tic appeals to the voters to attend the primaries and the caucuses and to put good men into office. It was in vain to urge that this was to pronounce final sentence of condemnation upon our institutions, since with the increase of foreign immigration, the sharper struggle for life and the greater social inequality, it was almost certain that the people would never be any better than they are now, at least under present political conditions; that their apathy, neglect of the primary meetings, and surrender to political managers were increasing rather than the reverse; that the faults of organization were abundantly sufficient to account for any amount of evil without giving up our faith in the power and quality of the popular will; and that if it could be shown that defective organization was primarily responsible, it left room for any amount of hopefulness and stimulus to effort in the future.

Within ten years, however, a marked change has taken place. Gradually, if slowly, the conviction has been spreading that the root of the trouble is to be sought in methods of government; that the mass of the people really do want order, economy, and good government; and that the main problem is how to bring their will to bear. Reform clubs, municipal leagues, and citizens' associations are forming on all sides. Every college has its chair of political science, a thing practically unknown twenty-five years ago, while the literature of the subject is multiplying to an immense extent. Even in the stronghold of the old system, the schools, the attack has begun. Whereas a few years since the subjects of discussion at educational meetings were confined to what both scholars and teachers should be taught, they have begun now to turn upon administrative measures, the spirit of inquiry going so far as actually to question the efficiency and the adequacy of the time-honored school committee. At least one-third of the cities in Massachusetts alone are at work in trying

to improve their charters. It may appear sanguine to predict that with the intelligence, the quickness and the fearlessness in experiment of our people, and the material advantage as well as reputation to be gained by success, the day is not far distant when we shall solve the problem and show cities as well governed as any in the world.

It must be said, however, that the main element has not been touched; that it has not as yet been seen that the reform of city government must be preceded by that of the State; that the intervention of the State government for good instead of evil is an indispensable requisite, of which a further consideration of the history of the subject will furnish ample proof.

CHAPTER XXV

CITY GOVERNMENT (Continued)

IN examining the progress which has been made in the study and practice of municipal government, it may be well to notice at the outset the increased attention which has been given to foreign methods and development. Among the most comprehensive works upon the subject are those of Mr. Albert Shaw.1

His thorough analysis is perhaps not the less valuable that he has no pronounced political theory, being indeed more interested, or at least more given to detail, as to results than as to the organization by which they are obtained. As regards the Continent of Europe, the conclusion forced upon the impartial student is that the conditions, both as to the intervention of the central government and as to the exercise of the suffrage, are such that, with the single exception of France, the comparison is of very little use to this country; that we cannot adopt them if we would, and that we shall have to work out the problem in our own and a very different way.

None the less interesting is Mr. Shaw's tribute to the influence of the popular element.

The distinctively modern city had its birth in the French Revolution, and Paris has ever since then stood as its preeminent type. To French influence several European countries owe the administrative framework of their municipal governments, while every European " and "Municipal

1 "Municipal Government in Continental Europe Government in Great Britain."

capital has been more or less completely made over in its external form upon Parisian models (p. 1). It is something to remember that all countries are under permanent obligations to the clear political philosophy that furnished the French Revolution with its principles, while most countries are not less indebted to modern France for lessons in the science and art of public administration (p. 3).1

France being the one country in Europe which approaches nearest to the United States in political equality and the absence of class influence, it is important for us to examine closely her methods of city government. And first of all we find in Paris that the whole executive authority is in the hands of the prefect of the Seine and the prefect of police, and under them in twenty maires of arrondissements and their subordinates, the whole being agents of the general government and appointed by the Minister of the Interior. Here is the principle which we have so strongly insisted upon, - concentrated authority in a single head, working by single agents in every department, and all appointed by or from the single head. It is the ideal system as regards efficiency, the only question being as to the centre of responsibility. France being a centralized government, and the seat of that centralized, and of necessity very strong, government being in Paris, the agents of that government are the natural governors of the city. But the principle of our State governments being the reverse of centralized, and they being besides extremely weak, the parallel does not hold at all. If the mayors of our cities held the powers of the prefect of the Seine and the prefect of police combined, and were then held responsible to the freest, most fully informed and directly acting local public opinion, combined with a corresponding organization in the State, then we should have the principle of popular self-government, which we are very far from having now, and then

1 66 Municipal Government in Continental Europe."

we should be entitled for the first time to pronounce whether it was or was not a failure.

The municipal council of Paris consists of eighty members, four from each of the twenty arrondissements. Each arrondissement is subdivided into four quarters, and each quarter elects a municipal councillor. They are elected for three years and all retire together (p. 16).

Certainly the government of Paris at first sight seems to divide responsibilities in a manner likely to produce constant friction, and to interfere most distractedly with the accomplishment of large plans requiring harmony and foresight. The municipal council, elected by the votes of all the citizens of the eighty quarters, meets in its sumptuous hall of the Hôtel de Ville almost every day to debate all points of municipal policy and outlay. In its hands rests the all-essential power to vote supplies or to withhold them. Its eight or ten large standing committees are at pains to acquaint themselves with all the departments of practical municipal activity.

But this municipal council has no immediate authority over the administrative machine. The prefect of the department of the Seine, who owes his appointment to the general government, and whose i immediate superior is the Minister of the Interior, is in fact the mayor of Paris, with complete executive authority; that is to say, his authority is complete within the sphere assigned to him, and is incomplete only to the extent of those municipal tasks the management of which has been confided by law to the prefect of police.

The municipal council elects its own president, and has its own interior organization for its work. The two prefects have the right of the floor in all meetings of the municipal council, and may always demand a hearing. They may also bring with them their important assistants and heads of working departments. The prefects, with the aid of their bureaucracy of subordinate executive officials, make up the provisional budgets and assist in the discussion of all financial questions in the sessions of the municipal councils. As regards parts of the budgets, including the police estimates, the law requires that the council vote the sums asked (p. 23).1

It seems to us, on the contrary, the ideal simplicity of municipal government, that perfect separation of legislative and executive power which we in this country are always talking about but never put in practice, according to which the council has every power of suggestion and 1 Op. cit.

1