is not new to the American people, and is therefore not objectionable, on the ground that it is a radical innovation. It has on the contrary become a cardinal principle of our state and federal systems. While the need of this separation is not so apparent in the small city because of its simpler form of life, the principle can nevertheless be applied, with some reservation, with beneficial results. There is the same need of definite responsibility in the small city as in the large one. The proposition to make the mayor responsible in administration, and the common council in legislation, will doubtless commend itself to the friends of the small city as a step which would result in much practical good. In order to accomplish this the council must be permitted to,perfect its own organization, and appoint its own committees, while the mayor must be entrusted with the appointment of the principal heads of the city departments, and to the strict enforcement of the ordinances of the council. With this separation of functions, with biennial elections, a longer term for the councilmen, and the heads of departments serving during efficient service, the perfection of the primary and free nominations, the increased use of the referendum, and the adoption of proportional representation, the machinery of democratic government will, in a measure, be complete, and which will do much to overcome the abuses which grow out of the rivalries and prejudices of political campaigns.

The charter of the small city has, as a rule, been framed in the absence of any theory of city government, or without a correct appreciation of its administrative needs. In many instances the city has outgrown its village system of government, and has gone to the legislature, from session to session, and secured various additions to its charter, until it is, in many states, a patch-work— an accumulation without system-which often the city officers themselves do not pretend to understand. One of the most prosperous cities of this state may be taken as an illustration of the results of legislation for the small city before the constitutional amendment was passed requiring general legislation for all cities. In theory its legislative and executive functions are separate, but are in fact so confused as to afford any definite responsibility in the exercise of those powers. The mayor is permitted to preside over the sessions of the council, and to organize its committees which

are expected to do his bidding. In addition to this confusion, irresponsibility attaches to our committee system in legislation. The meetings of the committees are often held a few minutes before the sessions of the council, their members are expected to ratify the desire of the chairman who is jealous of any criticism which may be offered in the open sessions of the council. The small city does not, however, alone suffer in this respect. In many instances the city departments are only nominally controlled by the council, but a board elected by it selects the head of the department. This method has generally given good results in the small city, and particularly where the continuity of policy is endangered by frequent elections.

In concluding this paper we may add that after the value of a scheme of municipal organization, which locates responsiblity in a definite manner, has been urged, we must still revert to those instruments of popular government in order to reach the heart of the problem of civic uplifting in the small city. It is to the machinery of direct legislation, the primary and proportional representation that we must turn in our hope of building up those civic qualities which must exist before the government of small cities will attain that efficiency which we have reason to expect. The small city has suffered in the drift of population to the larger urban centre, and as a result the solution of its problems must be recognized as among the most difficult in the whole sphere of local administration. These difficulties are not only governmental, but social and economic. The small city lies in the pathway of the movement of population from the village to the large city, and in so far as this has affected its civic advancement it has suffered the loss of its thriftier citizens who have followed elsewhere the allurements of fortune, while the country districts have contributed to it the conservativism of a rural population. This stamp of conserativism naturally affects the smaller cities, but as we pass to the cities of 10,000 and 20,000 a more progressive spirit is found. In many instances they have successfully led in the direction of municipalization. The small city as a whole, however, is suffering from civic indifference or it may be helplessness. But the latent capacity of the people for self-government may become potential with the sphere of Home

Rule guaranteed, and the instruments of popular government in the full possession of the people. It is in the exercise of these civic rights which inspires us with the hope of a more intelligent democracy, a larger civic interest, which can be brought to bear upon the social, economic and administrative problems of the small as well as the large city.

AN ESSENTIAL SAFEGUARD TO EXECUTIVE RESPONSIBILITY.

GEORGE MCANENY, NEW YORK CITY.

Secretary, National Civil Service Reform League.

To discuss very seriously the pros and cons of the proposition that the merit system in the conduct of city government is a good and highly desirable thing, would, in this company, be a more or lesss gratuitous undertaking. There are few thoughtful men, here or elsewhere, who do not appreciate the important place that system must hold in any complete scheme of municipal improvement, or who would not contend for its establishment whenever and wherever opportunity might offer. It is doubtful, however, whether it is understood quite as clearly that the justification of the growing tendency to centralize responsibility in the municipal executive must depend so largely upon the institution of proper rules governing the organization of the subordinate service, or that such minute care must be taken by the framers of these rules themselves, to guard against their failure to serve rightly this important end.

To these points, therefore, I may safely devote myself, offering such evidence as I have, the result of a more or less constant observation of the working of the appointive system in certain of the larger cities in the East.

To place in the hands of the mayor the power to appoint the heads of every city department, with the usual exception of the comptroller, to leave in his hands the right to remove those whose duties are not faithfully or competently performed-with the right reserved to them for a reasonable opportunity to reply to charges and to offer explanations,—and to hold the mayor, so empowered, to a strict accountability for the proper conduct of the municipal business seems unquestionably the most sensible thing for the

people of a city to do, and the accepted centre-principle in modern charter building. It should not be expected, however, that such a system, no matter how well safe-guarded by limitations upon the administrative powers of department officers, or by clear definition of their purely administrative duties, can continue to give satisfaction through a succession of party changes, or that it can long endure, if the position of the mayor is not itself protected by compreheísive civil service rules. The temptation to use the minor appointments for personal or political purposes when the power so to use them is unchecked, is almost always irresistible. The best-intentioned of mayors will feel it and often-the strongest and most specific of ante-inauguaral good resolutions notwithstanding-they will yield to it. Where the mayor owes his election, either wholly or in large part, to a political party, he is beset inevitably by the leaders of that party, good or bad, and is given to understand that their advice in the matter of the selection of the personnel of his administration is something that he is not only expected carefully to consider, but that he cannot even honorably reject. From their point of view he is their agent, or at least the agent of the party, and no matter what high sounding things he may have said about reform, the "reform" party demands, and that the people "surely must have expected" when they voted him into power, has to do with the question of personnel first of all. The retention of officers or employes in whom the people have "shown their lack of faith," they argue, should not be tolerated a day longer than may be required to make the necessary change. And closely following the argument as to the duty of the mayor to the party comes that of his duty to these individual members of the party, or others, whose support, he is asked to admit, has been most effective. These representations are never lacking, even though the election has been won by a party or coalition formed for the purposes of what is conceived to be genuine reform. How far, under such circumstances, the mayor will bend, is problematical; he may give in at once, and completely, with results disastrous to his good intentions, or he may confine his concessions to particular departments or even to to particular appointments; but the instances in which he has withstood the onslaught without a deviation from

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