The adoption of the form of organization which has been proposed will be a most encouraging indication of the growing appreciation of the soundness of the principles underlying it, and it will of itself aid greatly in developing in the future a stronger and sounder opinion relative to governmental matters. Our government will in none of its forms be satisfactory until the general body of the people grasp the conception that administration, i. e., the execution of policy, is a field of governmental activity in which politics, i. e., the function of determining policy, should not enter. That such a conception was not grasped for so long a time in the United States is very largely due to the fact that our social and political conditions have been until recently comparatively simple. The field of administration was, as compared with the whole field of government, a small one. Inefficiency in that field was not felt to be serious, because almost all that it involved was increased expense; and our enormous material resources made expense a matter of comparative unimportance. But as our population became denser and our civilization more complex, new needs were felt which could be accorded satisfaction only by the enlargement of the field of administration. The incidents of modern civilization, such as railroads, the factory, banking and insurance systems, the modern educational system, the great systems of modern public works, improved methods of preserving the peace and insuring the public safety, have all emphasized the administrative side of government. The larger the field of administration the more noticeable have become the effects of administrative inefficiency and the more forcible the demand that politics should be excluded, since it soon became evident that this administrative inefficiency was due in large part to the intrusion of politics into administration.

Further, our general administrative system was until within the past thirty years of such a character as to render easy the confusion between legislation and administration which has been noticeable in American political life. This system was characterized by great legislative centralization and great administrative decentralization. The Legislature regulated by very detailed statutes the powers and duties of all officers, many of whom were locally elected and most of whom had as a matter of fact great discretion in the execution of this detailed legislation. For these officers

were very commonly subject to no central administrative supervision in the execution of the law, and, where occupying at all important positions, were also very largely independent of any local supervision. The system provided for the administration of the law, was not merely decentralized, it was also not concentrated.

Now, the fact that these officers were free from supervision in their execution of the law really made them political as well as administrative officers. Subject only to the control of the courts, which could not in the nature of things be really effective, they enforced the law or not, as they saw fit. The result was that the function of the determination of policy was not completely discharged by the people when they elected their theoretically policydeclaring body, the Legislature. They must not merely elect members of the Legislature to make the law, they must also elect officers who would enforce the law. On the other hand, from the practical point of view, it was not necessary for them to elect a new Legislature if they wished to repeal a law, i. e., if they wished to cause a law to cease to be a rule of actual conduct. They need only elect officers who would not enforce the law. The prohibition and Sunday closing laws, for example, have often been made mere dead letters through the intentional failure of administrative officers to enforce them. More than one election has been fought out in this country on the avowed program of the non-enforcement of an obnoxious liquor law. School and health laws were often treated in the same way. Thus in Massachusetts the compulsory attendance law was for a long time not enforced; in New York for more than thirty years the law providing for the formation of local boards of health was persistently and generally violated.

This method of regarding administrative officers could not fail to cause a confusion between legislation and administration. To it, it is believed, is largely due the ease with which the spoils system was established and became so universally adopted throughout the country. For it was an easy thing to apply to appointed administrative officers the test that had been applied to elective administrative officers, viz., that their political opinions should have more consideration than their merit or fitness.

The failure to distinguish legislation from administration and the consequent intrusion of politics into administration re

sulted in such administrative inefficiency that, when the field of administration became a large one owing to the greater complexity of our social conditions, it was seen to be necessary to make a change, if government was to be carried on with any degree of success. Before, however, much, if anything, could be done to keep politics out of administration, changes had to be made in the general administrative system. That is, the system had to be considerably centralized and concentrated before administrative officers could cease to be regarded as in a measure political in character. This centralization was made necessary also because of the change in our social and economic conditions, brought about by this age of steam and electricity. An administrative system suited for sparsely populated localities bound together by the stage coach and the mail carrier was unsuited for densely populated districts united by the railroad, the telegraph and the telephone. What had before been separated were now united. The administration had to be centralized to suit the changed conditions.

This centralization came, as a matter of fact, first in the cities, then in the national administration, and has finally begun to develop in the State administration. It has naturally been most noticeable in those branches of government where the possession of technical knowledge is necessary to the performance of efficient work. The educational administration is an especially marked example of this development, although it is to be seen in the public health and public charities administration, as well as in that of prisons. State boards and commissions with supervisory powers over the administration of the law are common in all the States to-day. This administrative centralization has now progressed so far everywhere that the demand is being made with increasing persistence that the officers who are now under the supervision of a superior and who are not as commonly elected as formerly, shall no longer be treated as political, but shall be regarded, as they really are, as exclusively administrative in character. Teachers, who formerly were appointed as a matter of favor and had a tenure of office differing in almost no respect from that of other officers, are now appointed because of demonstrated fitness for the work they undertake, and have practically permanent positions. Policemen and firemen in most cities are, if not appointed for rea

sons of merit, protected against arbitrary removal. Finally the civil service reform movement has attempted to do, for the clerical and other subordinate services, what had already been done for the teachers and the members of the municipal police and fire departments.

In other words, with the development of new fields of governmental activity, which require for their advantageous treatment large technical skill and knowledge and with the developmen of a more centralized administrative system, which offers no excuse for treating administrative officers as political in character, the fundamental principle that administration is a field of government in which politics should not enter is making steady progress. Public opinion based upon that principle is demanding with increasing force that in municipal government, which is so distinctly administrative, the function of legislation, i. e., the function of determining policy, must be clearly distinguished from the function of administration, i. e., the function of carrying out policy after its determination, to the end that municipal administration may be efficient and municipal legislation may consist in the determination of a local policy representing the wishes of a majority of the municipal population.

We can do much towards strengthening this opinion by incorporating the principle on which it rests into our municipal organization. For, while public opinion must be back of all law, it is also true that law has much influence in moulding public opinion. The civil service law could not have been passed had there not been a strong public opinion, but it is not to be doubted that the enforcement of the law has done much to strengthen public opinion. Can it be doubted that the incorporation in the municipal organization of this fundamental principle of the separation of legislation and administration will fail to have the same result? Can we hope for any great improvement in municipal conditions unless we take this step?

THE CITY IN THE UNITED STATES-THE PROPER

SCOPE OF ITS ACTIVITIES.

ALBERT SHAW.

If I were asked to characterize in a single sentence the broad distinction between the history of the past thirty years of municipal government in Europe, on the one hand, and America, on the other, I should say that in the United States we have been making and unmaking municipal charters, and meanwhile administering them as badly as possible, while in Europe they have been bending their energies to the work of administering progressively and well such charters as their cities found provided for them in the general statutes. In other words, we have been making, marring, unmaking and repairing municipal mechanisms, while the people of European cities have been using their municipal machines to accomplish results in the way of an improved life for their people. I do not mean to say that the conditions of life are more advantageous for the average man to-day in European towns than in our own. On the other hand, I am entirely prepared to assert that almost all the natural advantages belonged to us, and that if our municipal governments had been anything like as relatively efficient as those of the European towns the results achieved by us would have been vastly ahead of those that the best towns in England, Scotland and Germany have been able

to secure.

The main outline of the English Municipal Corporations act has now sufficed for sixty-three years. It applies uniformly throughout the country, except in London. The French Municipal act, although materially revised some fifteen years ago, represents a fairly stable system which has its roots buried deep in the sweeping administrative reforms of a hundred years ago. The Prussian system, revised, of course, very considerably in more recent times, reniains, nevertheless, recognizable in the main as