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POLITICAL PARTIES AND CITY GOVERNMENT UNDER THE PROPOSED MUNICIPAL PROGRAM

FRANK J. GOODNOW

For many years the conviction has been growing in strength among those interested in improving the conditions of American cities, that an important, if not the chief, cause of the evils which admittedly exist in our municipal life is the fact that municipal questions have not been clearly enough distinguished from general political questions; that municipal interests have been sacrificed to the exigencies of national and State politics.

When the National Municipal League was formed, those responsible for its formation were so thoroughly convinced that this was the case, that the separation of municipal from national and State politics was made one of the most important planks of the platform on which the League was placed. In many cities in the country political campaigns have been fought out on this issue.

The questions naturally present themselves: Why is it that a principle so reasonable as that of the separation of municipal and national politics has not received universal recognition? Why is it that national and State political parties busy themselves with municipal politics? and, What must be done in any municipal reform to be undertaken which will bring it about that municipal questions may be determined on their own merits?

The answer to the question why this principle has not received universal recognition can be made only after an understanding has

been reached as to the reasons why the political parties interest themselves in municipal politics. These are two in number. They are, first, the natural and legitimate desire of political parties to further the objects for which they have been established. They are, secondly, their desire—just as natural, but not so legitimate— to make use of the city to strengthen their own organization and maintain themselves in power.

Why, now, does the national and State party under our present conditions desire to control the city, in order to further the objects for which the party is formed? Because under our system of government the city is a most important agent of the State government. Officers elected directly or indirectly by the people of the city are discharging functions which are of vital interest to the State or nation. Thus the matter of education, which is often regarded as within the scope of local government is a matter in which the State as a whole has a most vital interest. In a country where universal manhood suffrage is the rule the people of the State as a whole are vitally interested in having the youth of every community within its limits receive an education which will fit them for the intelligent exercise of their right to vote.

Again, the people of the State as a whole have a vital interest in the preservation of the peace and the maintenance of good sanitary conditions in every community within the State. Both disorder and disease are contagious, and their existence in one community of the State is a menace to the welfare of the people of the State as a whole.

But while the people of the State as a whole are thus interested most vitally in much that is commonly regarded as a function of municipal government, it does not by any means follow that their interest is not subserved by permitting these matters to be man

aged by the city governments. For while the people of the State as a whole are interested in having the children of every community well educated and the peace and health of every community maintained, at the same time every such community has, as a rule, an even greater interest in securing these results than the people of the State. It is the children of the local community not making provision for a good educational system who primarily suffer. It is the people of the local community not preserving the peace and not maintaining good sanitary conditions who are most exposed to the dangers arising from disorder and disease.

The appeal to local self-interest which is the psychological principle at the basis of the local self-government system, generally awakens sufficient response to justify the existence of such a system. At the same time, the interest which the people of the State have in the proper performance by the local communities of duties affecting the people of the State, always exists and does not permit them to look with unconcern upon the failure of local communities to perform their duties, whether such failure arises from indifference and lack of intelligence or from positive unwillingness.

The city is, then, in numerous instances an agent of the State government, and as such is through its officers discharging functions which interest vitally the people of the State. The State is, therefore, justified in exercising a control over the city, in order to protect its own interests, so long as it permits the city to act as its agent. If this control is an effective one, i. e., if the system of government is such that State officers really control municipal action, the State political party may, through its control of the State government, which it is formed to carry on, exercise all the influence which it deems necessary should be exercised over

the discharge of functions of government intrusted to the city, but interesting the State as a whole. Until the State control, however, is an effective one, the political party will inevitably enter into municipal. politics.

The greater the powers of local self-government possessed by cities the greater will be the desire of the political parties to interfere with their government. Let me make this clearer by an example. Suppose that a moral question, such as total abstinence, has become a question of politics. We have a prohibition party formed which carries the State and puts a law on the statute book prohibiting the sale of liquor. So long as our principles of local self-government obtain, the enforcement of that law is very largely in the uncontrolled discretion of city officers. Now, the political party organized for the purpose of prohibiting the sale of liquor would be recreant to its principles if it did not strive to obtain control of the city government, in order that it might insist upon the enforcement of the law which it had put on the statute book.

So far, then, as the city is acting as the uncontrolled agent of the State, to that extent is the political party interested, and properly interested, in the operations of city government. So far as matters interesting the State as a whole are taken from out of the jurisdiction of cities, or are subjected to an effective State control, so far will the temptation of the political parties to interfere with municipal government be diminished.

In the second place, the political party desires to interfere with city government for reasons differing widely in character from those already referred to. The work of the political party under our system of government by checks and balances and of elective officers is enormous. Elections for either national, State, or local officers coming every year, it is necessary for the success of the

party that it be permanently organized, always ready to do battle for the principles it represents.

Now, one of the most evident facts of history is that all permanent organizations finally get to be ends in themselves, instead of remaining a means to an end. Political parties are no exception to this rule. The maintenance in its integrity and power of the political party organization becomes an end in itself, in the accomplishment of which the ends for which the party was formed may be lost sight of.

Even if this is not the case, the maintenance in its integrity and power of the political party organization is regarded as so necessary for the accomplishment of the ends for which it was formed that all means at hand must be made use of. What means more adaptable and useful than city governments, with their large patronage, their fat contracts, and their great police powers, the exercise of which is necessitated by great aggregations of people? What task more easy than to persuade people, who are citizens of the State and nation, as well as of the city, and whose conception of the possibilities of city life is not a broad one, that city interests, parochial interests, as they are sometimes called, must give way to the more striking, if not more important, interests of the State and nation? Such, then, are briefly the reasons why under our system of government, State and national political parties desire to busy themselves with municipal politics.

Our system of government, however, not only makes it thus inevitable that political parties shall desire to enter into municipal politics; it also affords ample opportunities for the parties to realize their desires, and indeed tempts them to act illegitimately in their interference with municipal matters.

It has already been pointed out that in our system of govern

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