Satan's Invisible World Displayed; or, Despairing Democracy / A Study of Greater New York

by W. T. Stead

THE CHARTER OF GREATER NEW YORK.

The Charter of Greater New York is the last, or rather the latest, of a long series of Charters granted by the State Legislature of New York for the government of the city. There were eleven distinct Charters granted between 1846 and 1890, so that the average life of a Charter is only four years. The Charter preceding this was regarded by Mr. Godkin as the best because it reduced the elective element almost to vanishing point:—

No community as heterogeneous as ours can manage its affairs successfully through democratic forms without reducing to its lowest possible point the number of executive officers whom it has to watch, and call to account when things go wrong. As soon as responsibility is widely diffused in such a community, “deals” or bargains between politicians for the division of the offices at once begin.

In no community, homogeneous or heterogeneous, can public affairs be managed successfully when the supreme Legislature always stands ready to remodel the Charter whenever the minority in the City can command the support of the majority in the State. It is bad enough in London when the minority in the County Council can appeal to the majority in the House of Commons. But the House of Commons only interferes by way of obstructing legislation desired by the Progressive majority. It never attempts to revolutionise the constitution of the Council, because the majority at Westminster does not agree with the majority at Spring Gardens.

It would not be a very great exaggeration to say that in the past the only effective government of the City of New York has consisted of Tammany Hall Executive as a Lower House, and the Legislature at Albany as an Upper Chamber. These two bodies were not shadows. They were both governing realities. When Tammany did not control the State Legislature, Albany was the only hope of the despairing Republicans. How constant was the interference of the State Legislature may be inferred from the fact, vouched for by a return presented to a State Commission on the Government of Cities, that in the ten years between 1880-9 no fewer than 399 different amending laws were passed at Albany affecting the Charter of New York City. A State Legislature which passes nearly forty laws every year changing or amending the City Charter is a factor to be reckoned with.

The demand for Home Rule for the city, often repeated, does not seem to be supported in earnest by either party. Both admit the need for it. But neither seem willing to risk anything to obtain it. The Charter of the Greater New York sprang from the Commission appointed in 1896 to consider and report upon the proposed consolidation and unification of the government of the great urban area now known as Greater New York. The subject had long been under discussion, but when the Charter came to be drafted many drew back. Mr. Croker asserted that if the citizens had been permitted to vote yea or nay upon the adoption it would never have come into force. The Referendum was not permitted, and the Charter came into force this year without the preliminary of a popular mass vote.

General Tracy, the Republican candidate at the recent election, was President of the Charter Commission, with Mr. De Witt as Chairman of the Committee. Among the other members were Mr. Strong, the Mayor of New York; Mr. Seth Low, the first Tsar-Mayor of Brooklyn; Mr. Gilroy, Tammany comptroller of the City of New York, and several other influential men. They unanimously agreed to recommend the Charter as it stands at present, although Mr. Seth Low and Mayor Strong dissented from one or two of its provisions.

The Commissioners set to work in the belief that they were framing a constitution for a city which in the lifetime of those now living would have 6,000,000 citizens. Mr. De Witt, the Chairman of the Committee, who tells us that “his embattled energies laboured at the Charter for eight long consecrated months,” contemplated with pride the result of his handiwork. Speaking of the Charter, he declares:—

It is adequate to all the emergencies of the vast future. It is constructed not merely for the present, but for many centuries to come. It has in it all the virtues of existing charters and the vices of none. It will adapt itself to any extent of domain, and to any multiple of population. As well with a population of ten millions as with a population of three millions, it will give to each neighbourhood the utmost care and attention, and to the imperial metropolis, as a whole, the utmost dignity and power. The form of government for Greater New York, it will be the model upon which Greater London will be constructed.

Without making quite such a lofty claim for the Charter as this, there is no doubt that it is an important document, and one which will well repay a careful study. It is somewhat voluminous, filling with its annexes no less than one thousand pages.