number of departments, sometimes under one head, sometimes constituted as boards or commissions. The most important of these are directly elected by the people, for a term of one, two, three, or four years. Some, however, are chosen by the city legislature, some by the mayor with the approval of the legis lature or its upper chamber. In most cities the chief executive officers have been disconnected from one another, owing no common allegiance, except that which their financial dependence on the city legislature involves, and communicating less with the city legislature as a whole than with its committees, each charged with some one branch of adminstration, and each apt to job it. Education has been generally treated as a distinct matter, with which neither the mayor nor the municipal legislature has been suffered to meddle. It is committed to a Board of Education, whose members are separately elected by the people or appointed by the mayor, and who levy (though they do not themselves collect) a separate tax, and have an executive staff of their own at their disposal. The city legislature usually consists in small cities of one chamber, in large cities of two, the upper of which generally bears the name of the Board of Aldermen, the lower that of the Common Council. All are elected by the citizens, generally in wards, but the upper house occasionally by districts or on what is called a "general ticket," i.e., a vote over the whole city. Usually the common council is elected for one year, or at most for two years, the upper chamber frequently for a longer period. Both are usually unpaid in the smaller cities, sometimes paid in the larger. All city legislation, that is to say, ordinances, by-laws, and votes of money from the city treasury, are passed by the council or councils, subject in many cases to the mayor's veto. Except in a few cities governed by very recent charters, the councils have some control over at least the minor officials. Such control is exercised by committees, a method borrowed from the State and national legislatures, and suggested by the same reasons of convenience which have established it there, but proved by experience to have the evils of secrecy and irresponsibility as well as that of disconnecting the departments from one another. The city judges are only in so far a part of the municipal government that in most of the larger cities they are elected by the citizens, like the other chief officers. There are usually several superior judges, chosen for terms of five years and upwards, and a larger number of police judges or justices, generally for shorter terms. Occasionally, however, the State has prudently reserved to itself the appointment of judges. The election of city officers is usually made to coincide with that of State officers, perhaps also of Federal congressmen. This saves expense and trouble. But as it not only bewilders the voter in his choice of men by distracting his attention between a large number of candidates and places, but also confirms the tendency, already strong, to vote for city officers on party lines, there has of late years been a movement in some cities to have the municipal elections fixed for a different date from that of State or Federal elections, so that the undistracted and non-partisan thought of the citizens may be given to the former. When parties put forward questionable men, a nonpartisan list, or so-called "citizens' ticket," may be run by a combination of respectable men of all parties. Sometimes this attempt succeeds. The functions of city governments may be distributed into three groups-(a) those which are delegated by the State out of its general coercive and administrative powers, including the police power, the granting of licenses, the execution of laws relating to adulteration and explosives; (b) those which though done under general laws are properly matters of local charge and subject to local regulation, such as education and the care of the poor; and (c) those which are not so much of a political as of a purely business order, such as the paving and cleansing of streets, the maintenance of proper drains, the provision of water and light. In respect of the first, and to some extent of the second of these groups, the city may be properly deemed a political entity; in respect of the third it is rather to be compared to a business corporation or company, in which the taxpayers are shareholders, doing, through the agency of the city officers, things which each might do for himself, though with more cost and trouble. All three sets of functions are dealt with by American legislation in the same way, and are alike given to officials and a legislature elected by persons of whom a large part pay no direct taxes. Education, however, is usually detached from the general city government and entrusted to a separate authority, while in some cities the control of the police has been withheld or withdrawn from that government, and entrusted to the hands of a separate board. Taxes in cities, as in rural districts, are levied upon personal as well as real property; and the city tax is collected along with the county tax and State tax by the same collectors. There are, of course, endless varieties in the practice of different States and cities as to methods of assessment and to the minor imposts subsidiary to the property tax. Both real and personal property are usually assessed far below their true value, the latter because owners are reticent, the former because the city assessors are anxious to take as little as possible of the State and county burden on the shoulders of their own community, though in this patriotic effort they are checked by the county and State Boards of Equalization. Taxes are usually so much higher in the larger cities than in the country districts or smaller municipalities, that there is a strong tendency for rich men to migrate from the city to its suburbs in order to escape the city collector. Perhaps the city overtakes them, extending its limits and incorporating its suburbs; perhaps they fly farther afield by the railway and make the prosperity of country towns twenty or thirty miles away. The unfortunate consequence follows, not only that the taxes are heavier for those who remain in the city, but that the philanthropic and political work of the city loses the participation of those who ought to have shared in it. For a man votes in one place only, the place where he resides, and is taxed on his personalty, although he is taxed on his real property wherever it is situated, perhaps in half a dozen cities or counties. And where he has no vote, he is neither eligible for local office nor deemed entitled to take a part in local political agitation. |