I
A marked tendency of recent legislation is that toward giving increased powers to municipal officials. Another is that toward the creation of boards charged with administrative, executive, semi-judicial, and even police powers. The institution of these boards means simply a further removal from the people of the conduct of public affairs. Mr. Leonard A. Blue, in the Annals of the American Academy for November, 1901, gives an interesting view of the subject. “These boards,” he writes, “are practically irresponsible bodies. They are beyond the control of the people, or of any one who is responsible to the people for their actions. Appointed as they are for definite terms of office, they cannot be removed during that term except after an investigation which amounts to an impeachment. The Governor who appoints them in many cases can only appoint a single member, the terms of the others extending beyond his own, so that he can neither mould the policy of the board nor can he be held responsible for it.” And he quotes from one of the messages of the Hon. W. E. Russell, Governor of Massachusetts (1891-93), these words: “The people of the State might have a most decided opinion about the management and work of the departments, and give emphatic expression to that opinion, and yet be unable to control their action. The system gives great power without proper responsibility, and tends to remove the people’s government from the people’s control.” Irresponsible to both the people and the people’s officials as they are, these boards are yet not wholly unsusceptible to outside pressure; they are, as is well known, peculiarly liable to the influence of the Big Men.