every election under the Des Moines plan show that this is exactly what takes place. The elimination of the mere weakling and the grossly unworthy and unfit would be pathetic if it were not so thoroughly a matter for general congratulation because of what it means for the public good. A most gratifying feature of the plan of wiping out ward lines is the fact that the emancipation of the candidate is perpetuated in that of the office-holder, apd that the better auspices under which the citizen casts his ballot persist during the entire term of office of the men his ballot helps to elect. We have had in this country, and especially in our cities, too much servility to the populace immediately before the election and too little regard for the public interests after it; too much fawning when votes were sought and too much defiance of decent public sentiment when they were no longer needed. We need nothing more than frankness, self-respect and independence among our public servants, coupled with a sacred regard for the permanent interests of the community. This we cannot secure under the old system; but under the new, we see it developing under conditions most promising for the future good government of our cities.

The councilman elected by the entire city and looking to the whole electorate for the reward of approval and reelection is under constant pressure of obligation to the city as a unit, and his entire term of office is an unceasing education in taking a broad, comprehensive view of his official obligations. His position forces him to a right point of view. Every concession he makes to local or private selfishness reacts and brings down upon him the condemnation of the larger public to which he must look for approval. Every oflScial act dictated by the evident interest of the city as a whole, even if opposed by local clamor, brings him the support of the public at large. The new system provides other guarantees for his good conduct and more cogent reasons for pursuing a course in harmony with the general good ; but we are concerned here only with the effect upon his official conduct of his election by all the people of the city, and the conclusion is unavoidable that the tendency of this mode of election is to uphold him in acting on the broader view. The old system made it easier to sacrifice the general interest; the new one renders it easier to act on the lines of the larger public good. Post-election virtues are cultivated by the new method in the individual citizen also. The ward system invited a conscienceless scramble by the citizens among log-rolling aldermen for unfair local advantage,.the respectable citizen usually quieting his own conscience with the plea that if his neighborhood did not obtain an unjustly large share of this or that improvement fund some other part of the city would — the whole force of the general situation sustaining meanness, selfishness and downright dishonesty. But under the system of election by the city at large, the individual seeking what he ought not to obtain must approach an official obligated to him only as a member of the community at large and enjoying the right, as he is impelled by the necessity, of an appeal to the whole body of citizens. It need hardly be said that the education of both participants in such a conference—their training in treating every problem as affecting the general good — ^must go steadily forward, and that the standards of citizenship in a city which chooses its rulers by the whole body of electors must steadily rise as we know too well they have, under the ward system, fallen lower and lower.

The benefits of the unification of a city through the abandonment of the strife-breeding ward system are by no means confined to its municipal affairs. The narrowness and selfishness of view cultivated by ward politics extend into and infect every phase of the local life* Business becomes sordidly grasping; society sinks to ungenerous and unhelpful levels and the community becomes less able to undertake those fine, large public enterprises depending for their success upon mutual good-will. On the other hand, the city which develops in its officials and private citizens alike the habit of considering always and uppermost the good of the whole community cannot fail to evolve more and more of that broad, vital public spirit which attracts population and insures prosperity. The history of the Des Moines plan in the city which gave it its name is a splendid exemplification of the material benefits to be derived from taking a larger view and putting aside petty selfishness.

The unification of the city in its municipal elections would have been incomplete had it stopt with the abolition of the ward system. Quite as real and serious an obstacle to the harmonious development of a sound and invincible public opinion favorable to honest and efficient administration is the intrusion of partizan politics into our municipal elections. The country is fast moving toward the time when the absurdity of nominating candidates for city offices on account of their views on the tariff question or their membership in the republican, democratic or any other national party will be generally acknowledged; but many persons do not yet realize how utterly municipal government conducted on partizan lines has failed, or why we can have no lasting success in our efforts to correct the prevailing evils in our municipal affairs until partizanship is eliminated from our city elections.

Partizan divisions of the voters who at heart desire honest and efficient municipal government operate as disastrously, so far as they go, in dissipating the force

[so]

and value of public opinion favorable to good administration as does the ward system. Such separation of the body of well-meaning and relatively intelligent voters into opposing political groups does not break up the electorate into as small fragments, but it alone goes far enough to work disaster; and, superadded, as it is, to the interminable pettiness and confusion resulting from the division of the voters into small constituencies, it contributes materially to the success of the boss and the machine politician in their purpose to " divide and conquer " the forces of good citizenship.