Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1886 — MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. [ARTICLE]

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

Remark? of Chicago’s Mayor Before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York. Results of Eight Tears’ Experience as Chief Officer of a Great City. The following is the address by he Hon. Carter H. Harrison, Mayor -of Ch.cago, on “Municipal Government,” before the .Nineteenth Century Club of New York, on the 23d of November, which has provoked such wide discussion and comment: to. m»ay years tuere have been constantly reports rn the newspapers of the waste and extravagance of municipal governments throughout the country, and every now and then tne peopie have been startled* by the announcement in some City of malversation, peculation, if not downright robbery, by municipal cflicials. Tne people, too, have noticed that there has b en a constant tendency of popu at.on toward great centers. Farmers till their land by their own lauor and that of their minor children, with such aid as they can get from hired laborers of foreign birth. American-bora men seem to disake being hired as farm-hands. 'lhe farmer’s lad, who formerly looked forward with longing to the attainment of his majority that he might spark h.s girl and vote for the-i'resident of the United (States, freed from parental rest.aint, now does so in the hope oi seeking the city, there to imitate a Could or a Vanderbilt, and make h s fortune and enjoy it in the young springtime of his life, 'lhe d.ssolute and id e, the ambitious and adventurous, the vicious and criminal young men ahke seem to desire residence where they may br crowded in mighty hives. Crime can be more readdy perpetrated in the country than in the city. Thu farmer’s house can be burglarized more easily t.ian can city residences on the crowded thorough,are, but the crim.nal can be more easily detected in the spars-ly settled country than iu the cities. Tne criminal has learned that while it may be nearly impossible to find a needle in a hay-stack, yet that perseverance and patience, with a lamp and seive, can ultimately recover the smal.est needle lost in the largest hayrick ; but hat a bodkin dropped among a hundred thousand other bodkins, fashioned from a like metal and cut by the same machine, would be absolutely impossible of detection and identification. He recognizes that his safe-t abiding place is in the c.ty, where are masses of his congeners, among whom his identification will be difficult, umess from his ■own imprudence or the treachery of his pals. Thus, not only does population tend generally toward cities, but the tendency of the adventurous, the reckless, the idle, and unfortunately the criminal, is also toward the center of population. This tendency toward centralization has been vastly accelerated since the ending of the groat war which came so near shaking our Government into fragments. The heterogeneous masses ttirown into cities are supposed to be by mmy persons unable to choose their ru.ers and magistrates. To escape the effect of thi<, many oi the best infa .b.tants of cities have been willing that they should be governed by the Leg slature of their State and by its Governor, instead of by their own citizens. Hero in New York this experiment was tried, and proved an ignominious fadure. You are half governed by yourselves and hah at Albany, and have been so ill-governed that you have been robbed almost into bankruptcy. Wise heaus ought to have foreseen this; they ought to have known that a Lofislature drawn from the farms and the fields, however capable in the science of deep furrowing and scient fie farming, however capable of fore ng the pig to nd himseli of bones and develop lat; however skilled in rearing the ox so as to lay the lean and fat in streaks as regular as are rainbow colors, yet were not fitted to judge of tne daily necessities of the denizens oi large cities, a.id how they should be governed. I would rather trust the management of a city to a distant Legislature of wise scoundrels than of ignorant or foolish, though honest men. It would be very difficult to purchase tne majority of a large body of the former, while the latter could be easily made the tools of a few self-seeking rascals. Think ng men ought to have foreseen the failure of the experiment It ought to have failed; for it was in violation of the very fundamental principles of our system of government, in disiegard of the genius of our institutions, which claim that men should be governed by their o wn consent This experiment proving a failure, some good men have jumped to the conclusion that the denizens of cit es might be trusted with their own government, provided the right of suffrage should be indirectly abridged, not by taking from any man the right to vote, but by giving to some men a cumulative vote in proportion to the.r property. This, they think, wiL make the ballot more conservative, and therefore more wise. This, too, would be in violation of every spirit of free government, which rests the suffrage upon manhood, and not upon property qualification. I have never yet found that a biped ass is any less an ass because of quadruped asses filling his stalls, or that a b ockhead is any less a blockhead because, by patience and hoarding, by prudence or luck, he has become the owner of blocks of brick and mortar. My own observations are that the man who reared a fortune by buying cheap by the bale and selling dear by the yard—ihat the man who buys coff ie by the car-:oad and sells it by the pound—however skilled he may be in the rise and fall of commodities and the prospect of markets, is not toauy extent a better judge of human nature or of the inteliige ice and c ip ibiiities of men than the porter who rolls his bale or the truckman who hauls his sack—than the salesman who sell< and ties up t e yard or the pound. Your princely merchants are no more skilled in reading human nature—aye, not half so much so as are their drummers and traveling salesmen whdse bread comes from a knowledge of human nature. Besides, property and wealth oftentimes narrow a man’s views instead of enlarging them; the poor man’s necessities sharpen his skill ami quicken his faculties. I can not agree with the distinguished gentleman (Mr. Ivins) who has just concluded his able lecture, when he says: “It is use ess to quote J fferson and the fathers; they spoke for their time and a state of facts which were familiar to them, not for our day and a con lition of things they never dreamed of.” Jefferson and the fathers spoke not that which grows old, and not for a part cular time. They spoke for all ages, and said that which is ever fresh and vigorous—the truth, which fives forever. They laid down the rule that government was for the greatest good to the greatest number—injuring none. That the governed were the best judges of their own needs, and should and could be trusted with the management of their own affairs. The tendencies of all governments are to one or the other of two things—toward centralization, consolidation, greater strength and ultimate despotism, or toward decentralization, greater freedom and ultimately license and destruction. The two extremes Ultimately meet. The despotism of the one man tumbles into the despotism of the mob. The despotism of the moo ends in the despotism of the one strong man. It is the part of statesmanship to so guide Governments as to retard the march toward these, their logical tendencies; to stave off t’ze evil day, so as to make the rule of happiness as long as possible. We mav flatter ourselves that we are not as other men have been, and that our governmental fabric is not controlled by the universal

law of growth and decay. Decay seta in immeliateiy when growth ceases. Men are today what men were a thousand years ago, and what they will be a thousand* years h nee, modified only by circumstances, but sternly and irresistibly controlled by the same irrevocable laws. Governmeats are but aggregations of men, and subject to the same logical forces. Our Government will follow other Governments—it will grow and then decay. Esto perptltia was a grand appeal, but it'was Webster’s oratorical peroration, not the divine prophecy of genius. Let us hope that we will live and many generations will follow us, happy in our country’s growth, and that its decay will be in the dim and far-off future. To make our hope a fruition, let us tie to the moorings pointed out to ns by Jefferson and the fathers. We are anchored upon the people. When our anchorage ceases to be trusted, then will the rot have set in and our grand heritage will no longer give us a land of freedom. The people may be crazed for a day; they mly go astray for a term, but their sober second thought is*that vox populi which is vox Del They may get drunk and grow wild, but we can appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. The masses hive a wonderful instifict in looking into men’s characters and reading them aright. General Jackson was criticised and condemned, if not contemned, by the learned of his day, but the people trusted him, and now the world concedes that the people were true to their instinct and put not their trust in vain. In the dark days from 1861 to 1865 carping criticism laughed at and derided Lincoln. The people put their trust in old Abe, and now the sternest thinkers admit that what was termed weakness in the President was his strength, and that it saved the Union. Mr. Ivins seems to me to lay too much stress upon civil service r form. A proper civil service is indispensable in all governments. But many.men have civil service reform on the brain. It is to them a sort of panacea for all the ills of government, whether national, State or municipal. Every now and then a craze comes over the people—now over the ignorant and unlearned, and then over those who think themselves the upper stratum, the very antipodes of the common people. This is one of the latter sort of crazes. It is a sort of Anglomania. It is in “good form”—English, ye know. But of all modern follies I know none so foolish as some of the examinations by which it is attempted to find if a man can carry a letter or keep a set of books. Hold the city heads of departments responsible for the good management of the matters in their charge, and let them discharge at will all of their employes for incompetence, and you wi 1 not need any commission of learned snobs to pass upon their capabilities. I am no believer in the spoils system. “To the victor belong the spoils,” was not Old Hickory’s maxim, and ought not to be of any good citizen. But a life tenure of office is not in accord with the views of our people. They know that bureaucracy tends to hit the employe out of sympathy with the masses, and the more moderate the position the greater the effect of certain tenure of office upon the holder of the po lition. Any one who has had much intercourse with the lower classes of foreign employes has seen how they are lifted from the people. That is one of the causes of the great demand of our foreign-born citizens for official place. They have seen the strut and pride of officeholders abroad. From tidewaiter up it is a species of ill-bred aristocracy. Our people want none of it They wish tneir officials to be their servants, and to keep them so they miy have the opportunity of every now and then changing the ins and putting in the outs fresh from themselves. This much I have felt it proper to say on the subject of general government I will now ask your kind attention to the subject under discussion to-n glit—Municipal Government Ju appearing before you, I do not propose to deliver a labored essay upon municipal government drawn from reading or study, but simply tbe ideas of a practical man formed from his practical experience during eight years’ administering the affairs of the third city in America. I will make no pretension to any erudition, but will give you my views plainly, and as tersely as possible; will describe to you, as nearly as possible, the theories of municipal government drawn from actual experience, ana will endeavor thereby to aid you in reaching just conclusions on the momentous question that is now occupying the thoughts of so many intelligent men in our land. We may assume as a fundamental axiom that cities consist of masses of men aggregated together in pursuit of material wealth, and in the endeavor to have themselves protected in,the acquirement of that wealth, and afterward in enjoying it during their lives, and in handing it down to their children; that corporations called municipalities are bus.ness corporations, whose scope and aim is to aid the citizens in the acquirement of wealth, and to protect them while doing so, and afterward in its enjoyment Its duty is not that of directly fostering or encouraging arts and sciences, piety or moral ty. These things should be left to the academy, to the pulpit, to the lyceum, to the school, to the fireside, and to the mothers and sisters. A corporation should give facilities for education, and should protect the teacher and the preacher, the lecturer, the mother and the si iter. When material prosperity becomes the rule of a city, then the others will follow, as natural results and logical consequences. I know there are those who sentimentally decry our modern cities, and compare them unfavor ibly with the great cities of ancient times and of m ediaeval ages, where letters, arts, and the sciences reigned, and have spread their effulgent light over the days that followed them; but these gentlemen should remember that the hundred colonies of Athens poured into her harbor enormous wealth before the Parthenon was erected to be the admiration of all ages; before the Pentelican marble sprung into the godlike Apollo Belvedere, or the magic chisel enabled the cold stone to blush in womanly beauty in the form of Venus de Medicis; that the argosies of Venice delivered upon the rialto the world’s wealth before Titian was able to paint the creations of his pencil, surpassing those of nature herself; before the San Marco was erected to be the admiration of all lovers of florid architecture; that Florence was the so it of wealth, and that her merchants had become princes, before Angelo fashioned his mighty productions, and that Dan e made his descent all Inferno upon golden stairs; England was rich before her class es were written; N>w York is growing rich, but the other day found it difficult to rear a pedestal in her harbor of the statue to Liberty, wh ch is to give light to the world, but her riches will yet enable her to foster gen us and art, and New York and Chicago may yet bo each a reflex of Athens and Florence in the patronage of letters, of arts, and sciences. Wealth is the handmaid to the higher genius of man. Experience has taught me that the government of a great city is not the difficult thing that a great many people think, provided that the organic law or charter of the city be simple, and at the same time ample. Permit me to lay before you the charter under which the city of Chicago is governed. Jt is not a special charter, but is one under which any city in the State of Illinois can govern itself on the election of its people. Chicago has four elective executive officers, namely: a mayor, a treasurer, a city attorney, and a* city clerk. They are elected for two years. ' It has thirty-six aidermen, two from eich ward, one-half of them elected each year. The city council or legislative department of the city is composed of the mayor and aidermen, the mayor presiding and having the casting vote. The council has charge of all matters directly appertaining to the city’s interest; in fact, its powers are plenary, under certain limitations, over all matters not under the jurisdiction of the State officials, and common .to the cities of the ' country. The powers of the City Counc l are, briefly: To control the fl lances, levy taxes for corporate purposes, limited to 2 per cent upon the last assessed valuation; to levy taxes for payment of bonds and interest, and for school and library purposes, outside of the 2 per

cent limitation; to borrow money under the limits fixed by the State Constitution; to regulate I.censes, establish streets; to provide for lighting and cleaning die same, and to regulate traffic over them; to regulate the driv.ng of vehicles and speed of same, as well as of railroad trains; to permit the laying of railroad tracks witnin a period of twenty years; to erect and control bridges, viaducts, tunnels, etc.; to regulate harbors and the commerce therein; to regulate theaters and places of amusement, the construction of buildings, and to define fire limits; to regulate storage of powder, etc.; to establish departments necessary to the city government, including fire, police, health, public works, etc ; and to define tiie duties of ollie rs and employes of the city; jo prevent disorderly assemblies; to prevent and punish cruelty to animals; to abate nuisances; to make all regulations necessary for tne promotion of health; to establish and regmate cemeteries; to direct the location and regulate the management of packing houses, tanneries, soap factories, breweries, distilleries, and livery stables; to prevent any unwholesome * business within a mde of the city; to provide for the construction of buildings for the city’s use; to establish ferries, toll bridges, etc.; to prevent any practice or amusement having a tendency to annoy per one passing on the streets; to prevent and regulate the* keeping of any comoust.bio material within the fire limits; to pass all ordinances necessary to carry into effect the powers granted to cities, with such fines as may be deemed proper, but no fine or penalty must exceed S2uo, and no imprisonment for one offense exceed .six months. In fine, the powers of the City Council are plenary as far as the purely municipal affairs of the city are concerned, within certain limitations in a few instances. The aidermen are two from each ward, elected by the ward. It would be a great improvement in my opinion if one-half of them were elected from the ward and by the ward, tbe other half elected from the wards but by the city at large. Aidermen elected by the ward would be directly interested in the affairs of the ward; aidermen elected by the city at large would necessarily be more conservative and would look to the interest of the entire city more readily than the aidermen elected as they are at present, as there is a tendency for aidermen in their desire to gain that which they wish’for their own people to trade with the aidermen of other districts giving them this special desires. This too frequent y causes lavish expenditure and incongruous legislation. The present wards of Chicago, owing to the vast growth of the city are very unequal in size, the smallest containing not over 16,000 population, and the largest over BJ,OCO. It is the duty of the aidermen under the charter to redistrict the city into wards as often as may be necessary to keep them equal, as near as possible, in popuation; but this charter provision is directory and not mandatory. it should bo mandatory, and the old wards, instead of being divided up into more equal ones in population, should be increased as the city grows; for I am profoundly impressed with the necessity of wards not being so large as to prevent the personal knowledge of the Aiderman by all of their denizens. A population of about twenty thousand to the ward would be the proper thing. Our present charter forbids increasing the number of wards, and thereby increasing the number of aidermen. This was a grave mistake; a larger number of aldermen would be beneficial to the city’s interests. The newspapers sometimes charge that aldermen are not so impervious to the lavishnients of corporations as they should be, and that they levy tribute from them. It is not my part to make the criticism, but I will say that it would be much more difficult to corrupt a majority of a large number of aidermen than to corrupt the majority of a small number. A majority of our Council at present is nineteen. If the wards had about 20,000 popu ation each, the whole number would be thirty-five. That would give seventy Aldermen; a majority would be thirty-six. It would be more difficult to reach them by corrupt influences than to reach nineteen. Two-thirds of the Aidermen can overr.de the Mayor’s veto; at the present time, it requires but five additional Aidermen over the bare majority to do this. If our wards were thirty-five, it would be found much more difficult to win, by corrupt influences, eleven Aidermen to override a veto than five, as is now necessary. The charter should absolutely have forbidden any executive duty whatever to the legislative body of the city or its committees. The legislative and execut ve should be thoroughly separated. The legislative body should not have the right under the charter to make any contract whatever, or to dispose of or to purchase the city’s property. It should simply determine when the contract should be made, and when property should be disposed of or bought, and then the executive should make the contract, or dispose of or buy the property by open and thorough competition after liberal advertising. Nothing is more demoralizing to the legislative body than permitting it to be also to any extent executive. The body which levies taxes and makes appropriations should never be permitted to expend the taxes levied or the moneys appropriated. This is so imperative a prohibition that it should be axiomatic when the formation of charters is being considered. All executive acts should be left to a responsib e executive head, to whom the people look for execution, and whom they should hold responsible to them. The general incorporation act of Illinois did not go into effect until 1873, and was adopted by Chicago and went into operation in 1875. This act being intended for large and small cities, left to the city council the duty of organizing departments of city government, and" of creating the officials to have charge of the same, and also of discontinuing such departments, with the proviso that no department created should be discontinued till the end of the year. This gives the council the power, to a considerable extent, of coercing the executive; a power which may be exercised for party purposes, to the injury of the city. Experience shows that certain departments are essential to cities of large population. The charter should be so amended as to create these departments by the organic law, and thus render the executive still more independent of the city legislature. For a city council 'should be as far as possible precluded from the exercise of any political power. It should have no power whatever over elections. For it is but natural that tbe al orman will consider his own re-election of paramount importance, and by the attempt to help himself, and with the co-operation of his co-alderman, the purity of the ballot-box may be put in jeopardy. Aidermen m large cities have their time vastly more drawn upon than do legislators The people have no right to expect their aldermanic servants to serve them without pay. The time has passed by when the honor is sufficient recompense. The aiderman should be paid, and paid a living wage, and should not be called a scoundrel simply because printer’s ink is cheap. Ii has been found wise to pay the directors of great railroad systems a handsome per diem, and this, too, though every director is a heavy stockholder in the corporation he helps to manage. The aldefman of Chicago receives three dollars for each regular session of the council. He gets nothing for committee meetings, and for running to the departments in the interest of his constituents. His time is given to his constituents, for which he gets no regular pay, and he is damned because he accepts from corporations a Thanksgiving turkey. Under the circumstances there is no wonder that the p iople suspect that Thanksgiving days come oftener than the Governor’s proclamation, and that the. turkeys are of more than regulation fatness. Our Council fixes all salaries of city employes. This is proper, but there should be a maximum fixed by the charter. • Aldermanic liberality is great, especially when the thousands who are employed by the city are voters and are naturally grateful. The State Legislature meets often enough to see that the city

may not suffer by reason of the meagerness of the maximum establ shed. The employes of a city should be better paid than those of private establishments. For in the latter, experience becomes capital and growth of pay follows or the employe can set up for himself. But the pay should not be so large as to be too attractive. Policemen and firemen should be allowed by law a pension when disabled by age or infirmities. The tax-payers should take care oi those grown old or incapable in their service. The duties of City Clerk, Treasurer, and Attorney with us do not differ materially from those of like officers everywhere. I will therefore pass them and speak of the Mayor, the Chief Executive ana a very responsible officer under our charter. The Mayor is elected for two years; has the functions of a Sheriff as custodian of the peace, with the additional power of calling out the militia. He appoints the Comptroller, Commissioner of Public WorKs, Collector, Superintendent of Buildings, Commissionre of Health, Chief of Police, and Chief of Fier Department, and designates the justices of the peace who are to act ,as justices of the police courts, the bailiffs and clerks of said courts, the inspector of gas, of weights and measures, and of oil—these all by and with the approval of the City Council—and cau discharge any of them at will but must give the Council, at its next regular meeting. Ins reasons for such discharge, when it may, by a two-thirds vote of all the Aldermen elected, reinstate such officer discharged. The several heads of departments above named appoint the heads of sub-departments, by ana with the consent of the. Mayor. Each head of subdepartment appoints all employes, by and with the consent of the head of nis respective department The heads of the several departments can discharge all employes. Thus it will bo seen that the Mayor is the fountainhead of all appointments, but the several heads of departments can discharge for incompetency or for any insubordination. Should this latter power, however, be used for improper motives, or on improper grounds, the Mayor can review the act, and, by his power of discharge, correct any such evil. My own views are that the mayor should have the power to appoint and discharge, free from any intervention of the legislative branch of the city government This vast power would seem to many at first blush too great to place in any one executive hand. Many will say it is undemocratic. We must remember, however, that the mayor is the people’s servant; his term of office is short, and if his power be improperly used the people will condemn him at the end of his term. The people hold all the pow r and for the time being delegate him to execute their will. Power so delegated to one man is no less democratic than the same power placed in the hands of several persons. The people retain lhe power if delegated to one as much as if delegated to many, and they can look into the acts of one man more closely than into the acts of several. He can not slnrk a single responsibility, while each of several can and will do so. Since Adam said to hie Maker, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with mo, she gave me of the tree to eat, and I did eat,” men have been constantly trying to shirk responsibility and to lay the blame for their short-comings upon some one else. A mayor walks in the open light His acts of yesterday are seen and criticised by the people to-day. ’lhe sphere of his authority is limited, and can bo viewed and understood by each and every one Of his fellow-citiz.ms from day to day. Ho cannot escape condemnation if ho misuses his power. It is d fficult for him to please even when his every act is of the purest and the wisest. Th i people’s opinions of matters immediately arising are as various as their different intelligences and their varied interests. The mayor’s executive duties affect the citizens iinmedia ely. Few of his acts can fail to affect injuriously, or at least diaagreeably some part or portion of his constituents. Nearly every duty perform d offends some one or more, and this makes one or more hostile to him. And in this way during his term of two years ho will nec msarily make many if not his enemies at least his very lukewarm friends, while he offends in many small matters. In this way he finds a ready and a harsh critic on every corner. Hia popularity cannot be maintained on this account, and if maintained at all it will be a purely official and not a personal popularity. That is, the people may re-elect him, not because they like him as an individual, but because as an official he protects their great imerests. Many have thought that such power, together with his patronage, will enable such a mayor to keep himself in office What I have said is enough to answer one ground of these fears. The other, Itn ink, is easily disposed of. Patronage is an element of weakness, not of strength, to a self-seeking man. When once in place a ward politician loses bis influence. He is supposed to be work wg for his own interests if lie attempts to exercise influence, and thereby loses what he had before, and, being himself too often a self-seeker, ho tries to hold his place by endeavoring to please all parties about the time of elections. He is a trimmer now, whereas he was a firm party man before he got his position. Of course, I refer to the patronage in a small sphere, su h as is a city. The bitterest of all partisan complaints made to me since I have held office has been that the men I have appointed have been no good for the party. Besides the benefits arising from the undivided responsibility being placed upon the one executive head, with full powers, there are others of equal consequence.* The Mayor, who is the real head of all departments of the city, can enforce a unity of action and purposes utterly impossible when taere are boards and commissions, each independent of the single head. Given a board of police and fire, another of health, another of public works, and still another of streets and "highways. Each of these independent departments looks only at its own interests, and thus makes a unity of city administration impossible. Let me illustrate this by considering' the question of finance and economy, the most important of all in city affairs. Each department considers itself the important one and expends the city’s funds to the full limit of its power, and no one but the people at the end of the term of office to inspect their action. Economy becomes impossible, and waste, or at least extravagancy necessarily follows. But one responsible head, deeply influenced by the city’s interest, or, what will be equa ly effective, working for his reputation and good name, looks over the whole field, holds in check each department, giving to each all he feels consistent with the public good, knowing that lie will stand or fall by the good conduct, honesty, and economy of all, runs the entire city as a wise merchant or great manufacturer runs his establishment, with prudence and with an eye to the prosperity of tbe whole. A city may be likened to a great military camp in an enemy’s country. How long would such camp be safe if every colonel or captain was clothed with full powers* A single head is necessary for the very existence of those in camp. A great city is always in an enemy’s country. Its enemies, however, are within its own walls, and unless there be some responsible head, a turbulent citizenship may at any time, under some great excitement such as is constantly arising m our cities, bring calamity, if not ruin, Responsibility and power develop a man, and make him equal to a great emergency, even as he himself little dreamed of. These views are those of one who will shortly be out of office, and simply a private citizen. All I have is in the city whose chief magistrate I am. I wish to live there and have my children enjoy what I may give and leave them. I would have Chicago governed as I have indicated, when I shall have only the ballot of a single man. Go to Albany and demand a charter under which your people can govern themselves. Place the entire executive power in the hands of a mayor whose term shall not exceed two years, and you may trust the people that they will not often elect a corrupt man. They may not always choose a wise one, but they will not keep a fool or a knave long in power.