Government in the United States, National, State and Local

Organization.– The management of the police force is usually under the direction of an official called a commissioner, superintendent, or chief, though in some cities it is controlled instead by a board. In a few cities this board is appointed by some state official, usually the governor, for it is believed by many persons that since the police are charged with enforcing state laws as well as municipal ordinances, they should be under state rather than local control. Where they are entirely under local control, it is sometimes difficult to secure the enforcement of such state laws as those requiring saloons to be closed at certain hours during the night and on Sundays, especially when local sentiment is opposed to such restrictions. Below the head of the police force are usually deputy chiefs, inspectors, captains, sergeants, roundsmen, and finally the patrolmen. The city is usually divided into precincts, in each of which there is a police station under the charge of a sergeant or some other official. A number of precincts are grouped together in districts with an inspector in charge of each, and so on. In the large cities there are also usually special detachments of the police force organized for special services. Such are the mounted police, the bicycle squad, the river and harbor police, the sanitary police, and the detective force.

Police Corruption.– The control of the police branch of the city service is very difficult because of the opportunities for corruption which are open to the members of the force. It has not infrequently happened that the police in the large cities have systematically sold the right to violate the law. Gambling houses, saloons, and other places of vice sometimes regularly pay members of the police force for the privilege of violating the law, and the heads of the force have frequently found it impossible to prevent the practice. A recent police commissioner in New York, for example, said that there was an organized system among the police of his city for selling the right to violate the law; that many of the captains and inspectors had grown rich out of the proceeds, and that the system was so thoroughly intrenched that he was powerless to break it up.

Health Protection.– In densely populated districts the danger from the spread of disease is much greater than in rural communities where the conditions which breed disease are less prevalent, and where the spread of epidemics may be more easily prevented. In the smaller cities the chief health authority is a board, but in the large cities there is usually a department of health at the head of which is a single commissioner. Other officials are inspectors of various kinds, analysts, collectors of statistics, superintendents of hospitals, etc.

Work of the Health Department.– Among the principal duties of the health authorities are the inspection and abatement of unsanitary places and the suppression of nuisances; the inspection of public buildings and sometimes of private dwellings with special reference to drainage; the removal of garbage and other refuse (in some cities); the inspection of the city water supply; the inspection of food, particularly milk; the control of certain establishments of an offensive character, such as slaughterhouses, soap factories, and fertilizer factories; the vaccination of school children and often of other persons, as a precaution against smallpox; the isolation and quarantine of persons suffering from contagious diseases; the maintenance of pesthouses and hospitals; and the collection of vital statistics.

One great source of disease in cities is impurity of the food supply, especially of milk, and much of the activity of the health department is directed toward the inspection of milk and other food. Crowded, ill-ventilated, and poorly constructed dwellings are another source of disease, and many cities have undertaken to prevent this evil as far as possible through tenement house laws and building regulations requiring dwellings to be constructed according to plans prescribed by law. The enforcement of these laws often devolves upon the health department, which carries out a rigid system of inspection.

In recent years much more attention than formerly has been given to the problems of health administration, and great improvement has been made. So efficient is the health administration of some of our large cities that the death rate in proportion to the population is actually lower than it is in many small country towns where little or no attention is paid to this important branch of administration.

Fire Protection.– The danger from fire, like that from disease, is obviously greater in crowded cities than in country districts. Therefore, every large city and most small ones maintain an organized fire department. In the days of small cities reliance upon voluntary unpaid fire companies was the rule, and this is true even to-day in many of the smaller towns and cities. In the larger cities, however, there are organized professional companies, the members of which give all their time to the service and are paid regular salaries. New York city has more than 5,000 men in its fire department, some 900 pieces of apparatus including more than a dozen fire boats, and hundreds of thousands of feet of hose. At the head of the department there is usually an official called a fire chief or fire marshal, appointed by the mayor. The rank and file of the department are under civil service rules, the employment is of a permanent character, and many cities have provided a system of pensions for members who have grown old or are disabled from injuries.

Great improvement has been made in the methods of fighting fires and in the character of the apparatus employed, so that the danger from loss by fire has greatly diminished. Furthermore, the more general use of brick and stone for building purposes in the larger cities has made the danger from fire much less than in the old days when most houses were built of wood. Many cities have what are called "fire limits," that is, districts in which it is forbidden to erect wooden buildings.

Municipal Public Utilities.– People crowded together in cities depend largely upon public service companies for their water supply, for electric light and gas, for telephone service, and for the means of transportation. The furnishing of each of these services, from the very nature of the case, tends to become a natural monopoly. Moreover, such companies must use the city streets in serving their patrons. It follows, therefore, that they must be subject to public control, otherwise the public might be charged exorbitant prices and the use of the streets by the citizens unnecessarily interfered with. Before engaging in a service of this kind, therefore, the street railway company must secure permission from the city to lay tracks on the streets and to operate cars thereon. Likewise a telephone or electric light company must have permission to erect its poles on the streets or alleys, and a gas or water company must have authority to tear up pavements and put its pipes and mains under the streets.

Franchises.– The permit thus granted is called a "franchise," and is in the nature of a contract between the city and the company. Public service franchises are often of great value to the companies which receive them, for the business of these companies in a large city is apt to be very profitable. Sometimes the dividends which they pay their stockholders are very large, and not infrequently, to deceive the public as to the real amount, the profits are concealed by "watering" the stock, that is, by increasing it beyond the amount of the capital actually invested. Experience has shown that in granting franchises certain restrictions or conditions should be placed on the companies to whom they are granted.

First of all, the duration of the franchise should be limited. Formerly, it was not uncommon to grant franchises for fifty or one hundred years, and indeed sometimes for an indefinite period. The objection to this practice is that with the growth of the city, the increased value of the franchise resulting from such growth goes entirely to the company, while the city is deprived of the opportunity of making a better bargain with the company. A franchise ought, however, to be for a period sufficiently long to enable the company to derive a reasonable return on its investment. Obviously, no company could afford to establish an electric light plant or gas plant if its franchise were limited to a period as short as five years. The better opinion now is that twenty or twenty-five years is a reasonable period, and the constitution or statutes of a number of states forbid the granting of franchises for a longer period.

Frequently the franchise contains provisions in regard to the rates to be charged and the quality of service to be performed. In many states there are state commissions which have power to supervise the operations of all public service corporations and in some cases even to fix the rates which they shall be allowed to charge. As long as such rates are reasonable, that is, high enough to allow the corporation a reasonable return on its investment, the courts will not interfere.

It is now the practice to require public service companies to pay a reasonable compensation for the franchises which they receive. This is usually a certain percentage of the gross receipts, or sometimes, in the case of street railway companies, a certain sum for each car operated. When the compensation is a certain percentage of the receipts, provision ought to be made for examination of the books of the company in order to prevent the public from being defrauded of its share of the earnings.

Municipal Ownership.– Sometimes, instead of relying upon private corporations to supply the people with water, gas, and electric light, the city itself undertakes to do this. Very many cities own their waterworks,8 while some own their electric light plants, and a few own their gas plants. In Europe, municipal ownership and operation of such public utilities is very common, and even the telephone and street railway services are often supplied by the city.

The advantages claimed for municipal ownership are that better service will be furnished when the business is conducted by the city, because in that case it will be operated solely with the interest of the public in view; and, secondly, the cost of the service to the community will be less because the earning of large dividends will not be the main end in view. The principal objection urged against municipal ownership in the United States is that "spoils" politics still play such an important part in our city government that the management of such enterprises is likely to fall into the hands of incompetent politicians and party workers. Experience with municipal ownership has been satisfactory in a great many cases where it has been tried, although the principle upon which it rests is contrary to the notions of many people in regard to the proper functions of government.

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.

When the population reaches a certain number, which varies in the different states (pp. 25-26), the village organization is put aside, the community organizes itself into a city, takes on a more elaborate organization, receives larger powers, and undertakes a wider range of activities.

References.– Beard, American Government and Politics, chs. xxvii-xxviii. Bryce, The American Commonwealth (abridged edition), chs. xlix-li. Goodnow, City Government in the United States, chs. vi-xiii. Hart, Actual Government, ch. ix. Howe, The City the Hope of Democracy, chs. i-iv. Strong, The Challenge of the City, chs. ii-iii. Wilcox, The American City, chs. ii, iii, iv, v, vi, ix, x, xii, xiii.

Documentary and Illustrative Material.– 1. A copy of the city charter or municipal code of the state. 2. A copy of the revised ordinances of the city. 3. The volume of the last census report dealing with the population of cities. 4. The latest census bulletin on statistics of cities. 5. A map of the city showing its division into wards, police and fire districts, sewer districts, etc., and the location of the city building, police stations, fire stations, the source of the water supply, parks, slum districts, etc. 6. A copy of the last city budget and tax ordinance. 7. A copy of a paving or other public improvement ordinance.

1. What is the population of the largest city in your state? its area? How many cities in your state have a population of 8,000 or over? What percentage of the total population is found in the cities? How much faster has the city population grown during the past decade than the rural population? What percentage of the population of your city is foreign-born?

2. Why do cities require a different form of government from that which is provided for rural communities?

3. What are the provisions in the constitution of your state, if any, in regard to the government of cities?

4. How many representatives does the largest city of your state have in the legislature? What proportion of the total membership is it? Are there any constitutional restrictions upon the number of members of the legislature which may be elected from any one city?

5. Are there any restrictions upon the power of the legislature of your state to enact special legislation applying to a single city? If so, what are they?

6. If you live in a city, when did it receive its present charter? What are the provisions in the charter relating to the organization and powers of the city?

7. Do you think the people of a city should be allowed to frame their own charter and govern themselves without interference on the part of the state legislature?

8. How many members are there in the city council of your city? Are they chosen by wards or from the city at large? What is their term and salary? In what ward do you live, and what is the name of the alderman or aldermen from that ward?

9. For what term is the mayor of your city or town elected? To what political party does he belong? Does he preside over the meetings of the city council? What officers, if any, does he appoint?

10. Name the administrative departments in your city. Are they organized according to the board system, or is each under the control of a single official?

11. Does your city have a civil service law under which appointments to the municipal service are made on the basis of merit? If so, what are its principal provisions?

12. Does the city own and operate its waterworks plant, or is the water supply furnished by a private company? Does the city own and operate any of its other public utilities, such as the electric light or gas plant? If not, what are the terms of the franchises under which they are operated by private companies? Do these companies pay the city anything for the privilege of using the streets?

13. What are the duties of the public utilities commissions in New York and Wisconsin? Do you think the policy of regulation preferable to municipal ownership and operation?

14. How is the cost of street and sidewalk paving met in your city, – by special assessment on the property benefited, or by appropriation out of the city treasury?

15. What is the method of garbage disposal in your city?

16. Describe the organization and activities of the health authority in your city. What does it do to secure a supply of clean and pure milk?

17. Are there any improvement leagues or civic organizations working for the uplift and good government of your city? What are their methods, and what are some of the specific services they have rendered?

18. What are the principal sources of revenue in your village or city? What is the rate of taxation on the taxable property?