APPENDIX "E."

Paper read by John Watson Pratt, of Seattle.

Subject: GOVERNMENT OF CITIES.

The government of cities has evoked more discussion in the English speaking countries during the last ten years than during the preceding two centuries. In England a great stride was taken toward reform in methods in the reign of King William IV., by the passage of the Municipal Corporations Act, but even the far sighted statesmen responsible for that beneficent measure did not contemplate the astounding changes in conditions which mark a new era in civil life beginning scarcely fifty years ago.

Electric lighting, telegraphing and telephoning, street car traffic, hygienic plumbing and sewering, plentiful supply of good water, street paving, protection from fire, and other city comforts of the present day have entirely changed the methods of local government. These improvements have not grown slowly with the gradual increase of population, but have succeeded each other with leaps and bounds testing to the utmost the old laws and regulations which sufficed for the seventeenth and eighteenth century pace.

At a no less rapid rate has a change been wrought in organic principles. The old common council with its quarterly meetings, and the township gatherings of New England have been swept away. The restriction of the ballot to property-owners has been succeeded by universal suffrage, bringing with it too often an influence without an adequate responsibility.

I shall not attempt to trace the growth of municipal powers, or discuss the relative merits of limited and of universal suffrage. The first belongs to the domain of history and the other has been decided by custom too deeply rooted now in American institutions to be tampered with. Much

probably might be said in favor of confirming the privilege of levying taxes upon property to those who have property to levy upon, but few men would be found bold enough to face an American populace with a proposition to restrict the franchise even in municipal matters.

There is, I believe, a greater difference between a state government and a municipal corporation than the American idea admits in practice. This is becoming recognized in a measure by the now almost general law that a levy for local improvements shall be made only with the consent of those whose property is to bear the cost. There is no very material destinction between a tax for a general system of sewers and one for the improvement of streets, but custom decides otherwise and we had better concede that at the outset and apply ourselves to governing our cities on the theory that every citizen, whether he is a pauper or millionaire, has an equal interest in and should have an equal voice in insuring economical administration of city affairs.

There are two distinct objects in municipal government. One is the best adaptation of natural conditions to the rapid and convenient transaction of the affairs of life, and the other is the protection of life and the safe enjoyment of property. Under one head comes road making, street lighting, water supply, sewering and protection from fire; under the other is police protection, regulation of trades, punishment of criminals and provision for the destitute.

Theoretically every citizen is interested in good government; as a matter of practice, self-interest is at all times. seeking to profit by evasions of the general law. It is selfinterest which seeks to rob, it is self-interest which seeks to avoid restrictive licenses, to escape paying a just proportion of taxes; it is self-interest which induces men who have fallen short of their desires to seek the emoluments of office.

This self-interest pervades all ranks; comparatively few men are so intensely honest as to scrupulously render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar's, if they can escape Cæsar's tax

gatherer; and few men are willing to forego office because of their failure to succeed in independent effort.

I notice in the Populist platform that it is insisted there shall be elected by the people competent weighers of grain, and other officials. What difference does it make whether officials are elected or appointed if they are competent and honest?

Lawyers, whose training is to more logical conclusions than that of most men engaged in business, will discard all such considerations and seek to provide such a legal machinery as shall best insure good government, bearing in mind that no law can make men honest and no system of jurisprudence insure invariable competency.

Taking it for granted that every lawyer is familiar with the primary principles of municipal law, I shall plunge at once into a few suggestions for a system of city government such as my experience permits.

The whole plan of city government is continually fluctuating between the extremes of diffused and concentrated authority. One man power is the imaginary terror on the one hand; absence of responsibility is the danger on the other.

Concisely outlining a plan for city government I shall endeavor to impartially review the objections to be met on every side. I would divide the city government into the executive and the legislative. The legislative branch is the superior because it is composed of a body which directly represents the will of the people. It is a committee selected by the people to determine its policy. Upon the executive depends the administration of the law as made by the legislative body. To the legislative body belongs the power of making laws by which all citizens shall be governed. It shall decide the restrictions to be placed upon trades; it shall determine at what hours and in what places public safety and public morality demand that saloons, dangerous articles of commerce, legitimate occupations necessarily offensive to the senses, shall be located and operated. It shall determine what officers are necess

ary, how many police and firemen shall be employed, to what extent the city may safely incur expense and how the means of defraying it shall be met.

I would strictly adhere to the principle laid down in the Seattle charter that the city council shall never exercise administaative functions; and denounce the absurdity by which the legislative body, in spite of that mandate, descends to a wrangle over the appointment of a janitor. The framing of laws, the determination of the extent to which public improvements shall be made, and the general legislative supervision of public expenditure are sufficient to occupy the attention of the ordinary citizen chosen to exercise those powers, and any attempt on their part to dispense official patronage results inevitably in a subordination of the general interest to opportunities for rewarding political supporters.

I would insist that upon the shoulders of the chief executive should be borne all the responsibility of executing the people's laws. In order to insure this, he must have the power to appoint and to remove. This might occasionally result in the selection of incompetent officials, but self-interest, which never sleeps, will make a mayor watchful and conscientious, and of two evils, those brought about by a personal responsibility will be far less than those which shield themselves behind a divided responsibility.

Having thus started off the two branches of government, we may follow up the details. A council should consist of one body only, but that body should be large enough and sufficiently representative to insure security from hasty or corrupt legislation. Large bodies move slowly and there is safety in a multitude. In a city of the first class, such as we have in this state, a body consisting of three, and certainly not less than two members from each ward, would be sufficient. If the number of those selected by popular vote is restricted greater scrutiny is possible and will be exercised. Too often now, the entire campaign is fought over three or four remunerative offices, and the members of the council escape close attention and are

make-shifts, the office being thrown to placate friends of candidates unsuccessful in securing nomination for what are called chief offices. This applies to members of the state legislature, no less than to those of civic bodies, and I call the attention of my learned brethren from the rural districts to as mischievous an error as that perpetrated by the voters at city elections.

The city council should assume office at the same time as the mayor, in order to preserve a harmony in public policy. Administrative offices should be filled not earlier than two months after the new government is inaugurated. By that interval the new officials will have time and opportunity to become acquainted with the efficiency of subordinates, the wisdom of the course pursued, together with the points upon which it is capable of improvement, and the new mayor will have time to better determine the qualifications and fitness of candidates.

I carefully guard against the doctrine that to the victors belong the spoils. I denounce that pernicious outgrowth of an unwholesome party fealty. I can conceive of no graver danger to the administration of municipal affairs upon business principles. I cannot believe that the ordinary citizen considers his money, taken from him for taxes, to be legitimate spoils for hungry office-seekers. Voters elect men to Congress to further a policy of protection or of free trade; but that is no reason why, for instance, a competent superintendent of water works, an efficient chief of police or what is more rare, an efficient chief of the fire department, should be removed by an incoming mayor. he is not competent he has no business in office under any mayor, The mayor, as a business man, would not consider the politics of an efficient engineer, and as chief executive of a municipality, he has no right to entertain any consideration in the selection of city employes, except that of capability.

If

If the people hold the mayor to a strict accountability, and do not thwart him by harassing checks and counterchecks, he may, as a rule, be relied upon to exercise care.