Government in the United States, National, State and Local

by James Wilford Garner

Municipal Courts.—In every city there are certain inferior courts called by various names, police courts, magistrates' courts, or municipal courts, which have jurisdiction over offenses against the ordinances of the city. These courts constitute a very important part of our governmental machinery, and they have rarely received the consideration which their importance requires. They are practically courts of last resort for a large number of persons charged with minor offenses, and from them many ignorant persons in the large cities gain their impression of American institutions. In the city of New York, for example, more than 100,000 persons are brought before these courts every year.

The magistrates who hold municipal courts are often men of little or no legal training, and the experience of some cities has been that many of them are without integrity. Recently there has been much discussion of how to improve the character and usefulness of these courts, and in several cities notable reforms have already been introduced. The Chicago municipal court recently established is an excellent example of what can be accomplished in this direction. It consists of thirty-one judges, and the salary paid them is sufficiently large to attract well-trained lawyers of respectability. The procedure of the court is simple and it is so organized as to dispatch rapidly the cases brought before it, so that justice is administered more swiftly, perhaps, in this city than in any other in America.

The Commission Plan of Government.—The increasing dissatisfaction with the government of our cities by mayor and councils has recently led a number of cities to abandon the system for a new method known as the commission plan. The principal feature of this method is that all the powers of government heretofore exercised by the mayor and council are intrusted to a small commission usually chosen from the city at large. The plan was first put into operation in the city of Galveston after the great storm of 1900 which destroyed the lives of some 6,000 of its citizens and left the city in a condition of bankruptcy.

Under the new charter which was adopted, practically all the powers of government were vested in a mayor and four commissioners, each of these men being put in charge of one of the five departments into which the administrative service was divided.

Merits.—Several advantages are claimed for this plan of municipal government. In the first place, it does away with the evils of the ward system by providing that the commissioners shall be chosen from the city at large, and this tends to secure the election of men of larger ability. Again, it is argued that a small body of men is better fitted to govern a city than a large council composed of members who consider themselves the special representatives of the petty districts from which they are chosen. The affairs of a city are necessarily complex and often technical in nature and require for their special management skill and efficiency. City government is often compared to the management of a business enterprise like a bank or a manufacturing concern, which, as experience has shown, can be better conducted by a small board of directors than by the whole body of stockholders. Finally, the concentration of the powers of the city in a small body of men tends to secure a more effective responsibility than can be secured under a system in which the responsibility is divided between the mayor and council.

Objections.—The chief objections that have been urged against the commission plan are that, by intrusting both the legislative and the executive power to the same hands, it sacrifices the principle of the separation of powers—a principle long cherished in America. In the second place, by doing away with the council, it sacrifices to a certain extent the representative principle and places all the vast powers of the city in the hands of a few men.

Nevertheless, the system has much to commend it, and it has been adopted in about four hundred towns and cities.

The City Manager Plan.—A still more recent form of municipal government vests the management of the affairs of the city in a single person, called the city manager. He is paid a reasonably high salary and is chosen by the commission because of his expert knowledge. This plan has been introduced in Dayton, Springfield, and Sandusky, Ohio; Newburgh and Niagara Falls, New York; Sumter, South Carolina; Jackson, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo, Michigan; San Diego and Alameda, California; and some seventy other cities and towns.

Village Government.—Differing from cities chiefly in size and in the extent of governmental powers, are small municipal corporations variously called villages, boroughs, and incorporated towns. The procedure of incorporation is usually by petition from a certain number of the inhabitants, and a popular vote on the question. The law generally prescribes a minimum population, which is usually small—sometimes as low as one hundred inhabitants.

Village Officers.—The principal authority is usually a small board of trustees or a council, consisting of from three to seven members elected from the village at large, though in some instances the number is larger, and some villages have the ward system. The village board is empowered to adopt ordinances relating to police, health, and other matters affecting the good order and welfare of the community. They may levy taxes, borrow money, open and construct streets, construct drains, establish water and lighting plants and the like, and may license peddlers, hack drivers, and other persons who use the streets for the conduct of their business. The chief officer of the village is the mayor, president, or chairman of the trustees, elected either by the voters or by the trustees. There is also usually a clerk or recorder, a treasurer, a marshal or constable, and sometimes a street commissioner, a justice of the peace, and an attorney.