Other offices were to be filled as follows:

Overseers of the Poor, 12

Members of the School Committee, 12 Warden, Clerk, and 5 Inspectors of Elections in each ward

Elected annually by

the citizens, one in each ward.

It will be observed that these executive officials, once elected, are not responsible to any other part of the government and disappear from the sight of the voters, while for the money they require they are dependent and dependent only upon a process of lobbying with the city council, checked only by a possible veto of the mayor.

In course of time it became evident that separate election of officials by the city council was fatal both in theory and practice, and so gradually in Boston every office came to be filled by appointment of the mayor except three street commissioners, elected one each year by the people, and twenty-four school-committee members, eight in each year, while the board of police commissioners was appointed in separate years for five years by the governor and council.

But one provision was clung to with desperate tenacity as if it was the very basis of our liberties, and that is the requirement of confirmation by a majority of the aldermen of the mayor's appointments to and removals from office. Yet it has been over and over again demonstrated both in theory and practice that such confirmation so far from being a safeguard is destructive of good government. It opens the way for dictation or bargain between the aldermen and the mayor and relieves both sides from responsibility. The mayor can say, "I was obliged to make nominations, not such as I wanted, but such as the aldermen would accept," while the aldermen are cut off from criticising agents for the appointment of whom they are equally responsible. Thus Hon. Seth Low says: 1

1 "The Problem of City Government." Reprinted from the Civil Service Reformer, April, 1889.

At the first, American cities were organized by giving to their legislative bodies the most ample powers. At the same time the executive of the city was made little more than a figurehead. Such appointments as it fell to the mayor to make needed confirmation at the hands of the common council, and in time the confirming body became everywhere in effect the nominating body. Or rather, even a worse result than this followed. The most important executive offices in the city were filled, not according to the best judgment of the mayor, nor yet according to the best judgment of the common council, but according to the best compromise that could be effected between these two. Meanwhile, as one result of such methods, all sense of responsibility for results was lost by both parties to the compromise, the mayor claiming that he had nominated the best officials whom the common council would confirm; and the common council claiming that they were in no respect at fault, because they could only confirm men who were nominated. Had the mayor nominated better men, they would claim, they would have been glad to confirm them.

Another fixed idea is that of intrusting executive work to boards or commissions, an arrangement apparently devised for the purpose of destroying at once efficiency and responsibility.

Hon. John T. Hoffman, in the address already quoted, says: 1

I hold that in a scheme of city government there is, more than in any other, the need of a strong and thoroughly responsible single executive; for the same reason that when a body of men are confined within the narrow limits of a ship in mid-ocean, the government thereof must of necessity be administered by one man, prompt to make his will felt, and to whom prompt obedience must be rendered, and who knows that he alone will be held responsible for disaster. The head of every department should be a single one -no boards or commissions and so the responsibility to the mayor will be concentrated, as is his to the people. What we need is not a complex system, but one that is simple and direct; all through which runs one sound principle. Such is the principle of the immense business of the greatest merchants of New York- one man at the head of every branch of it, and every one of these responsible to him, the head of all.

It seems strange that men cannot see a truth so plain, to wit: that this principle which they instinctively apply to their private business

1 See ante, Chap. XXII.

must be applied also in the public service, or we cannot hope for good results.

And Hon. Seth Low:

There is, of course, a great difference in the executive power of individuals, and a poor executive will seriously affect the efficiency of a department; but he must be a singularly inefficient man who will produce worse results than the best board that ever sat. If the members of such boards were to enter upon their duties with the most single purpose possible, the nature of the work intrusted to them must very shortly produce one of two results: either the members of the board will get at loggerheads with one another, resulting in great disadvantage to the service, or the members will keep in harmony with each other by mutual concessions.

In no case does the best judgment of any one member, nor the prompt action of any one, come with the same direct efficiency, as when the full power is lodged in single hands. No army could succeed under such a system; no railroad could succeed; no business of any kind could succeed under it; and there is nothing so singular about the business of a city that good results can be hoped for in a city from methods which defy the experience of mankind.

The weakness and irresponsibility of the executive branch form, however, but one half of the picture, and that not the worst. The other is to be seen in the council, which is almost an exact repetition of Congress and the State legislature, the evil of defective organization becoming more and more manifest as we descend in the scale. There is one body of twelve and another of seventy-five persons, all precisely equal, with nobody present to represent the whole city or the executive government of the city. The mayor was originally supposed to preside over the aldermen, but the practice has long since fallen into disuse, and both bodies choose a presiding officer by majority vote. This officer makes up the committees, so far as his branch is concerned, at his absolute discretion, and these committees really hold the government of the city, notwithstanding the peremptory injunction of the charter that they shall not do so. There were in 1893 ten standing and five special com

mittees of the aldermen, four standing and two special committees of the common council, and forty-five joint standing and thirty joint special committees, making a grand total of ninety-six. Unless otherwise ordered the two branches meet weekly, and any member is at liberty to propose action upon any subject he pleases; all such propositions being referred to the committees, which must of course have the principal deciding voice with regard to them, while the ever-present lobbying and log-rolling must be the instrument of decision.

It follows that there is no detail or condition of the city government, inside of the sphere of State legislation, which is not liable from week to week to total subversion at the hands of the shifting and irresponsible majority of the two branches of the city council and their committees, while the wider range of State legislation itself hangs almost with the uncertainty of wind and cloud in a higher stratum over the devoted city beneath. The only protection consists in the limitations of the State constitution, and the veto power of the governor and the mayor.

The effect of looseness of organization is perhaps most apparent in the management of the public schools, which is the weak point even in the town government. In Chapter XXII. have been shown the weakness and the want of responsibility in the Board of Education, resulting in a total absence of effective criticism and reliable information as to the condition of the schools throughout the State. The school system of each town and city is to a large extent an isolated unit, under the exclusive management of a committee of three or more persons separately elected. Not only the educational department, but the financial, and even the construction and repair of buildings, are left to them. Their responsibility may be

said to be mainly to the children, who, through their parents the electors, have more control over them than

anybody else, and who thus hold a rod over the teachers. The estimates of the school committee are almost obligatory, as there is really nobody from whom the town meeting or the city council can extract any reliable information, the restriction consisting only in the veto of the mayor. In Boston the committee consists of twenty-four members chosen for three years, that is eight each year, on general ticket and without pay. There is no authority inside or outside of themselves to which they are called upon to listen. They work by committees and by majority and minority, with the inevitable log-rolling and lobbying, with the regular inability to win any personal reputation or to accomplish any satisfactory individual work, and with the usual consciousness of incurring a share of blame for the shortcomings of others. To such a body is committed without check or control the annual expenditure of two millions and a half of dollars, say one-fifth part of the revenue from taxation. The absolute necessity for concentrated executive authority has led of late years to the establishment of school superintendents in the towns and cities; but they are still appointed by the school committee, that is, by a majority vote, have no appeal except to the majority, are subject to its caprices, and have to proceed with exceeding caution, lest their juvenile masters in the schools shall through their parents bring influence to bear upon the committee. In the absence of definite information the conclusion seems justified that as an administrative agency the school superintendent has thus far accomplished but little.

The evil consequences are most sharply apparent, as always, in the finances. According to Section 8 of the Boston Charter Amendment of 1885:

The heads of departments and all other officers and boards having authority to expend money shall annually furnish an estimate to the mayor of the money required for their respective departments and