THE OFFICE OF MAYOR

JOHN PURROY MITCHEL

Mayor of the City of New York

10 discuss adequately and fully the duties of the mayoralty

T

and the functions and duties of the board of estimate,

would be to cover the entire scope and field of municipal government, because the mayor and the board of estimate, taken together, touch the government of the city at every point. I shall try first to outline for you the duties and functions of the mayor, and in general terms the work of the board of estimate, and then to point out or possibly to point out as I go along-some of the major problems that present themselves to the mayor in the discharge of his duties either as mayor or as chairman of the board of estimate and apportionment.

The first thing that the mayor has to do when he assumes office is to appoint the heads of his administrative departments. There are, if I recollect aright, some twenty-nine departments under the jurisdiction of the mayor, of which he appoints the administrative heads.

I could not enumerate them all for you. You probably know them-the police department, the fire department, the departments of water supply, health, correction, tenements, and parks, the corporation counsel, the city chamberlain, and a number of others. The most important thing to the success of any mayor's administration is the selection of competent, qualified, trained men for the administration of these great departments.

In the days when the government of the city was dominated by political machines the plan and theory were to select these heads of departments for political service rendered. Their appointments were recommended to the mayor by the leader-we call him usually the "boss" of the reigning political party; and the mayor in a great many instances-I might say, as a rule-appointed to the administration of these departments the men presented to him by the political party responsible for his election. That was one theory of government, and at times it worked out to a degree, for often the men who have demonstrated particular

capacity in political life are qualified for the discharge of administrative duties, but in a great many instances it did not work out, and we had in office men who had made successes as district leaders, but who were wholly unfit to discharge the duties of public office and who were without the necessary qualification of common honesty for the discharge of those duties.

The theory of selection upon which the fusion of a year and a half ago, like the fusion which elected Mayor Low some years ago to office, was predicated, was that appointments to the headship of these departments should be based solely upon qualification, training and fitness to discharge the duties of the office, and without regard to political service rendered. That was the duty that first presented itself to me on assuming the office of mayor. There had been a number of political parties contributory to the fusion movement. Each of these parties felt that, subject, of course, to the prime requirement of competency and efficiency, it ought to receive recognition in these appointments. My point of view toward the selection of the heads of departments was that, first of all, I had to find men qualified; that if qualified and trained men could be found within the lines of these political parties contributory to the fusion, I should be glad to find them, to select them, and to appoint them. But if I could not find them within the lines of those parties within a reasonable length of time, or if I could find better qualified men outside the organizations of these parties, I felt that it was my duty to select those men.

On that basis the heads of the present city departments were selected and appointed. Some few of them are what might be called organization party men; but they were selected not for that reason, but because in the field of either public administration or private business they had demonstrated their capacity and proved their competency. A great many of the others are not what could be called organization party men. Conspicuously I think I might point to the commissioner of the department of correction, who neither is a man, nor is she actively allied with any particular party organization, so far as I know. And yet Miss Davis, the first woman commissioner appointed in the city of New York, has conspicuously made good, and demonstrated that as an administrator and a maker of departmental policy she is quite the equal of

any other commissioner, and the superior of any who has held the office which she now holds.

It may seem a simple undertaking to make selections upon that basis, but I assure you that it is no such thing. The pressure, the perfectly natural pressure, that comes from each one of the parties is great. You are urged that this particular applicant recommended by the party is quite as good as any other you may find elsewhere. He may, in fact, have some excellent qualifications. Perhaps the balance is almost even between him and the other man; and yet that other man may have some particular qualification, or some particular experience, that recommends him more strongly; and when the selection is made, then the party that recommended the other feels aggrieved, because it says, "After all, he was pretty nearly as good."

Furthermore, it is by no means an easy thing to persuade the men who are best qualified by training to accept appointment under the city government. The field of private enterprise offers far better financial returns than does the field of city government; and to men who have conspicuously made good in private business or in public office are offered opportunities in the private field that cannot be matched in the public service; and it is therefore at times difficult to entice these men into the public service; and it is only a sense of public duty and the realization of the opportunity for real service that has led into the city government some of the men who are now holding office as commissioners. I might point to the instance of Dr. Goldwater, the commissioner of health. Dr. Goldwater in the field of his private work was earning a return for himself more than three times his salary as commissioner of health. I offered him the opportunity of giving up that income and devoting his entire time to the administration of the department of health, and the only consideration that I had to offer him for that sacrifice was the conspicuous opportunity for a public service. He accepted the office, he has rendered that service and he has demonstrated how an efficient health department can be run. I am afraid that we shall not be able to hold him much longer. I do not blame him for feeling that he must return to the field of private work. You cannot expect a man to sacrifice his own interests forever. He has organized that department;

he leaves it when he goes-and I hope he will not go for some time to come he leaves it an efficient machine. He has laid down policies that will not be departed from under this administration, and that I believe will not be departed from under any future administration, so long as the people remain vigilant. But his case demonstrates the difficulty which we experience when we try to bring thoroughly competent and trained men into the public service and then to hold them.

The next most important thing, probably equally important, which the mayor is called upon to do, is to take his place as chairman of the board of estimate and apportionment, and participate in the work of that board. The board of estimate is the body of financial control of the city government, constituted as you know: the mayor, the comptroller, and the president of the board of aldermen, with three votes each; the borough presidents of Manhattan and Brooklyn, with two votes each; and the borough presidents of The Bronx, Queens and Richmond, with one vote each. This board appropriates all of the money devoted to the conduct of the business of the city government and apportions that money between departments, bureaus and subdivisions of the government. It authorizes the institution of all our great public works. It sets up the financial control which is administered partly by the comptroller and partly by the bureaus that the board of estimate has created for the conduct of its own business. It in very large measure makes the policy of the city of New York. By that I mean that it determines such broad questions as the construction of our rapid transit system, and the terms and conditions upon which that system should be constructed and operated. It determines the plan upon which our port is to be developed. It authorizes the institution of the various portions of that plan. It determines the financial policy of the city, as it did recently when by resolution it declared the institution of a new plan for financing permanent public improvements of a non-revenue-producing class, and said that improvements of that kind should hereafter be financed in increasing proportions out of the tax budget of the city of New York, instead of through the issue of fifty-year bonds. All these duties that board performs, and I can assure you that it is about as busy a deliberative body as sits