REAL  ESTATE







AND







NEW  YORK,  MARCH ,11, 1916





LOGICAL    REMEDY     FOR    STATE    INTERFERENCE

Charter Changes Needed to Protect Government of
City of New York from Local Appeals to Legislature





By Dr. FREDERICK A, CLEVELAND, Director, Bureau of Municipal Research





LET us keep in mind this fact: that
the laws which are denounced as
violating the principle of home rule sel¬
dom result from appeals originating out¬
side the city. Legislation imposing re¬
strictions and mandatory requirements
on municipal authorities in almost every
instance springs from .local intiative—
is based on applications of citizens of
the locality. These citizens are of two
classes: (1) Those who distrust their
officers, and (2) those who wish to take
advantage of defects in organization
which give rise to this distrust, and who
seek thereby to further their own selfish
ends. As set forth in the preceding
article, this is the necessary result of
charter defects.

Appraisal    of    Present Charter.

Whether critical judgment or sugges¬
tion of remedy is called for, the only ap¬
praisal of the present charter worthy of
consideration is one based on known and
accepted standards for judgment. Other¬
wise, opinion can be little more than
bald assertion.

Let it be first said then that the
foundation upon which all our stand¬
ards for judgment of defects, as well as
proposed remedies, must be erected is
democracy; the notion that the aflfairs of
the city shall be managed in a manner
to suit the wishes of a majority; and
that the purpose of the charter is to pro¬
vide the human machinery for doing the
things the people of the locality want
done. Reduced to definite forrnulae,
this fundamental notion carries with it
the following commonly accepted con¬
clusions:

That all authority is derived from
the people.

That the government is an incor¬
porated trusteeship and exists only
for the benefit of the people.

That the form or type of organ¬
ization provided by charter should
be such as is best adapted to the
work to be done.

That the work of the government
is to do well what the people want
done—i. e., to be efficient in render¬
ing such public services as the peo¬
ple desire the government to under¬
take for them.

That since neither the people as
such nor the corporation as trus¬
tee can do anything except through
human agents, it is necessary to pro¬
vide in the charter for an organiza¬
tion made up of two kinds of pub¬
lic servants—those who are made
responsible as doers, and those who
are made responsible as determiners
of the wishes of the people.

That servants, whether public or
private, can be made responsive and
responsible in only one way, namely,
by the master retaining and using
the power to "hire and fire"—i. e.,
to elect those to whom they will
entrust their affairs, and to promptly
retire froin their service those in
whom they no longer have confi¬
dence.

AU these are homely commonplaces
—they are conclusions of common ex¬
perience and common sense that have in
more stately language been set up and
generally  accepted  as  principles  of  the







DR.   FREDERICK   A.   CLBVBL,AND.

written and unwritten charters and con¬
stitutions of democracy. They apply to
the most highly developed institutions
which are premised on popular sov¬
ereignty. There are other conclusions
of common experience and common
sense that relate to that institutional
method of exercising popular control
known as the representative system or
representative government.

Government by Popular Assembly.

Before stating the principles of repre¬
sentative government as distinguished
from the more fundamental principles of
democracy, let us reflect for a rnoment
on the essentials of an organization for
doing what the people want done with¬
out representation—i. e., let us consider
the meaning of what is known as pure
democracy. Here all authority is in the
people; here, even in its simplest form,
as when the Pilgrims of the Mayflower
organized themselves as a body politic,
they organized a fictitious corporate
body which was to perform the func¬
tions of trustee for the welfare of the
whole community. Even in this simple
type they found it needful to make cer¬
tain persons responsible as doers, and
certain other persons responsible as de¬
terminers of the will of the people. Here,
however, in this small local community
the people could come together in one
assembly; but the people consented to
certain persons acting for them as elec¬
tors—to certain ones finding out and ex¬
pressing for them what they wanted the
government to do; and also to decide
whom they would entrust with the do¬
ing—at the same time retiring those of
their servants who were no longer
trusted. For these purposes the peo¬
ple accepted or consented to certain
persons — freemen — who would "vote"
and thereby express the will of a ma¬
jority.

Under these very simple, primitive
conditions the things to be provided for
in  their  charter,  other  than  the  settle¬





ment of private controversies, were to
set out clearly: (1) who should be con¬
stituted "electors" (persons charged with
no responsibility for doing, but only with
determining); and (2) who should be
the "executive" and what should be their
powers. But as a matter of enforcing
responsibility it is significant that they
thoufht it needful that the doers be re¬
quired from time to time to coine before
the assembled electors as determiners
and give an account of themselves—at
which time decision would also be made
as to whether they were to be further
entrusted with the people's business.
Essentials of a Representative System.
When the people come to be so numer¬
ous and widely scattered that they can¬
not meet at one place and conduct de¬
liberations, a representative system is
adopted. Then another problem of or¬
ganization presents itself, viz., the selec¬
tion and control of a personnel who will
meet from time to time to act for the
people in place of the "electorate."'
Under a representative system voters
are not charged with the duty of meet¬
ing and passing upon what has been done
and what is proposed by doers, and of
deciding whether the people should con¬
tinue to support their executives; this
duty is put on a "representative body"
—subject, however, to a right of appeal
by either party to the "electorate." Such
are the main essentials of a representa¬
tive system, whether employed for pur¬
poses of public or private management.
As a result of many years of use of the
representative system, certain additional
conclusions are commonly accepted as
prniciples of popular control. Those
which may be used for purposes of cri¬
tical judgment as to whether a particular
charter or constitution is well adapted
to making the government an instrument
for doing what the people want done may
be stated as follows:

The representative body must have
complete independence—i. e., if it is
to be eflfective is must be composed
of persons who, like the electorate,
have no responsibility for carrying
out the acts and proposals which are
to be made the subject of critical
review and discussion.

Complete and accurate informa¬
tion about what has been done and
what is proposed is an essential to
a representative government quite as
much as to a pure democracy—
without this the government will not
be trusted, because the doers can¬
not be held to account and the de¬
terminers cannot express the will of
a majority.

Popular sovereignty can be made
effective only when the people pro¬
vide a means whereby they can.
directly or indirectly, "hire and fire"
both the chief doers and those who
are elected as determiners—i. e., re¬
sponsibility to the people can be en¬
forced only when those who are
carrying on the work of the people
are trusted and require those who
are not trusted to resign.

The only effective way to force
executives to resign on a vote of lack
of confidence is to give to represen¬
tatives control over the purse.

It is the duty of the representa-