CHAPTER VIII
COUNTY GOVERNMENTS AT WORK
“Granted the truth of all you say; that every county officer stands on his independent pedestal of authority, that the county is a headless institution where responsibility is scattered in a thousand different directions; that urban counties are the weakest brothers in the political family—granted all that, but what of it?”
So cogitates the “average American”—or so it would seem. If he reads his county paper consistently he has been held in his seat over and over again by the hackneyed lines of Pope:
“For forms of government let fools contest;
What e’er is best administered is best.”
After a long course of mental stimulation along these lines, we are quite prepared to hear him remark that after all what really counts for government is MEN—an observation which is supposed to silence all contradiction. Your “average” friend, if he has more than an average political energy, then goes out and helps to see that the “right sort” of man is elected coroner.
There is undoubtedly more than an element of truth and wisdom in all these sentiments. The industrial world is coming more and more to believe that the great essential in coöperative effort of any sort is not plan of organization, not methods, but personnel—men. And even government presents instances of men who have “made good” conspicuously against a form of organization which favored insubordination, against the interference of invisible powers, against the hundred and one cunningly devised handicaps to good administration.
We might with good grace take kindly to a system that brought distinguished, capable, honest, well-qualified men for the public service. If we could get good men and good administration as the normal output of the existing systems of county government, there would be satisfaction all around.
But does the typical American government work that way? We shall examine in this chapter the relationships between the system, the men and the product.
To get the right angle on the subject, we should put ourselves in the position of, let us say, the sheriff of Pike County. He is a likable, popular fellow—that is how he happens to be sheriff. His likability, his popularity, have made him a particularly valuable adjunct of the Pike County Republican (or Democratic) organization. In the election campaign he has proven himself a vote-getter, he has given the organization a respectable tone. And now that he is in office his congenital good nature has not been changed. His popularity has been due to his unfailing loyalty to his friends and supporters. These good people swarm about him on the first day of his term and he has it not in his heart to refuse the only favor within his power to grant.
So much for one set of claimants upon his favor. But there is also the whole body of his supporters, the general electorate and the tax-paying contingent of the county; they have a claim upon him too and the new sheriff enters upon his duties with a sincere desire to serve them by running his office in the most efficient and economical manner. The significant part of the whole business is that these two ambitions are more than likely to prove inconsistent. Personal friendship dictates that he should hand out deputyships to “the boys” of his own heart; public service, that he should ignore the claims of friendship and man his office with competent assistants, regardless of personal, political or ecclesiastical connections. And so the new officer, through a situation not of his own making, is caught in a dilemma. Probably nine out of ten county officials either resolve the difficulty on the grounds of friendship or strike a compromise between their conflicting desires—and the efficiency of the office in either case is impaired. Every man coming into an office with favors to dispense has strings attached to his person. He cannot look his public duties quite squarely in the eye, but has always to qualify every new plan, every selection of a subordinate with “What will the county chairman say?” And if he has ambitions to hold office for a second term, or to go higher, he is naturally careful about irritating the goose that lays the golden egg. For the county chairman is not apt to be keen about the plans for economy or reducing the number of jobs for “the boys.” Such plans do not fit in with his requirements.