REAL  ESTATE







AND







NEW  YORK,  APRIL 8, 1916





MUNICIPAL    HOME   RULE,   WHY   IT   IS   NEEDED,
AND   HOW   IT   MAY   BE   OBTAINED





By LAURENCE  ARNOLD  TANZER





UNDER present political conditions in
this State, a demand for home rule
proceeding from New York City alone
would encounter so much local and par¬
tisan jealousy and selfishness as prob¬
ably to insure its defeat. Fortunately,
the demand comes not from New York
City alone, but from practically every
city in the State. What might be denied
to New York is likely to be granted in
the near future on the united demand
of the fifty-seven cities of the State, con¬
taining seven million of the nine million
inhabitants  of the entire  State.

While the need for home rule may be
more acutely felt in New York City than
elsewhere, the principles underlying the
demand for home rule and determining
its essential elements are everywhere the
same. The problem is a State-wide prob¬
lem and will here be considered as such.

Some speak of municipal home rule as
if it were a novel and dangerous propo¬
sal. In fact it is neither novel nor dan¬
gerous.

Guaranteed by Magna Charta.

Home rule is nothing more nor less
than the right of local self-government
with respect to purely local affairs. That
right is an old and well-recognized politi¬
cal principle; a right that has come into
disuse only in recent times. It was guar¬
anteed by Magna Charta, and has al¬
ways been part of the fundamental law
of this State. It was enjoyed for gen¬
erations by the City of New York. The
city's rights still rest to-day, in part,
on royal charters antedating the first
constitution of the State. The New York
City Charter of 1830 was drawn by a city
convention, composed of residents of the
city, and was adopted by the voters of
the city. The Charter of 1849 was like¬
wise approved by the voters of the city.
It was not until the time of the notorious
"Tweed Ring," that the process of whit¬
tling down local powers got fairly under
way,—a process which has finally
brought the cities of the State into a
condition of abject subjection to the will
of the majority for the time being in
control of the State Legislature.

This condition is one of the conse¬
quences of the corrupt partisanship that
has long been allowed to play havoc
with the government of the State. It
enables the party which can elect a
majority of the Legislature, not only to
appropriate the "spoils" of the State of¬
fices, but to extend its control over all
city governments throughout the State.
Machine politicians are naturally loth to
abandon so rich a field. But the people
are awakening to the necessity of hav¬
ing their government administered on
business principles; and this can be done
in the cities only by transferring the
control of the local governments from
the State Legislature to the people of the
localities or their chosen representatives.

Legislative  Domination.

The extent of legislative domination
over local affairs is not generally real¬
ized. In the period of eighteen years
from 1895 to 1912, of all the laws passed
by the Legislature, approximatelv fortv
per cent, were special and local laws af¬
fecting particular cities, towns, villages
and counties. During the six years from
1910 to 1915, there were introduced in
the Legislature 2,776 special city bills,
that   IS,   bills   relating  to   the   property,







LAURENCE   ARNOLD   TANZER.

government or afifairs of one or more
cities less than all the cities of a class,—
an average of 462 such bills each year.
In the period of fifteen years commenc¬
ing in 1897, the year of the enactment of
the Greater New York Charter, the Leg¬
islature passed 818 separate and special
acts directly affecting the property,
government or rights of the City of New
York,—an average of 54 a year,—outside
of and in addition to the large number
of acts directly amending the Greater
New York Charter.

These local laws on which the Legis¬
lature has been spending its time, regu¬
late the local affairs of cities down to
the minutest detail. Among the bills
passed at a single session of the Legis¬
lature were laws adding to the New
York Fire Department veterinarians with
rank and salaries the same as deputy
chiefs; abolishing the grade of doorman
in the New York Police Department;
authorizing the New York Board of Es¬
timate to inquire into and pay the claims
of John P. Worstell and Joseph P. Mc-
Namara for work, labor and services;
increasing from 10,000 to 40,000 square
feet the space in the New York Hall of
Records to be allotted to the Register
and Commissioner of Records; provid¬
ing for an assistant counsel to the Sheriff
of New York County at a salary of
$3,000; increasing the amount of sewer
construction bonds which might be is¬
sued by Binghamton from $125,000. to
$135,000 and the amount which may be
issued in any one year from $25,000 to
$35,000; changing the title of sergeants
of police in Buffalo to lieutenants of
police, changing the salary of superin¬
tendent of horses in the police depart¬
ment, etc.; authorizing payment of the
amount due the Gratta Construction Co.
for constructing a certain sewer in an
alley in Cohoes; authorizing Fulton to
borrow $3,575.69 to pay school teachers;
authorizing the Board of Education of
Lockport to reconstruct the Union
Street building; authorizing the corpora¬
tion counsel of Mount Vernon to ap¬
point an assistant corporation counsel;
authorizing the city council of New¬
burgh to spend $5,000 to entertain dele¬
gates  to  the  conventions  of  the  State





Firemen's Association and of the Grand
Army of the Republic; raising the maxi-
inum   salary   of   the   deputy   city   clerk
of Newburgh from $500 to $900.
Hindrance to  Good Government.

It seems too plain for argument that
no city can be well governed which must
look for the regulation of local matters
of this kind to a Legislature composed
of two hundred tnen chosen to legislate
for the entire State, most of them com¬
ing from districts remote from the local¬
ities affected. Municipal policies so de¬
termined are shaped, not according to
the needs of the city, but according to
the exigencies of party politics in the
Legislature, depending often on the in¬
troducer's subservience to the will of the
party boss on important matters of State
policy._ The city's needs become one of
the minor stakes in the game of party
politics.

_ The direct results of this system are
city government unbusinesslike and in¬
efficient, because its policies are not de¬
termined by the requirements of the city,
nor by the wishes of its inhabitants; "ity
legislation_ enacted by legislators un¬
familiar with local conditions, and, there¬
fore, arbitrarily and often unjustly;
patchwork legislation, hasty and ill-con¬
sidered, because passed in great volume
from among an enormous number of
proposals of all kinds and relating to
every locality in the State; city charters,
inelastic and unresponsive to changing
conditions because amendable only by
legislative act, the obtaining of which
is often difiicult and always doubtful.

The indirect effect, both on the city
and on the State, are even more serious.
The dependence of the city on the Legis¬
lature, the powerlessness of its inhabi¬
tants over their own affairs, tends to
bring about a lack of interest in public
affairs and so to deprive both the city
and the State of the stimulus of an active
and alert public spirit.

City Preyed Upon.

Government by city officials elected
by the people of the city, but controlled
by the Legislature is responsive and re¬
sponsible neither to the one nor to the
other. _ The city becomes the prey of
scheming politicians, who learn to man¬
ipulate the complicated interlocking ma-
cliinery of State and municipal govern¬
ment The difficulty of obtaining needed
legislation prevents or at least defers
and makes unduly difficult substantial
reforms and so discourages constructive
effort. Of 1,176 special city laws passed
by both houses of the Legislature and ac¬
cepted by the city authorities between
1910 and 1915, 201, or seventeen per cent,
were vetoed; no statistics are available
of the necessary bills introduced and not
passed, or not even introduced because
of the anticipated difficulty of procuring
their enactment. Much of the time of
city officials, which should be devoted to
running the city government, must be
wasted in lobbying at Albany, not only
to procure necessary legislation, but to
watch and defeat undesirable legislation:
Of the total number of special city bills
introduced during the period last men¬
tioned, forty-nine per cent failed of en¬
actment and of those passed seventeen
per cent were rejected by the cities.

The effect on the State government is
equally detrimental.   The large mass of
local legislation introduced distracts the
(Continued on page 551.)