2

Of the three or four types or systems of local government which I have described, that of the Town or township with its popular primary assembly is admittedly the best. It is the cheapest and the most efficient; it is the most educative to the citizens who bear a part in it. The Town meeting has been not only the source but the school of democracy.1 The action of so small a unit needs, however, to be supplemented, perhaps also in some points supervised, by that of the county, and in this respect the mixed system of the middle States is deemed to have borne its part in the creation of a perfect type. For some time past an assimilative process has been going on over the United States tending to the evolution of such a type. In adopting the township system of New England, the north-western States have borrowed some of the attributes of the middle States county system. The middle States have developed the township into a higher vitality than it formerly possessed there. Some of the southern States are introducing the township, and others are likely to follow as they advance in population and education. It is possible that by the middle of next century there will prevail one system, uniform in its outlines, over the whole country, with the township for its basis, and the county as the organ called to deal with those matters which, while they are too large for township management, it seems inexpedient to remit to the unhealthy atmosphere of a State capital.

1 In Rhode Island it was the Towns that made the State.

2 This tendency is visible not least as regards the systems of educational administration. The National Teachers' Association of the U.S. not long since prepared an elaborate report on the various existing systems, and the more progressive States are on the alert to profit by one another's experience.

CHAPTER L

THE GOVERNMENT OF CITIES

THE growth of great cities has been among the most significant and least fortunate changes in the character of the population of the United States during the century that has passed since 1787. The census of 1790 showed only thirteen cities with more than 5000, and none with more than 40,000 inhabitants. In 1880 there were 494 exceeding 5000, forty exceeding 40,000, twenty exceeding 100,000. There are probably to-day (1888) at least thirty exceeding 100,000. The ratio of persons living in cities exceeding 8000 inhabitants to the total population was, in 1790, 3.3 to every 100, in 1840, 8.5, in 1880, 22.5. And this change has gone on with accelerated speed notwithstanding the enormous extension of settlement over the vast regions of the West. Needless to say that a still larger and increasing proportion of the wealth of the country is gathered into the larger cities. Their government is therefore a matter of high concern to America, and one which cannot be omitted from a discussion of transatlantic politics. Such a discussion is, however, exposed to two difficulties. One is that the actual working of municipal government in the United States is so inextricably involved with the party system that it is hard to understand or judge it

without a comprehension of that system, an account of which I am, nevertheless, forced to reserve for subsequent chapters. The other is that the laws which regulate municipal government are even more diverse from one another than those whence I have drawn the account already given of State governments and rural local government. For not only has each State its own system of laws for the government of cities, but within a State there is, as regards the cities, little uniformity in municipal arrangements. Larger cities are often governed differently from the smaller ones; and one large city is differently organized from another. So far as the legal arrangements go, no general description, such as might be given of English municipal governments under the Municipal Corporation Acts, is possible in America. I am therefore obliged to confine myself to a few features common to most city governments, occasionally taking illustrations from the constitution or history of some one or other of the leading municipalities.

The history of American cities, though striking and instructive, has been short. Of the ten greatest cities of to-day only four-Baltimore, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia-were municipal corporations in 1820.1 Every city has received its form of government from the State in which it stands, and this form has been repeatedly modified. Formerly each city obtained a special charter; now in nearly all States there are general laws under which a population of a certain size and density may be incorporated. Yet, as observed above, special legislation for particular cities, especially the greater ones, continues to be very frequent.

1 The term "city" denotes in America what is called in England a municipal borough, and has nothing to do with either size or antiquity. The constitution or frame of government of a city, which is always given by a State statute, general or special, is called its charter.

Although American city governments have a general resemblance to those English municipalities which were their first model,1 their present structure shows them to have been much influenced by that of the State governments. We find in all the larger cities

A mayor, head of the executive, and elected directly
by the voters within the city.

Certain executive officers or boards, some directly
elected by the city voters, others nominated by
the mayor or chosen by the city legislature.
A legislature, consisting usually of two, but some-
times of one chamber, directly elected by the
city voters.

Judges, usually elected by the city voters, but some-
times appointed by the State.

What is this but the frame of a State government applied to the smaller area of a city? The mayor corresponds to the Governor, the officers or boards to the various State officials and boards (described in Chapter XLI.) elected, in most cases, by the people; the aldermen and common council (as they are generally called) to the State Senate and Assembly; the city elective judiciary to the State elective judiciary.2

A few words on each of these municipal authorities. The mayor is by far the most conspicuous figure in city governments, much more important than the mayor of an English or Irish borough, or the provost of a Scotch. He holds office, sometimes for one year, but now

one.

3

1 American municipalities have, of course, never been, since the Revolution, close corporations like most English boroughs before the Act of 1835. 2 American municipal governments are of course subject to three general rules that they have no powers other than those conferred on them by the State, that they cannot delegate their powers, and that their legislation and action generally is subject to the constitution and statutes as well of the United States as of the State to which they belong. 3 Generally in the cities of the second rank and in Boston.

years.

more frequently for two, three, or even five 2 In some cities he is not re-eligible. He is directly elected by the people of the whole city, and is usually not a member of the city legislature. He has, almost everywhere, a veto on all ordinances passed by that legislature, which, however, can be overriden by a twothirds majority. In many cities he appoints some among the heads of departments and administrative boards, though usually the approval of the legislature or of one branch of it is required. Quite recently some city charters have gone so far as to make him generally responsible for all the departments, though limiting his initiative by the right of the legislature to give or withhold supplies, and making him liable to impeachment for misfeasance. He receives a considerable salary, varying with the size of the city, but sometimes reaching $10,000, the same salary as that allotted to the justices of the Supreme Federal Court. It rests with him, as the chief executive officer, to provide for the public peace, to quell riots, and, if necessary, to call out the militia." He often exerts a pretty wide discretion as to the en1 New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and generally in the larger cities. 2 Philadelphia, St. Louis.

3 In Chicago and San Francisco the mayor sits in the legislature. 4 The Brooklyn charter allows the mayor to appoint heads of departments without any concurrence of the council, in the belief that thus responsibility can be better fixed upon him; and New York has lately (1884) taken the same course.

5 Some idea of the complexity due to the practice of giving special charters to particular cities, or passing special bills relating to them, may be gathered from the fact that in Ohio, for instance, the duties of the mayor vary greatly in the six chief cities of the State. There are duties which a mayor has in Cincinnati only, out of all the cities of the State; others which he has in all the cities except Cincinnati; others in Cincinnati and Toledo only; others in Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, and Springfield only; others in Cleveland and Toledo only; others in Cleveland only; others in Toledo only; others in Columbus and Dayton only. These variations are the result not of ordinances made by each city for itself, but of State legislation.