on can be drawn. Granted. We have emphasized repeatedly that
we are not standing for division of powers; we are standing for
separately constituted bodies, which shall co-operate. We are
defending no system of disconnected committees which the gentlemen
have spent a whole speech in attacking, and we have shown,
furthermore, that the evils are only augmented by going to the other
extreme and completely confusing the functions in one small body.
The gentlemen see no difference between principles of government and
the form or mechanism which embodies, adequately or inadequately,
those principles. They forget that the National Municipal League
debated for three years over detail of form, never once disagreeing
as to the essential principle of distinct bodies for legislation and
administration. They forget that the model charter, which is
efficient because it has a proper co-ordination of departments, is
based upon the same principle of separately constituted bodies as
the old board system with its disconnected departments and
complicated machinery. Because the machinery has been inadequate,
owing to causes which the gentlemen have ignored, they would abolish
the working principle which is proved correct in every instance of
successful city organization, wherever found.

Just a word on this over-worked argument of centering
responsibility. Accountability means that a man charged with the
performance of a task shall be held undividedly responsible for it.
Now the commissioners collectively legislate. They can not do this
without constantly and seriously intruding upon the work of the
several departments. The moment this is done, responsibility is
diffused. The Hume incident, mentioned by my colleague, is abundant
illustration of the way responsibility is fixed under a commission
form. Says Professor F.I. Herriot, head of the department of
political science in Drake University and statistician of the Iowa
board of control: "A commission form cuts at the very roots of
official accountability and responsibility and, strange enough, it
is because its friends believe that it enhances fixing of
responsibility that they propose it." This from a scholar who has
watched the plan in operation. A commission form does not fix
responsibility, but even granting for the sake of argument that it
does