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Real estate record and builders' guide: [v. 97, no. 2508: Articles]: April 8, 1916

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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.)