Negative are sponsors. Thus far the gentlemen have failed to
disprove the points which we have presented that the theory of
checks and balances when applied to American cities has failed; that
the plan of concentrating municipal authority under one head as
advocated by the commission plan is in complete harmony with modern
industrial and social development, and that the plan is superior
from a legislative standpoint. It shall be my purpose to show that
it is superior from the standpoint of administration. We believe
this because the commission lends itself to the application of
business methods. The plan provides for a comparatively small body
of men who meet in daily session and who give their whole time to
the work of governing the city. At present, too often the real
business of the officials is anything else. They give their spare
time to the city and we have seen the results. Honorable judges, we
claim that there is a special virtue in the very smallness of the
number inasmuch as they are properly paid, devote all their time to
their work, and are made in fact governors of the city. They have a
great deal of work to do and they do it, while under our present
systems the councilmen have comparatively little to do and they fail
to do that little efficiently.

The reason why this small body can administer with dispatch and
efficiency is seen at a glance. Each commissioner is the head of a
department for which he is personally responsible. He is not
hindered as is the executive at present by an inefficient and
meddling council which has more power, often, than the executive
himself. He knows the laws for he has helped to make them. It is his
business to see that they are executed, and if they are not, he
cannot escape blame. He cannot plead ignorance, lack of
responsibility, or lack of power as do present administrative
officers.

Moreover, this body is admirably constituted for effective carrying
out of city business. It is larger than the single headed executive
and possesses, therefore, a division of work which makes the
administration far more effective. At the same time it is smaller
than the old council and for that reason is more efficient in
enacting the city's peculiar kind of legislation. In actual
practice, and that seems to be the real test of city government,