270. The Relation of the City to the State.—The American city is almost universally a creature of the State. Town and county government were transplanted from England and naturally accompanied the settlers into the interior, but the city came as a late artificial arrangement for the better management of large aggregations of population, and the form and details of government were prescribed by State charter. The State has continued to be the guardian of the city, often to the detriment of municipal interests. If a city wishes to change the form of local administration, it must ask permission from the State Legislature, and every such question becomes entangled with State politics, and so is not likely to be judged on the merits of the question. Indeed, the whole history of city government condemns the intense partisanship that has directed the affairs of the city in its own interest when the real interests of all the people irrespective of party should have been cared for with business efficiency.
271. Functions of the City Government.—Among the recognized functions of the city government is, first, the normal function of operation. This includes the activity of the various municipal departments like the maintenance of streets, the prosecution of various public works, and the care of health by inspection and sanitation. Secondly, there are the regulative and reformatory functions, which make it necessary to organize and maintain a police and judicial force and to provide the necessary places of detention and punishment. Thirdly, there are educational and recreational functions represented by schools, public libraries, parks, and playgrounds. The tendency is for the city government to extend its functions in order to promote the various interests of its citizens. It is demanded that the city provide musical entertainments, theatres, and athletic grounds, that it open the schools as social centres and equip them for that purpose, that it beautify itself with the most approved adornments for twentieth-century cities; in short, that it regard itself as the agent of every kind of social welfare at whatever cost. Obviously, this programme involves the city in large expense, and there is a limit to the taxation and bonded indebtedness to which it can resort, but better financial management would save much waste and make larger funds available for social purposes without the necessity of raising large additional sums.
272. How the Regulative Function Works.—Doubtless it will be always true that the regulative function in its largest sense will be the main business of the city government. The interests of individuals clash. The self-interest of one often runs counter to the interests of another, and the city government is their mediator. At every turn one sees evidences of public oversight. The citizen leaves home to go to work in the morning. A sidewalk is provided for his convenience and safety if he needs or prefers to walk. The abutters must keep it in a safe condition; open coal scuttles, heaps of sand or gravel, or other obstructions must not remain there, and in winter ice must not threaten hurt. A street is kept clear for the citizen's carriage or automobile if he drives down-town, and a franchise is given a street-railway on certain conditions to provide cheap and rapid transit. For the convenience of the public the street is properly drained and paved, at night it is lighted and patrolled. No householder is permitted to throw ashes or garbage upon the public thoroughfare, no landowner can rear a building above a certain height to shut out light and air. The citizen arrives down-town. The public building in which he works or where he trades is inspected by the city authorities, the market where he buys his produce is subject to regulation, the street hawker who calls his own wares must procure a license to sell goods—law is omnipresent.
273. The Police.—The offender who violates city ordinances must expect to be arrested. Policemen are on the watch to detect such violations and promptly give warning that they cannot be permitted. Repeated violation leads to arrest and trial before a police-court justice, with the probable penalty of a fine or temporary detention in jail. In case of serious crime, the trial is before a higher court, and the punishment is more severe. Such control is necessary for the preservation of order because there are always social delinquents ready to take advantage of too great freedom. A certain class of offenses seems to require different handling. Moral obliquity such as the maintenance of disorderly houses is a corrupting influence, and the police departments of cities have frequently been charged with conniving at immoral practices. Police officials have been found to have their price, and graft has become notorious. For this reason a special morals police has been proposed to have charge of such cases, and experiments have been tried already on that plan.
274. Organization of the City Government.—(1) In America. The police department is but one of several boards or official departments for the management of municipal affairs. The administrative officers are appointed or elected, and are usually under the supervision of the city executive. The usual form of city government is modelled upon the State; a mayor corresponds to the governor and a city council of one or two chambers usually elected by wards is parallel to the State Legislature. The mayor is the executive officer and the head of the administrative system, the council assists or obstructs him, appropriates funds, and attends to the details of municipal legislation. Political considerations rather than fitness for office have usually determined the choice of persons for positions.
(2) In Europe. In Europe municipal government is treated as a business or professional matter, not one of politics, and the results have been so much more satisfactory that American cities have begun to reform their governments. In England cities are governed according to the Local Government Act of 1888, by which cities of more than fifty thousand people become counties for administrative purposes, and control of administration is vested in a council elected by voters of the city. Councillors are regarded with high honor, but their work is a work of patriotism, for they are unpaid, with the result that the best men enter the city councils. Administration is carried on through various committees and through department officials who are retained permanently. In Germany the cities are managed like large households, and their officials are free to undertake improvements without specific legislative permission. The mayor or burgomaster is usually one who makes a profession of magistracy, and he need not be a citizen of the city that he serves. In administration he is assisted by a board of experts known as magistrates, who are elected by the council, usually for life. The council is the real governing body, and its members are elected by the people for six years, one-third of them retiring periodically, as in the United States Senate. The activities of the German cities are more numerous than in this country, yet they are managed economically and efficiently.
275. Organizing Municipal Reform.—The earliest reform movements in the United States were spasmodic uprisings of outraged citizens who were convinced of the corruption of city government. Among the pioneers in organization were leagues of reform in Chicago, Baltimore, and Boston, organized between 1874 and 1885. In 1887 the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Good Citizenship was formed. The weakness of the early movements was the temporary enthusiasm that soon died away after a victory for reform was gained at the polls; within a short time the grafters were in the saddle again. The year 1892 marked an epoch, for in that year the first City Club was organized in New York, followed by Good Government Clubs in many cities, and finally by the National Municipal League in 1894. Two hundred reform leagues in the larger cities united in the National Reform League, with its centre in Philadelphia. After 1905 a new impetus was given to civic reform by the new moral emphasis in business and politics. Better officials were elected and others were reminded that they were responsible to the people more than to the political machine. An extension of reform effort through direct primary nominations came into vogue on the principle that government ought to be by the people themselves: that democracy means self-control. The extension of municipal ownership was widely discussed on the principle that the people's interests demanded the better control of public utilities. There was apparent a new recognition that the city government was only an agent of popular control, not an irresponsible bureau for the enrichment of a few officials at the public expense.
276. Commission Government.—In a number of cases radical changes were made in the charter of the city. Galveston and several other Texas cities tried the experiment of substituting a commission for the mayor and council. The Galveston idea originated in 1901, after a hurricane had devastated the city, and the mayor and aldermen proved unable to cope with the situation. Upon request of an existing civic committee the State legislature gave to the city a new charter, with provision for a commission of five, including a mayor who ordinarily has no more power than any other commissioner. Each man was to manage a department and receive a salary. In four years the commission saved the city a million dollars. Des Moines, Iowa, added to the Galveston plan the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, put in force a merit system for subordinate officials, and adopted the non-partisan open primary. These experiments proved so popular that in 1908-9 not less than one hundred and thirty-eight cities, including most of the large ones, proposed to make important changes in their charters, adopting the most prominent features of the new plan, or adapting the new to the old system.
Commission government has been defined as "that form of city government in which a small board, elected at large, exercises substantially the entire municipal authority, each member being assigned as head of a rather definite division of the administrative work; the commission being subject to one or more means of direct popular control, such as publicity of proceedings, recall, referendum, initiative, and a non-partisan ballot." Commission government is less cumbersome and less partisan than the old system and tends to be more efficient, but the public needs to remember that it is the men in office and not the form of government that make the control of municipal affairs a success or failure. In a few cases only disappointment has resulted from the changes made, and commission government is still in its experimental stage.
277. The City Manager.—A modification of the commission plan was tried in several cities of the South and Middle West in 1913-14. This has been called the city-manager plan. It is founded on the belief that the city needs business administration, and that a board of directors is not so efficient as a single manager employed by the commission, who shall have charge of all departments, appoint department heads as his subordinates, and thus unify the whole administration of municipal affairs. The manager is responsible to the commission, and through it to the people, and may be removed by the commission, or even by popular recall. Such a plan as this is, of course, liable to abuse, unless the commissioners are high-minded, conscientious men, and it has not been tried long enough to prove its worth. The best element in the whole history of recent municipal changes is the earnest effort of the people to find a form of administrative control that will work well, and this gives ground for belief that the experiments will continue until the American city will cease to be notorious for misgovernment and become, instead, a model for the whole nation.