appoint committees to examine the books and records of any department or officer. In practice, though, it cannot be said that the board of aldermen of New York enjoys any large authority over the administration.

Finally, the ordinances passed by the city council are subject to the mayor's veto. In New York City, an ordinance vetoed by the mayor can go into effect only when repassed by two-thirds of the council, or by three-fourths if it involves expenditures, debt creation, or assessment, and the mayor's veto on grants of franchises, such as the council may make, is final.

The Mayor

The city has a mayor or chief magistrate who is, except in a very few instances, elected by popular vote. His term of service varies from one to five years annual election being most common in New England. The term in Jersey City is five years, in New York City, Chicago, and Boston, four years, and in most other important cities, such as Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, and San Francisco, it is two years. The salary of the mayor varies from a few hundred dollars in the smaller cities to $15,000 a year in New York an amount one-third larger than the salary of the governor and the largest paid in any city of the United States.

The powers of the mayor extend to legislative, administrative, and financial matters. Like the governor of the state, it is his duty to communicate at least once a year to the board of aldermen a general statement on the finances, improvements, and administration of the city. He may recommend to the city council, either in his annual message or from time to time, such measures as he may deem expedient. He furthermore enjoys the veto power in most of our cities; and mayors, following the example set by the governors,' have frequently used the veto, not only to defeat unlawful ordinances, but also to prevent the passage of measures which they deemed adverse to public interest. The mayor, in many cities, enjoys the power to veto separate items in appropriation bills. Following the example of the state constitutions, our city charters often provide that a vetoed ordinance

1 See above, p. 498.

2 For example, in Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York, and San Francisco, and in all Ohio and Illinois cities.

can become law only when repassed by the council by an extraordinary majority, sometimes two-thirds and in many instances even more; but in a few smaller cities the mayor's veto may be overridden by the repassage with the ordinary majority.

The financial powers of the mayor vary from city to city, but it may be said with safety that they are being steadily increased in the greater municipalities. The mayor not only enjoys, as we have seen, the power of vetoing financial measures, but he also has, in a number of instances, a very large control over the making of the city budget. It seems that in Boston the budget has long originated with the mayor as a matter of practice; and on the recommendation of the recent commission appointed to investigate the government of that city the preparation of the budget is now vested in the mayor in law, as well as in practice.' In New York City, the mayor enjoys a very peculiar position with regard to finances. He is a member of the board of estimate and apportionment and as such possesses three votes out of a total number of sixteen. He also has the power to veto bills involving finances passed by the board of aldermen, and it takes a three-fourths vote to override an exercise of this power. In Baltimore, the mayor is likewise a member of the board of estimate and he is a member of the commission of finance in charge of the sinking funds. It is also strongly recommended in the municipal program of the National Municipal League that a large power in arranging the city budget should be given to the mayor. This development is, of course, in line with the evolution of the budget system in England, where the preparation of the budget is vested in a responsible finance minister who is in close touch with the officers of the administration -and thus with the outgo of the moneys appropriated and is, at the same time, answerable to the electorate through his responsibility to the majority in the House of Commons. The waste, extravagance, and misappropriation of funds in our cities have been largely due to the fact that the financial administration has not been sufficiently concentrated in the hands of officers responsible to the electorate.

In the appointment of municipal officers and the direction of municipal administration, the power of the mayor is likewise * See above, p. 589.

1 See Readings, p. 524; below, 604.

steadily increasing. In the beginning of our history, municipal officers were generally appointed by the city council; but with the democratic revolution of the first half of the nineteenth century,' most of the important offices, boards, and commissions were made elective. It was found, however, by practical experience, that popular election did not actually secure responsibility of elected officers to the voters; for, owing to the number of offices and to the complexity of the election operations, the selection of candidates actually fell into the hands of expert politicians, who made the "slates" and thus secured possession of the municipal government. In order to check the corruption which resulted from this system, the device of "bi-partisan" boards and commissions was adopted with the hope that the representatives of one party would hold in check the representatives of the other party; but, in practice, it turned out that the representatives of the two parties, in a large number of instances, made terms with each other and divided the spoils of office.

Finding that the elective system did not really secure popular election and that the bi-partisan device did not check the spoilsmen, municipal reformers determined to try the experiment of concentrating the appointing power in the hands of the mayor thus making him responsible for the conduct of the whole administration. This development has reached its highest stage in the city of New York, where the mayor appoints the commissioners of the police force, the department of street cleaning, the fire department, the department of parks, the department of health, the tenement house department, and, in short, the heads of all important branches of the municipal administration; and enjoys also the unrestricted power of removing these municipal officers, except members of the board of education, judges, and a few others. Where the mayor has this large appointing and removing power he can really carry into effect that provision of the city charter which lays upon him the duty of seeing "that the laws and ordinances are faithfully executed."

Municipal Administration

As in the state and national government, so in our city governments, the growth of population and the development of many

1See above, p. 79.

special social problems have rendered necessary the multiplication of municipal functions; and to secure efficiency and responsibility almost every device known to the history of municipal administration has been tried in the United States. We have intrusted the great departments of administration —such as police, fire, streets, public works-to elective boards, to appointive boards, and to bi-partisan boards; and now, after many years of experimenting, we seem to be going in the direction of single-headed administrative departments, filled by the mayor under his appointing and removing power. As Professor Goodnow says, "the desirability of single-headed departments has come to be regarded as unquestionable; it is heretical at the present time to express the conviction that the board form is preferable."

The single-headed system, however, is not without its defects. Owing to the complexity of the duties required in the administration of a large municipal department, we cannot expect efficiency where the term of office is short and where the office is generally looked upon as a reward for political service. On the other hand, permanent tenure means the development of an official class which is regarded with suspicion by the American public and which in practice, by virtue of its mastery of the mysteries of the government, tends to check democratic control. It has been suggested, therefore,' that the various departments of municipal administration might be placed in the hands of unpaid boards, the members of which would determine only matters of general policy, leaving the technical details of administration to permanent officials selected for the most part under civil service rules. It is impossible here to go far into the details of the administration of American municipalities, but some idea of the difficult nature of the subject may be gathered from an examination of the executive branch of the government of New York City. At the head stands the mayor, whose powers and duties are partially described above. The entire area of greater New York is divided into five boroughs, Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. In each borough, a president is elected by popular vote. Many matters of borough administration are left to the 1 Goodnow, Municipal Government, p. 228.

2

2 On this large topic, Fairlie, Municipal Administration, and Essays in Municipal Administration.

president and a board of local improvement in each of several districts into which each borough is divided. This board of local improvements is composed of the aldermen of the district, elected to serve in the board of aldermen of the city; and in conjunction with the borough president it exercises large powers over the paving and repair of streets and highways, the laying of tracks, the construction of public buildings, and municipal works of a local character. Thus some important branches of municipal administration are decentralized, and, it is claimed, proper attention secured to all parts of the city by bringing public improvements more directly under the control of the elected officers of each of the districts into which the borough is divided.

The financial administration of the city is divided between two groups of authorities, the board of estimate and apportionment composed, as we have seen, of the mayor, comptroller, president of the board of aldermen, and the borough presidents and the department of finance, which includes the comptroller, chamberlain, and the board of commissioners of the sinking fund. It is the business of the board of estimate and apportionment to examine the departmental estimates submitted and prepare the city budget between October 1st and November 1st of each year. It also has the power of granting franchises (with the approval of the mayor), authorizing the issue of bonds, and controlling streets, highways, parks, docks, and other public properties.

The technical details of all financial administration are vested in the department of finance. The comptroller, elected by popular vote for a term of four years, looks after the accounts of the city and appoints a receiver of taxes and the collector of assessments and arrears. The chamberlain, appointed by the mayor, has charge of the receipts and payments; and the commissioners of the board in charge of the sinking fund1 administer the sinking fund for the redemption of the city debt, lease municipal property, control public lands, and cancel city bonds.

The other branches of municipal administration are distributed among the departments of law, police, water-supply, gas and electricity, street cleaning, bridges, parks, public charities, corrections, fire, docks and ferries, taxes and assessments, education,

1 Composed of the mayor, comptroller, chamberlain, president of the board of aldermen, and chairman of the finance committee of the board of aldermen.