must see to it that the administrative
work of the year does not use up more money than is thus allowed him.

[Sidenote: Some of its merits.]
This Brooklyn system has great merits. It ensures unity of
administration, it encourages promptness and economy, it locates
and defines responsibility, and it is so simple that everybody can
understand it. The people, having but few officers to elect, are
more likely to know something about them. Especially since everybody
understands that the success of the government depends upon the
character of the mayor, extraordinary pains are taken to secure good
mayors; and the increased interest in city politics is shown by the
fact that in Brooklyn more people vote for mayor than for governor
or for president. Fifty years ago such a reduction in the number of
elective officers would have greatly shocked all good Americans. But
In point of fact, while in small townships where everybody knows
everybody popular control is best ensured by electing all public
officers, it is very different in great cities where it is impossible
that the voters in general should know much about the qualifications
of a long list of candidates. In such cases citizens are apt to vote
blindly for names about which they know nothing except that they occur
on a Republican or a Democratic ticket; although, if the object of
a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and efficient
municipal government, to elect a city magistrate because he is a
Republican or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because
he believes in homoeopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums.[15] To
vote for candidates whom one has never heard of is not to insure
popular control, but to endanger it. It is much better to vote for
one man whose reputation we know, and then to hold him strictly
responsible for the appointments he makes. The Brooklyn system seems
to be a step toward lifting city government out of the mire of party
politics.

[Footnote 15: Of course from the point of view of the party politician,
it Is quite different. Each party has its elaborate "machine" for
electing state and national officers; and in order to be kept at
its maximum of efficiency the machine must be kept at work on all
occasions, whether such occasions are properly concerned with
differences in party politics or not. To the party politician it
of course makes a great difference whether a city magistrate is a
Republican or a Democrat. To him e