t of Brooklyn.]
The first great city to adopt this method was Brooklyn. In the first
place the city council was simplified and made a one-chambered council
consisting of nineteen aldermen. Besides this council of aldermen, the
people elect only three city officers,--the mayor, comptroller,
and auditor. The comptroller is the principal finance officer and
book-keeper of the city; and the auditor must approve bills against
the city, whether great or small, before they can be paid. The mayor
appoints, without confirmation by the council, all executive heads of
departments; and these executive heads are individuals, not
boards. Thus there is a single police commissioner, a single fire
commissioner, a single health commissioner, and so on; and each of
these heads appoints his own subordinates; so that the principle
of defined responsibility permeates the city government from top
to bottom,[14] In a few cases, where the work to be done is rather
discretionary than executive in character, it is intrusted to a board;
thus there is a board of assessors, a board of education, and a board
of elections. These are all appointed by the mayor, but for terms
not coinciding with his own; "so that, in most cases, no mayor would
appoint the whole of any such board unless he were to be twice elected
by the people." But the executive officers are appointed by the mayor
for terms coincident with his own, that is for two years. "The mayor
is elected at the general election in November; he takes office on the
first of January following, and for one month the great departments of
the city are carried on for him by the appointees of his predecessor.
On the first of February it becomes his duty to appoint his own heads
of departments, and thus each incoming mayor has the opportunity to
make an administration in all its parts in sympathy with himself."

[Footnote 14: Seth Low on "Municipal Government," in Bryce's
_American Commonwealth_, vol. i. p. 626.]

With all these immense executive powers entrusted to the mayor,
however, he does not hold the purse-strings. He is a member of a board
of estimate, of which the other four members are the comptroller
and auditor, with the county treasurer and supervisor. This board
recommends the amounts to be raised by taxation for the ensuing year.
These estimates are then laid before the council of aldermen, who
may cut down single items as they see fit, but have not the power to
increase any item. The mayor