ents, will naturally take
the word of its administrative head, especially since he desires the
same freedom. This was actually the case in Sacramento, Cal., where
the commission plan was tried for fifteen years and given up as an
abject failure. Says the Hon. Clinton White of that city: "In almost
every instance, the board soon came to the understanding that each
man was to be let alone in the management of the department assigned
to him. This resulted in there being in fact no tribunals exercising
a supervisory power over the executive of a particular department."
Honorable Judges, a reviewing and legislative body is indispensable
in city government and a commission makes no such provision. Weak in
administration, wholly lacking in matters of legislation, dangerous
as a theory of government, it cannot help but result in the complete
subjection of local government to the state. The inevitable result
of its permanent adoption will be that the important local
legislative functions will become a mere administrative board with
discretionary power as in the case of Washington, D.C. In the words
of Professor Goodnow: "The destruction of the city council has not
destroyed council government. It has simply made local policy a
matter of state legislative determination." If we wish to destroy
the life of the city, make it impotent to discharge the functions
for which it was organized, then, and then only, it might be
feasible to place over it a commission.

But, Honorable Judges, authorities are agreed that cities must be
allowed greater freedom of action in local affairs, that municipal
home rule is indispensable. The governments of our large cities have
been dominated to such an extent by the state legislatures, usually
partisan and irresponsible to the locality concerned, that in many
cases self-government has become a term, hollow and without meaning.

The gentlemen condemn the city council, yet they pass over the real
cause for its decay. Restore to the city its proper legislative
powers, confine the work of the council to legislation instead of
allowing it to go into details of administration, reduce the number
of councilmen, if necessary, adjust the method of representation,
introduce needed electoral and primary reform, establish
responsibility by means of uniform municipal accounting