There is more or less of history involved in these offices and
designations, to which we may devote a few words of explanation. In
New England local usage there is an ambiguity in the word "town."
As an official designation it means the inhabitants of a township
considered as a community or corporate body. In common parlance it
often means the patch of land constituting the township on the map, as
when we say that Squire Brown's elm is "the biggest tree in town." But
it still oftener means a collection of streets, houses, and families
too large to be called a village, but without the municipal government
that characterizes a city. Sometimes it is used _par excellence_
for a city, as when an inhabitant of Cambridge, itself a large
suburban city, speaks of going to Boston as going "into town." But
such cases are of course mere survivals from the time when the suburb
was a village. In American usage generally the town is something
between village and city, a kind of inferior or incomplete city. The
image which it calls up in the mind is of something urban and not
rural. This agrees substantially with the usage in European history,
where "town" ordinarily means a walled town or city as contrasted with
a village. In England the word is used either in this general sense,
or more specifically as signifying an inferior city, as in America.
But the thing which the town lacks, as compared with the complete
city, is very different in America from what it is in England. In
America it is municipal government--with mayor, aldermen, and common
council--which must be added to the town in order to make it a city.
In England the town may (and usually does) have this municipal
government; but it is not distinguished by the Latin name "city"
unless it has a cathedral and a bishop. Or in other words the English
city is, or has been, the capital of a diocese. Other towns in England
are distinguished as "boroughs," an old Teutonic word which was
originally applied to towns as _fortified_ places.[3] The voting
inhabitants of an English city are called "citizens;" those of
a borough are called "burgesses." Thus the official corporate
designation of Cambridge is "the mayor, aldermen, and _burgesses_
of Cambridge;" but Oxford is the seat of a bishopric, and its
corporate designation is "the mayor, aldermen, and _citizens_ of
Oxford."

[Footnote 3: The word appears in many town names, such as
_Edinburgh, Scarborough, Canterbury, Bury St. Edmunds_; and
on the Continent, as _Hamburg, Cherbourg, Burgos_, etc. In
Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota, the name
"borough" is applied to a certain class of municipalities with some of
the powers of cities.]


QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What is the essential difference between township government
and county government?

2. What is the distinct advantage of the former?

3. Why is direct government impossible in the county?

4. Speak of the degree of efficiency in county government.

5. Why is direct government impossible in a city?

6. What difficulties in direct government were experienced in
Boston in 1820 and many years preceding?

7. What remedy for these difficulties was adopted?

8. Show how the word "town" is used to indicate

a. The land of a township.
b. A somewhat large collection of streets, houses, and families.
c. And even, in some instances, a city.

9. What is the town commonly understood to be in American
usage?

10. What is the difference in the United States between a town
and a city?

11. What is the difference in England between a town and a
city?

12. Distinguish between citizens and burgesses in England.


Section 2. _Origin of English Boroughs and Cities_.

[Sidenote: "Chesters."]
[Sidenote: Coalescence of towns to fortified boroughs.]
What, then, was the origin of the English borough or city? In the days
when Roman legions occupied for a long time certain military stations in
Britain, their camps were apt to become centres of trade and thus to
grow into cities. Such places were generally known as _casters_ or
_chesters_, from the Latin _castra_, "camp," and there are many of them
on the map of England to-day. But these were exceptional cases. As a
rule the origin of the borough was as purely English as its name. We
have seen that the town was originally the dwelling-place of a
stationary clan, surrounded by palisades or by a dense quickset hedge.
Now where such small enclosed places were thinly scattered about they
developed simply into villages. But where, through the development of
trade or any other cause, a good many of them grew up close together
within a narrow compass, they gradually coalesced into a kind of
compound town; and with the greater population and greater wealth, there
was naturally more elaborate and permanent fortification than that of
the palisaded village. There were massive walls and frowning turrets,
and the place came to be called a fortress or "borough." The borough,
then, was simply several townships packed tightly together; a hundred
smaller in extent and thicker in population than other hundreds.[4]

[Footnote 4: Freeman, _Norman Conquest_, vol. v. p. 466. For a
description of the _hundred_, see above, pp. 75-80.]

[Sidenote: The borough as a hundred.]
From this compact and composite character of the borough came several
important results. We have seen that the hundred was the smallest area
for the administration of justice. The township was in many respects
self-governing, but it did not have its court, any more than the New
England township of the present day has its court. The lowest court
was that of the hundred, but as the borough was equivalent to a
hundred it soon came to have its own court. And although much
obscurity still surrounds the early history of municipal government in
England, it is probable that this court was a representative board,
like any other hundred court, and that the relation of the borough to
its constituent townships resembled the relation of the modern city to
its constituent wards.

[Sidenote: The borough as a county.]
But now as certain boroughs grew larger and annexed outlying
townships, or acquired adjacent territory which presently became
covered with streets and houses, their constitution became still more
complex. The borough came to embrace several closely packed hundreds,
and thus became analogous to a shire. In this way it gained for itself
a sheriff and the equivalent of a county court. For example, under the
charter granted by Henry I. in 1101, London was expressly recognized
as a county by itself. Its burgesses could elect their own chief
magistrate, who was called the port-reeve, inasmuch as London is a
seaport; in some other towns he was called the borough-reeve. He was
at once the chief executive officer and the chief judge. The burgesses
could also elect their sheriff, although in all rural counties Henry's
father, William the Conqueror, had lately deprived the people of
this privilege and appointed the sheriffs himself. London had its
representative board, or council, which was the equivalent of a county
court. Each ward, moreover, had its own representative board, which
was the equivalent of a hundred court. Within the wards, or hundreds,
the burgesses were grouped together in township, parish, or manor....
Into the civic organization of London, to whose special privileges
all lesser cities were ever striving to attain, the elements of local
administration embodied in the township, the hundred, and the shire
thus entered as component parts.[5] Constitutionally, therefore,
London was a little world in itself, and in a less degree the same was
true of other cities and boroughs which afterwards obtained the same
kind of organization, as for example, York and Newcastle, Lincoln and
Norwich, Southampton and Bristol.

[Footnote 5: Hannis Taylor, _Origin and Growth of the English
Constitution_, vol. i. p. 458.]

[Sidenote: The guilds.]
[Sidenote: mayor, aldermen, and common council.]
In such boroughs or cities all classes of society were brought into
close contact,--barons and knights, priests and monks, merchants and
craftsmen, free labourers and serfs. But trades and manufactures,
which always had so much to do with the growth of the city, acquired
the chief power and the control of the government. From an early
period tradesmen and artisans found it worth while to form themselves
into guilds or brotherhoods, in order to protect their persons and
property against insult and robbery at the hands of great lords and
their lawless military retainers. Thus there came to be guilds, or
"worshipful companies," of grocers, fishmongers, butchers, weavers,
tailors, ironmongers, carpenters, saddlers, armourers, needle-makers,
etc. In large towns there was a tendency among such trade guilds
to combine in a "united brotherhood," or "town guild," and this
organization at length acquired full control of the city government.
In London this process was completed in the course of the thirteenth
century. To obtain the full privileges of citizenship one had to
be enrolled in a guild. The guild hall became the city hall. The
_aldermen_, or head men of sundry guilds, became the head men
of the several wards. There was a representative board, or _common
council_, elected by the citizens. The aldermen and common council
held their meetings in the Guildhall, and over these meetings presided
the chief magistrate, or port-reeve, who by this time, in accordance
with the fashion then prevailing, had assumed the French title of
_mayor_. As London had come to be a little world in itself,
so this city government reproduced on a small scale the national
government; the mayor answering to the king, the aristocratic board of
aldermen to the House of Lords, and the democratic common council to
the House of Commons. A still more suggestive comparison, perhaps,
would be between the aldermen and our federal Senate, since the
aldermen represented wards, while the common council represented the
citizens.

[Sidenote: The city of London.]
The constitution thus perfected in the city of London[6] six hundred
years ago has remained to this day without essential change. The voters
are enrolled members of companies which represent the ancient guilds.
Each year they choose one of the aldermen to be lord mayor. Within the
city he has precedence next to the sovereign and before the royal
family; elsewhere he ranks as an earl, thus indicating the equivalence
of the city to a county, and with like significance he is lord
lieutenant of the city and justice of the peace. The twenty-six
aldermen, one for each ward, are elected by the people, such as are
entitled to vote for members of parliament; they are justices of the
peace. The common councilmen, 206 in number, are also elected by the
people, and their legislative power within the city is practically
supreme; parliament does not think of overruling it. And the city
government thus constituted is one of the most clean-handed and
efficient in the world.[7]

[Footnote 6: The city of London extends east and west from the Tower
to Temple Bar, and north and south from Finsbury to the Thames, with
a population of not more than 100,000, and is but a small part of the
enormous metropolitan area now known as London, which is a circle of
twelve miles radius in every direction from its centre at Charing
Cross, with a population of more than 5,000,000. This vast area is an
agglomeration of many parishes, manors, etc., and has no municipal
government in common.]

[Footnote 7: Loftie, _History of London _, vol. i. p. 446]
[Sidenote: English cities, the bulwarks of liberty.]

The development of other English cities and boroughs was so far like
that of London that merchant guilds generally obtained control, and
government by mayor, aldermen, and common council came to be the
prevailing type. Having also their own judges and sheriffs, and not
being obliged to go outside of their own walls to obtain justice, to
enforce contracts and punish crime, their efficiency as independent
self-governing bodies was great, and in many a troubled time they
served as staunch bulwarks of English liberty. The strength of their
turreted walls was more than supplemented by the length of their
purses, and such immunity from the encroachments of lords and king
as they could not otherwise win, they contrived to buy. Arbitrary
taxation they generally escaped by compounding with the royal
exchequer in a fixed sum or quit-rent, known as the _firma
burgi_. We have observed the especial privilege which Henry I.
confirmed to London, of electing its own sheriff. London had been
prompt in recognizing his title to the crown, and such support, in
days when the succession was not well regulated, no prudent king could
afford to pass by without some substantial acknowledgment. It was
never safe for any king to trespass upon the liberties of London, and
through the worst times that city has remained a true republic with
liberal republican sentiments. If George III. could have been guided
by the advice of London, as expressed by its great alderman Beckford,
the American colonies would not have been driven into rebellion.

[Sidenote: Simon de Montfort and the cities.]
The most signal part played by the English boroughs and cities, in
securing English freedom, dates from the thirteenth century, when
the nation was vaguely struggling for representative government on a
national scale, as a means of curbing the power of the crown. In that
memorable struggle, the issue of which to some extent prefigured
the shape that the government of the United States was to take five
hundred years afterward, the cities and boroughs supported Simon de
Montfort, the leader of the popular party and one of the foremost
among the heroes and martyrs of English liberty. Accordingly on the
morrow of his decisive victory at Lewes in 1264, when for the moment
he stood master of England, as Cromwell stood four centuries later
Simon called a parliament to settle the affairs of the kingdom, and
to this parliament he invited, along with the lords who came by
hereditary custom, not only two elected representatives from each
rural county, but also two elected representatives from each city and
borough. In this parliament, which met in 1265, the combination of
rural with urban representatives brought all parts of England together
in a grand representative body, the House of Commons, with interests
in common; and thus the people presently gained power enough to defeat
all attempts to establish irresponsible government, such as we call
despotism, on the part of the crown.


[Sidenote: Oligarchical abuses in English cities (cir. 1500-1835).]
If we look at the later history of English cities and boroughs, it
appears that, in spite of the splendid work which they did for the
English people at large, they did not always succeed in preserving
their own liberties unimpaired. London, indeed, has always maintained
its character as a truly representative republic. But in many English
cities, during the Tudor and Stuart periods, the mayor and aldermen
contrived to dispense with popular election, and thus to become close
corporations or self-perpetuating oligarchical bodies. There was a
notable tendency toward this sort of irresponsible government in
the reign of James I., and the Puritans who came to the shores of
Massachusetts Bay were inspired with a feeling of revolt against such
methods. This doubtless lent an emphasis to the mood in which they
proceeded to organize themselves into free self-governing townships.
The oligarchical abuses in English cities and boroughs remained until
they were swept away by the great Municipal Reform Act of 1835.

[Sidenote: Government of the city of New York (1686-1821).]
The first city governments established in America were framed in
conscious imitation of the corresponding institutions in England.
The oldest city government in the United States is that of New York.
Shortly after the town was taken from the Dutch in 1664, the new
governor, Colonel Nichols, put an end to its Dutch form of government,
and appointed a mayor, five aldermen, and a sheriff. These officers
appointed inferior officers, such as constables, and little or nothing
was left to popular election. But in 1686, under Governor Dongan,
New York was regularly incorporated and chartered as a city. Its
constitution bore an especially close resemblance to that of Norwich,
then the third city in England in size and importance. The city of New
York was divided into six wards. The governing corporation consisted
of the mayor, the recorder, the town-clerk, six aldermen, and six
assistants. All the land not taken up by individual owners was granted
as public land to the corporation, which in return paid into the
British exchequer one beaver-skin yearly. This was a survival of the
old quit-rent or _firma burgi_.[8] The city was made a county,
and thus had its court, its sheriff and coroner, and its high
constable. Other officers were the chamberlain or treasurer, seven
inferior constables, a sergeant-at-arms, and a clerk of the market,
who inspected weights and measures, and punished delinquencies in the
use of them. The principal judge was the recorder, who, as we have
just seen, was one of the corporation. The aldermen, assistants, and
constables were elected annually by the people; but the mayor and
sheriff were appointed by the governor. The recorder, town-clerk, and
clerk of the market were to be appointed by the king, but in case
the king neglected to act, these appointments also were made by the
governor. The high constable was appointed by the mayor, the treasurer
by the mayor, aldermen, and assistants, who seem to have answered
to the ordinary common council. The mayor, recorder, and aldermen,
without the assistants, were a judicial body, and held a weekly court
of common pleas. When the assistants were added, the whole became a
legislative body empowered to enact by-laws.

[Footnote 8: Jameson, "The Municipal Government of New York," _Mag.
Amer. Hist_., vol. viii. p. 609.]

Although this charter granted very imperfect powers of
self-government, the people contrived to live under it for a hundred
and thirty-five years, until 1821. Before the Revolution their
petitions succeeded in obtaining only a few unimportant amendments.[9]
When the British army captured the city in September, 1776, it was
forthwith placed under martial law, and so remained until the army
departed in November, 1783. During those seven years New York was not
altogether a comfortable place in which to live. After 1783 the city
government remained as before, except that the state of New York
assumed the control formerly exercised by the British crown. Mayor and
recorder, town-clerk and sheriff, were now appointed by a council of
appointment consisting of the governor and four senators. This did not
work well, and the constitution of 1821 gave to the people the power
of choosing their sheriff and town-clerk, while the mayor was to be
elected by the common council. Nothing but the appointment of the
recorder remained in the hands of the governor. Thus nearly forty
years after the close of the War of Independence the city of New York
acquired self-government as complete as that of the city of London.
In 1857, as we shall see, this self-government was greatly curtailed,
with results more or less disastrous.


[Footnote 9: Especially in the so-called Montgomerie charter of 1730.]

[Sidenote: City government in Philadelphia (1701-1789).]
The next city governments to be organized in the American colonies,
after that of New York, were those of Philadelphia, incorporated in
1701, and Annapolis, incorporated in 1708. These governments were
framed after the wretched pattern then so common in England. In
both the mayor, the recorder, the aldermen, and the common council
constituted a close self-electing corporation. The resulting abuses
were not so great as in England, probably because the cities were
so small. But in course of time, especially in Philadelphia as it
increased in population, the viciousness of the system was abundantly
illustrated. As the people could not elect the governing corporation
or any of its members, they very naturally and reasonably distrusted
it, and through the legislature they contrived so to limit its powers
of taxation that it was really unable to keep the streets in repair,
to light them at night, or to support an adequate police force. An
attempt was made to supply such wants by creating divers independent
boards of commissioners, one for paving and draining, another for
street-lamps and watchmen, a third for town-pumps, and so on. In this
way responsibility got so minutely parcelled out and scattered, and
there was so much jealousy and wrangling between the different boards
and the corporation, that the result was chaos. The public money was
habitually wasted and occasionally embezzled, and there was general
dissatisfaction. In 1789 the close corporation was abolished, and
thereafter the aldermen and common council were elected by the
citizens, the mayor was chosen by the aldermen out of their own
number, and the recorder was appointed by the mayor and aldermen. Thus
Philadelphia obtained a representative government.

[Sidenote: Traditions of good government lacking.]
These instances of New York and Philadelphia sufficiently illustrate
the beginnings of city government in the United States. In each case
the system was copied from England at a time when city government
in England was sadly demoralized. What was copied was not the free
republic of London, with its noble traditions of civic honour and
sagacious public spirit, but the imperfect republics or oligarchies
into which the lesser English boroughs were sinking, amid the foul
political intrigues and corruption which characterized the Stuart
period. The government of American cities in our own time is admitted
on all hands to be far from satisfactory. It is interesting to observe
that the cities which had municipal government before the Revolution,
though they have always had their full share of able and high-minded
citizens, do not possess even the tradition of good government. And
the difficulty, in those colonial times, was plainly want of adequate
self-government, want of responsibility on the part of the public
servants toward their employers the people.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. What was the origin of the _casters_ and _chesters_ that are found
in England to-day?

2. Trace the development of the English borough until it became
a kind of hundred.

3. Compare this borough, with the hundred in the administration
of justice.

4. Trace the further development of the borough in cases in
which it became a county.

5. Illustrate this development with London, showing how the elements of
the township, the hundred, and the shire government enter into its civic
organization.

6. Explain the origin and the objects of the various guilds.

7. Speak of the "town guild" under the following heads:--

a. Its composition and power.
b. Its relation to citizenship.
c. Its place of meeting.
d. The aldermen.
e. The common council.
f. The chief magistrate.

8. Compare the government of London with that of Great Britain or of the
United States.

9. Give some account of the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the councilmen
of London.

10. Distinguish between London the city and London the metropolis.

11. Show how the English cities and boroughs became bulwarks of liberty
by (1) their facilities for obtaining justice, (2) the strength of their
walls, and (3) the length of their purses.

12. Contrast the power of London with that of the throne.

13. What notable advance in government was made under the leadership of
Simon de Montfort?

14. What abuses crept into the government of many of the English cities?

15. What was the Puritan attitude towards such abuses?

16. Give an account of the government of New York city:--

a. The charter of 1686.
b. The governing corporation.
c. The public land.
d. The city's privileges as a county.
e. Officers by election and by appointment.
f. Judicial functions.
g. Martial law.
h. The charter of 1821.

17. Give an account of the government of Philadelphia:--

a. The governments after which it was patterned.
b. The viciousness of the system adopted.
c. The legislative interference that was thus provoked.
d. The division of responsibility and the results of such
division.
e. The nature of the changes made in 1789.

18. Why are the traditions of good government lacking in the older
American cities?


Section 3. The Government of Cities in the United States.

[Sidenote: Several features of our city governments.]
At the present day American municipal governments are for the most
part constructed on the same general plan, though with many variations
in detail. There is an executive department, with the mayor at its
head. The mayor is elected voters of the city, and holds office
generally for one year, but sometimes for two or three years, and in
St. Louis and Philadelphia even for four years. Under the mayor are
various heads of departments,--street commissioners, assessors,
overseers of the poor, etc.,--sometimes elected by the citizens,
sometimes appointed by the mayor or the city council. This city
council Is a legislative body, usually consisting of two chambers, the
aldermen and the common council, elected by the citizens; but in many
small cities, and a few of the largest,--such as New York, Brooklyn,
Chicago, and San Francisco,--there is but one such chamber. Then there
are city judges, sometimes appointed by the governor of the state, to
serve for life or during good behaviour, but usually elected by the
citizens for short terms.

All appropriations of money for city purposes are made by the city
council; and as a general rule this council has some control over the
heads of executive departments, which it exercises through committees.
Thus there may be a committee upon streets, upon public buildings,
upon parks or almshouses or whatever the municipal government is
concerned with. The head of a department is more or less dependent
upon his committee, and in practice this is found to divide and weaken
responsibility. The heads of departments are apt to be independent of
one another, and to owe no allegiance in common to any one. The mayor,
when he appoints them, usually does so subject to the approval, of the
city council or of one branch of it. The mayor is usually not a member
of the city council, but can veto its enactments, which however can be
passed over his veto by a two thirds majority.

[Sidenote: They do not seem to work well.]
[Sidenote: some difficulties to be stated.]
City governments thus constituted are something like state governments
in miniature. The relation of the mayor to the city council is
somewhat like that of the governor to the state legislature, and of
the president to the national congress. In theory nothing could well
be more republican, or more unlike such city governments as those of
New York and Philadelphia before the Revolution. Yet in practice it
does not seem to work well. New York and Philadelphia seem to
have heard as many complaints in the nineteenth century as in the
eighteenth, and the same kind of complaints,--of excessive taxation,
public money wasted or embezzled, ill-paved and dirty streets,
inefficient police, and so on to the end of the chapter. In most of
our large cities similar evils have been witnessed, and in too many of
the smaller ones the trouble seems to be the same in kind, only less
in degree. Our republican government, which, after making all due
allowances, seems to work remarkably well in rural districts, and in
the states, and in the nation, has certainly been far less successful
as applied to cities. Accordingly our cities have come to furnish
topics for reflection to which writers and orators fond of boasting
the unapproachable excellence of American institutions do not like to
allude. Fifty years ago we were wont to speak of civil government
in the United States as if it had dropped from heaven or had been
specially created by some kind of miracle upon American soil; and we
were apt to think that in mere republican forms there was some kind of
mystic virtue which made them a panacea for all political evils. Our
later experience with cities has rudely disturbed this too confident
frame of mind. It has furnished facts which do not seem to fit our
self-complacent theory, so that now our writers and speakers are
inclined to vent their spleen upon the unhappy cities, perhaps too
unreservedly. We hear them called "foul sinks of corruption" and
"plague spots on our body politic." Yet in all probability our cities
are destined to increase in number and to grow larger and larger; so
that perhaps it is just as well to consider them calmly, as presenting
problems which had not been thought of when our general theory of
government was first worked out a hundred years ago, but which, after
we have been sufficiently taught by experience, we may hope to succeed
in solving, just as we have heretofore succeeded in other things. A
general discussion of the subject does not fall within the province of
this brief historical sketch. But our account would be very incomplete
if we were to stop short of mentioning some of the recent attempts
that have been made toward reconstructing our theories of city
government and improving its practical working. And first, let us
point out a few of the peculiar difficulties of the problem, that we
may see why we might have been expected, up to the present time,
to have been less successful in managing our great cities than in
managing our rural communities, and our states, and our nation.


[Sidenote: Rapid growth of American cities.]
In the first place, the problem is comparatively new and has taken us
unawares. At the time of Washington's inauguration to the presidency
there were no large cities in the United States. Philadelphia had a
population of 42,000; New York had 33,000; Boston, which came next, with
18,000, was not yet a city. Then came Baltimore, with 13,000; while
Brooklyn was a village of 1,600 souls. Now these five cities have a
population of more than 4,000,000, or more than that of the United
States in 1789. And consider how rapidly new cities have been added to
the list. One hardly needs to mention the most striking cases, such as
Chicago, with 4,000 inhabitants in 1840. and at least 1,000,000 in 1890;
or Denver, with its miles of handsome streets and shops, and not one
native inhabitant who has reached his thirtieth birthday. Such facts are
summed up in the general statement that, whereas in 1790 the population
of the United States was scarcely 4,000,000, and out of each 100
inhabitants only 3 dwelt in cities and the other 97 in rural places; on
the other hand in 1880, when the population was more than 50,000,000,
out of each 100 inhabitants 23 dwelt in cities and 77 in rural places.
But duly to appreciate the rapidity of this growth of cities, we must
observe that most of it has been subsequent to 1840. In 1790 there were
six towns in the United States that might be ranked as cities from their
size, though to get this number we must include Boston. In 1800 the
number was the same. By 1810 the number had risen from 6 to 11; by 1820
it had reached 13; by 1830 this thirteen had doubled and become 26; and
in 1840 there were 44 cities altogether. The urban population increased
from 210,873 in 1800 to 1,453,994 in 1840. But between 1840 and 1880 the
number of new cities which came into existence was 242, and the urban
population increased to 11,318,547. Nothing like this was ever known
before in any part of the world, and perhaps it is not strange that such
a tremendous development did not find our methods of government fully
prepared to deal with it.


[Sidenote: Want of practical foresight.]
This rapidity of growth has entailed some important consequences. In the
first place it obliges the city to make great outlays of money in order
to get immediate results. Public works must be undertaken with a view to
quickness rather than thoroughness. Pavements, sewers, and reservoirs of
some sort must be had at once, even if inadequately planned and
imperfectly constructed; and so, before a great while, the work must be
done over again. Such conditions of imperative haste increase the
temptations to dishonesty as well as the liability to errors of judgment
on the part of the men who administer the public funds.[10] Then the
rapid growth of a city, especially of a new city, requiring the
immediate construction of a certain amount of public works, almost
necessitates the borrowing of money, and debt means heavy taxes. It is
like the case of a young man who, in order to secure a home for his
quickly growing family, buys a house under a heavy mortgage. Twice a
year there comes in a great bill for interest, and in order to meet it
he must economize in his table or now and then deny himself a new suit
of clothes. So if a city has to tax heavily to pay its debts, it must
cut down its current expenses somewhere, and the results are sure to be
visible in more or less untidiness and inefficiency. Mr. Low tells us
that "very few of our American cities have yet paid in full the cost of
their original water-works." Lastly, much wastefulness results from want
of foresight. It is not easy to predict how a city will grow, or the
nature of its needs a few years hence. Moreover, even when it is easy
enough to predict a result, it is not easy to secure practical foresight
on the part of a city council elected for the current year. Its members
are afraid of making taxes too heavy this year, and considerations of
ten years hence are apt to be dismissed as "visionary." It is always
hard for us to realize how terribly soon ten years hence will be here.
The habit of doing things by halves has been often commented on (and,
perhaps, even more by our own writers than by foreigners) as especially
noticeable in America. It has doubtless been fostered by the conditions
which in so many cases have made it absolutely necessary to adopt
temporary makeshifts. These conditions have produced a certain habit of
mind.

[Footnote 10: This and some of the following considerations have been
ably set forth and illustrated by Hon. Seth Low, president of Columbia
College, and lately mayor of Brooklyn, in an address at Johns Hopkins
University, published in _J. H. U. Studies, Supplementary Notes_,
no. 4.]

[Sidenote: Growth in complexity of government in cities.]
Let us now observe that as cities increase in size the amount of
government that is necessary tends in some respects to increase.
Wherever there is a crowd there is likely to be some need of rules and
regulations. In the country a man may build his house pretty much as he
pleases; but in the city he may be forbidden to build it of wood, and
perhaps even the thickness of the party walls or the position of the
chimneys may come in for some supervision on the part of the government.
For further precaution against spreading fires, the city has an
organized force of men, with costly engines, engine-houses, and stables.
In the country a board of health has comparatively little to do; in the
city it is often confronted with difficult sanitary problems which call
for highly paid professional skill on the part of physicians and
chemists, architects and plumbers, masons and engineers. So, too, the
water supply of a great city is likely to be a complicated business, and
the police force may well need as much, management as a small army. In
short, with a city, increase in size is sure to involve increase in
complexity of organization, and this means a vast increase in the number
of officials for doing the work and of details to be superintended. For
example, let us enumerate the executive department and officers of the
city of Boston at the present time.

[Sidenote: Municipal officers in Boston.]
There are three street commissioners with power to lay out streets and
assess damages thereby occasioned. These are elected by the people. The
following officers are appointed by the mayor, with the concurrence of
the aldermen: a superintendent of streets, an inspector of buildings,
three commissioners each for the fire and health departments, four
overseers of the poor, besides a board of nine directors for the
management of almshouses, houses of correction, lunatic hospital, etc.;
a city hospital board of five members, five trustees of the public
library, three commissioners each for parks and water-works; five chief
assessors, to estimate the value of property and assess city, county,
and state taxes; a city collector, a superintendent of public buildings,
five trustees of Mount Hope Cemetery, six sinking fund commissioners,
two record commissioners, three registrars of voters, a registrar of
births, deaths, and marriages, a city treasurer, city auditor, city
solicitor, corporation counsel, city architect, city surveyor,
superintendent of Faneuil Hall Market, superintendent of street lights,
superintendent of sewers, superintendent of printing, superintendent of
bridges, five directors of ferries, harbour master and ten assistants,
water registrar, inspector of provisions, inspector of milk and vinegar,
a sealer and four deputy sealers of weights and measures, an inspector
of lime, three inspectors of petroleum, fifteen inspectors of pressed
hay, a culler of hoops and staves, three fence-viewers, ten
field-drivers and pound-keepers, three surveyors of marble, nine
superintendents of hay scales, four measurers of upper leather, fifteen
measurers of wood and bark, twenty measurers of grain, three weighers of
beef, thirty-eight weighers of coal, five weighers of boilers and heavy
machinery, four weighers of ballast and lighters, ninety-two
undertakers, 150 constables, 968 election officers and their deputies. A
few of these officials serve without pay, some are paid by salaries
fixed by the council, some by fees. Besides these there is a clerk of
the common council elected by that body, and also the city clerk, city
messenger, and clerk of committees, in whose election both branches of
the city council concur. The school committee, of twenty-four members,
elected by the people, is distinct from the rest of the city government,
and so is the board of police, composed of three commissioners appointed
by the state executive.[11]

[Footnote 11: Bugbee, "The City Government of Boston," _J.H.U.
Studies_, V., iii.]

[Sidenote: How city government comes to be a mystery.]
This long list may serve to give some idea of the mere quantity of
administrative work required in a large city. Obviously under such
circumstances city government must become more or less of a mystery to
the great mass of citizens. They cannot watch its operations as the
inhabitants of a small village can watch the proceedings of their
township and county governments. Much work must go on which cannot
even be intelligently criticised without such special knowledge as it
would be idle to expect in the average voter, or perhaps in any voter.
It becomes exceedingly difficult for the taxpayer to understand just
what his money goes for, or how far the city expenses might reasonably
be reduced; and it becomes correspondingly easy for municipal
corruption to start and acquire a considerable headway before it can
be detected and checked.

[Sidenote: In some respects it is more of a mystery that state and
national government.]
In some respects city government is harder to watch intelligently
than the government of the state or of the nation. For these wider
governments are to some extent limited to work of general supervision.
As compared with the city, they are more concerned with the
establishment and enforcement of certain general principles, and less
with the administration of endlessly complicated details. I do not
mean to be understood as saying that there is not plenty of intricate
detail about state and national governments. I am only comparing one
thing with another, and it seems to me that one chief difficulty with
city government is the bewildering vastness and multifariousness of
the details with which it is concerned. The modern city has come to be
a huge corporation for carrying on a huge business with many branches,
most of which call for special aptitude and training.

[Sidenote: The mayor at first had too little power.]
As these points have gradually forced themselves upon public attention
there has been a tendency in many of our large cities toward
remodeling their governments on new principles. The most noticeable
feature of this tendency is the increase in the powers of the mayor.

A hundred years ago our legislators and constitution-makers were much
afraid of what was called the "one-man power." In nearly all the