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 fttetirg *W. Sage 
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 Short ballot, 
 
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The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031447224 
 
THE HANDBOOK SERIES 
 
 Short Ballot 
 
DEBATERS' 
 HANDBOOK SERIES 
 
 Direct Primaries (3d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Capital Punishment (2d ed. rev.) 
 
 Commission Plan of Municipal Govern- 
 ment (3d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Election of United States Senators (2d ed. 
 rev.) 
 
 Income Tax (2d ed. rev. and enl. ) 
 
 Initiative and Referendum (3d ed. rev. 
 and enl.; 
 
 Central Bank of the United States 
 
 Woman Suffrage (2d ed. rev.) 
 
 Municipal Ownership (2d ed. rev. and 
 enl.) 
 
 Child Labor (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Open versus Closed Shop (2d ed.) 
 
 Employment of Women 
 
 Federal Control of Interstate Corporations 
 (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Parcels Post (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Compulsory Arbitration of Industrial Dis- 
 putes (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Compulsory Insurance 
 
 Conservation of Natural Resources 
 
 Free Trade vs. Protection 
 
 Government Ownership of Railroads (2d 
 ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 Reciprocity 
 
 Trade Unions 
 
 Recall (2d ed. rev. and enl.) 
 
 World Peace 
 
 Government Ownership of Telegraph and 
 Telephone 
 
 Single Tax 
 
 Monroe Doctrine 
 
 HANDBOOK SERIES 
 
 European War 
 Agricultural Credit 
 Short Ballot 
 
 Other titles in preparation 
 
 Each volume, one dollar net 
 
THE HANDBOOK SERIES 
 
 Short Ballot 
 
 Compiled by 
 EDNA D. BULLOCK 
 
 THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 
 
 WHITE PLAINS, N. Y., AND NEW YORK CITY 
 
 1915 
 
 £-V. 
 
Published, August, 1915 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTE 
 
 This Handbook is designed to furnish general information 
 on the various governmental activities as related to the short 
 ballot idea. The subject is new, but already has a large litera- 
 ture. Much of this literature pertains to the commission form 
 of city government — a subject to which one of the earlier vol- 
 umes of the Handbook Series is devoted. Consequently that 
 subject is omitted from this volume. Readers are advised to 
 refer also to the handbook on the commission form of city gov- 
 ernment in order to get a comprehensive view of the short 
 ballot movement. 
 
 This Handbook concerns itself with the short ballot idea as 
 applied to state and county government, and also includes the 
 city manager plan of municipal government. 
 
 E. D. B. 
 April 19, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Bibliographies ix 
 
 General References ix 
 
 State Government xiv 
 
 County Government xiv 
 
 City Government xv 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 General Discussion 
 
 Bright Prospects in New York Equity 3 
 
 Brogan, Francis A. Short Ballot and the Judiciary 
 
 Nebraska State Journal 5 
 
 Childs, Richard S. Politics without Politicians II 
 
 Childs, Richard S. Short Ballot ; a Movement to Simplify 
 
 Politics Outlook 21 
 
 Childs, Richard S. What a Democracy Would Be Like 
 
 Everybody's 30 
 
 How.e, Frederic C. Constitution and Public Opinion 
 
 Academy of Political Science. Proceedings 34 
 
 Ohio Defeat Equity 40 
 
 Politics without the Politician ' World's Work 41 
 
 Short Ballot Outlook 42 
 
 Short Ballot Again Outlook 45 
 
 Short Ballot Movement in New York Equity 48 
 
 Garvin, F. C. Shortest Ballot Independent 49 
 
 Short Ballot— What It Is— Its Progress to Date 
 
 Equity Series 54 
 
 State Government 
 
 Future State Government Equity Series 63 
 
 Kansas. Governor. Message to the Legislature 66 
 
 New Type of State Government Equity Series 70 
 
 Problem of State Government Equity Series 75 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 County Government 
 
 Childs, Richard S. County Manager Plan. Proceedings. 
 
 Fiirst Conference for Better County Government in N. Y. 87 
 Childs, Richard S. Personal Suggestion for a Model County 
 
 Short Ballot Bulletin 94 
 
 County Commission Government World's Work 96 
 
 County Problem Equity Series 97 
 
 First Short Ballot County 99 
 
 Gilbertson, H. S. Commission Government and Paid Man- 
 agers for Counties Survey 103 
 
 Gilbertson, H. S. Discovery of the County Problem 
 
 Review of Reviews 105 
 
 City Government 
 
 Buttenheim, Harold S. City Charters and the Short Ballot 
 American City 115 
 
 Childs, Richard S. Short Ballot and the Commission Plan 
 Annals of the American Academy 123 
 
 Crosby, John. Municipal Government Administered by a 
 General Manager Annals of the American Academy 130 
 
 Gilbertson, H. S. City-Manager Plan and Expert City Man- 
 agement Annals of the American Academy 137 
 
 Gilbertson, H. S. Short Ballot in American Cities 
 
 Review of Reviews 141 
 
 Silvernail, F. D. Lockport Proposal 
 
 Annals of the American Academy 148 
 
 Upson, L. D. City-Manager Charter of Dayton 
 
 Annals of the American Academy 152 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 An asterisk (*) preceding a reference indicates that the entire article 
 or a part of it has been reprinted in this volume. Many of the magazine 
 articles and pamphlets listed here, as well as similar material that may be 
 published after this volume is issued, may be secured at reasonable rates 
 from the Wilson Package Library, operated by The H. W. Wilson Company. 
 
 Bibliographies 
 
 Kansas. University. Bulletin, n, No. 10:35-6. Jl. '10. List 
 of References on the Short Ballot. 
 
 Kansas. University. Bulletin. 15, No. 18 : 26-7. S. '14. City 
 Manager Plan : Bibliography. 
 
 Kansas. University. Bulletin. 15, No. 18:49-52. S. '14. Uni- 
 cameral Legislation : Bibliography. 
 
 Munro, W. B. Bibliography of Municipal Government. Har- 
 vard University Press. 
 
 Wright, J. Check List of Bibliographies Relating to Municipal 
 Government. Harvard University Press. 1914. 
 
 Special Libraries. 2:58-61. Je. '11. Select List of References 
 on the Short Ballot. H. H. B. Meyer. 
 
 General References 
 Books and Pamphlets 
 
 American Yearbook, 1910. Short Ballot, p. 150. 
 
 Beard, Charles A. Ballot's Burden. Ginn, 1909. 
 
 Reprinted from Political Science Quarterly. 24:589-614. December, 1909. 
 
 Bradford, Gamaliel. Lesson of Popular Government. 2v. Mac- 
 millan. 1899. 
 
 California. Governor (Hiram W. Johnson). Inaugural Ad- 
 dress before the Joint Assembly at Sacramento, January 3, 
 1911. 
 
 Chicago. Bureau of Public Efficiency. Nineteen Local Govern- 
 ments in Chicago. 1913. 
 
 *Childs, Richard S. Politics without Politicians; an Explana- 
 tion of the Principles of the Short Ballot. Short Ballot 
 Organization. 191 1. 
 Reprinted from the Saturday Evening Post, January 22, 19 10. 
 
x BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Childs, Richard S. Principle of Wieldy Districts. Short Bal- 
 lot Organization. 191 1. 
 
 Reprinted from Proceedings of the National Municipal League, 19 10. 
 Childs, Richard S. Real Democracy : the Need of Simplifying 
 the Instruments of Popular Control of Government. Short 
 Ballot Organization. 
 
 Reprinted from Proceedings of the American Political Science Associ- 
 ation, 1910. 
 
 Childs, Richard S. Short Ballot Principles. Houghton. 1911. 
 
 City Club. Chicago. Short Ballot in Illinois. 
 
 Conference for Good City Government. Proceedings, 1906: 
 
 349-62. Australian Ballot System of Massachusetts. R. H. 
 
 Dana. 
 Conference for Good City Government. Proceedings, 1509 : 464- 
 
 70. Short Ballot Principle. 
 Dallinger, F. W. Nominations for Elective Office in the United 
 
 States. (Harvard Historical Studies, v. 4). pp. 148-9. 
 
 Longmans. 1897. 
 Dole, Charles Fletcher. Spirit of Democracy. Crowell. 1906. 
 Hillquit, Morris. Attitude of Socialists towards the Short Ballot 
 
 Movement. National Office of the Socialist Party. 191 1. 
 International Yearbook, 1909:221-5. Electoral Reform. 
 Kales, A. M. Unpopular Government in the United States. 
 
 University of Chicago Press. 1914. 
 Kaye, P. L. Readings in Civil Government: the Short Ballot. 
 
 pp. 384-91. Century. 1910. 
 Merriam, C. E. Primary Elections ; On the Multiplicity of 
 
 Elective Offices, pp. 289-95. University of Chicago Press. 
 
 1908. 
 Michigan. Governor (Woodbridge N. Ferris). Second Inaugu- 
 ral Message, January 7, 1915. 
 National Short Ballot Organization. Short Ballot in the State 
 
 of New York, March, 1914. 
 National Short Ballot Organization. Yearbook, 1914. 
 New York C State). Governor (Charles S. Whitman). Inau- 
 gural Address and Message to the Legislature, January, 1915. 
 New York Short Ballot Organization. Abolition of the Office 
 
 of Coroner in New York City. March, 1914. 
 Nichols, Edward Ray, ed. Intercollegiate Debates, v. 2. Short 
 
 Ballot. Kansas University vs. Oklahoma University, April 
 
 12, 191 t. Hinds and Noble. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY xi 
 
 Philadelphia. City Club. Bulletin. 2 : 140-56. Ap. 21, '10. Form 
 of the Ballot. R. H. Dana and C. J. Shearn. 
 
 Rosewater, Victor. Need of the Short Ballot in Nebraska. 
 (Proceedings of a Short Ballot Conference held by the Ne- 
 braska Popular Government League, January 15, 1915.) 
 Manuscript. 
 
 St. Louis, Missouri. Civic League. Short Ballot Committee. 
 The Short Ballot, the Key to Popular Government. What 
 It Is. What It Will Do. How to Get It in St. Louis. 
 
 Shurter, Edwin Dubois, and Taylor, Carl Cleveland. Both Sides 
 of 100 Public Questions Briefly Debated. Short Ballot, pp. 
 132-4. Hinds and Noble, c. 1913. 
 
 Stickney, Albert. True Republic. Harper. 1879. 
 
 United .States. 61st Congress, 2d Session. Senate Doc. 603. 
 Code of the People's Rule. Short Ballot, pp. 162-5. Robert 
 L. Owen, corrip. 
 
 Washington (State). Governor (M. E. Hay). Second Mes- 
 sage to the Legislature f 191 1. Short Ballot, pp. 28-9. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow. Address on the Short Ballot before the 
 City Club, Philadelphia. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow. Civic Problems. Address Delivered March 
 9, 1909, at the Annual Meeting of the Civic League of St. 
 Louis. 
 
 Magazine Articles 
 
 *Academy of Political Science. Proceedings. 5 : 7-19. O. '14. 
 
 Constitution and Public Opinion. Frederic C. Howe. 
 American City. 2 : 81-2. F. '10. Short Ballot. 
 American City. 2:129-32. Mr. '10. Simplification of Politics. 
 
 James W. Wadsworth, jr. 
 American City. 3 1235. N. '10. Short Ballot Organization. 
 
 Arthur H. Grant. 
 American City. 11 : 11-13. Jl. '14 City Manager Plan — the 
 
 Application of Business Methods to Municipal Government. 
 
 Henry M. Waite. 
 American Political Science Association. Proceedings, 1909. 6 : 
 
 65-71. Ballot Reform; the Need of Simplification. Richard 
 
 S. Childs. 
 American Political Science Association. Proceeedings, 1909. 6 
 
 93-9. Tendencies Affecting the Size of the Ballot. Charles 
 
 A. Beard. 
 
xii BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 American Political Science Association. Proceedings, 1909. 6 : 
 72-92. Proposed Methods of Ballot Simplification. Arthur 
 C. Ludington. 
 American Political Science Review. 3:252-61. My. '09. Present 
 Status of Ballot Laws in the United States. Arthur Luding- 
 ton. 
 American Political Science Review. 5:79-83- F. '11. Progress 
 
 of Short Ballot Movement. Arthur Ludington. 
 American Political Science Review. 6:310-15. My. '12. Short 
 Ballot Principles by Richard S. Childs, Review. Arthur 
 Ludington. 
 City Hall. 11 : 329-30. Ap. 10. Short Ballot. 
 
 Review of an article by Woodrow Wilson in the North American Re- 
 view for May, 1910. 
 
 Equity Series. 12:7-9. Ja- '10. Short Ballot and Its Relation 
 to Direct Legislation and Proportional Representation. C. G. 
 Hoag. 
 
 Equity Series. 12 : 77. Ap '10. Political Ambush. B. B. Lind- 
 sey. 
 
 Equity Series. 12 : 77-9. Ap. '10. Short Ballot Principle. 
 Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Equity Series. 12 : 123-4. Jl- '10. Short Ballot. Winston 
 Churchill. 
 
 Equity Series. 12 : 124-8. Jl. '10. Fake Democracy. Richard 
 S. Childs. 
 
 Equity Series. 12:173-6. O. 'io. What Offices Should Remain 
 Elective Under the Short Ballot Plan? Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Equity Series. 13 : 45-8. History of the Short Ballot Move- 
 ment to Date. Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Equity Series. 13:102-3. Ap. '11. Direct Legislation and the 
 Short Ballot. H. E. Deming. 
 
 Equity Series. 15 : 238-9. O. '13. Short Ballot Movement in 
 Ohio. 
 
 ♦Equity Series. 15 : 84-8. Ja. '13. Short Ballot— What It Is— Its 
 Progress to Date. 
 
 ♦Equity. 16: 56. Ja. '14. Ohio Defeat. 
 
 ♦Equity. 16: 56. Ja. '14. Short Ballot Movement in New York. 
 
 ♦Equity. 17:76-8. Ja. '15. Bright Prospects for the Short Bal- 
 lot in New York. 
 
 ♦Everybody's. 26:372-3. Mr. '12. What a Democracy Would 
 Be Like. Richard S. Childs. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY xiii 
 
 Forum. 51 : 354-64. Mr. '14 Making Government Efficient. 
 
 T. E. Danner. 
 Independent. 67 : 1389-90. D. 16, '09. Short Ballot. 
 ♦Independent. 69: 1152-5; 1316. N. 4, D. 15, '10. Shortest Ballot. 
 
 Lucius F. C. Garvin. Reply. Short Enough Ballot. Richard 
 
 S. Childs. 
 Michigan Law Review. 6 : 228-37. Ja. '08. Are too Many Ex- 
 ecutive Officers Elective? B. M. Thompson. 
 ♦Nebraska State Journal. F. 21, '15. Short Ballot and the 
 
 Judiciary. Francis A. Brogan. 
 North American Review. 113:321-43. O. '71. Misgovernment 
 
 of New York — a Remedy Suggested. Charles Nordhoff. 
 North American Review. 191 : 585-601. My. '10. Hide-and-seek 
 
 Politics. Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 Reviewed in City Hall. 11:329-30. April, igio. 
 North American Review. 191:602-11. My. '10. Multifarious 
 
 Australian Ballot. P. L. Allen, 
 
 Reprinted in Paul S. Reinsch's "Readings on American State Gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 *Outlook. 92:635-9. Jl. 17, '09. Short Ballot: a Movement to 
 Simplify Politics. Richard S. Childs. 
 Reprinted in part by the National Short Ballot Organization. 
 
 ♦Outlook. 92:780-1, 829-31, 971-2, J'l. 31, Ag. 7, 28. '09. Short 
 
 Ballot Principle. 
 Outlook. 93 :896-7. D. 25, '09. Desirability of the Short Ballot. 
 
 H. E. Deming. 
 ♦Outlook. 92 : 971-2. Ag. 28, '09. Short Ballot. 
 Outlook. 93 : 996. D. 25, '09. Ineffective Voter and the Short 
 
 Ballot. H. J. Haskell. 
 Outlook. 99:362-3. O. 14, '11. Sham Democracy. 
 
 A review of "Short Ballot Principles," by Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Outlook. 103 : 332-3. F. 15, '13. Progress of the Short Ballot. 
 Political Science Quarterly. 15 : 260-72. Je. '00. Complexity of 
 
 American Governmental Methods. C. R. Woodruff. 
 Political Science Quarterly. 21 : 38-58. Mr. '06. Ballot Laws 
 
 and Their Working: P. L. Allen. 
 Political Science Quarterly. 24 : 589-614. D. '09. Ballot's Burden. 
 
 Charles A. Beard. 
 
 Reprinted in part in his "American Government and Politics," pp. 469-87. 
 Short Ballot Bulletin, v. i-date. Feb. 1911-date. Short Ballot 
 
 Organization. 
 
xiv BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Survey. 24:716-17. Ag 20, '10. Short Ballot Cure for Mis- 
 government. 
 *WorId's Work. 19:12760-1. Ap. '10. Politics without the 
 
 Politician. 
 
 State Government 
 
 *Equity Series. 15 : 100-2. Ap. '13. Future State Government. 
 
 ♦Equity Series. 15 : 156-61. Jl. '13. Problem of State Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 ♦Equity Series. 15:203-6. O. '13. New Type of State Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Independent. 74 : 757-9. Ap. 3, '13. State Rule by Commission. 
 Charles M. Harger. 
 
 ♦Kansas. Governor (George H. Hodges). Message to the 
 Legislature, March 10, 1913. 
 
 Kansas. State Library. Legislative Reference Department. 
 Legislative Systems. 1914. 
 
 Contains a bibliography. 
 
 Literary Digest. 46:934-5. Ap. -26, '13. Commission Govern- 
 ment for States. 
 
 Outlook. 103 :742-3. Ap. 5, '13. Commission Government for 
 States. 
 
 County Government 
 
 Books and Pamphlets 
 
 Cartwright, Otho Grandford. Some Needs to Be Considered in 
 Reconstructing County Government. (In Proceedings of the 
 First Conference for Better County Government in New 
 York State, Nov. 13-14, 1914. pp. 8-21.) 
 
 ♦Childs, Richard S. County Manager Plan. (In Proceedings of 
 the First Conference for Better County Government in New 
 York State, November 13-14, 1914. pp. 65-73.) 
 
 ♦National Short Ballot Organization. First Short Ballot County. 
 
 Magazine Articles 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 41 : 193-203. My. '12. Effi- 
 ciency in County Government. Otho Grandford Cartwright 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47 : 3-13. My, '13. Elements 
 of the County Problem. H. S. Gilbertson, 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY xv 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47 : 14-25. My. '13. County 
 Community and Its Government. William L. Bailey. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47:26-38. My. '13. County 
 Government in New England. Frank A. Updyke. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47 : 85-100. My. '13. County 
 in Politics. Chester Lloyd Jones. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47:274-8. My. '13. Theo- 
 retically Perfect County. Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47 : 229-36. My. '13. County 
 Home Rule in California; the Los Angeles County Charter. 
 Lewis R. Works. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 47 : 271-3. My. '13. State 
 and County Government in Oregon and Proposed Changes. 
 W. S. U'Ren. 
 
 ♦Equity. 16:53-4. Ja- 'i4- County Problem. 
 
 * Review of Reviews. 46:604-8. N. '12. Discovery of the County 
 Problem. H. S. Gilbertson. 
 
 *Short Ballot Bulletin. 1 : 2-3. F. '12. Personal Suggestions 
 for a Model County. Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Survey. 31 : 49. Ja. 24, '14. Commission Government and Paid 
 Managers for Counties. H. S. Gilbertson. 
 
 *Survey. 31 :490. Ja. 24, '14. Commission Government and Paid 
 Managers for Counties. H. S. Gilbertson. 
 
 Survey. 31 : 491-2. Ja. 24, "14. Significance and Character of 
 Reform for Counties. T. L. Hinckley. 
 
 ♦World's Work. 26:274. J'- ' T 3- County Commission Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 City Government 
 
 A complete bibliography of commission form of municipal government 
 is included in the Debater's Handbook on that subject — hence its omission 
 here. 
 
 Books and Pamphlets 
 
 Amarillo, Texas. Charter Adopted November 18, 1914. 
 
 Beard, Charles A. City Manager Plan of Municipal Govern- 
 ment. 2d ed. National Short Ballot Organization. 1914. 
 
 Beard, Charles A. ed. Loose Leaf Digest of Short Ballot 
 Charters. A Documentary History of the Commission Form 
 of Municipal Government. National Short Ballot Organiza- 
 tion. 191 1. 
 
xvi BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Childs, Richard S. Story of the Short Ballot Cities; an Ex- 
 planation of the Success of the Commission Form of Munici- 
 pal Government. National Short Ballot Organization. 
 
 City Manager Plan of Municipal Government. American City. 
 1914. 
 
 Dayton, Ohio. Charter Commission. Proposed Charter for the 
 City of Dayton. 1913. 
 
 Dayton, Ohio. City Manager. Report of the City of Dayton, 
 January 1 to June 30, 1914, Submitted to the City Commis- 
 sioners, August 1, 1914. Bureau of Municipal Research, Day- 
 ton, Ohio. 
 
 Deming, H. E. Government of American Cities ; a Program of 
 Democracy. Putnam. 1909. 
 
 Goodnow, F. J. City Government in the United States. Cen- 
 tury. 1906. 
 
 Goodnow, F. J. Municipal Government. Century. 1909. 
 
 Hoag, C. G. Representative Council Plan of City Government. 
 American Proportional Representation League. Pamphlet. 
 No. 2. 1913. 
 
 Holsinger, S. D. General Manager Plan of Government of 
 Staunton, Va. 1914. 
 
 Lockport, New York. Board of Trade. The Lockport Plan. 
 
 National Municipal League. Commission Plan and Commission- 
 Manager Plan of Municipal Government. 
 
 Robbins, E. Clyde. Selected Articles on the Commission Plan 
 of Municipal Government. 3d ed. The H. W. Wilson Com- 
 pany. 1912. 
 Contains a bibliography. 
 
 Sumter, South Carolina. Chamber of Commerce. City Man- 
 ager Plan of Municipal Government. 1913. 
 Reprinted in Beard's Loose Leaf Digest of Short Ballot Charters. 
 
 Texas University. Bulletin. February 20, 1915. What Is the 
 City Manager Plan? Herman G. James. 
 Contains a bibliography. 
 
 Waite, Henry M. Commission Manager Plan in Actual Opera- 
 tion. National Municipal League. 1915. 
 
 Upson, L. D. Charter Primer. Bureau of Municipal Research, 
 Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Wilcox, D. F. Study of City Government, pp. 227-32. Mac- 
 millan. 1897. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY xvii 
 
 Magazine Articles 
 
 * American City. 7 : 339-43. O. '12. City Charters and the Short 
 Ballot. Harold S. Buttenheim. 
 
 American City. 9:523-5. D. '13. Town Manager as City, En- 
 gineer. K. Riddle. 
 
 American City. 10:37-40. Ja. '14. Commission Form versus 
 City-Manager Plan. E. S. Bradford; H. S. Gilbertson. 
 
 American City. 11:11-13. J'- 'i4- City Manager Plan — the Ap- 
 plication of Business Methods to Municipal Government. 
 Henry M. Waite. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. Commission Government in 
 American Cities, 2d ed., 1914:871. Adoption of the City- 
 Manager Plan. E. S. Bradford. 
 
 ♦Annals of the American Academy. 38:816-22. N. 11. Short 
 Ballot and the Commission Plan. Richard S. Childs.- 
 
 ♦Annals of the American Academy. 38:877-83. N. '11. Munici- 
 pal Government Administered by a General Manager — the 
 Staunton Plan. John Crosby. 
 
 ♦Annals of the American Academy. 38:884-7. N. 'n. The 
 Lockport Proposal. F. D. Silvernail. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. Commission Government and 
 the City Manager Plan. 2d ed. Am. Acad. 1914. 
 
 ♦Annals of the American Academy. Commission Government in 
 American Cities, 2d ed., 1914 : 862-70. City Manager Charter 
 of Dayton. L. D. Upson. 
 
 ♦Annals of the American Academy. Commission Government in 
 American Cities, 2d ed., 1914 : 872-6. City Manager Plan and 
 Expert City Management. H. S. Gilbertson. 
 
 Arizona Republican. Phoenix, Arizona. September 12, 1913. 
 Proposed Charter of the City of Phoenix. 
 
 California Outlook. O. 25, "13. Commission Form and the City 
 Manager Plan. E. M. Wilder. 
 
 Conference on Good City Government. 1909 : 464-8. Short Bal- 
 lot Principle. Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Collier's. 52 : 5-6. Ja. 3, '14. Business-Managing a City. I. F. 
 Marcosson. 
 
 Equity Series. 15 : 239-40. O. '13. New City Manager Charters. 
 
 Kansas Municipalities. 1 : 13-8. Ja. '15. Commission Manager 
 Plan of City Government. C. A. Dykstra. 
 
t 
 xviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Literary Digest. 48:147-8. Ja. 24, '14. Driving Politics out of 
 Dayton. 
 
 Outlook. 93 : 608-10. N. 20, '09. Boston Adopts the Short Bal- 
 lot. 
 
 *Review of Reviews. 45 : 82-5. Ja. '12. Short Ballot in Ameri- 
 can Cities. H. S. Gilbertson. 
 
 Review of Reviews. 49 : 144-5. F. '14. Progress of the City 
 Manager Plan. 
 
 Review of Reviews. 49:714-7. Je. '14. How Dayton's City 
 Manager Plan is Working. L. D. Upson. 
 
 Technical World. 21 : 13-9. Mr. '14. Democracy Chooses an 
 Autocrat. W. W. Renwick. 
 
 Twentieth Century Magazine. 3:500-2. Mr. '11. The Short 
 Ballot — the Secret of the Success of the Commission Plan. 
 Richard S. Childs. 
 Also printed in C. A. Beard's Loose Leaf Digest of Short Ballot 
 
 Charters. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The selection of the term "Short Ballot" for the political 
 philosophy that goes by that name is not particularly appropriate, 
 being a surface designation for a deep and fundamental sub- 
 ject. The shortening of the ballot is merely the method by 
 which the desired result is to be accomplished. 
 
 The Short Ballot is, in brief, that system of popular govern- 
 ment which reduces the number of elective offices to a mimimum. 
 This reduction is advocated by those who believe that knowl- 
 edge of the fitness of a candidate on the part of the voter is 
 requisite to intelligent voting. The complexities of modern mu- 
 nicipal life preclude the possibility of personal knowledge of 
 any considerable number of candidates. The solidarity of the 
 New England town cannot be attained by the more densely 
 populated urban districts. 
 
 Short Ballot advocates plan to greatly reduce the number 
 of elective officials and to hold the executive responsible for the 
 government, and subject to recall if the electors are not satis- 
 fied. 
 
 The Short Ballot has been applied to various phases of local 
 government. New Jersey elects one executive officer — the gov- 
 ernor. California has a short ballot county. Many cities have 
 adopted some form of Short Ballot government. As evidence 
 that the Short Ballot idea is making headway, the governors of 
 eleven states — Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michi- 
 gan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington and West Vir- 
 ginia recommended in messages to their respective legislatures 
 in 19.15 some form of Short Ballot for state or county govern- 
 ment, or both. 
 
 The idea of responsible government by a few carefully chosen 
 citizens has been quite generally accepted for cities — but the 
 application of the principle to state and county government 
 makes slower progress. > 
 
 With the coming of the initiative and referendum, the voter 
 is confronted with the necessity of deciding many questions, in 
 addition to the long ballot containing the names of many candi- 
 dates about' whom he knows nothing. The questions may be 
 
2 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 studied and intelligent conclusions arrived at. Reliable infor- 
 mation about candidates is much more difficult to get. It seems 
 imperative that the voter should have some relief. 
 
 The objection that the centralizing of power in the hands of a 
 few is undemocratic is met by the instrument known as the re- 
 call. Power, far from being in one hand, is an attribute of the 
 multitude. The multitude acting through the medium of the 
 recall is the repository of power. 
 
 The simplification of the task of the voter is a question press- 
 ing for solution. The Short Ballot is one of the ways out. 
 
 Edna D. Bullock. 
 April 19, 1915. 
 
GENERAL DISCUSSION 
 
 Equity. 17:76-8. January, 1915 
 
 Bright Prospects in New York 
 
 The result of the New York campaign for the Short Ballot 
 this year will have very great strategic importance for the whole 
 movement throughout the United States. Fortunately, the Con- 
 stitutional Convention which meets in April is composed of men 
 who, despite their conservatism on many subjects, make common 
 cause with those who favor the simplification of government, to 
 the end that the average citizen may select his public representa- 
 tives with intelligent discrimination. Conspicuous lights in the 
 convention, such as Elihu Root, Henry L. Stimson, Seth Low, 
 Herbert Parsons, etc., not only do not need to be convinced 
 of the merit and importance of the Short Ballot principle, but 
 they may be expected to go into the convention with a militant 
 purpose to have the principle written into the constitution. 
 
 Only one member of prominence, to wit : Edgar Truman 
 Brackett of Saratoga Springs, can be counted on as an enemy 
 of the movement. Mr. Brackett's name is closely associated 
 with the history of the old guard and entrenched standpatism. 
 He bases his principal opposition on the argument that nothing 
 should be done to increase; but everything to decrease, the power 
 of the executive and to exalt the legislature. Curiously enough, 
 Mr. Brackett does not realize that the Short Ballot advocates 
 and he are on common ground in this respect. That is to say, 
 if the Short Ballot principle is carried out to its logical limits, 
 it would mean that only policy-determining officers would be 
 elective and that the executive would be subordinated to the 
 legislative branch, either by means of something analogous to 
 the city manager plan or by the adoption of the parliamentary 
 system of government. And so, Mr. Brackett's keen intellect 
 may even yet bring him around to the point where he will be 
 the most radical of all Short Ballot advocates ! 
 
 Shortly before the November election a canvass of all the 
 candidates for delegates to the Constitutional Convention was 
 
4 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 made by the Short Ballot Organization. "This brought in 129 
 replies. Of this number all but six expressed themselves as in 
 favor of the general principle, two were against the idea, but 
 only one of them (Mr. Brackett) was elected. Four of the dele- 
 gates were non-committal. 
 
 Of 123 favoring the Short Ballot idea in general, practically 
 all favored taking the principal administrative state officers off 
 the ballot and providing for their appointment by the governor. 
 A few of this number thought that the comptroller should 
 remain on the elective list. 
 
 Seventy-four of the 123 were in favor of a constitutional 
 amendment which would remove the present requirement that 
 all the principal county officers must be elective. Twenty-nine 
 were non-committal or undecided, and twenty were against the 
 proposition. 
 
 Forty-three were definitely in favor of making the Court of 
 Appeals appointive. The question was so stated that it is 
 impossible to determine how many of the rest were undecided 
 or non-committal and how many were against the appointed 
 judiciary. 
 
 Eighty-five favored a four-year term for the governor, twelve 
 were against the plan and the remainder were non-committal, 
 except three, who favored a three-year term and one who 
 favored a six-year term. 
 
 Seventy-nine believed that the governor in making appoint- 
 ments should have complete responsibility for the same and 
 should not be required to submit his judgments to the Senate. 
 Fourteen definitely favored the present system of divided respon- 
 sibility. Thirty were undecided or non-committal. 
 
 On the application of the Short Ballot to the legislative side 
 of the government very little has yet been said. The New 
 York Times, however, comes out with the interesting though 
 not altogether original suggestion that the number of representa- 
 tives in either house of the legislature be materially reduced, 
 with the idea of increasing the importance of legislative posi- 
 tions and thereby inviting a greater interest and attention on 
 the part of the voter. 
 
 Immediately after the election on November 3d the New 
 York Short Ballot Organization questioned 5,000 voters (names 
 taken from telephone directory), in New York City and subur- 
 ban and rural sections : 
 
SHORT BALLOT 5 
 
 "Do you remember the name of the candidate you voted for 
 (i) for lieutenant-governor, (2) for comptroller, (3) for attor- 
 ney-general, (4) for secretary of state, (5) for state treasurer, 
 (6) for state engineer, (7) for judge, Court of Appeals?" Be- 
 tween 700 and 800 replies were received, showing that the 
 percentage of those replying who did not remember the name 
 of the candidate they voted for was as follows : 
 
 For lieutenant-governor, 29 per cent; for comptroller, 44.4 
 per cent ; for attorney-general, 40 per cent ; for secretary of state, 
 31 per cent; for state treasurer, 37 per cent; for state engineer, 
 36 per cent; for judge, Court of Appeals, 28 per cent. There was 
 no check, of course, on the veracity of the signers. 
 
 This census seems to dispose, rather effectively of the claim 
 that though the voters neglect other officers they do know 
 and care about the comptrollership. 
 
 Governor Whitman has expressed himself on the Short 
 Ballot as follows: 
 
 "I am for the Short Ballot. I think the only elective officers 
 of the state should be the governor, lieutenant-governor and 
 possibly the comptroller. The attorney-general should certainly 
 be appointed by the governor. He is the legal adviser to the 
 governor and all the state departments, and his functions are 
 similar to those of both corporation counsel and district attor- 
 ney." 
 
 Nebraska State Journal. February 21, 1915 
 
 Short Ballot and the Judiciary. Francis A. Brogan 
 
 This whole subject of efficiency in the administration of jus- 
 tice is a live topic throughout the entire United States. Some- 
 time ago the National Economic League, including some of the 
 leading thinkers in America, appointed a committee to investi- 
 gate the causes and propose remedies. This committee consists 
 of Charles W. Eliot, ex-president of Harvard University; 
 Moorfield Storey, a lawyer and publicist of Boston; Louis D. 
 Brandeis, a lawyer of Boston whose services in the cause of 
 popular government are known to the entire public ; A. J. Roden- 
 beck and Roscoe Pound. They propose six radical remedies 
 relating to the legal profession, the judiciary, the law making 
 power, and the people themselves. I wish there could be, before 
 
6 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 all the people of Nebraska, a full discussion of the entire six 
 questions raised by these eminent gentlemen and a full under- 
 standing 1 of their views. But I must at this time confine myself 
 to only one point and can indulge in only a few suggestions 
 concerning that one. 
 
 It is the view of this body that, to use their own language, 
 "effective administration of justice requires a unification of the 
 judicial system whereby the whole judicial power of the state 
 shall be vested in one organization, of which all tribunals shall 
 be branches or departments or divisions." 
 
 At the present time our different courts are, to a great extent, 
 strangers to each other. Until recently the most technical pro- 
 ceeding was the transfer of a case from the district to the 
 supreme court, for purposes of review. The supreme court 
 was not permitted to know of the existence of a lawsuit in the 
 district court, until it was introduced to it in the most technical 
 and formal way by the processes at that time provided by law. 
 And, . although the practice has been simplified and a liberal 
 construction given to it, yet it still remains true that there is no 
 connection whatever between the various courts in Nebraska, 
 except by way of appeal. Our supreme court is not permitted 
 to concern itself with the general administration of justice, 
 except as individuals, from time to time, when aggrieved by a 
 decision of the lower court, bring the record before the supreme 
 court of review. By their decision in that particular case, they 
 can right whatever wrong has been done and either affirm the 
 judgment or start it on its way for a retrial. They can by their 
 published opinion indicate what justice requires in that particular 
 case and all other cases of a similar nature, so that, out of all 
 their published opinions, consisting now of nearly ioo volumes, 
 a system of law can be evolved for the guidance of lawyers 
 in advising their clients, and the lower courts in dispatching 
 business. 
 
 But there is no administration of the judicial department 
 and there never has been. Our theory of courts precludes any 
 effective administration of the entire business. We have never 
 been even conscious of the business side of administration of 
 justice. 
 
 This defect in their judicial system was fully analyzed and 
 understood in England a generation ago, and now in that 
 country there is but one court, having departments or branches. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 7 
 
 It is the recommendation of this committee that the states 
 that are dissatisfied with the working of their judicial system, 
 should, by appropriate constitutional amendment and changes in 
 the organic law establish a single court or a single department 
 of justice, having branches corresponding to courts. If we 
 adopted this suggestion in Nebraska, we would have a single 
 court, of which the appellate department, or supreme court, 
 would consist of a chief justice and six associates. The district 
 court department would consist of the present district judges, 
 trying cases in their respective parts of the state, and a county 
 court with deputies corresponding to the local justices of the 
 peace. It will thus be seen that no serious shock would be 
 felt in transferring from the present system to that which is 
 proposed. But the chief justice would be made the head of 
 the department of justice, and would be literally a judge of 
 every department of that court, as much qualified - to sit as a 
 justice of the peace, a county judge, or a district judge, as to 
 preside over the sessions of the appellate tribunal, and this is 
 not because it is desirable that he should ever do so, but it 
 would enable him to organize all these separate departments 
 into one system and make out of them an effective ma- 
 chinery for the prompt and efficient dispatch of the business of 
 the courts. 
 
 It is proposed that there shall be a judicial council, composed 
 of all the district judges in the state, who shall each year attend 
 a meeting presided over by the chief justice, or by a presiding 
 officer appointed by him. It is proposed that the county judges 
 shall likewise meet once a year. Both of these meetings shall 
 be for the purpose of reporting progress, exchanging views, and 
 taking counsel with each other, and with the presiding officers, 
 as to the manner in which the business of the public, so far as 
 related to the administration of justice, is being conducted. 
 
 One of the important results of such a method would be 
 that all the judicial efficiency of this entire body could be con- 
 stantly at work for the dispatch of business. To borrow a 
 military term recently applied to the reorganized banking system 
 of the country, the judicial efficiency of the courts of Nebraska 
 could be "mobilized" so as to obtain the best and highest results 
 from the work of these public servants. 
 
 I have not the time to go into all the details of the benefits 
 that would accrue from such a method. Some of them may be 
 
8 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 briefly referred to. Whenever it was apparent to the chief jus- 
 tice that the work of the supreme court was not being dispatched 
 so as to keep up with that docket judges from the district court 
 could be assigned to help out with the work of the supreme 
 court. When the cases in one district happened to be more 
 than the judge of that district could dispatch with promptness, 
 judges from other districts could be assigned to clean up the 
 work. Many other details of that character would readily sug- 
 gest themselves. 
 
 There are other phases of this method which would commend 
 it to the public when its effects become apparent. One is that 
 there would be an opportunity for promotion of judges from one 
 department to another, and a professional spirit would be created, 
 such as obtains in a well managed and highly organized business 
 institution, where the lowest clerk aspires to be general manager 
 by means of the record which he can make in his work. 
 
 What has all this to do with the Short Ballot and the 
 constitutional convention ? 
 
 In the first place, the complete, successful reorganization of 
 our judicial system cannot be brought about by legislation, nor 
 by constitutional amendments, adopted separately by piecemeal. 
 Nor can we hope to secure the acceptance of the radical changes 
 necessary, by means of desultory discussion at meetings of this 
 character and elsewhere, whenever the subject of the dissatisfac- 
 tion of the people with the working of their courts comes up 
 for consideration. It can be adequately dealt with only in a 
 constitutional convention, selected by the people of Nebraska in 
 the manner provided by our present law. 
 
 It has been apparent for twenty years that our courts were 
 not responsive to the public needs. We have adopted various 
 remedies and made use of many devices, some of them by 
 legislation and some by constitutional amendment, yet at the end 
 of twenty years of such experimentation, we are back to where 
 we were at the beginning, with a congested docket, inefficiency, 
 delay and public dissatisfaction with the administration of justice. 
 It is proposed to meet the difficulty by re-establishing the supreme 
 court commission. The only objection I would suggest to that 
 method is one that I made twenty years ago, when it was first 
 proposed. If it serves only to turn away public attention from 
 the vital need of an entire reorganization, then it would be better 
 to suffer for a while the evils of a congested docket, and thus 
 
SHORT BALLOT 9 
 
 force the calling of a constitutional convention to revise the 
 entire system. 
 
 In so far as the present election laws force the selection of 
 judges at an election where the voter is pelted with so many 
 questions that his faculties of decision are benumbed and 
 atrophied, the needsi of our judicial system are vitally interested 
 in the proposed reform of the Short Ballot. But I would be 
 disposed to go much farther. The people of the United States 
 are seriously reopening a debate which was considered closed 
 fifty years ago, and are reconsidering the question whether the 
 judges who are intended to give expert service to a highly tech- 
 nical function, ought not to be appointed, rather than elected by 
 the whole people. When this question is first broached any- 
 where for discussion, it is assumed that the people are so con- 
 vinced of the necessity of a general election of judges that they 
 are not open to reason on the subject. I think this attitude is a 
 mistake. To those of us who are convinced that the element 
 of appointment by selection should figure to some extent in the 
 naming of judges for our courts, there is a solemn duty to 
 express the faith that is in us, and continue to believe that what- 
 ever is right and best for the public will finally be approved and 
 favored by the public. The committee of the Economic League 
 makes a telling point when it shows that in those courts where 
 the judges are appointed by the executive, more progressive and 
 liberal and advanced ideas are expressed in the decisions of the 
 courts than in those jurisdictions where the judges are chosen 
 at popular elections. All the narrow, technical and reactionary 
 decisions which have provoked popular discontent with the 
 judiciary, have occurred in those states where the judges are 
 always elected. 
 
 A system has been suggested, containing the better features 
 of appointment, and election by the people, and it is even 
 adapted to furnish some slight concession to those who believe 
 in judicial recall. It is proposed that in the first instance no 
 member of the entire judicial system should be elected, only the 
 •chief justice. It is believed that public attention could be so 
 centered upon that one office as to secure not only a good 
 lawyer but a man of affairs, who would possess the administra- 
 tive faculties -necessary to carry out the proposed reorganization 
 cf the courts. And that this chief justice should by appointment 
 initiate the tenure of every member of the judicial system, and 
 
io SHORT BALLOT 
 
 that the appointment should be, in the first instance, for a fixed 
 term, and the tenure thereafter should be dependent upon a 
 popular election at which no one would be eligible except those 
 who had already served by appointment. 
 
 It is rather a remarkable circumstance, when we are discuss- 
 ing this subject in this state capital of Nebraska, along lines of 
 discussion which originated with this national body, that, of the 
 seven members of the state supreme court, five began their 
 service in that body either as judges or commissioners, by 
 appointment, and, after a period of such service, they were pro- 
 moted to their present positions by popular election, and that 
 six out of the seven served as district judges before beginning 
 their careers on the higher court. In this respect, therefore, the 
 plan does not propose a serious innovation, nor suggest any 
 important difference in the personnel of our judges, but only 
 aims at an organization which will make for efficiency in 
 method. 
 
 What have these suggestions to do with the work of a popular 
 government league? The first casual glance at this plan would 
 suggest the objection that it is taking the judiciary away from 
 the direct control of the people, and therefore is not in accord 
 with the purposes of a popular government league. But just 
 as the reformed government of our municipalities has passed 
 through the commission stage and is rapidly approaching the 
 plan of a general manager, selected by commission, and just as 
 the movement which has been in operation in this country for 
 some years in favor of more direct control by the people over 
 their governmental affairs has led inevitably to the agitation for 
 the Short Ballot as a means by which that control can be made 
 effective, so this plan, proposed for the judiciary, is. the inevitable 
 outcome of the agitation for the reorganization of the courts, so 
 that they may carry into effect the popular will and at the same 
 time preserve the fundamental principles of justice. 
 
 To enable a chief justice to unify the mere business side of 
 the courts does not mean that he could dictate the decisions in 
 any of the courts. Each judge, after his appointment, would 
 become entirely independent of the chief justice who appointed 
 him. He would thereafter look to the people for his re-election. 
 This would preserve the independence of the judiciary and at the 
 same time make it responsive to the popular will. But it would 
 hold the chief justice responsible for the organization and admin- 
 
SHORT BALLOT II 
 
 istration of the forces provided by law for the dispatch of busi- 
 ness. As a detail of this plan it is proposed that the chief 
 justice could be removed from office, not by the cumbersome 
 method of impeachment, but by resolution of the legislature, 
 upon complaint and after due hearing and that any judge in 
 the entire system, other than the chief justice, could be removed 
 by action of a tribunal consisting of, or made up from, all the 
 judges of the supreme and district courts, and that, in addition 
 to such control, the legislature itself could remove any judge 
 in the same manner as the chief justice. 
 
 I wish to make one suggestion of a general nature to close 
 this paper. I want to bespeak an open mind and an impartial 
 hearing on the part of the people and the leaders of the people 
 for the proposals which have resulted from the disinterested 
 work of the public-spirited men in the nation who are bending 
 their energies to the solution of this vexed problem of efficiency 
 in the administration of justice. If the people refuse to give a 
 fair hearing to a carefully prepared plan because it runs counter 
 to some existing prejudice, then we shall continue our present 
 inadequate methods of dealing with this delicate and vital 
 function of government and no radical and deep seated reform 
 can be brought about. 
 
 On the other hand, if we will give to the consideration of 
 this subject the same candid and open minded attention that 
 we are able to give to other questions, if we can justify Kip- 
 ling's description of the American as one who turns "a keen, 
 untroubled face straight to the instant need of things," existing 
 difficulties in the administration of justice can be so completely 
 removed that we will come in time to wonder why it , was 
 delayed so long. 
 
 Politics without Politicians* 
 
 Richard S. Childs 
 
 Politician : A citizen who knows what he is doing on elec- 
 tion day. He goes to the polls and votes for some twenty-three 
 candidates, all of whom he knows about. 
 
 Political Organization : A name given to a series of cere- 
 monies wherein the politician, before election sets the table for 
 
 * Reprinted from Saturday Evening Post, January 22, 1910. 
 
12 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 the electorate by selecting twenty-three candidates and tying 
 them up neatly, like asparagus, in bunches called "tickets." 
 
 Electorate: A mob of citizens that goes to the polls before 
 the ball game on election day and, picking out one of the ready- 
 made bunches, casts it into the ballot box. Each citizen thus 
 votes for three men whom he knows about and twenty others 
 he never heard of. Apply it to yourself. Name, please, the 
 county clerk, the state treasurer, the coroner and the alderman 
 you voted for last time ; and why you preferred each. 
 
 Misrepresentative Government: A condition wherein of- 
 ficial No. 18, elected as above, is more gratefully obedient to the 
 politician, who graciously tied him up into the victorious bunch, 
 than to the electorate, which went off to the ball game without 
 noticing the eighteenth name on the ticket at all. 
 
 Direct Primaries : An arrangement that permits the elec- 
 torate to be present at the bunch-making. An incomplete success 
 for the same reason that the election is an incomplete success, 
 namely, that the electorate never has in mind as many as 
 twenty-three men that it wants. 
 
 The class in political science is now dismissed. The class 
 in United States history will assemble. 
 
 The Asparagus Voting System 
 
 In the first decade's of the Republic there were very few elec- 
 tive offices. Candidates came to the front by various methods 
 and campaigned for the votes, and in due time Mr. Citizen went 
 to the polls and wrote down on blank paper, from memory, the • 
 two or three names of his selection. Ballot devices varied, but 
 the voting was uniformly from memory. Tickets under such 
 conditions were impossible. Each voter made up his own list 
 in his head as a result of his private opinions. And that is 
 real democracy. 
 
 "Jacksonian democracy,'' with the best of intentions, changed 
 all this sixty years ago. Every state felt that wave of opinion, 
 and only the Federal Constitution, sheltered by difficulty of 
 amendment, escaped change. Had it been more easily altered 
 we would doubtless today be electing not merely president and 
 vice-president, but also the cabinet officers, the judges and clerks 
 of the Supreme Court and the circuit court, the federal district 
 attorneys, marshals and postmasters. In states and cities just 
 such things did happen, and the old free voting, based on indi- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 13 
 
 vkiual opinion, almost completely vanished, surviving 1 now only 
 in small town elections, where everybody knows everybody else. 
 
 It was an easy mistake to make. Granted that the people 
 could, without dangerous confusion, take care of two or three 
 elections in one day, why not increase the number to ten or 
 twenty or thirty, making coroners and judges and county clerks 
 and city auditors elective and "directly responsible to the peo- 
 ple?" It was hard to foresee — and millions do not see yet — that 
 increasing the number of simultaneous elections was sufficient to 
 effect a change of principle. The old electorate chose men it 
 knew, either personally or by adequate hearsay — the new elector- 
 ate chose men it did not know even by name. The change was 
 vast and fundamental. It established a new and difficult con- 
 dition in which democracy could not operate. It was like length- 
 ening a sword till it became too cumbersome for the soldier to 
 wield, thus practically disarming him. And from that day this 
 nation has actually not had a democratic form of government, 
 but an unworkable, impractical imitation that can only be oper- 
 ated by professionals. 
 
 Faced with the problem of electing more men than he could 
 develop opinions about, the average voter shortened his task to 
 more reasonable limits by allowing those other voters who were 
 sufficiently interested, to tie up the candidates for him like stalks 
 of asparagus in the handy little bunches so that he could vote for 
 a whole bunch at once. Unable to examine and select the 
 various stalks in the bunch, the voter judged by the looks of 
 the most prominent stalk and by the character of the men who 
 recommended one bunch as compared with that of the men who 
 recommended other bunches. After a time these bunches, or 
 tickets, habitually wore the names of national parties, although 
 obviously there could not, properly, be a Republican way or a 
 Prohibition way of running 1 the office of state auditor or clerk 
 of the court. As the voter was no longer voting for individual 
 men, but only for bunches, a man who desired to run for public 
 office could hardly hope for success save by applying privately to 
 the men who tied up the most popular bunch. This saved the 
 candidate any embarrassment that he might have suffered if 
 compelled to stand out in conspicuous solitude before the search- 
 ing scrutiny of the public. In fact, all the small stalks in the 
 bunches could keep still or go to Europe during the campaign 
 or freely admit a record black as ink, and yet be triumphantly 
 
14 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 elected. It is even a matter of court record in one great 
 American city that empty names, the figment of a boss's imagi- 
 nation, were elected to minor offices. 
 
 Furthermore, minor candidates who did vigorously seek 
 public attention found the voters apathetic. It was not that they 
 did not want the best man to get the .little office, but the differ- 
 ence it could make was so trifling that each voter's share of the 
 public interest concerned therein would hardly justify the energy 
 required to study the question. And if, nevertheless, all can- 
 didates for all the offices dutifully made a fuss, the Babel would 
 have been too confusing to bring any great or appreciable 
 increase in popular discrimination. 
 
 Talk with a citizen of Toronto or Glasgow or Lucerne and 
 he will tell you that the reason for their clean, efficient, scandal- 
 free government is in the superior civic pride of their people, 
 which would never tolerate bossism for a minute. But let him 
 come to this land and assume citizenship, and see what happens. 
 
 Twenty-five Elections on One Day 
 
 Taking an interest in" hfs new franchise he studies the subject 
 carefully as it is presented to him in the public prints, and 
 undertakes to make up his mind as to whom he wants to vote 
 for. Going to the polls on election day he finds on his ballot the 
 names of the mayor of his choice, the comptroller and, perhaps, 
 one or two other candidates whom he has seen on the public 
 platform. At the most he probably has an intelligent opinion, 
 or an opinion of any kind, concerning four or five of the prin- 
 cipal men. He confronts, however, a huge sheet of paper con- 
 taining perhaps one hundred names arranged in columns about 
 twenty-five deep. As he would express it, there are twenty-five 
 elections on one day. He finds himself invited to choose between 
 Smith, Jones, Williams and Johnson for the office of county clerk. 
 He has given no thought to that office, he knows nothing of the 
 men who are named, and if he should go back to consult his 
 newspaper file he would find that the newspapers had said little 
 or nothing about them. The offices of sheriff, county clerk, 
 supervisor of the poor, public librarian, commissioner of public 
 works, are all evidently being contested for, but he has not had 
 the slightest information as to the relative capabilities of the 
 men, and when, finally, in bewilderment, he casts his vote for 
 
SHORT BALLOT 15 
 
 tne straight party ticket, he is registering an intelligent opinion 
 on about one-tenth of his ballot; the other nine-tenths he has 
 delegated, by default, to the control of the party boss, and is 
 blindly registering his comparative confidence in the men chosen 
 by one set of party bosses rather than those put forward by the 
 opposing leaders. He votes blindly for the most part, and a 
 man who votes blindly is being bossed. 
 
 He is no better than the rest of us, you see. In fact, if this 
 long ballot had appeared in his own home city it is probable 
 that its consequences would have been even worse than here. 
 For we have widespread education, a quick flow of information, 
 unequaled political genius and a civic pride that will stand on 
 its hind legs and paw the air for joy when there is anything to 
 jubilate about. 
 
 "But admitting all this,'' you say, "if our people really do 
 want good government, would they not have made the politicians 
 give it to them? Would they not have rewarded merit in bosses 
 by electing the better bunch each time and thus make them seek 
 to suit their wishes to the utmost, as a tradesman seeks to please 
 a customer?" Exactly so, and there is a limit to misgovern- 
 ment, a time when we balk at the quality of the goods we are 
 getting, and the boss must keep us content. But there is a 
 counter-tendency downward, in that the boss-tradesman wants 
 his profit, and it is that profit, or graft, that we object to. It 
 would seem that we might find and keep in power bosses who 
 were so public-spirited that they would collect no graft. That 
 does not happen, because the dominant organization in any com- 
 munity is always corrupt. To make a less brutal statement — 
 the dominant organization is the one that gets corrupted. There 
 is no point in corrupting a powerless machine. It is to the 
 party with power that the grafters and self-seekers flock. A 
 club can "repel boarders" and expel rascals that are found inside, 
 but a party is powerless to protect itself against contamination. 
 The Republican party was out of the grip of its founders after 
 its second victory. Let the Prohibition party carry a city elec- 
 tion once, and the saloon element would quietly join it and 
 dominate it. Reform parties without number have gone on the 
 rocks because the original reformers could not prevent this 
 internal poisoning. A long-ballot system of government, de- 
 manding machines to operate it, cannot, in the long run, elude 
 
16 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 control by corrupt machines. Political complexity thus, indi- 
 rectly, invites misgovernment as automatically as dark streets 
 invite crime. 
 
 The Work the Boss Does 
 
 Yet, under present conditions, we cannot dismiss the machine, 
 for our political system, not being shaped to fit any electorate 
 composed of human beings, would hardly work at all without 
 the mediation of a certain degree of extra-legal boss-organization 
 to supplement its awkwardness. Suppose there were no ticket- 
 making machines, for instance, in Cleveland, Ohio, where the 
 1908 ballot carried forty-seven offices. Can you picture the 
 great "blanket" changed from the long, ruled columns, with 
 suggestive "straight-ticket" circles at the top, to a non-partisan 
 ballot over whose unlabeled chaos of names the voter must 
 sprinkle his forty-seven separate X marks? Can you imagine 
 any ordinary voter comparing the individual merits of each 
 candidate in each of the forty-seven scrimmages? An election 
 purports to gather opinions, but such an election would do 
 nothing of the sort. It would be like letting the school children 
 vote — the result would represent little or nothing. In big, 
 direct primary elections, where there are not tickets, the boss is 
 often plausible when he argues: "You had at least my judg- 
 ment under the old convention system — now you have nobody's 
 judgment, for the people do no thinking at all on the majority 
 of the names, and the result is only the outcome of an unjudged, 
 irresponsible scramble for office, frequently participated in by 
 iknaves whom I would have excluded." 
 
 No, curse the boss all you please, but we are indebted to 
 him for doing the work which the electorate ignores, and thus 
 making our institutions workable. 
 
 The standard old remedy prescribed for the national ailment 
 of misrepresentative government is for the electorate public- 
 spiritedly to take firm hold of its electoral work and to learn to 
 make genuine selections from each of the twenty-three sets of 
 candidates; in other words, to become politicians. 
 
 That the American electorate has never seen fit to adopt 
 this plan is, possibly, rather fortunate, for if "all good citizens" 
 did go into politics, taking an active, constructive part in the 
 selection of all officials, industry prior to each election would 
 suffer wholesale demoralization. Moreover, a citizenship that 
 
SHORT BALLOT 17 
 
 devotes itself primarily to earning a livelihood, caring for a 
 family and going to bed o' nights is seeing' things in reasonably 
 true perspective when it "hasn't time" to go downtown on a rainy 
 evening to argue regarding the nomination of Jones for county 
 clerk. And, finally, whether it ought or oughtn't, it won't. So 
 that settles it. Human nature has not changed perceptibly since 
 Adam, and a plan of government that involves radical alteration 
 in the consciences of fifteen or twenty million citizens will wait 
 forever for its intended consummation. To berate the electorate 
 for indifference when it fails to fulfill this or that set of demands 
 is as useless and unscientific as berating a horse for failing to 
 grow a square neck to fit a new-style square collar. And as 
 we can't induce the electorate to change its nature to fit the 
 present government, we must reshape the government to fit the 
 electorate, with absolute deference to all the latter's frailties. 
 
 Every other democratic nation does it. Consider, for instance, 
 the well-known success of the English cities. Year in, year out, 
 without reform spasms or "'civic awakenings," these cities 
 consistently elect their ablest men to office. A glance at an Eng- 
 lish ballot explains it. The English citizen goes to the polls 
 and records his choice for member of the common council from 
 his ward. The council will elect the mayor, the aldermen, and 
 everybody else in the municipality — the voter has only to fill 
 that one office. The debate between the candidates at such 
 times is carried on with the utmost fierceness. The dead walls 
 are placarded with election posters to the temporary exclusion 
 of other advertising. Both the candidates will make what are 
 known in this country as "whirlwind campaigns" within the 
 limit of their little wards. There is ample opportunity for both 
 candidates to get their opinions and arguments to every voter, 
 and the voter soon knows which he wants as clearly as an 
 American voter does in choosing between the two candidates 
 for president. Conspicuous merit becomes a vital asset- to -the 
 candidate when the voters' examination is so minutely searching. 
 There are no party machines, no tickets, no politicians, in. ptw 
 American sense of the words. The candidate simply gets himr 
 self nominated by petition and goes after the votes. He has no 
 one to thank for his election but the people, with whom he coii- 
 ducts his negotiations direct. He does not need to persuaders 
 boss to tie him up in a bunch, for there are no' other staikssto 
 make up a bunch with. A professional politician- would- find 
 
18 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 nothing to Be professional in, for every citizen is as complete an 
 expert in politics as he. 
 
 The Short Ballot in Galveston 
 
 A similar condition obtains in every other foreign democracy 
 and results in a correspondingly higher moral standard of gov- 
 ernment without the aid or interference of machines. In the 
 United States, on the contrary, the long ballot is universal, 
 with one new bright and widening rift in the clouds. The city 
 of Galveston, in 1900, adopted a plan of government by a com- 
 mission of five as an emergency measure to get quick municipal 
 action. Unwittingly, I think, it stumbled into a short ballot and 
 proceeded to reap the advantages of it. This commission has, 
 without scandal, carried through tremendous public improve- 
 ments — raising the ground level to prevent another flood— and 
 at the same time has reduced the public debt and the tax rate. 
 That is good administration. More than that, it gets re-elected 
 by overwhelming majorities and has not been in peril at any 
 election. The "old crowd" that misgoverned this city for years 
 holds only twenty per cent of the vote now, and concedes without 
 contest the re-election of three of the five good commissioners. 
 And the total campaign expenses of electing the right men are 
 only three hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 It has been widely said that this was the fruit of correct 
 organization analogous to a business corporation with its board 
 of directors. But there are many other elected commissions 
 and boards in the United States — county commissions, boards of 
 education, trustees of the sanitary district, boards of assessors, 
 and they are not conspicuously successful. In fact, such organi- 
 zation often serves to scatter responsibility and shelter corrup- 
 tion. 
 
 Galveston's plan, in fact, was far from ideal, but it had one 
 overwhelming merit — that it concentrated the attention of the 
 voters sharply upon candidates for only five offices, all important 
 enough to warrant such attention. The press could give ade- 
 quate space to every one; in consequence every intelligent voter 
 in his easy chair at home formed opinions on the whole five 
 and had a definite notion of the personality of every candidate. 
 In such a situation the ward politician had no function. There 
 was no ignorant laissez-faire, no mesh of detail for him to trade 
 upon. He became no more powerful than any other citizen, and 
 
SHORT BALLOT 19 
 
 his only strength lay in whatever genuine leadership he pos- 
 sessed. Moreover, if he nominated men who could stand the 
 fierce limelight and get elected, they would, ipso facto, probably 
 be men who would resist his attempt to control them after- 
 ward. Or if they did cater to him it would be difficult to do 
 his bidding right in the concentrated glare of publicity, where 
 the responsibility could be and, what is much more vital, would 
 be correctly placed by every voter. And so the profession of 
 politics went out of existence in Galveston, and the ward poli- 
 tician, who had misgoverned the city for generations, went 
 snarling away to play with county and state offices. 
 
 Fifty cities have copied the Galveston plan. Des Moines 
 improved it by making the ballot non-partisan, because a voter 
 can recognize and select the five names for himself without the 
 help of a party label. The bunches of candidates are thus 
 definitely abolished, and the influence of the bunch-maker over 
 the official vanishes. 
 
 Boston is the first major city to reach a Short Ballot basis. 
 The plan creates a council of nine members elected at large, 
 three at a time, and a mayor, all on a non-partisan ballot. There 
 is also a small elective school committee. After the first year 
 the maximum number of offices filled at one election is six, the 
 minimum four. 
 
 The Colorado Springs Plan 
 
 And, finally, take off your hat to Colorado Springs, for that 
 hustling little city has gone them all one better. Her new com- 
 mission rotates, so that two members are elected at one election 
 and the three others at the next. This is the shortest ballot in 
 the country. It is non-partisan, of course. What a joke it 
 would be for politicians to tie together two nominees and try 
 to inspire loyalty for this on the ground that it was a straight 
 ticket ! And each candidate must file an affidavit swearing that 
 he represents no political party or organization — just himself 
 and his prospective constituents. Not content with making the 
 machine unnecessary, they have made it illegal ! 
 
 The charter permits municipal ownership and operation of 
 public utilities — street railways or lighting systems, for instance 
 — a power we don't dare intrust to the authorities in other cities. 
 But in Colorado Springs the people have a form of government 
 so simple that they can watch it and understand it and control 
 
20 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 it. No rascal can sneak into power through the blaze of scrutiny 
 that they can, and surely will, center on him at election time. 
 Light is as necessary and as salutary in politics as in hygiene. 
 
 Victory in cities, however, is not enough; the county and 
 the state remain. In Texas, for instance, the people have 
 recovered all the cities from the grasp of the politicians and put 
 them on the Short Ballot basis, through government by com- 
 missions of five, but the professional politicians thrive yet. 
 There is some talk of chasing them out of the state by putting 
 the whole state government into the hands of a similar small 
 commission. It is to be hoped that this movement will fail, 
 and that the short ballot will be obtained by shortening the 
 list of elective offices simply to the legislature and governor, 
 the latter to appoint his own cabinet and all other administra- 
 tive and judicial officers, just as the president of the United 
 States appoints his. 
 
 Oregon has grasped the principle, and the same forces that 
 installed the initiative and recall are at work to centralize 
 authority and lengthen terms so that, ' instead of choosing a 
 maximum of thirty-nine officials at one election, the individual 
 elector will choose only from five to eight. 
 
 Oh, yes, I heard that observation from over there in the 
 corner and I was expecting it. You asked: "Isn't it danger- 
 ously near to autocracy to centralize the government so that the 
 voter chooses only two or three men at a time ?" No ; on the 
 contrary, it is ideally democratic. Carrying out this principle is 
 the only practical way that the big, clumsy electorate can rule. 
 It is, therefore, the only plan that is democratic ! 
 
 The more elaborate and complex you make politics the fewer 
 the people who can afford the time and energy to take part. 
 Much electing, therefore, leads toward oligarchy — the rule of 
 the few. 
 
 The simpler you make politics the more easily and the more 
 surely will the whole people take part. Simplification, therefore, 
 leads toward the rule of the many — democracy. 
 
 Universities are now teaching the new definition of democ- 
 racy, and the old error, that making officials elective is enough 
 to make them responsible to the people, will die. Some day 
 we shall see the people of a whole state in control of their 
 government, using short ballots for county and state elections 
 as well as municipal, voting for men instead of labels, and regis- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 21 
 
 teritig complete and definite individual opinions with practically 
 every paper that drops into the ballot-boxes. Notice that, in this 
 situation, the citizens are all complete politicians, doing all that 
 is asked of them — since less is asked. The electorate has not 
 gone into politics, but politics has come to the electorate. Of- 
 ficials will no longer be in debt, politically, to some politician 
 for cording them up into his precious ticket-bunches. The 
 officials will negotiate directly with the people for their election 
 and seek for the applause of the people — their only masters — 
 in the conduct of their offices. 
 
 In. the long run efficient and clean administration will be the 
 normal resultant of that new balance of forces. For the Ameri- 
 can people — you and I — do want good government. And we 
 shall have it yet! 
 
 Outlook. 52:635-9. July 17, 1909 
 
 Short Ballot; a Movement to Simplify Politicsi. 
 Richard S. Childs 
 
 Do you know that ours is the only habitually misgoverned 
 democracy? Other democracies, Canada and the English, 
 French, and German cities, are generally well governed, many 
 of them splendidly governed. Their councils and legislatures 
 stay clean automatically, without need for public uprisings to 
 clean them out. True, they sometimes suffer from graft, but 
 it is local, haphazard, and unorganized, like graft in business 
 life. But with us misgovernment is universal and ever present. 
 Every state and every city is constantly at war with it. The 
 brand-new city of Gary begins to grapple with it as soon as 
 there is an election. And the success of the forces of right- 
 eousness is always temporary, like sweeping back flooding water 
 with a broom. We' say truly, "A reform administration is 
 never re-elected." Good administration is actually abnormal in 
 American cities and states. Maladministration is the normal. 
 
 This condition, unique among democracies, indicates the ex- 
 istence of some peculiarity in our system of government as the 
 underlying cause. 
 
 Starting at the broad base of our structure, the voters, we 
 notice one unique phenomenon which is so familiar to us that 
 
22 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 we usually overlook it entirely — that is, our habit of voting 
 blindly. Of course, intelligent citizens do not vote without 
 knowing what they are doing. Oh, no! You, Mr. Reader, for 
 instance, you vote intelligently always! Of course you do! But 
 for whom did you vote for surrogate last time? You don't 
 know? Well, then, whom did you support for state auditor? 
 For state treasurer ? For clerk of the court ? For supreme court 
 judge? And who is your alderman? Who represents your dis- 
 trict at the state capitol? Name, please, all the candidates you 
 voted for at the last election. Of course you know the president 
 and the governor and the mayor, but there was a long list of 
 minor officers besides. Unless you are active in politics I fear 
 you flunk this examination. If your ballot had by a printer's error 
 omitted the "state comptroller" entirely, you would probably 
 not have missed it. You ignored nine-tenths of your ballot, 
 voting for those you did know about and casting a straight party 
 ticket for the rest, not because of party loyalty, but because you 
 did not know of anything better to do. You need not feel 
 ashamed of it. Your neighbors all did the same; my neighbors 
 did (observe the little census reproduced here!). Ex- President 
 Eliot, of Harvard, the "ideal citizen," confessed in a public 
 address recently that he did it too. Philadelphia has even elected 
 imaginary men. It is a typical and universal American attitude. 
 We all vote blindly. The intelligence of the community is not 
 at work on any of the minor offices on the ballot. The average 
 American citizen never casts a completely intelligent vote. 
 
 CONFIDENTIAL CENSUS. 1 
 Do you know the name of the new state treasurer just elected?. 87% said No 
 
 Do you know the name of the present state treasurer? 75% said No 
 
 Do you know the name of the new state assemblyman for this 
 
 district? 70% said No 
 
 Do you know the name of the defeated candidate for assembly- 
 man in this district? 80% said No 
 
 Do you know the name of the surrogate of this county?. ..,. .65% said No 
 
 Do you know the name of your alderman? 85% said No 
 
 Do you know whether your alderman was one of those who 
 
 voted against the increase in the police force last year? gS% said No 
 
 Are you in active politics? 96% said No 
 
 This is not all the fault of the voter. To cast a really intel- 
 ligent ballot from a mere study of newspapers, campaign litera- 
 
 1 The intelligence ( ?) of the vote in the most independent assembly 
 district in Brooklyn. Data collected immediately after election, 1908. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 23 
 
 ture and speeches is impossible, because practically nothing is 
 ever published about the minor candidates. 
 
 The gossip around the local headquarters being too one-sided 
 to be trusted by a casual inquirer, a deep working personal 
 acquaintance with politics, involving years of experience and 
 study, becomes necessary before a voter who wants to cast a 
 wholly intelligent ballot can obtain the facts. 
 
 This is not the fault of the press. In New York City the 
 number of elective offices in state, city, and county to be filled 
 by popular vote in a cycle of four years is nearly five hundred. 
 In Chicago the number is still greater. Philadelphia, although 
 smaller than either city, elects more people than either. No 
 newspaper can give publicity to so many candidates or examine 
 properly into their relative merits. 
 
 Plainly the voter is overburdened with more questions than 
 he will answer carefully, for it is certain that the average citizen 
 cannot afford the time to fulfill the unreasonable requirements 
 that are now essential to intelligent voting. The voters at the 
 polls are the foundation of a democracy, and the universal and 
 incurable habit of voting blindly constitutes a huge break in 
 that foundation which is serious enough to account for the 
 toppling of the whole structure. 
 
 Let us see, then, if we can trace out a connection between 
 blind voting as a cause and misgovernment as the effect. 
 
 No one will deny that if nine-tenths of the citizens refrained 
 from voting on election day, the remaining tenth would govern 
 all. And when practically all vote in nine-tenths ignorance and 
 indifference, about the same delegation of power occurs. A 
 remaining fraction who do give enough time to the subject to 
 cast an intelligent ballot take control. That fraction we call 
 "politicians" in our unique American sense of the word. A 
 politician is a "political specialist." He is one who knows more 
 about the voter's political business than the voter does. He 
 knows, for instance, that the coroner's term will expire in No- 
 vember, and he contributes toward the discussion involved in 
 nominating a successor, whereas the voter hardly knows a 
 coroner is being elected. These politicians come from all classes, 
 and the higher intelligence of the community contributes its full 
 quota. Although they are only a fraction of the electorate, they 
 are a fair average selection, and they would give us exactly the 
 kind of government we all want, if only they could remain free 
 
24 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 and independent personal units. But the impulse to organize is 
 irresistible. Convenience and efficiency require it, and the ''or- 
 ganization" springs up and cements them together. Good men 
 who see the organization go wrong on a nomination continue to 
 stay in and to lend their strength, not bolting until moral con- 
 ditions become intolerable. Were these men not bound by an 
 organization with its social and other non-political ties, their 
 revolt would be early, easy, and effective, and every bad nomi- 
 nation would receive its separate and proportionate punishment 
 in the alienation of supporters. 
 
 The control of such active political organizations will gravi- 
 tate always toward a low level. The doors must be open to every 
 voter — examination of his civic spirit is impossible — and greed 
 and altruism enter together. Greed has most to gain in a fac- 
 tional dispute, and is least scrupulous in choice of methods. 
 The bad politician carries more weapons than the politician 
 who hampers himself with a code of ethics one degree higher. 
 Consequently corruption finally dominates any machine that is 
 worth dominating, and sinks it lower and lower as worse men 
 displace better, until the limit of public toleration is reached and 
 the machine receives a setback at election. That causes its 
 members to clean up, discredit the men who went too far, and 
 restore a standard high enough to win — which standard imme- 
 diately begins to sag again, by the operation of the same natural 
 principle. 
 
 Reformers in a near-sighted way are constantly endeavoring 
 to maintain pure political organizations and re-elect reform 
 administrations. Suppose, however, that the Citizens' Union of 
 New York, which is at present sincerely bent on improving the 
 condition of politics, should succeed in carrying the city for its 
 tickets several times in succession. After the first election, small 
 political organizations which had aided toward the victory would 
 rush in, clamoring for their share of the plunder. For a term 
 or two the reformers might be able to resist the pressure. 
 Nevertheless the possession of power by their party would attract 
 the grafters; 1 they would find themselves accepting assistance 
 from men who were in politics for what there was in it, men who 
 wanted to make more use of the power and patronage that lay at 
 hand unutilized; and those men would in time, working within 
 
 1 Mr. Cutting, the former head of the Union, announced in anticipation 
 of the 1909 municipal election that the Union did not desire a big enroll- 
 ment, on account of the inevitable contamination it involved. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 25 
 
 the union, depose the original heads of the party and substitute 
 "more practical" leaders, until in time the Citizens' Union would 
 itself need reforming. 1 
 
 Theoretically there is always the threat of the minority party 
 which standsi ready to take advantage of. every lapse; but as 
 there is no debate between minor candidates, no adequate public 
 scrutiny or comparison of personalities, the minority party gets 
 no credit for a superior nomination, and often finds that it can 
 more hopefully afford to cater to its own lowest elements. In 
 fact, it may be only the dominant party which can venture to 
 affront the lowest elements of itsi membership and nominate the 
 better candidate. 
 
 The essence of our complaint against our government is that 
 it represents these easily contaminated political organizations 
 instead of the citizens. Naturally! When practically none but 
 the politicians in his district are aware of his actions or even 
 of his existence, the office-holder who refuses to bow to their will 
 is committing political suicide. 
 
 Sometimes the interests of the politician and the people are 
 parallel, but sometimes they are not, and the office-holder is 
 apt to diverge along the path of politics. An appointment is 
 made, partly at least, to strengthen the party, since the appointee 
 has a certain following. A bill is considered, not on its simple 
 merits, but on the issue, "Who is behind it?" "If it is Boss 
 Smith, of Green County, that wants it, whatever his reasons, 
 we must placate him or risk disaffection in that district." So 
 appointments and measures lose their original and proper sig- 
 nificance and become mere pawns in a chess game of politics 
 which aims to keep "our side" on top. The office-holders them- 
 selves may be upright, bribe-proof men — they usually are, in 
 fact. But their failure to disregard all exigencies of party 
 politics constitutes! misrepresentative government, and Boss 
 Smith, of Green County, can privately sell his influence if he 
 chooses, whereby the public is in the end a heavy sufferer. 
 
 By the way, every factor in this sequence is a unique Ameri- 
 can phenomenon ! The long ballot with its variegated list of 
 trivial offices is to be seen nowhere but in the United States. 
 The English ballot never covers more than three offices, usually 
 only one. In Canada the ballot is less commonly limited to a 
 
 1 This was exactly what happened to Tammany Hall, which was clean 
 at the beginning. 
 
26 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 single office, but the number is never large, and includes only 
 offices that are of such importance as to attract clo9e scrutiny by 
 the public. To any Englishman or Canadian our long ballot is 
 astonishing and our blind voting appalling. The politicians as 
 a professional class, separate from popular leaders or office- 
 holders, are unknown in other landsi, and the very word "poli- 
 tician'' has a special meaning of reproach in this country which 
 foreigners do not attach to it. And government of a democracy 
 from behind the scenes by politicians, in endless opposition to 
 government by public opinion, is the final unique American 
 phenomenon in the long ballot's train of consequences. 
 
 The blind vote of course does not take in the whole ballot. 
 Certain conspicuous offices engage the attention of all of us. 
 We go to hear the speeches of the candidates for conspicuous 
 offices; those speeches are printed in the daily papers and re- 
 viewed in the weeklies ; the candidatesi are the theme of editorials 
 and we need take no part in politics to be able to vote with 
 knowledge on certain important issues. We would laugh at an 
 attempt to control our vote on any of these questions where we 
 have opinions of our own. With this independent intelligence 
 always at work upon the major nominations, we secure a higher 
 normal level of conditions. Aldermen we elect who do not 
 represent us, and state legislatures which obey the influences 
 of unseen powers, but we are apt to speak effectively when it 
 comes to the choice of a conspicuous officer like a president, a 
 governor, or a mayor. For mayor, governor, or president we 
 are sure to secure a presentable figure, always honest and fre- 
 quently an able and independent champion of the people against 
 the very political interests that nominated him. We are apt to 
 re-elect such men, and the way we sweep aside hostile politicians 
 where the issue is clear shows how powerfully the tide of our 
 American spirit sets toward good government when the intelli- 
 gence of the community finds a channel — witness Roosevelt, 
 Taft, Hughes, Deneen, Folk, and a host of mayors. 
 
 Sometimes there is rank misgovernment in a conspicuous 
 office, as when Van. Wyck ruled New York City. But, as is 
 rather usual at such times, a reform wave followed, and his party 
 was punished by a defeat at the polls. Since then Tammany 
 has temporarily conceded the conspicuous offices to the people, 
 nominating thereto men of independent character, and even 
 accepting two who had already been nominated by the reformers. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 27 
 
 It has been content with graft from borough presidents, the 
 aldermen, and its friends in the lower grades of the depart- 
 ments. 
 
 Misgovernment is secure only in the minor offices, in the 
 shadowy places where the spot-light of publicity rarely wanders. 
 When the rats venture out of these obscurities into the blazing 
 light, it is to nibble the cake cautiously, and always with timid 
 eyes upon that dread giant, the public, ready to scamper if he 
 stirs. If, growing confident from long immunity, they become 
 too bold and noisy, punishment, clumsy but heavy, suddenly 
 swoops upon them. 
 
 And so in those conspicuous! offices — those on which we do 
 not vote blindly — we secure fairly good government as a normal 
 condition, considering that the organized and skillful opposition 
 which always faces us occupies a position of great strategic 
 advantage in possession of the nominating machinery. 
 
 To reduce this idea to a working rule : 
 
 In an obscure contest on the blind end of the ballot, merit has 
 little political value ; but in the conspicuous contests, where we 
 actually compare man and man, superior merit in a nominee is 
 a definite political asset. Hence, in the case of an obscure nomi- 
 nation, the tendency is automatically downward; but in a con- 
 spicuous nomination (where all the voting is intelligent) the 
 tendency is upward. 
 
 We cannot hope to raise the political intelligence of our 
 citizenship to a level where it will scrutinize the long ballot and 
 cease to vote blindly on most of it. The mountain will not 
 come to Mahomet; Mahomet then must go to the mountain. We 
 must shorten the ballot to a point where the average man will 
 vote intelligently without giving to politics more attention than 
 he doesi at present. That means making it very short, for if 
 it exceeds by even a little the retentive capacity of the average 
 voter's memory, the "political specialist" is created. A voter 
 could remember the relative merits of probably about five sets of 
 candidates, and could keep that many separate contests clear in 
 his mind, but he would probably begin to vote blindly on more 
 than five. Also we must take all unimportant offices off the 
 ballot, siince the electorate will not bother with such trifles 
 whether the ballot be short or not. Why, indeed, should fifty 
 thousand voters all be asked to pause for even a few minutes 
 apiece to study the relative qualifications of Smith and Jones 
 
28 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 for the petty post of county surveyor? An intelligent citizen 
 may properly have bigger business! 
 
 To be pictorial, let us see how a revised schedule of elections 
 might look if we put into the realm of appointive offices as many 
 as possible of those which we now ignore. All county offices, 
 many city positions, and the tail of the state ticket would thus 
 be disposed of, and the ballots might look somewhat like this 
 (New York state titles) : 
 
 First Year. Second Year. Third Year. Fourth Year. 
 
 President and Governor Congressman State Senator 
 
 Vice-President (four years) (two years) (four years) 
 
 (four years) 
 Congressman State Assemblyman Mayor State Assemblyman 
 
 (two years) (two years) (four years) (two years) 
 
 City Councilman City Councilman 
 
 (two years) (two years) 
 
 This is merely organizing the state and city as simply as the 
 federal government. There is endless room for discussion on 
 the details, and many other arrangements could be devised. 
 This schedule provides for every office which must be kept within 
 the realm of politics. It provides short ballots which every man 
 would vote intelligently without calling on a political specialist 
 to come and guide hisi pencil. 
 
 On such a Short Ballot basis the entry of our best men into 
 public life becomes possible. To-day the retired business man, 
 for instance, who is willing to devote his trained mind and 
 proven executive ability to the service of his city finds it difficult 
 to enter public life even as a humble alderman. He cannot win 
 as an independent, for the voters do not distinguish his voice 
 in the political hubbub. He must get his name on the ticket of 
 the dominant party, which can elect him regardless of whether 
 he makes a fierce campaign or remains silent on every issue. 
 In seeking this nomination, direct primaries will help him a 
 little, but in the confusion attending the making of nominations 
 for a multitude of offices he is again unable to attract much 
 attention, and the "machine," swinging its solid blocks of well- 
 drilled voters to the support of some loyal old-time pillar of 
 the ''organization," is likely to defeat him despite his manifest 
 superiority of character. His only hopeful resort is to go down 
 into the unfamiliar and uncongenial shaded underworld of ward 
 politics, kowtow to district leaders and captains whose social 
 and business standing is perhaps inferior to his own, and satisfy 
 their queries, "What have you done for the party?" and "What 
 
SHORT BALLOT 20 
 
 will you do for us?" Such procedure being at least distasteful 
 and probably stultifying, his activities turn toward philanthropies 
 and recreations. The city has thus refused his proffered services, 
 has turned away the man who considered the office as an open- 
 ing for civic usefulness in favor of one who probably wanted it 
 as a good job. 
 
 But if he be conspicuous as an important and almost solitary 
 figure before his prospective constituents, such a candidate can 
 easily get a satisfactory hearing, and his superior merit will be 
 an all-important asset to him. In siuch a simple situation the 
 "ward politician" has no function. Every ordinary voter is a 
 complete politician too. The party bosslet who prates of "regu- 
 larity'' will find the voter replying with facts regarding the 
 personality and principles of the candidate, and the discussion 
 shifts to a new level. If the politician can win over the voter 
 on that level, well and good. That is leadership, not bossism, 
 and is unobjectionable. 
 
 After such an election this conspicuousness will continue, 
 encouraging good .behavior in office. The legislator will fear 
 public indignation because his constituents, damning a measure, 
 will also damn him specifically for hisi part in it. Likewise, if 
 deserving, he can get popular support over the heads of any 
 political coterie whom he ventures to disobey. 
 
 Good government is entirely a matter of getting the right 
 men elected. Nothing else is so vital. No city charter or state 
 constitution, however ingenious, will make bad men give good 
 government or keep good men from getting good results. 
 
 To get the right men is first of all a matter of arranging for 
 the maximum amount of concentrated public scrutiny at the 
 election. It is not superior intelligence in the British electorate 
 that enables it uniformly to elect the best men in town to the city 
 councils, save in that the individual voter in the ward selects 
 only a single officer at election, and can hardly fail to know 
 just what he is doing. Likewise there cannot be a mysterious 
 virtue in the new plan of governing American cities, by small 
 commissions (the success of which in Galveston, Houston, and 
 Des Moines is undeniable) save in that the importance and con- 
 spicuousness of the five commissionerships attract so fierce a 
 limelight at election that no unworthy figure who ventures into 
 that blazing circle can hope to conceal his unworthiness from 
 the eyes of even the most careless voter. 
 
30 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 The Galveston plan would be better yet if the commissioners 
 were elected one at a time for long terms in rotation. Then 
 public scrutiny at election would focus still more searchingly on 
 the candidates, and merit would increase still further in value 
 as a political asset. 
 
 We must manage somehow to get our eggs into a few baskets 
 — the baskets that we watch ! For remember that we are not 
 governed by public opinion, but by public opinion as expressed 
 through the pencil point of the average voter in his election 
 booth. And that may be a vastly different thing ! Public opinion 
 can only work in broad masses, clumsily. To make a multitude 
 of delicate decisions is beyond its coarse powers. It can't play 
 the tune it has in mind upon our close-stringed political harp, but 
 give it a broad keyboard simple enough for its huge slow hands, 
 and it will thump out the right notes with precision ! 
 
 There is nothing the matter with Americans. We are by far 
 the most intelligent electorate in the world. We are not indif- 
 ferent. We do want good government. And we can win back 
 our final freedom on a "Short Ballot" basis ! 
 
 Everybody's. 26:372-3. March, 1912 
 What a Democracy Would Be Like. Richard S. Childs 
 
 Would you know a democracy if you met one? 
 , Yes? 
 
 How? You've probably never seen one. 
 
 Thought you lived in one ? Oh, dear, no ! The states and 
 counties and cities of this country are not democracies; they 
 are oligarchies — instances of government by a ruling class ! 
 
 We call this ruling class the "politicians.'' All citizens by 
 due devotion can become politicians, but the bulk of them don't; 
 so a certain remainder is left in control, and, whatever it might 
 be or ought to be, the government is — an oligarchy. The fact 
 that it was intended to work differently is a mere detail of 
 history. If in its actual working it is not a democracy, it is not 
 a democracy. 
 
 Now we could make it a democracy and prevent a self- 
 established crew of political experts from ruling us "if all good 
 citizens would go into politics." But if they don't, what will 
 you do? 
 
SHORT BALLOT 31 
 
 Preach to them? Arouse them? 
 
 All right. But what if, even then, their normal activity and 
 interest prove insufficient to make them the equals of the poli- 
 ticians in political effectiveness? What if the politicians can 
 dance circles around the big, clumsy people even when the people 
 are aroused? 
 
 Preach harder? No. 
 
 Consider that there is nothing divine about the origin of the 
 political work that is laid out for the citizens to do. If the 
 citizens neglect some of that work, the work may easily be 
 simplified and made lighter. There is surely such a thing as a 
 limit to the amount of work that can properly be demanded 
 of the citizens, and perhaps that limit has been exceeded. Cer- 
 tainly it is going to be set by the people themselves, regardless 
 of your opinion, or mine, or the opinion of the ponderous law- 
 yers in the state constitutional convention who lay out work 
 for the people. 
 
 If we ask the people to give their thoughtful attention to the 
 selection of a coroner every two years, the people may graciously 
 consent to bother, and they may not. And if they languidly vote 
 a straight party ticket without even looking to see who is run- 
 ning for coroner, thereby letting a Republican or Democratic 
 group of politicians have their own way, the people have silently 
 notified you and me and all future constitutional conventions 
 that, for some reason satisfactory to themselves, they decline to 
 assume the "duty" of selecting coroners. 
 
 And that settles it What the people say, goes. 
 
 Our American people have done just this. They have said: 
 "We prefer honest, able coroners, but we won't fight to get them 
 ■ — we have more important things to do." They have said : "We 
 want good officials, but when we have to elect twenty of them 
 at once we won't learn all about all of them. We'll give atten- 
 tion to the most interesting and important ones, but for the rest 
 we'll vote any handy list fixed up for us by the specialists in 
 citizenship." 
 
 And the people are right. Offices can be made so micro- 
 scopically small that it is too difficult for the people to watch 
 them in a busy world. Ballots can be made so long that no 
 citizenship in Christendom could reasonably be expected to 
 master them. 
 
 So there has arisen in America the new "Short Ballot" school 
 
32 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 of reformers, whose slogan is : "The long ballot is the poli- 
 tician's ballot ; the Short Ballot is the people's ballot." The 
 Short Ballot Organization was founded two years ago in New 
 York by Woodrow Wilson, and it has been creating a quiet 
 revolution in civic circles ever since. Active local work is under 
 way in Oregon, California, Ohio, and New York. 
 
 The major premise of this new school is that the people are 
 all right — not substantially different from the people of other 
 lands — and that it is our utterly freakish plan of government 
 that is at fault. 
 
 For our plan of government is freakish. Show an English- 
 man, for instance, one of our New York ballots and he will 
 exclaim with horror: "Why, you're electing twenty officers at 
 one time ! That's absurd ! How can you possibly vote intelli- 
 gently for so many?" 
 
 In England they rarely attempt to fill even two elective 
 offices on one day. 
 
 When I show an Ohio ballot, with its forty-six offices and 
 two hundred candidates, to New York audiences, it always 
 brings a roar of laughter. Because it is so much longer than 
 their own, it seems ridiculous, and they readily accept the doc- 
 trine that such a ballot baffles popular control and is contrived 
 for effective use only by expertsi, not by the people. But the 
 New York ballot is just about as unusable as the big Ohio ballot. 
 It, also, contains too many offices, and offices that are too small 
 to secure natural public scrutiny. 
 
 The Englishman is right, and hisi simple procedure is far 
 more democratic than our complicated machinery, which only a 
 few of the people, the experts in citizenship, can operate. The 
 English cities are complete democracies. There are a king and 
 some lords in England, but there is nothing in English local 
 governments that they can touch. The English cities have more 
 elective offices than our cities, as a rule. But all the elective 
 officers sit together as one large council or board of directors and 
 execute their decrees through their own appointees. 
 
 They are usually elected three from each ward for three- 
 year terms, and they come up for re-election one each year. And 
 the British voter, having the simple task of choosing one man 
 out of two or three candidates in his compact ward, does his 
 little task easily and well, without the assistance of such experts 
 in citizenship as our "ward politicians." In other democracies — 
 
SHORT BALLOT 33 
 
 Switzerland, New Zealand — there is the same simplicity and 
 effectiveness. 
 
 We have a prejudice in this country against ward-elected 
 aldermen, but the trouble lies in the pettiness and insignificance 
 of the job rather than the pettiness of the ward. If our ward 
 aldermen were the "head of the ticket," the whole ticket in 
 fact, and if he were to be one of the supreme board of directors 
 of the city, we busy citizens would know about him just as we 
 •know about the mayor now. And, like the mayor, he would 
 be a clear target for the active criticism of every voter. 
 
 Our citizenship could operate the simple English Short Ballot 
 ' mechanism with one hand, and with eyes shut, and make as 
 excellent a job of self-government as the Englishman does. 
 Our relative success with commission government proves this. 
 Given the task of selecting and dominating five conspicuous 
 officials instead of a raft of obscure and irresponsible ones, 
 American citizens have been getting results. Commission gov- 
 ernment is far from a perfect plan, and it only marks a tran- 
 sition toward better things, but it has that vital Short Ballot 
 and is accordingly the first instance of practical democratic 
 government we have had in our cities for half a century. The 
 commission government cities, or "Short Ballot cities," as 
 political scientists term them, provide an election schedule which 
 asks of the people no more work than they are willing to per- 
 form. And behold — we suddenly have a people who don't need 
 a "civic awakening.'' 
 
 Our national government has a Short Ballot — only three men 
 to be selected by any one citizen. The same unification and sim- 
 plicity in states and counties would mow down a whole jungle 
 of obscurity and confusion wherein much graft finds shelter. 
 
 All the complex devices by which we try to control our 
 unhandy governments — caucuses, political clubs, committees, pri- 
 maries, conventions, machines, and bosses — are necessitated by 
 the fact that our ballots are too long. The ballot on election 
 day is an ample remedy for everything if it's a usable kind of 
 ballot ! The way to keep the wrong men out of control is to 
 refrain from electing them. The way to refrain from electing 
 them is to have a Short Ballot with every elective office so con- 
 spicuously important that we can't help getting a good unob- 
 scured look at every candidate before we vote for him. 
 
 And that is the road to a democracy that will "democ.'' 
 
34 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Academy of Political Science. Proceedings. 5:7-19. 
 October, 1914 
 
 Constitution and Public Opinion. Frederic C. Howe 
 
 Is it possible to formulate principles in the framing of a 
 constitution, in the planning of the political machinery of a 
 people? Is it possible to lay down axioms of politics, like those 
 which Adam Smith enunciated for taxation? And if such 
 axioms may be formulated, are those upon which we have been 
 operating for a century the correct ones? Should public opinion 
 be compelled to square itself with the opinions and phrases of 
 generations long since dead ; should the opinion of today be 
 called upon to convince in turn varying groups of elective of- 
 ficials and appointive ones as well? Should every presumption 
 be against change, and in favor of the status quo? Should the 
 common business of all of us be conducted on the principle of 
 inaction, and the private business of each of usi be granted a 
 liberty of action close to license? For the principle underlying 
 American industrial life is freedom, — the greatest possible free- 
 dom to organize, to act, to play, not only with property, but 
 with the destinies of the community as well. 
 
 I believe there are axioms of politics as fundamental as 
 those of taxation, as fundamental as those of private business. 
 Among those axioms, I should include the following: 
 
 1. Politics should be simple and easily understood by all. 
 Issues should be free from confusion. There should be a direct 
 line of vision between the voter and the end desired, and a 
 means for the immediate execution of the common will, once it 
 is declared at the polls. 
 
 2. The relation of the voter to the government should be as 
 direct as possible. There should be the fewest possible inter- 
 mediaries, such as electoral colleges, delegates, conventions, and 
 caucuses between the citizen and his servant. 
 
 3. Government should be responsive on the one hand and 
 responsible on the other, — not to the past, not to political parties, 
 not to interests, but to people. 
 
 4. The machinery of legislation and administration should 
 be equally simple, direct and final in its action. Once the public 
 will express itself, it should be registered into law, 
 
SHORT BALLOT 35 
 
 Principles to Be Considered in Framing New York Constitution 
 
 Reducing these political axioms to the subject in hand, that 
 is, the constitution and public opinion, I should suggest: 
 
 First. — The constitution should be as short as possible, fol- 
 lowing the model of the federal constitution, which is little more 
 than an enumeration of the powers of the various branches of 
 the government, to which wasi added the bill of rights. State 
 constitutions departed from this model. They have been enlarged 
 to indefensible lengths, and by reason of enlargement and the 
 inclusion of many legislative provisions, the underlying idea of a 
 constitution as a framework of government has been lost sight of. 
 
 Constitution an Evolving Instrument 
 
 Second — The constitution should be an evolving instrument, 
 not an inflexible, finished thing, complete in all its details for a 
 generation, or as in the states of Kentucky, Indiana, Rhode 
 Island and Connecticut, practically unchangeable for all time. 
 
 The constitution should reflect changing social conditions and 
 changing needs. It should mirror the seasoned convictions of 
 the nation, rather than lag many years behind them. It should 
 have more permanence than a legislative act, and amendments 
 should be approved' by the people. But it should not be neces- 
 sary for two successive legislatures to approve of a resolution 
 permitting an amendment to be voted upon, and the majority 
 within the legislature for submission ought not to be prohibitive. 
 It should provide that a two-thirds majority of any general 
 assembly, or a mere majority of two successive assemblies, may 
 submit an amending resolution. Further than this, provision 
 should be made for amendment by the direct action of the 
 people themselves, acting through petitions submitted for this 
 purpose. If five or eight per cent of the electors of a state like 
 New York are sufficiently exercised over a condition to go to 
 the trouble and expense of preparing petitions, then their 
 petition should be given a hearing by being placed upon the 
 ballot, the same as a resolution regularly submitted by the leg- 
 islature; and if a majority of those voting upon the proposal 
 favor it, it should became a part of- the organic law of the state. 
 This is the very essence of the right of petition, sanctioned in 
 every constitution, for the right of petition is empty unless it 
 can be made effective. It is also of the essence of responsive 
 
36 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 and responsible government, as well aa of the idea of an evolv- 
 ing, changing constitution, reflecting the seasoned opinions of 
 the community. It is unfair to a people to require it to accept 
 for a generation's time the deliberations of a group of repre- 
 sentatives, whose opinions can be known only after they have 
 deliberated, without power to escape from their opinions by 
 any action which the people themselves may take. This is not 
 representative government; it is government by chance. 
 
 Separate Submission of Debated Questions 
 
 Third — In keeping with the above suggestions, amendments to 
 the constitution, involving radical departures like woman suffrage, 
 prohibition, the initiative, referendum and recall, should be sub- 
 mitted as separate proposals for the discriminating action of 
 the voter. Alterations in the fundamental laws such as these 
 should not be incorporated into the body of the constitution 
 when submitted, but should at all times and under all circum- 
 stances be open to unincumbered action by the electorate. The 
 Ohio constitution of 1912 contained many separate and detached 
 amendments, placed before the people in separate columns, upon 
 which the electors passed individual judgment. About one-half 
 of these proposals were adopted, and the other half were re- 
 jected, showing a more highly developed political intelligence 
 than the electorate is generally assumed to possess. 
 
 Commission Government for State 
 
 Fourth — In keeping with the idea of simplicity and efficiency, 
 the commission form of government should be substituted for 
 that which now prevails. The legislature should consist of a 
 single chamber of a relatively small size. A legislative body 
 composed of one representative from each congressional district 
 would be adequate for all purposes. It should be in continued 
 session all the year, as is the Congress of the United States. 
 Surely, if the needs of the smallest town require the attention 
 of its council for twelve months in the year, the legislative body 
 of a commonwealth of 10,000,000 people, more than three times 
 the population of the United States when the constitution was 
 adopted, requires the same continuous legislative service. 
 
 The commonest complaint of our assemblies is that they 
 pass too many laws and too hasty legislation. Much of this is 
 
SHORT BALLOT 37 
 
 due to the size of the legislature. Each member feels that at 
 least one measure must bear his name. As a consequence, state 
 laws command little respect, and for the most part are entitled 
 to no more respect than they receive. A small legislative body 
 in continuous session, acting with the informality of a city 
 commission, would result in more mature deliberation, more 
 intelligent action, and a great decrease in the number of ill- 
 adjusted laws which issue from our state legislatures, even 
 when they are in session for but a few months in the year. 
 
 In addition, I should suggest that the governor should appoint 
 the members of his cabinet, including the attorney-general, the 
 secretary of state and the executive heads of other departments. 
 The governor and each member of the cabinet should have a 
 seat in the legislature, with the right to discuss all measures, 
 but not to vote. This is a provision now found in many city 
 charters! ; it has resulted in greater unity of action and increased 
 municipal efficiency. 
 
 This is perhaps as near an approach as is possible to the 
 British idea of responsible cabinet government. It should tend 
 to bring into politics a more highly trained type of man, as 
 well as greater unity in the administration of public affairs. In 
 connection with this, I would entrust the governor with the 
 appointment and easy removal of the directors of all executive 
 departments, whose relations to the governor should be some- 
 what similar to those of the department heads in a great city. 
 
 Short Ballot 
 
 Fifth — The Short Ballot. The commission form of govern- 
 ment would lead to the Short Ballot. It would reduce the 
 number of elective officials to the governor and the members of 
 the state assembly. This would simplify elections, and auto- 
 matically make it possible to select a higher type of man than 
 those who now go to the assembly. Further than this, it would 
 lure better men into politics, for the opportunities, of real service 
 offered would prove attractive to the best equipped men in the 
 community. 
 
 In addition, I favor longer terms of office for the governor 
 and the members* of the assembly. I should suggest a term of 
 four years, with the right of recall. By this means the official 
 would always be responsible to hia constituents, while a con- 
 
38 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 tinuing policy, covering a reasonable period of time, would be 
 open to achievement by an administration. 
 
 Right of Judicial Review 
 
 Sixth — I have never believed that the federal constitution 
 contemplated the power of judicial review of congressional or 
 executive acts. The constitutional provisions seized on by the 
 courts to justify their interposition are entirely inadequate to 
 sanction such assumption. The recently adopted constitution of 
 Ohio recognized this protest against judicial usurpation and 
 provided that no act of the legislature should be held to be 
 unconstitutional by the supreme court, except when siuch decis- 
 ion was concurred in by six out of seven membersi of the highest 
 appellate tribunal. 
 
 Complete Municipal Autonomy 
 
 Seventh — Complete home rule should be accorded muni- 
 cipalities. They should be permitted to prepare their own 
 charters; to determine for themselves what activities they shall 
 perform ; what industries and activities they shall engage in ; 
 what salaries they shall pay, and what powers they shall exercise 
 over persons and property within their midst, subject only to 
 the constitutional safeguards. Municipalities should have the 
 same freedom to experiment that a private corporation now 
 enjoys; they should be permitted to decide for themselves as 
 to the sources from, which they shall collect their revenues and 
 as to the way in which they shall spend them. The amount of 
 their bonded indebtedness should be determined by the com- 
 munity itself, as well as the purposes for which auch indebted- 
 ness is incurred. Cities should have the same autonomy now 
 enjoyed by the state and the nation. Within their own sphere 
 of action they should be sovereign, much as are the cities of 
 Germany and some of the cities in our western states. 
 
 Such a devolution of power would relieve the legislature from 
 the burden of considering local demands and would render it 
 possible for the city itself to develop its own life and adjust its 
 administration to local needs, as is not now possible when the 
 financial limitations; of a municipality are fixed and determined 
 by the constitution and state laws, and are necessarily unrespon- 
 sive to local necessities. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 39 
 
 Direct Legislation 
 
 Eighth — Adequate responsiveness to public opinion involves 
 provision for direct legislative action by' the people themselves, 
 through the initiative and referendum; and of these two devices 
 the initiative is by far the more important. The referendum is 
 negative. It usually relates to questions] in which the people 
 have no great interest. And the failure of large numbers of 
 people to vote upon referendum measures is no index of the 
 response which would follow to measures initiated by the 
 people themselves. The initiative is the final step in democ- 
 racy; it involves a government which mirrors public opinion. 
 That it is not likely to be used for radical purposes is indicated 
 by the experience of western states, as well as of Ohio, where 
 the presumption of the unenlightened voter is against a new 
 measure rather than in favor of it. But most important of all 
 is the educative influence of referendum elections on measures 
 initiated by the people themselves. They lead to constant dis- 
 cussion, to a deeper interest in government, and to a psycho- 
 logical conviction that a government is in effect the people 
 themselves. And this is the greatest gain of all. It has been 
 said that the jury is the training school of democracy. To an 
 even greater extent ia this true of the initiative and referendum. 
 
 Political Freedom — a Principle 
 
 The underlying motive of the foregoing philosophy is fluid- 
 ity, responsiveness, freedom; freedom of society, in its collec- 
 tive capacity, to develop its own political life; freedom to evolve, 
 to grow by change, just as does the individual, just as does the 
 whole animal and even the vegetable kingdom. And I have 
 no more fear of mankind in its collective capacity than I have 
 of mankind in its individual capacity. And if there is any 
 quality which stamps American life, American character, Ameri- 
 can industry, it is freedom. Freedom explains our achieve- 
 ments, it explains, our industrial development. It explains the 
 ingenuity, resourcefulness and courage of the nation. And 
 freedom is, I believe, the law of all nature — a law as immutable 
 in its ultimate blessings as any that nature sanctions, — not the 
 patchwork freedom with which we are familiar, the freedom 
 that gives privileges to some and burdens to others; not the 
 freedom which fails to distinguish between that which is essen- 
 
40 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 tially public and that which is essentially private; not the free- 
 dom which grants license to the individual and chains to the 
 community; but the freedom of each man to live his individual 
 life, so long as he does not interfere with the equal freedom of 
 his fellows and the right of the community to live its life and 
 control the individual, so that he will not exceed the freedom 
 vouchsafed to him. 
 
 Finally, these are the principles I would apply to government 
 affairs. Politics should be simple rather than confused. Of- 
 ficials should be responsive, not irresponsible. There should be 
 an end of checks and balances. There should be a direct vision 
 between the citizen and his servant, and easy means for the 
 community to achieve its will, and an equally easy means to 
 change its decisions when it finds itself in error. In fine, I 
 believe that government should be responsive to public opinion 
 and free to reflect that opinion in legislation when expressed. 
 
 Equity. 16:56. January, 1914 
 
 The Ohio Defeat 
 
 Official returns of the vote on the Short Ballot amendments 
 in Ohio show the following vote: 
 
 For the state amendment, 233,153 ; against, 447,493. 
 
 For the county amendment, 213,865 ; against, 436,739. 
 
 The heaviest majority against the amendments, as was ex- 
 pected, was cast in the rural counties. It was to them that the 
 state officials chiefly directed their campaign. The Short Ballot 
 forces, on the other hand, directed most of their energies to 
 the city voters; and where it was possible to secure effective 
 publicity, the amendments carried by substantial majorities, as 
 in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Lucas (Toledo), and Ham- 
 ilton (Cincinnati). 
 
 On November 10th the Ohio Short Ballot Committee issued 
 this statement, which speaks for itself : 
 
 The first Short Ballot skirmish was lost on Tuesday: because the move- 
 ment is new; the principle was misrepresented by office-holders and office- 
 seekers, and the amendments, as submitted by the general assembly, were 
 unfortunate in foim. 
 
 In counties where the cause was fully presented to the people it 
 commanded satisfactory majorities. In Cuyahoga County it .carried by a 
 majority of 29,000; in Hamilton by 7,ooo, and in Lucas by 3,000. 
 
 The next contest will be on an initiated short-ballot amendment which 
 
SHORT BALLOT 41 
 
 will express just what the Short Ballot advocates believe should be in the 
 fundamental law of Ohio. It will include: 
 
 (a) The appointment of" state administrative officers, who are lost 
 sight of by the voter at the polls; the establishment of the cabinet system 
 in state government, and the fixing of definite responsibility upon the 
 governor, whom the people can call to account every two years. 
 
 (b) Home rule for counties, making it possible for the legislature to 
 provide (with the approval of the voters) relief for populous counties 
 from the present rigid, inefficient and expensive county government. 
 
 (c) Legislative districts; providing for the division of the more popu- 
 lous counties into as many representative and senatorial districts as there 
 are representatives and state senators, so that each voter will be required to 
 vote for only one state senator and one representative, instead of for 
 eighteen in Cuyahoga, fifteen in Hamilton and six in Franklin County, as 
 at present. 
 
 Where the Short Ballot had one enthusiastic supporter in Ohio three 
 months ago it has a hundred to-day. Its reasonableness becomes apparent 
 as men study its purpose. Its necessity grows more obvious as government 
 becomes more complex. It is one of those vital reforms that thrives on 
 defeat. The issue involved is "Shall intelligent voting be made easy 
 and simple in Ohio?" The restoration of representative government is at 
 stake. The men behind this constructive reform are not quitters. They 
 are patient and steadfast men who are accustomed to the long look ahead. 
 The fight has just begun. 
 
 World's Work. 19:12760-11 April, 1910 
 
 Politics without the Politician 
 
 Can you name the state auditor you voted for at the last 
 election, or the coroner, or the county clerk, or your state repre- 
 sentative? Did you really have a choice among the candidates 
 for these and the dozensi of other offices you think you helped to 
 fill? Can you assert that you knew anything concerning the 
 characters of half the candidates on the long ballots you have 
 been marking? A voter who participates in the full four-year 
 cycle of elections, national, state, county, city, township, has 
 to record his choice for about five hundred offices, for each of 
 which there may be an indefinite number of candidates. Can 
 any elector rationally be expected to have the wide personal 
 information which he should have to vote in this wholesale 
 fashion ? 
 
 It is a just criticism of the republican system that it loads 
 the citizen with electoral responsibilities for which he is not 
 and cannot be competent. The average citizen, as a rule, knows 
 little or nothing about the minor offices, the candidates for 
 
42 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 them, the qualifications required, the lengths of the terms, and 
 the recurrence of elections. 
 
 Somebody does know, however. The citizen being too busy 
 with his private affairs to keep himself informed on these mul- 
 titudinous public matters, there has grown up a profession which 
 manages his voting for him. Necessity has created the poli- 
 tician — the specialist in the election business. 
 
 The profession of the politician is a thoroughly honorable 
 and useful one. In Chicago and a few other cities, organizations 
 like the Municipal Votersi' League maintain honest election spe- 
 cialists, paying them to place their knowledge and skill at the 
 service of the public. 
 
 Generally, however, the professional politician is in business 
 for himself. He trades in the people's ignorance and fills at 
 least the minor officesi with men who will serve his own interests. 
 
 A new idea is abroad, offering to remedy many of the ills 
 of rule by politicians. It advises : Shorten the ballot ; take the 
 minor offices off the voting-papers. The citizen can post himself 
 concerning conditions for the presidency, governorship, mayor- 
 alty. There will be greater certainty in getting the right men in 
 the high places if the little places are not voted for at the same 
 time. Then let the big men appoint the little ones — and be re- 
 sponsible for them. Drive the political specialists out of business 
 by making them unnecessary. 
 
 The Short Ballot means the concentration of responsibility. 
 
 Outlook. 92:971-2. August 28, 1909 
 Short Ballot 
 
 Some of our readers appear to think that the Short Ballot 
 idea is a novel and radical one. It is not. In American politics 
 it is a hundred and thirty-two years old. 
 
 The Short Ballot idea has been defined and described in 
 several articles recently published in these pages. It is that we 
 should follow in our municipal and state elections the method 
 of our federal election; that we should make our elective public 
 officials as few as possible and confer upon them as great 
 executive powers asi possible. The Constitution of the United 
 States, submitted to the people in 1787, adopted for the national 
 government the Short Ballot plan of conducting elections, and 
 
SHORT BALLOT 43 
 
 rejected, after serious debate, the method now universally fol- 
 lowed in elections in the various states. In national affairs the 
 citizen votes for one president with a vast appointing power, 
 one representative, and (although indirectly) for two senators. 
 Gouverneur Morris, of New York, was largely instrumental in 
 having the Short Ballot idea introduced into the Federal Con- 
 stitution. Ten years before, in 1777, he tried to introduce it into 
 the Constitution of the State of New York, and unfortunately 
 failed. Theodore Roosevelt, in his very interesting and illumi- 
 nating life of Gouverneur Morris, published twenty years ago, 
 in the American Statesmen Series, makes the following sig- 
 nificant comments upon Morris's connection with the first New 
 York State Constitution : 
 
 It was over the executive branch that the main contest arose. It 
 was conceded that this should be nominally single-headed; that is, that 
 there should be a governor. But the members generally could not realize 
 how different was a governor, elected by the people and responsible to 
 them, from one appointed by an alien and higher power to rule over them, 
 as in the colonial days. . . . Morris himself was wonderfully clear- 
 sighted and cool-headed. He did not let the memory of the wrong-doing 
 of the royal governors blind him; he saw that the trouble with them lay, 
 not in the power that they held, but in the source from which that power 
 came. Once the source was changed, the power was an advantage, not a 
 harm, to the state. Yet few or none of his companions could see this; 
 and they nervously strove to save their new state from the danger of 
 executive usurpation by trying to make the executive practically a board 
 of men instead of one man, and by crippling it so as to make it ineffective 
 for good, while at the same time dividing the responsibility so that no one 
 need be afraid to do evil. 
 
 While the views of Morris were adopted in the Federal Con- 
 stitution, they were rejected in the State Constitution. The 
 result is that to-day bossi-made and machine-driven government 
 flourishes in our state and municipal administrations, while it 
 has comparatively little influence in national affairs. The popular 
 will is expressed more directly and more efficiently through the 
 Short Ballot of our federal elections than through the cumber- 
 some method by which, in Boston, for example, the voter is 
 confronted with, the names of nearly ninety candidates on his 
 ballot. 
 
 Boston has discovered the fact that its present system of 
 elections contributes to the confusion of the voter and the 
 strengthening of the corrupt or selfish boss. The Boston 
 Finance Commission, after disclosing a condition of corruption 
 
44 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 at the city hall which aroused the attention and indignation of 
 the whole community, has proposed and put through the state 
 legislature a Charter bill by which two plans for city elections 
 will be submitted to the voters next November. Plan number 
 one is generally regarded asi the plan of the politicians; plan 
 number two is that favored by the Finance Commission. Both 
 plans, however, provide for a shorter ballot than Boston now 
 employs, for the present city government includes thirteen alder- 
 men elected annually at large and seventy-five common councilors 
 elected annually by wards. Plan number one, or the politicians' 
 plan, provides a common council of thirty-six members, and, 
 while a concession to Short Ballot sentiment, still clings to the 
 idea of a bulky and unwieldly administration. Plan number two, 
 in our judgment far the more practical as well as far the simpler, 
 provides for a city council of nine membersi. The entire council 
 is to be elected the first year, but, after a certain definite period 
 provided in the charter, there will be only from four to six 
 municipal candidates! to be elected each year, the larger number 
 falling in those years when the mayor and two members of the 
 school committee, as well as three members of the council, are 
 being chosen. The mayor will be elected for four years, but 
 there is provision for a, "recall" on the expression of the will 
 of a majority of the registered voters. 
 
 The weakest spot in American democracy to-day is American 
 city government. Advocates of municipal reform in all parts 
 of the country will join with the Boston Finance Commission 
 in the hope that the voters of that city will adopt plan number 
 two. The Finance Commission, in urging its adoption, makes 
 the following prediction : 
 
 By reducing the number of candidates, and thereby simplifying the 
 ballot, good nominations and intelligent discussion of candidates will be 
 possible. This is not now the case. . The commission is under no 
 
 illusion that the changes - recommended will of and by themselves secure 
 good government. No municipal charter can be a self-executing instrument 
 of righteousness. If the people want the kind of government they have 
 had during the past few years, no charter revision will prevent it. If, as 
 the commission believes, they desire good government, the plan suggested 
 should enable them to obtain and keep it. 
 
 Why should not the Short Ballot idea, which has been put 
 into successful operation in some of our western cities, and is 
 now likely to be applied to municipal administration in Boston, 
 be taken up, discussed, and perhaps embodied in constitutional 
 
SHORT BALLOT 45 
 
 amendments in the various states as a means of reforming state 
 politics along practical lines? 
 
 Outlook. 92:829-31. August 1, 1909 
 
 Short Ballot Again 
 
 The electoral reform proposed by Mr. Richard S. Childs in 
 a recent issue of The Outlook, and entitled "The Short Ballot," 
 has excited an unusual amount of newspaper comment — much 
 of it, we are bound to say, skeptical, if not adverse. This is 
 not disappointing, because it is entirely natural. Americans are 
 thoroughly saturated with the idea of democracy; they believe 
 with all their hearts that this is a "government of the people, 
 by the people, and for the people.'' Partly through the influence 
 of French political philosophers in the period of struggle imme- 
 diately preceding the birth of the American Republic, partly 
 through tradition, partly through the unconscious and autono- 
 mous growth of political machinery, and partly through . the 
 persistently inculcated doctrines of the political "bosses," who 
 wish to control nominations and elections, we have come to 
 accept, as a fundamental part of our political creed, the belief 
 that in order to have a representative government the people 
 must choose and elect all their executive officers — or at least, 
 if not all, as many as it is physically possible to crowd upon a 
 ballot. We do recognize that there are some physical limita- 
 tions ; in New York we elect a secretary of state, but we let 
 him choose his deputies ; we elect our state treasurer, but we 
 let him appoint his cashier. It is manifest, therefore, that a line 
 is to be drawn somewhere. Mr. Childs proposes, not that we 
 shall adopt a radically new system of government, but simply 
 that we shall move the line, which everybody recognizes, a little 
 further upward and vote for fewer officers, imposing upon those 
 officers greater responsibilities' of appointment. We should still 
 have a representative government — in our judgment a more rep- 
 resentative government, for the elected officers would be more 
 intimately known and understood by the voters, and would 
 therefore be held, both morally and practically, more responsible 
 to the people. 
 
 From a mass of newspaper editorials which have come to 
 our attention, we select three as voicing the typical objections 
 
46 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 to the idea of the Short Ballot. The Concord (New Hampshire) 
 Patriot says : "If what Mr. Childs says be true, why not elect 
 just one man in the state, as, say, governor, one man in the 
 county, as, say, sheriff; and one man in the city, as, say, mayor, 
 and let him fill all the other places?" Why not, indeed, with 
 the modification of having the voter also elect one or two repre- 
 sentatives to a legislative council which shall co-operate with 
 the executive? This is the method employed in the national 
 government and it works entirely successfully. The presidents 
 of the United States, from the days of Washington, have repre- 
 sented the American people and have protected them in their 
 democratic rights more completely and more successfully than 
 the state administrations of any state, or of all the states. The 
 Patriot goes on to say that New Hampshire has tried the Short 
 Ballot plan with large appointive power, and it has proved a 
 failure ; that New Hampshire has not had a governor in decades 
 who has really represented the people, and who has not made 
 his appointments from corrupt or selfish or weak motives. Our 
 answer is, first, that New Hampshire has never tried the Short 
 Ballot plan. A 1904 ballot of the New Hampshire city of Man- 
 chester includes, outside of the national offices, thirty-one sets 
 of candidates. This is not a short ballot, but, on the contrary, 
 is one of the longest in the country. "Neither the people of 
 New Hampshire nor any other state," says Mr. Childs, "are 
 competent to elect thirty-one officers on one day with any degree 
 of discrimination. Nothing but a long-established and adroitly 
 managed political machine can handle the task of making nomi- 
 nations for such a multitude of offices. It is not strange, then, 
 that the machine can control, not only the minor. officials, but also 
 the governor." But suppose that the Patriot were correct, and 
 that New Hampshire voters, by means of the Short Ballot, had 
 elected corrupt governors for decades. Is the remedy to give 
 them the opportunity to elect a great body of corrupt subordi- 
 nate officers? Does the pessimistic maxim, "Set a thief to catch 
 a thief," provide a cure for our political ills? Decidedly not. 
 The remedy in New Hampshire is to center the power of 
 executive action and direct responsibility to the people in the 
 governor, and then to educate the voters so that they will make 
 short shrift of a governor who does not represent them as they 
 desire. 
 
 The second objector is the Aurora (Illinois) Beacon, which 
 
SHORT BALLOT 47 
 
 asserts that the voters in Illinois on the whole know the per- 
 sonal qualifications for office of the candidates presented to them 
 for election upon the present ballot, and desire to act for them- 
 selves upon that knowledge. We concede the fact that a high 
 degree of intelligence prevails in the state of Illinois, but we 
 doubt whether the citizens of Aurora are competent to decide, 
 or are interested in deciding, whether the state engineer knows 
 enough differential calculus properly to determine the strain on 
 an arch in one of their new highway bridges; or whether the 
 trustees for the University of Illinois, for whom they vote, are 
 fitted to select a professor of agricultural chemistry for that 
 admirable institution. Yet these are exactly the kind of ques- 
 tions which the citizens of Illinois ought to give attention to if 
 they are going to vote intelligently for some of the candidates 
 now presented for their inspection and suffrage. The absurdity 
 of imposing mathematical or chemical responsibilities on the 
 voter is manifest. 
 
 The Cleveland (Ohio) Leader is another objector to the 
 Short Ballot plan, and its opinion is typical of a somewhat gen- 
 eral but not very carefully reasoned skepticism. The Leader is 
 inclined to believe that a more efficient democratic government 
 would follow the concentration of all responsibility! upon fewer 
 elected public servants, but it also believes that the American 
 people do not want this kind of reform. "The majority, it is 
 probable, would prefer to be badly and wastefully governed and 
 still governed directly by men of their own choosing rather than 
 to be well governed and have their public business efficiently 
 administered if it had to be done by officials whom the people 
 did not select." If the Leader means to say "by officials all of 
 whom the people did not select," we take issue with it ; we do 
 not think Americans want bad government in exchange for elect- 
 ing all public servants. They do, however, desire that the of- 
 ficials whom; they do elect shall mind their business, shall feel 
 their responsibility, and shall be responsive to the popular will. 
 The postmaster-general of the United States, who is appointed 
 by the president, answers to these requirements quite as fully 
 as the president himself. If there is any executive department 
 of the government the head of which the people might naturally 
 feel should be selected by them and by them alone, it is the 
 director of the post-office. But the fact that he is an appointed 
 and not an elected official does not make him immune from the 
 
48 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 exercise of the popular will. A postmaster-general whose acts 
 met with a storm of disapproval from every part of the country 
 would at once resign or be dismissed from any cabinet, except, 
 perhaps, that of a President Johnson; and President Johnson 
 could not have been elected in accordance with the Short Ballot 
 principle. 
 
 It appears to us conclusive that the burden of proof rests 
 upon the objectors to the Short Ballot idea; it needs more evi- 
 dence than has been so far presented to convince The Outlook 
 that it is not easy to understand, simple of application, politically 
 efficient, and more in accord with the principles of representative 
 government than our present method of trying to select all 
 public officers by popular choice. 
 
 Equity. 16:53. January, 1914 
 
 Short Ballot Movement in New York 
 
 The Short Ballot idea received its greatest impetus in New 
 York state when, on December 5, the Republican conference 
 in New York City adopted a resolution, couched in very definite 
 terms, supporting the application of the principle to the state 
 government. This action assured the support of the party in 
 the next legislature for a constitutional amendment which would' 
 vest the appointment of the principal administrative state officers 
 (the comptroller, the attorney-general, the state treasurer, the 
 secretary of state and the state engineer and surveyor) in the 
 governor. This follows the line of advance laid down in Cali- 
 fornia, Iowa and Ohio, and may be called the orthodox measure 
 as applied to state government. 
 
 Governor Hughes at the very outset of the Short Ballot 
 movement recommended such a step, but his influence, though 
 great, was insufficient to commit the party. Last year, how- 
 ever, the Progressive forces not only incorporated the Short 
 Ballot principle in their state platform, but prepared and sub- 
 mitted in the legislature a definite measure and supported it with 
 a pamphlet which was widely circulated. In the Democratic party 
 the proposal now has at least the passive support of Governor 
 Glynn, who, in calling the attention of the legislature to the 
 necessity for a constitutional convention at an early date, pointed 
 to the general sentiment for Short Ballot reform as one of the 
 chief reasons for action. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 49 
 
 These developments have a particular significance at this 
 time, inasmuch as the system of direct primaries, coupled with 
 the Massachusetts ballot, has been adopted by the hold-over 
 legislature. Careful students of electoral conditions see quite 
 clearly that the maximum benefits to be derived from these new 
 electoral reforms will not be enjoyed by the people without the 
 simpler conditions supplied under the Short Ballot. Until the 
 latter is in effect the function of the Massachusetts form of 
 ballot will be principally that of demonstrating to the voter pre- 
 cisely how much or how little he knows about each of the can- 
 didates. As for the direct primary, the difficulties of the long 
 ballot are quite the same, if not even more aggravated, when 
 the voter makes his choice of candidates within the party as 
 when he makesi his final choice. 
 
 But the party program in New York is not as yet as broad as 
 that of the leaders in the Short Ballot movement: the executive 
 committee of the New York Short Ballot Organization. This 
 body, now that its original proposal is in seemingly good hands, 
 has broadened its interest to include attention to the county and 
 judiciary problems. 
 
 Independent. 69: 1152-5. November, 24, 1910 
 
 Shortest Ballot. Lucius F. C. Garvin 
 
 The movement for a Short Ballot is to be commended and 
 supported. The contrast between the parliamentary ballot in 
 Great Britain and almost any ballot in the United States is 
 marked and very much to our discredit. 
 
 In England two or three names for the one office of member 
 of Parliament appear upon the ballot, and the voter is called 
 upon merely to indicate his choice among them. This is very 
 simple, concentrates each voter's attention upon a single impor- 
 tant act, and necessarily secures a member more representative 
 of the majority of voters in each district than is possible with 
 our ballot containing a multitude of candidates for many offices. 
 
 Compare such a parliamentary election with the congressional 
 election in Rhode Island, November 8, 1910. It is true that this 
 year there was not added to the list of candidates a string of 
 presidential electors, as was the case in the preceding congres- 
 sional election and will occur again in 1912. But in each of the 
 six cities of this state were to be found, as a part of the con- 
 
So SHORT BALLOT 
 
 greasional ballot, the candidates of all the parties for governor 
 and for the other four state offices, also for state senator and 
 for state representative. This makes eight offices to be filled 
 upon the same ballot. 
 
 Besides all thisi, in five of our six cities there was a second 
 ballot, deposited at the same time, containing the names of can- 
 didates for mayor and the other general city officials, for alder- 
 men, for the several members of the common council and mem- 
 bers of the school committee. 
 
 Each of the two ballots might be voted in its entirety by 
 marking a cross (x) in the circle under the symbol at the head 
 of the party list. In this way most electors, by making a single 
 cross mark, vote their straight party ticket, thus usually guaran- 
 teeing the election of the candidate selected by the machine of 
 the successful party. 
 
 It is needless to say that, of two opposing candidates, the 
 inferior frequently is elected, and that, even for so important 
 an office as governor or congressman, the real preference of 
 many voters is not exprest. This year, too, the election of con- 
 gressmen in Rhode Island was complicated by the fact that the 
 legislature then chosen is to elect a successor to Senator Aldrich. 
 
 The Massachusetts ballot is better than that of Rhode Island 
 in that each elector, in order to vote a full ticket, must look his 
 ballot entirely thru and make his selection from the names alpha- 
 betically arranged under each office. But even so, for many if 
 not all of the offices, the average voter must guess rather than 
 choose intelligently, thereby falling far short of the best results. 
 
 The commission form of government for cities, where not 
 more than five offices are to be filled at one election, is eulogized 
 as an illustration of the Short Ballot. Certainly, the limitation 
 of the duty of selection to designating a few important officials 
 is a great improvement over the filling of a long list of offices, 
 many of them of sieeming unimportance, which usually character- 
 izes municipal elections. However, five or even three are too 
 many for the average voter to choose successfully at the same 
 time. 
 
 The greater objection to the commission form of govern- 
 ment, as now developed, is that a large minority of the electors 
 is unrepresented upon the city legislature of five members. For, 
 whatever administrative functions may be assigned to each com- 
 missioner; it is still true that, as a whole, they fix the rate of 
 
SHORT BALLOT 51 
 
 taxation, apportion the city's income and enact ordinances, all 
 of them legislative functions*. 
 
 The city commission, therefore, is a small body, chosen by 
 a plurality, upon which a minority of the electorate, however 
 large, is unrepresented. 
 
 I predict that within a few years, as soon as the political 
 machines learn the ropes of the new system, spoilsmen will con- 
 stitute the majority of the commission — and then! With all 
 power concentrated in the hands of three men, who are serving 
 the interests rather than the public, we may witness abuses equal 
 to, if not exceeding, anything known in the past, either in Phila- 
 delphia, San Francisco or Pittsburg. 
 
 As reformers our aim should be, not the Short Ballot, but 
 the shortest ballot. At no election should more than one officer 
 be voted for by any elector. That is the situation in the parlia- 
 mentary elections of Great Britain, but the choice of the voter 
 among candidates is very restricted, with the result of a legisla- 
 tive body chosen by and representative of about one-half of the 
 total number of qualified electors voting. Parliament designates 
 the prime ministers, thus avoiding our popular election of presi- 
 dent; but, since the choosing body is unrepresentative, the ad- 
 ministration it names must also in some respects be unrepre- 
 sentative of the will of the people. 
 
 In order to apply the shortest ballot to the election of con- 
 gressmen in the state of Massachusetts, it would only be neces- 
 sary to have a general ticket for the entire state and limit each 
 elector to a single vote. For the fourteen congressional offices 
 the names of double that number of candidates might appear 
 upon the ballot, each elector to take his choice fr-om the entire 
 list. 
 
 Under such an election law the method of nominating can- 
 didates becomes unimportant. Primary election laws, which at 
 best are an added and disagreeable burden imposed upon the 
 voters, will become of no consequence and may well be repealed. 
 Let the parties, large and small, nominate in such manner as 
 they choose, and let individuals sign nomination papers for inde- 
 pendent candidates when they like. By these two methods a 
 sufficient number of capable men will find their names placed 
 upon the ballot, and the fourteen candidates receiving the highest 
 number of votes will be elected. In this way, instead of four- 
 teen geographical districts being represented in Congress by the 
 
52 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 choice of the party dominant in each, the fourteen leading 
 political opinions held by the voters of the state of Massachu- 
 setts will be represented, in most cases by the ablest exponent of 
 the respective opinions. Instead of about half the voters of the 
 state being 1 unrepresented, and the other half in most cases 
 unsatisfactorily represented, as is now the situation, nearly all 
 of the electorsi will have as spokesman at Washington their first 
 choice among all the citizens of the state. 
 
 What is here stated of Massachusetts will be true of all the 
 other states. Then our national House of Representatives will 
 become the one truly representative legislature of the world, 
 capable of handling the business of the country with a facility 
 and success as yet undreamed of anywhere. This perfectly rep- 
 resentative body, reflecting accurately the convictions of the 
 people as a whole, can get along very well without the Senate, 
 which should then be abolished. 
 
 But, besides a national government, society has in the United 
 States two other political organizations!, namely, the state and 
 the municipality. Each of these three corporate bodies should 
 hold their elections separately. But in every election the same 
 rule should be followed: No elector should be permitted to vote 
 for mlore than one candidate, but he should be entitled to take 
 his choice of all the candidates in the field. Just the number of 
 which the legislative body had best be composed is not a matter 
 of principle, but must be determined by experience. For a city 
 it may be five, as in the commission form of city government, 
 or it may be nine, as fixed upon by the city of Boston; but in 
 either event all should be elected annually upon a general ticket, 
 and each elector restricted to voting for one candidate out of 
 the total number upon the ballot. 
 
 Eventually an ideal election will be conducted as follows : 
 For illustration, make the application to the state of Rhode 
 ■Island. Assume that it has been agreed to abolish the house 
 of representatives, leaving but one body, the state senate, to be 
 composed, let us say, of thirty-six members. 
 
 Election day is here and all go to the polls. Each voter 
 kno.ws, thru previous newspaper advertisements by the state, 
 from sample ballots freely distributed, and by means of an 
 active campaign just closed, that for the thirty-six positions of 
 senator there are fifty or more candidates. At the voting booth 
 he finds a check list containing in alphabetical order the names 
 
SHORT BALLOT S3 
 
 of the qualified electors of his district, with a blank space at the 
 right of each name. His sole duty as an elector is to announce 
 viva voce the name of the candidate of his choice and see it 
 written in the place opposite his own name. 
 
 Having but one chance each year to name his chosen repre- 
 sentative, it is very certain that each' elector will make up his 
 mind after much consideration and with due care. He will be 
 very solicitous that his sole representative, the only one to act 
 for him in the government of the state, shall be the candidate 
 above all others in whom he has confidence. Some men, no 
 doubt, will vote for a neighbor whom they know personally and 
 have faith in, but more, surely, will select from the list the 
 candidate, without regard to his place of residence, whom he 
 deems, the greatest and best of all. Few can be bribed by any 
 sum to vote for other than their first choice, and a briber, if 
 successful once, will be deserted by all honest supporters at the 
 next election. No voter can be kept away from the polls by any 
 device short of force. Interest in the election and in the returns 
 will be like that manifested over a game of baseball by the 
 enthusiastic lovers of that sport. Such an election, instead of 
 being, as now, a fight, with its exultant winnersi and its down- 
 cast losers, will be a great fair, in which all will draw a rich 
 prize. 
 
 The thirty-six candidate receiving the highest number of 
 votes would be declared elected. Each senator elected could, 
 and doubtless would, be supplied with a list of the voters who 
 named him as their choice. Not only he himself, but his fellow 
 senators and the public, would know the kind of citizens whom 
 he represented, and he would be rated accordingly. It may be- 
 come desirable that each senator, instead of casting one vote only 
 in his official) capacity, shall be entitled to cast as many votes 
 upon any proposition coming before the senate as were counted 
 for him at the polls. 
 
 In limiting the entire political activity of the qualified elector 
 of a state to casting his vote for one candidate for a single 
 office, it is contemplated that the perfectly representative senate 
 which results will enact all statute laws and will designate the 
 governor of the state. That isi to say, the system which has 
 been evolved for conducting the government in the United King- 
 dom will be followed. As in the case of the prime minister, 
 who is designated as such by the majority of the British Parlia- 
 
54 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 ment, the governor so chosen would appoint the other principal 
 state officers, such as secretary of state, attorney-general and 
 general treasurer, and these would name their subordinates, as 
 provided by a civil service law. It is perfectly safe to assume 
 that such a state senate would be so able and so representative 
 as to select officials and enact laws of a very high quality. 
 
 The above outline of a state government, if correct in theory, 
 will in the end be applied also to the national government and 
 to municipal government. So that, eventually, a citizen of the 
 United States will be called upon to vote for three officials only, 
 namely, his representatives in the state legislature, in the na- 
 tional legislature and in the municipal legislature — the respective 
 legislatures to do the rest in their several spheres. 
 
 Manifestly these elections should be separate and apart from 
 each other. The national election, as now, might be held in 
 November of the even years; the state elections! in November of 
 the odd numbered years ; the municipal elections annually, in 
 December or in the spring. 
 
 If under these conditions, the shortest ballot imposing so 
 simple a duty upon each citizen, the people of the United States 
 could not provide themselves with satisfactory government, then 
 must it not be admitted that we are inherently incapable of 
 governing ourselves? But since we have worried along some- 
 how under extremely complicated and defective machinery of 
 elections, there can be no question of success with the better 
 system in vogue. 
 
 Equity Series. 15:84-8. January, 1913 
 
 Short Ballot— What It Is— Its. Progress to Date 
 
 There is one condition in American politics which everybody 
 now recognizes as an evil. The American voter in every state, 
 in nearly every county, and in most cities, is burdened with a 
 task which he has proven himself unable to perform — the selec- 
 tion of a vast host of officials by ballot. In our excess of enthu- 
 siasm over democracy, we have forgotten that the every-day 
 citizen cannot be an up-to-date, loose-leaf encyclopedia on the 
 qualifications and history of every candidate for every office 
 which our system makes elective. This is nothing to the dis- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 55 
 
 credit of the voter himself; he has more vital problemsi to 
 settle than who the coroner should be, or who will file away 
 the records of real estate transfers at the county court house. 
 
 Political scientists until recently have practically all set down 
 this fact as an incurable malady. Newspaper editors have taken 
 occasion after each election to point out the imbecility of the 
 voter trying to master a ballot of perhaps hundreds of names, 
 and have then lapsed into silence on the subject until the next 
 election. Lawyers and bar associations have regularly deplored 
 the necessity for dragging the judges on to the political stump. 
 And the plain citizens who have had to master these blanket-like 
 ballots have gone away from the polls disgusted and disgruntled. 
 All the while the professional politicians have been running the 
 government, not always or perhaps so very often any worse than 
 the people would have done it, but always thru an unofficial, 
 irresponsible second organization. Government by the people, in 
 every real sense, in-so-far as their control over the vast propor- 
 tion of the officers is concerned, very largely ceased. There was 
 a pseudo-popular rule to be sure, which is typified by the party- 
 column ballot. Theoretically, the- voter could select forty, fifty, 
 or even sixty officers. What actually happened in most cases, 
 was that the voter put his cross in the party circle and let it 
 go at that. Voting the straight ticket was so simple! And so 
 deceptive! The voter with just two strokes of his pencil, signed 
 away his civic birthright to one or another of the party organi- 
 zations. 
 
 Direct primaries were expected to afford a relief, but they 
 have proven a disappointment because they have not made poli- 
 tics simpler, but more complex. It is not that the principle of 
 directness is wrong, but that directness cannot be an assured 
 benefit without adequate knowledge. 
 
 Along came the Short Ballot movement, a little over two 
 years ago, in an effort to bring the editors, the professors, the 
 lawyers, the plain citizens and the politicians face to face with 
 the problem and to solve it in the interests of effective and in- 
 telligent citizenship. 
 
 The friends of the Short Ballot idea began by summarizing 
 the evil of the long ballot in these words : 
 
 "First: It submits to popular election offices which are too 
 unimportant to attract (or deserve) public attention; and 
 
56 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 "Second: It submits to popular election so many offices al 
 one time that many of them are inevitably crowded out from 
 proper public attention; and 
 
 "Third: It submits to popular election so many offices at 
 one time as to make the business of ticket-making too intricate 
 for popular participation, whereupon some sort of private polit- 
 ical machine becomes an indispensable instrument in electoral 
 action." 
 
 If this analysis is true, it is clear that the average voter has 
 practically no real chance to register his opinion on public affairs 
 thru the choice of officials with the exceedingly important excep- 
 tion of a very few conspicuous officers, who stand out from the 
 others because of their great power or influence, and the inter- 
 esting, understandable nature of their functions. The great 
 majority of officers; elected by ballot are now drawing salaries 
 because the head of the ticket has carried the tail. The minor 
 officers on the big ballot, those who perform clerical, admini- 
 strative and technical duties, are like the stowawaysi on an ocean 
 liner; they slip on board unnoticed; they successfully conceal 
 themselves during the voyage; they arrive at their destination 
 without giving an account of themselves. This is why gover- 
 nors, mayors and other chief executives are nearly always at 
 least presentable men, while the minor officers are very often a 
 very inferior type of political jobsters. 
 
 The Short Ballot Principle 
 
 Once the difficulty with the ballot is recognized in this way, 
 the remedy formulates itself in the principle of the Short Ballot, 
 which is defined as follows: 
 
 "First: That only those offices should be elective which are 
 important enough to attract (and deserve) public examination. 
 
 "Second: That very few offices should be filled by election 
 at one time, so as to permit adequate and unconfused public 
 examination of the candidates, and so as to facilitate the free 
 and intelligent making of original tickets by any voter for him- 
 self, unaided by political specialists." 
 
 This principle is at the basis of democracy in the cities of 
 Great Britain and the cities in this country which have adopted 
 the so-called commission form of government. 
 
 It is the hope of those who are leading the Short Ballot 
 
SHORT BALLOT 57 
 
 movement, to effect the necessary changes in the constitutions 
 and the statutes of the various statesi, which will as rapidly as 
 possible drive from the ballot all purely administrative, technical 
 and clerical officials. This would include such officers, now 
 elected in many states, as the secretary of state, state treasurer, 
 state printer, attorney-general, clerks of courts, county clerks, 
 registers of deeds and surrogates, city treasurers, city clerks., city 
 attorneys. The pruning process might go further, according 
 to the local feeling and conditions. In some communities it 
 might be found desirable to provide a method of appointment 
 for judges. But this is a debatable question which will require 
 the most careful scrutiny before a decision of any sort is arrived 
 at. The appointment method of selecting judges is not a neces- 
 sary part of the Short Ballot program. 
 
 Certain officers, on the contrary, under a democracy must 
 always remain elective. These are the policy determining or 
 political officials, such as the members of a city council, the 
 members of a state legislature, and congressmen and United 
 States senators. 
 
 The appointing power would necessarily fall into the hands 
 of the "conspicuous" officials. This, does not mean, of course, 
 the extension of the spoils system. Often it would be necessary 
 in the application of the Short Ballot principle, to call in the aid 
 of accessory principles such as the "merit" system of civil ser- 
 vice, which has lately been perfected and is now applied to such 
 high officials as the public librarian in Chicago and the fire 
 chief in New York City. A strict "corrupt practices" law would 
 often also be desirable, to prevent "pernicious activity" on the 
 part both of the appointing party and the appointee. 
 
 These devices will often help to meet the argument some- 
 times made in opposition to the Short Ballot idea that its advo- 
 cates would establish a concentrated, irresponsible machine. 
 Those who raise this cry forget that we have such a machine at 
 the present time in many states, which unfortunately is central- 
 ized not under conspicuous, responsible and indictable public 
 officers, but under an entirely unofficial and often almost in- 
 visible boss or "ring." And it is inconceivable that the Short 
 Ballot ideal could be applied in such a way as to create a greater 
 oligarchy in American politics than the one which exists at the 
 present time in most of the state capitals. 
 
58 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 The First Fruits 
 
 It was in California that the present Short Ballot move- 
 ment, two years ago, first took root. Thanks to Governor Hiram 
 W. Johnson, who advocated the idea in his messages and public 
 addresses, and to other enlightened public leaders, the legislature 
 in 191 1 submitted to the people four Short Ballot measures. One 
 was a constitutional amendment which resulted in removing the 
 clerk of the supreme court from the ballot, and getting him 
 under the control of the supreme court. By statute the state 
 printer was made an appointee of the governor. Another con- 
 stitutional amendment vested the appointment of the railroad 
 commissioners in the governor. Thus, a beginning was made 
 toward remolding the administration of the state departments 
 into a compact, unified organization under the governor. Like- 
 wise a county home-rule amendment was passed, and later 
 adopted by the people, which made it possible for individual 
 counties to shorten their local ballot, in accordance with local 
 conditions. 
 
 In Ohio the constitutional convention, which met in Janu- 
 ary, 1912, debated, but ultimately rejected by a rather small 
 margin, a measure which would have made the principal admini- 
 strative officers of the state appointive by the governor, thus 
 greatly shortening the enormous Ohio ballot and giving that 
 state a sensible form of administration. Such a measure will 
 doubtless be submitted to the people again : this time by the 
 legislature. 
 
 The Short Ballot Cities 
 
 The most popular application of the Short Ballot principle, of 
 course, is to be found in the so-called commission plan of city 
 government, which has now become a very familiar type thruout 
 America. The commission plan, in many instances, to be sure, 
 involves one or all of several other features, including election 
 at large, the non-partizan ballot, and the initiative, referendum 
 and recall. But the only features held in common by all com- 
 mission-governed citiesi are election at large and the Short Ballot. 
 It is beyond questibn, then, that the relative success of this plan 
 over the older and more usual type of city government is in very 
 great measure due to the presence of Short Ballot conditions. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 59 
 
 A necessary consequence of the Short Ballot, that is, the right 
 sort of Short Ballot, is that the administration is unified and 
 brought under the authority of a. responsible head. It is this, 
 perhaps, more than anything else, which makes commission gov- 
 ernment so superior to the mayor-and-council plan, which has 
 been in vogue in most of our other cities until recently. Even 
 more strikingly, than in the usual commission plan, the idea of 
 unification is brought out in the Sumter or Lockport city man- 
 ager plan, by which the routine administration of the city is 
 brought under the control of a single appointive expert, who in 
 turn is responsible to the representative elective body, the city 
 council. 
 
 The success of all administrative bodies in all times has 
 required some such unification and responsible headship. More 
 than ever, these considerations take on weight in this day of 
 scientific "efficiency" principles. Standardization, which is at the 
 root of efficiency and economy in organization, can only be 
 brought about where there is a real head, who can insist on his 
 (or their) instructions being carried out. This principle, of 
 course, holds good for the states and counties, just as it does for 
 cities. 
 
 Up to date about 210 cities thruout the country have adopted 
 commission government, and so far none has seriously con- 
 sidered a return to the old plan. 1 Not that the commission plan 
 is an ideal type of city government by any means ; but it has 
 shown indubitably the capacity of American citizens to act wisely 
 and effectively when the conditions of citizenship are reduced to 
 a point where the average voter can investigate and remember 
 the qualifications of his representatives in office. The voters in 
 commission governed cities do not need the assistance of a boss. 
 That functionary's occupation is gone. 
 
 The growth of commission government hasi been facilitated 
 by optional state-wide laws by which cities may adopt the com- 
 mission form by referendum vote. Such laws are on the statute 
 books of Alabama, California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, 
 Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jer- 
 sey, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin and 
 
 1 Attempts in the past year have been made by local politicians to 
 force a city to revert to its old form of government. In each case (Hutch- 
 inson, Kan.; Baker, Ore., and Spokane, Wash.) the effort failed. 
 
6o SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Wyoming 1 . This list does not include all the "home-rule"' states. 
 Among the states which earnestly desire such laws are New 
 York, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Indiana. 
 
 The Wider Organized Movement 
 
 The spread of the Short Ballot, both in its application to the 
 commission plan and its wider significance, has been due in large 
 part to the organized efforts of The National Short Ballot 
 Organization. It is not an exaggeration to say that practically 
 every independent newspaper and magazine in the United States 
 not only favors the Short Ballot, but at one time or another has 
 said so in an effective way thru its editorial columns. Fully one 
 hundred professors of political science in American colleges are 
 teaching the Short Ballot principle by means o£ the pamphlets 
 published by this organization. 
 
 The theory has gained practically universal acceptance. It 
 remains for the theory to be transmuted into definite legislative 
 measures. This, of course, can only be done by citizens who 
 are thoroly familiar with the local conditions which they intend 
 to meet. 
 
 It has been shown above how, in state government, the idea 
 would be applied according to the programs laid out in Ohio and 
 California. Following closely the lines laid down in these states, 
 the Chicago City Club's committee on the Short Ballot (Mr. E. 
 H. Cassels, chairman, The Rookery, Chicago), has prepared a 
 program for Illinois. The Short Ballot Organization in New 
 York state has been conducting a campaign along similar lines. 
 
 So far as the state administration is concerned, the way to 
 the application of the Short Ballot idea sieems fairly clear. It is 
 simply a case of putting the minor state administrative officials 
 directly under the control of the governor. Their appointment 
 should not be made subject to the confirmation of the senate or 
 anybody else. The governor should be held responsible; he 
 should be made to stand or fall by his record. Of course, the 
 time will come when more radical measures may be proposed ; 
 such, perhaps, as the one voted on in Oregon at the November 
 election, which will provide for a state legislature of only one 
 house, the members of which will be chosen by a system of pro- 
 portional representation. And here it may be remarked, in 
 parenthesis, that this system points the way toward a Short 
 
SHORT BALLOT 61 
 
 Ballot, wherever a number of purely political officers, having 
 precisely the same functions, are chosen from the same district. 
 
 Short Ballot Counties 
 
 In county government the way to the Short Ballot is less 
 obvious. California will prove an experiment station in this 
 subject, because of the opportunities offered in the county home- 
 rule amendment referred to above. In one county (Los An- 
 geles) which has just availed itself of the privilege of drafting 
 and adopting a charter, a most interesting application of the 
 Short Ballot idea has been worked out. Under the plan em- 
 bodied in this document, most of the elective officers of the 
 county would become appointees of the county board of super- 
 visors, subject to civil service examination, and hold office during 
 the pleasure of the board of supervisors. The sheriff and dis- 
 trict attorney are retained on the elective list because they are 
 state judicial officers. Many interesting features appear in this 
 charter, including the provision for the appointment of con- 
 stables by the sheriff, thus providing a unified constabulary 
 system instead of the two warring sets of peace officers under 
 the old state law. The people of Los Angeles adopted this 
 instrument on November 5th. 
 
 Thru theory and experiment, a way will be found to apply 
 the principle of simplification to every unit of government. 
 
 Responsibility of the Parties 
 
 Just at present one of the most encouraging features in recent 
 months is the support of the party organizations in many of the 
 states. A review of the state platforms of the various parties 
 shows that in Ohio and Illinois all three leading parties favor 
 the Short Ballot idea. In each of the states of Colorado, Iowa, 
 Nebraska, New York, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Utah, one or 
 more of the platforms favor, recommend or demand it. In 
 addition to the platform expression, the three leading presi- 
 dential candidates this year have given their support. Presi- 
 dent-elect Wilson has been president of The National Short 
 Ballot Organization since its beginning. Mr. Roosevelt vigor- 
 ously preached the idea in his speech before the constitutional 
 convention at Columbus. Mr. Taft referred to it very kindly 
 in his speech of acceptance of the Republican nomination. 
 
62 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 The people this year expect these platform promises to be 
 taken seriously. The Short Ballot idea is a very definitely 
 understood thing. // is not a device to save paper but to con- 
 serve citizenship. 
 
 The National Short Ballot Organization maintains an office 
 at 383 Fourth Avenue, New York City, for the express purpose 
 of helping any and every citizen who is interested in any phase 
 of the question. It welcomes every opportunity to place its 
 literature in the hands of such persons, and to give more special 
 assistance. It does not profit financially in any of its enterprises. 
 
STATE GOVERNMENT 
 
 Equity Series. 15:100-2. April, igi3 
 
 Future State Government 
 
 The city, the state, the nation; or the nation, the state, the 
 city. Consider these three entities in either of the above rota- 
 tions, or both rotations. Until recent years our most conspicu- 
 ous failure in government was in city government. The mar- 
 velous growth . of cities, the concentration of wealth in cities, 
 emphasized the crudity of our plan of city government, and 
 revealed many tempting prizes to the scheming grafter. He was 
 surprised at their richness and the ease by which he could get 
 them. Great scandals inevitably followed. During recent years 
 much of the best talent in our country has been devoted to the 
 science of municipal government, and the corruption of the past 
 has been greatly reduced and it is now rapidly disappearing. The 
 rise and phenomenal spread of the commission government plan, 
 carrying with it the local application of the initiative, referendum 
 and recall, is a very important part of and cause of. the great 
 improvement we have seen in municipal government during 
 the past few years. 
 
 The commission plan is a very great improvement on the old 
 plan of municipal government. But it is not yet perfect. Real- 
 izing the importance of plans and methods, the best talent is 
 now being devoted to improving and perfecting what has proven 
 to be a good plan. The cry is no longer "elect better men," but 
 find the best plan. 
 
 This magazine is devoted to plans and methods of govern- 
 ment; so it is not strange that the earliest observations! of the 
 faulty character of our present plan of state government, and 
 suggestions for its improvement have had their first expression 
 in these columns. Our states are all governed on the same 
 general plan of our national government: a chief executive; a 
 legislative branch consisting of two houses ; the upper house 
 presided over by the vice chief executive (vice-president, lieu- 
 tenant-governor) ; a supreme court. It would have been better 
 
64 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 if the states had copied the appointive cabinet also, instead of 
 making the state officers elective. 
 
 This year is- seeing 40 state legislatures in session, from 1,000 
 to 3,000 bills introduced in each, and some of the sessions 
 limited to 60 days. Most legislatures consist chiefly of crude 
 material, and here the political expert — the expert not in the 
 best sense of the term — finds his opportunity. In most states, 
 cities are held in close bondage to the legislature, and this links 
 the city corruptionist to the legislature and state government. 
 This union is an evil to both, the cities on one side and the 
 state government on the other. 
 
 Some yearsi ago, as soon as the success of the commission 
 plan of city government was demonstrated, this magazine sug- 
 gested some similar plan for state government, and we have 
 reiterated this idea from time to time. We have been glad to see 
 the idea "take root" here and there, and we predict that it will 
 soon become widespread. Unfortunately, we have not yet a re- 
 modeled state government to point to as an example, but we 
 have a sufficient theoretical basis for the present, and that basis 
 is becoming firmer and more perfect, as municipalities are per- 
 fecting the commission plan and proving its worth. 
 
 The new model of state government will come, not thru 
 constitutional changes suggested and submitted by legislatures, 
 for we cannot expect legislatures to commit suicide. It will 
 come by way of state constitutional conventions. Many states 
 are now contemplating constitutional conventions, but they do 
 not know that they are facing the consideration of radical 
 changes in state government. We hope that these conventions 
 will not come too soon nor too rapidly, for municipal govern- 
 ment has not yet been developed to the degree of perfection that 
 would present a sufficiently good model for the inevitable state 
 government of the future. 
 
 However, it does not require a prophet of much insight into 
 the future to state the following: The state government of 
 the future will not consist of "three independent branches, execu- 
 tive, legislative and judicial." This gray and grizzly heap, and 
 the powers of the future state government will be closely and 
 organically united, with no divided and shifting responsibilities. 
 This is prophesy No. 1, and perhaps most important, because so 
 comprehensive. 
 
 Prophesy No. 2 is, that the legislative functions of the state 
 
SHORT BALLOT 65 
 
 government of the future will not consist of two houses made 
 up mostly of men not only inexperienced in law-making, but 
 unprepared for that trying work, and sitting for a limited period, 
 during which time far too many laws, necessarily ''uncooked" or 
 "half-baked," are rushed thru. The future state legislative body 
 must necessarily be a single body and a small body, not only 
 carefully selected, but so selected as to truly represent the elec- 
 torate of the state — not so much the territorial sections of the 
 state as the interests and ideals of the electorate, regardless of 
 geographic sections. It is not the trees and rail fences in a 
 county that deserve representation, but the voters of the county; 
 and some of the voters of one county may wish to unite with 
 voters of similar ideals in other counties, even tho distant. Plans 
 are constantly discussed in this magazine that will give true 
 representation, regardless of distance or territory. Such a body 
 — call it a commission, council, board of governors, or what 
 you please — will be adequately paid, and will be in constant 
 service. It will not be bothered with local matters. Cities, 
 towns and counties will be entirely free to manage their own 
 affairs, subject only to general laws of the state — and these gen- 
 eral laws will always favor local freedom, except where state 
 interests are involved, or where certain regulations will secure 
 uniformity and serve the interests of all. This body will pro- 
 mulgate but few laws, and no bill will become a law until after 
 opportunity for the fullest discussion. This body will always 
 be subject to the initiative and the recall, and its acts will 
 always be subject to the referendum — but perhaps the best refer- 
 endum will be the careful submission of every bill to every 
 interest it touches and to the press, with ample time for their 
 discussion, before the bill becomes a law. We hope the time 
 may thus come when the initiative, referendum and recall would 
 fall into "innocuous desuetude," because representation would 
 be so perfect that the I. R. and R. would not be needed; but 
 they should always exist as primary rights, to be used whenever 
 necessary. 
 
 Is this a flight of fancy or a true prophesy? A few years 
 will prove. And this is only a part of the story. The admini- 
 strative officers will be appointive, not elective — appointed for 
 experience and proved fitness — maybe from some distant state 
 or country. The leader of the Philadelphia orchestra was gotten 
 from Germany. Why should not the managers of a state have 
 
66 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 a world-wide choice in selecting specialized talent for the service 
 of the state? The judiciary will probably be appointive, and not 
 "separate, distinct and independent" of everybody else. It will 
 be an intimate and vital part of the state government, and like 
 all other parts of the public service, it will be subject to the 
 dominant will. 
 
 Municipal and county government will grow in scope, impor- 
 tance and independence, thus cutting off much with which the 
 state government now deals, but the separation will benefit both 
 the state and the localities. During future years the national 
 government is sure to encroach upon present state functions. 
 Thus the state will apparently shrink between two growing 
 forces ; but the shrinking will only be apparent. Differentiations 
 between the spheres appropriate for each will grow clearer ?s 
 times goes on, and the result will be the best service to the indi- 
 vidual in his various relations. 
 
 I did not expect to say so much at the present time. Nor 
 do I expect to siee my dream realized with undue haste, nor 
 in perfection without long, tedious and possibly painful experi- 
 ence. There is a vague feeling in the popular mind that the 
 present state constitutions are not right — antiquated. There is 
 sentiment in many states for constitutional conventions. The 
 evolution above ventured will come by way of state constitu- 
 tional conventions!. Indiana has one of the most antiquated con- 
 stitutions. In November, 1914, the voters will decide the ques- 
 tion of calling a constitutional convention. Pennsylvania may 
 possibly vote on the same question in November, 1913. Consti- 
 tutional conventions are possible in the near future in New 
 Jersey, New York, Illinois) and possibly some other states. The 
 writer hopes they will not come too fast. 
 
 The State of Kansas, Governor's Office 
 
 Topeka, M|arch 10, 1913. 
 
 To the Legislature of the State of Kansas: 
 
 As the legislative duties of the Legislature of 1913 draw 
 to a close, I desire to congratulate the members of both 
 branches on the magnificent work which they have accomplished. 
 I believe that I am justified in saying that you have worked 
 harder and accomplished more than any legislature in recent 
 
SHORT BALLOT 67 
 
 years. Almost every pledge you made to the people last year 
 has been fulfilled. 
 
 But I am convinced that this magnificent record is due 
 rather to the efficient membership of this legislature than to the 
 system. 
 
 In common with a large and growing number of thoughtful 
 people, I am persuaded that the instrumentalities for legislation 
 provided for in our state constitution have become antiquated 
 and inefficient. Our system is fashioned after the English 
 parliament, with its two houses based upon the distinction 
 between the nobility and the common people, each house repre- 
 senting the divers interests of these classes. No such reason 
 exists in this state for a dual legislative system, and even in 
 England at the present time the dual system has been practically 
 abandoned and the upper house shorn of its importance, and I 
 believe that we should now concern ourselves in devising a 
 system for legislating that will give us more efficiency and 
 quicker response to the demands of our economic and social 
 conditions and to the will of the people. 
 
 I have been led to this conclusion by an experience of eight 
 years asi a member of the Senate of this state and my convic- 
 tions on this subject are by no means of recent date. As far 
 back as March 12, 191 1, in an interview printed in one of the 
 great dailies, I advocated that our present legislative system be 
 abandoned and that a legislative assembly of thirty members 
 from thirty legislative districts, under the check of the recall, 
 be provided for in its place. The suggestion made at that time 
 met with much favorable comment, and I firmly believe that 
 there is a growing public opinion in its favor. 
 
 You senators and representatives cannot but have observed 
 the defects of our present system. In a short session of fifty 
 days you are required to study and pass upon hundreds of 
 measures, and the hurry with which this must be done must 
 of necessity result in a number of more or less crude and ill- 
 digested laws, which often puzzle learned jurists to interpret 
 with anything like satisfaction to themselves or to the public. 
 Hundreds of measures also, embodying important legislation, 
 die on the calendar every two years. After a brief session, the 
 legislature adjourns and the business of one coordinate branch 
 of the state government is absolutely abandoned for a whole 
 biennium, unless the legislature is convoked in an expensive 
 
68 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 extraordinary session by the governor. It is as if the head of 
 an important department of some other "big business" should 
 give only fifty days every two years to its management. 
 
 I am aware of the veneration with which ancient institutions 
 are regarded in some quarters, but I see no reason why we 
 should cling to these institutions in carrying on the all-impor- 
 tant affairsi of the state, when in almost every other activity of 
 life we are discarding old traditions and antiquated methods for 
 newer and progressive ideas and more efficient and economic 
 methods. This legislature has itself discarded the antiquated 
 and inefficient methods of managing the business! of our big 
 state institutions and has concentrated the responsibility in the 
 hands of a few instead of many boards — in a word, has applied 
 to them the principle of government by commission. We have 
 recognized in this state also that the old methods of city gov- 
 ernment are expensive, inefficient and unsatisfactory, and every- 
 where the commission plan of city government is being adopted, 
 and in almost every case is yielding high-class results. 
 
 For myself, I can see no good reason why this new idea of 
 government by commission should not be adopted for the trans- 
 action of the business of the state. Two years ago I suggested 
 a single legislative assembly of thirty members from thirty 
 legislative districts. I am now inclined to believe that this num- 
 ber is too large, and that a legislative assembly of one, or at 
 most two, from each congressional district would be amply 
 large. My judgment is that the governor should be ex officio 
 a member and presiding officer of this assembly, and that it 
 should be permitted to meet in such frequent and regular or 
 adjourned sessions as the exigencies of the public business: may 
 demand; that their terms of office be for four or six years, 
 and that they be paid salaries sufficient to justify them in devot- 
 ing their entire time to the public business. Such a legislative 
 assembly would not, I believe, be more expensive than our 
 present system. It would centralize responsibility and account- 
 ability, and under the check of the recall would be quickly 
 responsive to the wishes of the people. 
 
 A legislative assembly such as I have suggested could give 
 ample time to the consideration of every measure, not only in 
 relation to its subject matter, but to the drafting of it in plain, 
 concise and easily understandable language. It would be ready 
 at any time to deal with new conditions and to provide relief 
 
SHORT BALLOT 69 
 
 in emergency cases, and, with time to inform itself about con- 
 ditions, and to study the needs of the people, and of our state 
 institutions, there seems to me to be no question but what it 
 would be vastly more efficient than our present system, as well 
 as vastly more economical. 
 
 Our present system has been in vogue since Kansas became a 
 state, more than fifty years ago, and in that time we have seen 
 the most remarkable changes in sociological and economic con- 
 ditions take place. No private business now uses the methods 
 of fifty years ago. In every activity of modern life new and 
 progressive methods have been adopted. By "progressive" I 
 do not mean any visionary scheme of government, but the exer- 
 cise of that sane, sober and wise judgment which is always 
 ready to throw away antiquated machinery and methods and 
 adopt the latest, most efficient, most beneficient and most eco- 
 nomical instrumentalities for accomplishing the greatest good, 
 whether it be in public or in private affairs. 
 
 Is there any good reason why political institutions should ilot 
 change with the changing demands of modern social and eco- 
 nomic conditions? I believe not. The leaven of this new idea 
 of modern business methods for modern public business has 
 taken root in the public mind. The people are everywhere talk- 
 ing it over, and I am one of those who believe that the people 
 can be trusted to reach correct conclusions about their own 
 public business when they are given adequate opportunity to 
 study and discuss any subject. As Wendell Phillips said, "The 
 people always mean right, and in the end they will have it 
 right." The people of Kansas are progressive; they know what 
 they want; and give them a chance at the ballot box and they 
 will get it. I am not in sympathy with the idea that any public 
 officer knows better than the people themselves what they want. 
 
 I am not asking at this time that any legislative action be 
 taken on this subject, but am calling your attention to this 
 subject now that you may carry back to your people the idea 
 herein expressed and talk it over with them for the next two 
 years, to the end that when you come back to these halls at 
 that time you may know and be of a mind to execute the will 
 of the people of this state on this subject. 
 
 I want to thank the members of the legislature of 1913 for 
 their sincere and earnest efforts to legislate for the best interests 
 of the state, and for the uniform courtesy which they have 
 
70 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 extended to me, and to assure them of the high personal 
 regard in which I hold each and every senator and representa- 
 tive. Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Geo. H. Hodges, Governor. 
 
 Equity Series. 15:203-6. October, 1913 
 
 New Type of State Government 
 
 What shall it be? The only thing certain is that the present 
 state constitutions will be superseded by something different. 
 What this different thing shall be, or in what ways it shall be 
 different from the present form of state government, is not 
 agreed upon at the present time. Governor O'Neal, of Alabama, 
 advocates greater power to the executive. Many, by analogy, 
 advocate a commission form of state governments similar to 
 the now established commission form of city government. Some 
 advocate the improvement in the commission form of city gov- 
 ernment known as the "city manager" plan, applied to states, 
 which would be the "state manager" plan. 
 
 Thinkers have been engaged on this problem only a com- 
 paratively short time, and probably an infinite variety of pro- 
 posals will be made. However, let us consider principles and not 
 details, and we shall see that varieties will not be so numerous. 
 
 In the first place, the new government must be representative 
 of the people, and readily responsive to the people's wishes. The 
 present method of district representation, and majority repre- 
 sentation, is only crudely representative. Many considerable 
 blocks of voters are not represented at all. The I., R. and R. 
 grafted on the old form of state government makes: it vastly 
 more responsive to the wishes of the people than before, but 
 yet, with the old crude methods of choosing representatives, and 
 the old inefficient plan of government, state government is still 
 unsatisfactory. The old frame of government must be put aside, 
 and a new one sought. 
 
 The commission form, in which each commissioner has an 
 administrative department, is now recognized as being defective, 
 because of the difficulty of selecting technical talent by popular 
 elections. For cities, the "city manager" plan is now regarded 
 with more favor than the purely commission form, the difference 
 being that the commission is a legislative body only, except that 
 
SHORT BALLOT 71 
 
 it also selects a city manager, who selects the city administrative 
 officers, who serve under him, but all are responsible to the 
 commission. This looks like getting far away from democracy; 
 and so it would be if the I., R. and R. were not regarded as a 
 necessary part of this plan. Without the "democratic trinity," this 
 plan would be highly aristocratic and unresponsive to popular 
 demands, and might lead to greater corruption and machine rule 
 than we have had in the past. But the initiative, referendum 
 and recall give popular control, while the concentration of power 
 conduces to efficiency. 
 
 But will the ideas expressed in the preceding paragraph, 
 which are working out so successfully in city government, "fit" 
 state government? Perhaps experience will finally be called 
 upon to decide, but theoretically there are reasons for doubt. It 
 is not well to jump to a conclusion that a plan which works 
 well in one field of government must necessarily work well in 
 another kind of a field. 
 
 City Charters and State Constitutions 
 
 A city charter and a state constitution are very different 
 things. A radical political difference between a state and a city 
 is that a state has inherent or original political power; while a 
 city has only the powers and privileges that are given to it by 
 the state. However, this fact does not help us to determine 
 what form of government will be most successful in either, 
 provided the city is given full freedom to select a form of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 Territorial extent is the most striking difference between a 
 city and a state, and this may or may not help to determine 
 the best form of government suitable to each. The people of a 
 city may be as heterogeneous as the people of a state, or even 
 more so. The interests of a city may be as diversified as those 
 of a state. But territorial remoteness of one interest from 
 another in a state makes regional representation in a state gov- 
 ernment more important than in a city government. Hence, 
 while the "general ticket" or "at large" plan of electing repre- 
 sentatives in cities has succeeded fairly well, it is not favored 
 for states. However, proportional, or exact representation, 
 achieved by means of the single transferable ballot, will give 
 much truer representation of the people of a state than regional 
 representation. 
 
12 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 The problems of government in a state are quite different 
 from those of a city. The government of a city "touches'' its 
 citizens much more frequently and more intimately than the state 
 government does. Such vital things as water and light, either 
 supplied or controlled by the city government, enter every home 
 of the city. Every time we step out upon the street the city gov- 
 ernment "touches" us in the condition of the streets, public order 
 upon the streets, the regulation of local transportation, etc. The 
 chief functions of the state are supervisional, rather than the sup- 
 plying of services. The state says what corporations may or may 
 not do. It establishes standards for education, public order, the 
 administration of justice, etc. Itsi functions have recently ex- 
 panded in the direction of regulating railroads, building and 
 maintaining public highways, and other broad services not for- 
 merly attempted. It maintains penal and eleemosynary institu- 
 tions, and many states are now rapidly expanding along the line 
 of public health activities. There seems to be scarcely any limit 
 to what a state may do, but it seems to be certain that a state 
 will never supply those intimate services that a city does, as 
 the care of streets, the supply of water, light, etc. 
 
 Here is indicated the type of mind required to deal intelli- 
 gently and ably with state problems. We also know the con- 
 dition of unpreparedness of the average state legislator; also 
 the haste and excitement during the brief legislative terms — 
 conditions favorable to crude and hasty legislation, and the 
 supremacy of political machines. 
 
 Commission governed cities require constant service of the 
 commissioners,' who are the makers and the administrators of 
 ordinances. In "city manager" citiesi, ordinances are made by 
 the commission, and they are administered by the commission's 
 agents (the city manager and his appointees), who are under 
 the complete control of the commission. This simple machinery 
 takes the place of the awkward and bunglesome common council, 
 select council, mayor and numerous elected city officers. If this 
 means anything in the way of an improved state government, it 
 means a simplified state government essentially as follows : A 
 small, single-body legislature, in constant service, with sufficient 
 compensation to attract the best talent, and appointed rather than 
 elected state administrative officers. 
 
 The old-fashioned city charters are rapidly being laid aside 
 for the new type above mentioned. The laying aside of the old- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 73 
 
 fashioned state constitutions for a new type must soon begin. 
 And we hope that the new type of state constitution will be 
 confined to the frame of government, and not contain any legis- 
 lation. A constitution should direct how laws shall be made, 
 and laws themselves should be made only by the process there 
 described. Making laws is a serious business, and it should be 
 a deliberate process. Therefore, it should not be done by a 
 miscellaneous lot of men, without preparation for such a 
 responsible task, in a session limited to 40, 60 or go days every 
 two years, under no control except that of the political machine. 
 
 The Old State Dignitaries 
 
 What shall become of our accustomed state dignitaries, the 
 turbulent house and senate, etc. ? They can well be spared, 
 if we can devise a better plan of state government. And can't 
 we? We are rapidly improving our city governments, where 
 centred the greatest corruption, the weakest part of the Ameri- 
 can system of government. Can we not improve our state gov- 
 ernments, against which the chief complaints are awkwardness 
 and inefficiency? 
 
 We want efficiency. How shall we get it? Evidently from 
 a small body of men prepared for their duties. We want the 
 mind and desires of the people truly represented. This can be 
 done by proportional, or accurate representation by means of 
 the single transferable ballot better than by district representa- 
 tion by majorities. We want the representative body to be 
 responsive to the people. This is secured by the initiative, refer- 
 endum and recall, which, however, will seldom if ever be called 
 into use if representation is true and accurate. 
 
 This for the making of laws. How about their administra- 
 tion? Administrative ability is rather rare, and not easy to find. 
 Few can recognize it. When it is selected by popular election, 
 success is usually by accident. The best administrators are sel- 
 dom good speakers — seldom "popular" in the way of vote-getting. 
 Then is it not better that a financier for state treasurer, an 
 education administrator for superintendent of public instruction, 
 etc., be selected by the above mentioned small legislative 
 body than elected by popular vote? And how about a 
 governor? What do we want a governor for, anyway? The 
 presiding officer of the legislative body is the proper one to sign 
 laws, and neither he nor any governor should have the veto 
 
74 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 power. Only the people should have that, thru the referendum. 
 What else would there be for a governor to do? The legisla- 
 tive body would represent the people, and it should be the 
 government, subject always to the direct will of the people 
 whenever they wish to express it thru the initiative, referendum 
 or recall. This body should select the heads of administrative 
 departments, such heads being responsible to the legislative body, 
 which body should have the power, not only of employment, but 
 of dismissal at will of said heads of departments, and said heads 
 should appoint their own subordinates. They could not reason- 
 ably be held responsible without the power of selecting their 
 subordinates. 
 
 Constitution Only the Frame 
 
 This is intended to be only suggestive of the new type of 
 state government. The new constitutions should contain noth- 
 ing but the frame of the government intended. It should state 
 what officers the government should consist of, how each shall 
 be elected or selected, the duties of each, the people reserving 
 for themselves the I., R. and R. 
 
 It is presumed that any new constitution will grant to muni- 
 cipalities and counties the fullest measure of home rule, with 
 the local I., R. and R. Then local politics (policies) would be 
 kept separate from state matters. Then there would be no inter- 
 locking of local and state political machines — if there would be 
 any machines at all. Such complete segregation, of local from 
 state government would accelerate the rather rapidly progressing 
 separation of national politics from state and local affairs, which 
 is very desirable. Local policies should be decided and local 
 public affairs should be managed as local business matters, 
 which they are. State policies the same, and national 
 policies the same, each in its own sphere. If your 
 opinions in these matters happen to line you up with the same 
 man in local affairs, state affairs, and national affairs (which is 
 rather unlikely), then your crowd would naturally be the same 
 political party all along the line. Political parties in the past 
 have maintained their identity solidly in these three spheres, but 
 not on a rational basis. As men become more rational in poli- 
 tics, the tendency is to align independently in these three spheres, 
 and indeed to act independently on any proposition in any or all 
 of these spheres. This feeling of independence from former 
 
SHORT BALLOT 75 
 
 parties will help us to get a better, more rational, and more 
 efficient type of state government. 
 
 The new type of state government will probably be worked 
 out in future state constitutional conventions. The only other 
 way is by state initiative, and it may be done in this way in 
 Oregon, and possibly in some other states which have the initi- 
 ative. Constitutional conventions were urged in many state 
 legislatures last winter. Indiana and South Dakota are the 
 only states that have a convention scheduled, and they are pro- 
 visional. The question of a state constitutional convention will 
 be voted on in these states in November, 1914. If carried, 
 which is probable, the convention in Indiana will meet in 191 5, 
 and in South Dakota on a date to be set by the legislature. The 
 New York constitution provides for a constitutional convention 
 in 1916. Other states will doubtless call conventions before 
 many years, but we hope that progress will be slow and deliber- 
 ate. If Indiana and South Dakota should embrace their oppor- 
 tunity, they can establish the future model. If not, the model 
 will be worked out by other states. Sooner or later the true 
 type will be found, and then it will spread from state to state. 
 
 Equity Series. 15:156-61. July, 1913 
 Problem of State Government 
 
 Our Congress was modeled after the British Parliament of 
 that time. The parallel is not exact, but general. There was 
 an effort in our constitutional convention to make the term of 
 our United States senators for life, like the members of the 
 English House of Lords, but it failed. But the indirect method 
 of electing senators was purposely to make the senate less demo- 
 cratic — certainly less directly democratic — than the house. 
 
 State governments copied the two-house legislature, the elec- 
 tive chief executive, but, unfortunately, they made the other 
 executive officers elective instead of appointive. The president 
 appoints his cabinet, but governors cannot appoint their state 
 officers. Popular election of state officers was supposed to be 
 a concession to democracy, but it greatly impairs efficiency, 
 because the responsibility for the state administration is thus 
 divided among many elected officers instead of being concen- 
 trated in the governor. 
 
76 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 The popularity and great success of the commission form of 
 government in cities has invited our thought anew to plans of 
 government. We see that the commission plan abolishes the 
 two legislative houses and combines the legislative and executive 
 functions in a commission usually of five. Here is a radical 
 concentration of both legislative and executive power and re- 
 sponsibility. Nearly always the initiative and referendum go 
 along with this concentration of legislative power as a control ; 
 and the recall as a control of the executive power. 
 
 Commission Government for States 
 
 Talk with any thinking man who has observed the commis- 
 sion plan movement, and mention to him the defects and ineffici- 
 ency of state government so plain to every one, and he isi likely 
 to say that we should extend the commission plan of govern- 
 ment to states. "Commission government for states" isi becom- 
 ing a popular expression, and therein will be a danger if we are 
 not careful, for there are better things possible than the present 
 commission plan of government for cities. 
 
 Not long ago the leading advocates of the commission plan 
 for cities hesitated to recommend it for any city above 100,000 
 inhabitants. But it has been in successful operation in Memphis, 
 Tenn. (population, 131,105), since 1909, and in Oakland, Cal. 
 (pop., 150,174), since 1910, and in Birmingham, Ala. (pop., 
 132,685), Omaha, Neb. (pop., 124,069), and Lowell, Mass. (pop., 
 196,294), since 1911; and in New Orleans (pop., 339,075), and 
 St. Paul (pop., 214,744), since 1912. The tendency is for larger 
 and larger cities to adopt the commission plan of government. 
 
 But the matter of making such a radical change in state 
 government as this would be is a serious one. However, some 
 change is sure to be made. So let us take the present prevailing 
 plan of state government and in imagination make a step-by- 
 step modification, and see where it will lead us. 
 
 Modifications Step by Step 
 
 Let us begin with the legislative branch — our thought is now 
 accustomed to "branches" of government, but our evolution 
 may lead us to a consistent whole in government, instead of 
 branches. And we find that the legislative "branch" is sub- 
 divided into two branches, the senate and house. All progres- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 77 
 
 sive thinkers now agree that there should be only one house — 
 but which house? Many superficially say, "abolish the senate." 
 But why? Why not abolish the lower house and keep the 
 senate as the single house? Indeed there is better reason for 
 this, because the growing sentiment is not only for a single 
 house, but also for a small house, and the senate is always the 
 smaller house. Here we can compromise, and while we are 
 reconstructing state government, abolish both houses and put in 
 their places a new chamber different from either. 
 
 Basis for Representation 
 
 In constructing the new single chamber, the question at once 
 arises, what will be the basis for representation? Will the 
 county be the unit? or a district containing approximately a 
 given population in contiguous territory? Both houses of our 
 present legislatures are made up in the latter way. Counties 
 containing large cities like Philadelphia, New York or Chicago 
 send many senators and representatives to the legislature. 
 
 The most profitable thing we can do under the head of basis 
 of representation is to look at the facts as they now exist. The 
 table on page 78 will show the population and number of counties 
 in each state, and the representation of said population in both 
 houses of each legislature, and in the lower house of congress — 
 the one based on population . 
 
 A glance will show the heterogeneous condition concerning 
 legislatures. Note the number in the lower house in New Hamp- 
 shire, for example, and in Vermont, and compare with the popu- 
 lation of the states named. It will be noted that, of course, the 
 number of congressmen from each state is in proportion to the 
 population, and this relation is necessarily uniform, one state 
 with another. But legislative representation is on a different 
 basis in every state. And in the older states particularly, the 
 basis of representation in different parts of the same state varies 
 widely. For example, see an exposition of the irregular legisla- 
 tive representation in Delaware, on page 117 of April Equity. 
 It is there seen that the value of a vote for a legislator in differ- 
 ent parts of that state varies from 1 to 1454. 
 
 Should a representative represent 1,000 population, 10,000, or 
 100,000? This, of course, is an arbitrary matter. We are plan- 
 ning for a single legislative body for a state, and we are seeking 
 
78 
 
 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Popula- 
 
 States tion 
 19 10 
 
 Alabama 2,138,093 
 
 Arizona - 204,354 
 
 Arkansas 1,574,449 
 
 California 2.377.549 
 
 Colorado 799,024 
 
 Connecticut 1,1 14,756 
 
 Delaware 202,322 
 
 Florida 7Si,*39 
 
 Georgia 2,609,121 
 
 Idaho 325,594 
 
 Illinois 5.638,59 1 
 
 Indiana 2,700,876 
 
 Iowa 2,224,771 
 
 Kansas 1,690,949 
 
 Kentucky 2,289,905 
 
 Louisiana 1,656,388 
 
 Maine 742,371 
 
 Maryland 1.295,346 
 
 Massachusetts 3,366,416 
 
 Michigan 2,810,173 
 
 Minnesota 2,075,708 
 
 Mississippi 1,797,114 
 
 Missouri 3,293.335 
 
 Montana 376,053 
 
 Nebraska 1,192,214 
 
 Nevada 81,875 
 
 New Hampshire 430,572 
 
 New Jersey 2,537,167 
 
 New Mexico 327,301 
 
 New York 9,113,279 
 
 North Carolina 2,206,287 
 
 North Dakota 577,056 
 
 Ohio 4,767,121 
 
 Oklahoma 1,657,155 
 
 Oregon 672,765 
 
 Pennsylvania 7,665,111 
 
 Rhode Island 542,6 10 
 
 South Carolina 1,515,400 
 
 South Dakota 583,888 
 
 Tennessee 2,184,789 
 
 Texas 3,896,542 
 
 Utah 373,351 
 
 Vermont 355,95^ 
 
 Virginia 2,061,612 
 
 Washington 1,141,990 
 
 West Virginia 1,221,119 
 
 Wisconsin 2,333,860 
 
 Wyoming 145.965 
 
 Number 
 
 of 
 Counties. 
 
 Legislature 
 
 / * \ 
 
 Senate. House. 
 
 Mem- 
 bers of 
 Con- 
 gress. 
 
 67 
 
 54 
 
 99 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 23 
 
 35 
 
 1 
 
 75 
 
 35 
 
 100 
 
 7 
 
 58 
 
 40 
 
 80 
 
 II 
 
 62 
 
 35 
 
 65 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 35 
 
 258 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 35 
 
 1 
 
 48 
 
 32 
 
 71 
 
 4 
 
 46 
 
 44 
 
 184 
 
 12 
 
 27 
 
 24 
 
 61 
 
 2 
 
 102 
 
 51 
 
 153 
 
 27 
 
 92 
 
 5° 
 
 100 
 
 13 
 
 89 
 
 48 
 
 104 
 
 II 
 
 105 
 
 40 
 
 125 
 
 8 
 
 120 
 
 38 
 
 100 
 
 11 
 
 61 
 
 41 
 
 119 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 31 
 
 I5t 
 
 4 
 
 24 
 
 27 
 
 101 
 
 6 
 
 14 
 
 40 
 
 240 
 
 16 
 
 83 
 
 32 
 
 100 
 
 13 
 
 86 
 
 62 
 
 116 
 
 10 
 
 79 
 
 45 
 
 138 
 
 8 
 
 114 
 
 34 
 
 142 
 
 16 
 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 85 
 
 2 
 
 92 
 
 33 
 
 100 
 
 6 
 
 16 
 
 22 
 
 53 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 405 
 
 2 
 
 21 
 
 21 
 
 59 
 
 12 
 
 26 
 
 24 
 
 49 
 
 1 
 
 61 
 
 51 
 
 150 
 
 43 
 
 99 
 
 50 
 
 120 
 
 10 
 
 48 
 
 50 
 
 in 
 
 3 
 
 88 
 
 33 
 
 123 
 
 22 
 
 77 
 
 44 
 
 99 
 
 s 
 
 34 
 
 30 
 
 60 
 
 3 
 
 67 
 
 50 
 
 207 
 
 36 
 
 S 
 
 38 
 
 100 
 
 3 
 
 44 
 
 43 
 
 124 
 
 7 
 
 57 
 
 45 
 
 100 
 
 3 
 
 96 
 
 33 
 
 99 
 
 10 
 
 234 
 
 31 
 
 109 
 
 18 
 
 27 
 
 18 
 
 45 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 30 
 
 243 
 
 2 
 
 120 
 
 40 
 
 100 
 
 10 
 
 39 
 
 41 
 
 96 
 
 5 
 
 55 
 
 30 
 
 86 
 
 6 
 
 70 
 
 33 
 
 100 
 
 11 
 
 21 
 
 27 
 
 57 
 
 1 
 
SHORT BALLOT 79 
 
 the best size for said house. It would seem that a small state 
 could get along with a smaller body than a large state, but a 
 glance at the figures given above will show that such an idea has 
 not heretofore been prevalent. 
 
 The commission-governed cities have, almost uniformly, five 
 commissioners. In some states the smallest commission-gov- 
 erned municipalities have only three commissioners. The new 
 Pennsylvania law provides for five commissioners for all cities 
 from 10,000 to 100,000 population. Cities below. 10,000, or above 
 100,000 do not come under the law. The point is, that the num- 
 ber of commissioners is constant (five), while the population of 
 the municipalities to which the law applies varies from 10,000 
 to 100,000. We are not indulging in theory, but merely present- 
 ing facts. 
 
 What light do these facts throw on the desirable size of a 
 similar body to govern a state? Plainly, it need not be strictly 
 "'according to population" ; tho it should probably be roughly so. 
 Certainly the members should be sufficiently numerous to satis- 
 factorily represent the different elements and interests in the 
 population of the state — this better than the different sections of 
 the state. Sectional representation is fraught with many evils. 
 It is not acres, nor mountains, nor rail fences that need repre- 
 sentation, but people; and people who have the same sentiments 
 or interests to represent may live in different parts of the state. 
 That is the reason that counties do not make the ideal basis 
 for representation. The ward system of representation in cities 
 is being abandoned. 
 
 Mode of Election 
 
 The commission-governed cities elect their commissioners 
 "at large," ignoring ward lines. This is the "block vote," each 
 voter being entitled to vote for a block of five, the five candidates 
 receiving the highest votes being elected. This is an improve- 
 ment on the plan of ward representation ; but grave evils would 
 result where partizan lines are closely drawn, as in state elec- 
 tions. The chief evil would be that it would give all the mem- 
 bers of the single house to the majority party in the state. Dis- 
 trict representation, with all its narrowness, would be preferable 
 to this. Readers of this magazine are familiar with plans for 
 preferential voting, resulting in an effective ballot for every 
 voter, and true and complete representation of every considerable 
 
80 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 portion of the electorate. This will avoid the evils of both the 
 "block vote" and the district basis. 
 
 Size of Single House 
 
 We are still facing the question of how many members 
 should this single body for the government of a state consist? 
 Should it be 50? Too many. Too unwieldly for a "commis- 
 sion," or whatever you wish to call the body which is to be in 
 constant and responsible service to the state. Some say it should 
 be an odd number, to make ties impossible. Shall it be 25? 
 Still rather large. 13? Perhaps this is near the number of 
 greatest efficiency, tho we need not hope that the different states 
 will adopt the same number. But let us always bear in mind that 
 small numbers, carefully selected, favor efficiency. 
 
 Functions of the Single House 
 
 Our legislatures are legislative. The commissions which gov- 
 ern commission-governed cities combine executive and legisla- 
 tive functions. Here we have seen demonstrated the fallacy of 
 our old doctrine of separated governmental functions. In the 
 new state government also we can and will demonstrate this 
 fallacy, and also go a step farther, and combine in one body, 
 legislative, executive and judicial functions. Perhaps I should 
 not say judicial functions, but, rather, a control over the judici- 
 ary. Do not be frightened. A study of the functions and history 
 of the English judiciary plainly indicates that the judiciary should 
 not be independent of and above the new state government, but a 
 creature of and subordinate to it. It goes without saying that a 
 state government of few members and great powers must be 
 subject to the controlling powers of the initiative, referendum and 
 recall. With this safeguard, we can plan only for efficiency. 
 
 With an effective ballot, giving every faction of the state 
 representation according to its members, the representative body 
 would do according to the interests and wishes of the electorate, 
 much as tho every question were submitted to direct vote. Rep- 
 resentatives thus chosen, if efficient and true to their trust, would 
 be likely to be re-elected time after time, as most of the Gal- 
 veston commissioners have been, and thus the state would have 
 a more or less permanent, experienced and "seasoned" body of 
 governors. 
 
SHORT BALLOl 81 
 
 It would be folly to attempt to detail the functions of such 
 a body at this stage of development of the idea. However, the 
 experience of commission-governed cities and of "city manager" 
 governed cities will throw some light on the problem. And the 
 experience of the first state that thus modifies its government 
 will do much in blazing the way for those which follow. It 
 seems, at the present writing, that the entire legislative power, 
 and the power of extensive appointment of administrative and 
 judicial officers, could be safely and advantageously placed in 
 this small body of, say 15 governors, in constant service and in 
 frequent session. 
 
 A Glance at the Cities 
 
 For commission-governed cities, five commissioners are elected 
 on a general ticket, one being designated as mayor, but his duties 
 are similar to those of the other commissioners, except that he 
 presides. at the meetings, but he has no veto power, and he votes 
 at the meetings just as the other commissioners. The ordinary 
 city officers are appointed by the commission or by individual 
 commissioners, and they are responsible to their appointers. The 
 commission passes ordinances, and the ordinances are executed 
 by the commissioners or their appointees. The city-manager 
 plan provides for the appointing of a city manager by the com- 
 mission, the manager appointing all subordinate officers, and 
 executing all ordinances directly or thru his appointees, he being 
 responsible to the commission. In this plan, the commissioners 
 are prominent business men, giving only a small portion of their 
 time to the city, for a nominal salary, their duties being to pass 
 ordinances, select a city manager, determine the policies that 
 he is to carry out, and hold him responsible to them. 
 
 Do these plans suggest a plan of state government by a com- 
 mission or board of state governors? We think so. But the 
 members of the state board should be men of superior quality, 
 who can give their entire time to the service of the state, and 
 receive an adequate salary therefor. One could be designated as 
 governor, presiding at meetings, but with no veto. To what 
 extent this board could take the place and assume the functions 
 of the various state commissions now in existence, as a state 
 railroad or public utilities commission, only experience can de- 
 termine. 
 
82 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 A Glance at the Average Legislature 
 
 One thing seems certain: That the people of this country will 
 soon find a way to stop state lawmaking by legislatures as at 
 present constituted. No observing person can visit a legislature 
 in action without concluding that it is a very poor way to do 
 the state's business. First, in material : Not one legislator in a 
 hundred is properly prepared for his duties. Most of them are 
 honest enough, but it requires much more than honesty to make 
 laws for a state. It is not the fault of the men, but it is the 
 fault of the system that puts them there. 
 
 Second, limited sessions at rare intervals: Most of the 
 states have legislative sessions only once in two years, and a 
 few every four years — some every year. The length of session 
 is limited in most of the states, some to only 50 days. The 
 organization and other necessary formalities of two large houses 
 require considerable time. This unwieldy system, with un- 
 trained material, gives trained politicians their opportunity. The 
 session is well advanced usually before any great progress is 
 made. As the end approaches, there is much of importance to 
 be done, and then, as the Philadelphia Ledger says, there is 
 "lawmaking in hot haste." We call legislatures deliberative 
 bodies. Let any one visit any legislative body as now consti- 
 tuted, let it be congress, a state legislature, or a city council of 
 the old type, on the last day of its session, and ask him if he 
 thinks it is a "deliberative" body! 
 
 What We Want 
 We want real deliberation. We want real responsibility. We 
 want men for such duties who are prepared for them and we 
 want them adequately paid. We want to put a stop to "law- 
 making in hot haste." We want laws turned out like decisions 
 of the supreme court, only after the maturest deliberation, by 
 men specially trained and chosen for the task. But we want the 
 body much nearer to the people than the supreme court is, and 
 it should be subject to control by the people if necessary, by 
 means of the initiative, referendum and recall. We want no 
 laws that must be rushed thru two houses by a given time. We 
 want real deliberation, with broad investigation in the prepara- 
 tion of laws, so that they will not be "half-baked," but ripened 
 and mature. Then we will not need so many' laws — because 
 they will be better. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 83 
 
 With the recall, we can give executive officers more freedom 
 and discretion. With the initiative and referendum we can 
 safely and profitably put the law-making power in fewer and 
 abler hands. Instead of a season of a few months every two 
 years during which from 500 to 3,000 "hot-haste" laws are 
 made, we want no set lawmaking season, but we want a body 
 of trained men in service all the time, who will promulgate a 
 new law only when needed, which would result in perhaps less 
 than one-tenth the number of laws that the present system bur- 
 dens us with. According to the Philadelphia North American 
 for June 25th, the club used in Harrisburg to beat out the kind 
 of laws desired by the politicians was, "vote right or get nothing 
 from the administration." In this we see the shadow of the 
 district representation evil, as well as many other evils. We 
 want a better system, which will bring into service better, tho 
 fewer, men, and give us better, tho fewer, laws. 
 
 How to Get It 
 
 How shall we get an improved system of state government? 
 Not by being forever satisfied with our century-old system. The 
 commission government of cities is an object lesson, and still 
 further plans of local government are destined to be introduced 
 in the near future. These things have called attention to our 
 defective system of state government, and from year to year 
 dissatisfaction with the old plan will increase until an improve- 
 ment shall be made. 
 
 Hon. U. S. U'Ren has been trying 1 to introduce quite an 
 elaborate improved system of state government in Oregon thru 
 the initiative for several years past, but it has not yet been 
 accepted by the electorate. It establishes a single house of So 
 members, elected by an ingenious system of proportional repre- 
 sentation. It is his purpose to put it before the electorate again 
 in 1914. We would prefer a smaller house, and a simpler sys- 
 tem; but it now seems likely that Oregon will be the first state 
 to actually put into operation a state legislature of a single house. 
 
 As noted in last Equity, page 122, Governor Hodges, of Kan- 
 sas, has proposed a smaller legislature of a single house, but he 
 omits the necessary control features, the initiative, referendum 
 and recall. Also, he cannot reasonably expect the legislature to 
 commit suicide. The agency thru which such a change in state 
 government must be gotten is the 'constitutional initiative, or a 
 
 8 
 
84 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 constitutional convention. Kansas has not the popular initiative 
 in any form, and a constitutional convention is not yet seriously 
 proposed. 
 
 In Colorado a constitutional amendment is being initiated, 
 providing for fewer elective state officers and a state manager, 
 but it does not affect the legislature. It is a Short Ballot meas- 
 ure, good as far as it goes', but it misses the chief feature to be 
 desired, and that is a radical modification of the present awkward 
 and unsatisfactory legislative system. As Colorado has the 
 instrument, the initiative (which Kansas has not), Colorado is 
 a favorable state in which to push a complete reorganization of 
 state government. 
 
 In Minnesota there is some sentiment in favor of a modi- 
 fication of the present state government, but the sentiment has 
 not yet become crystalized nor dynamic. In North Carolina a 
 commission is considering changes in the constitution, which 
 may possibly affect the plan of state government. And when 
 the commission is ready to report, an extra session of the legis- 
 lature will be called. Among the many states in which a con- 
 stitutional convention has been considered, Indiana is the only 
 one in which a definite provision has been made. A vote on the 
 proposition will be taken at the regular November election in 
 1914, and, if carried, delegates will be elected later. However, 
 Indiana has been so backward in improved plans of city gov- 
 ernment and in regard to the initiative, referendum and recall, 
 we fear that the convention, if it convenes in 191 5, will not be 
 sufficiently progressive to adopt any of the suggestions con- 
 tained in this article. 
 
 We must look for a beginning in the reorganization of state 
 government in those states which have the constitutional initi- 
 ative, and in those states which will call a constitutional conven- 
 tion in the not distant future. Legislatures will not look upon 
 the movement with favor. The most promising constitutional 
 initiative states for this movement seem to be Oregon and Colo- 
 rado. Arizona is too new with her present constitution, Ohio 
 recently had a constitutional convention and adopted 36 amend- 
 ments, and Maine has not the constitutional initiative. Pennsyl- 
 vania, New Jersey and New York have been considering consti- 
 tutional conventions, but we hope they will not actually come 
 until this movement has sufficient strength to command serious 
 consideration, and adoption in part at least, by the conventions. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 85 
 
 The things desired: 
 Legislature of one house. 
 
 Efficiency favored by body pf comparatively few mem- 
 bers, say from 15 to 25. 
 
 Should be elected "at large," but not by the "block vote." 
 A ballot system should be used that would give true repre- 
 sentation to every considerable faction in the electorate. 
 
 Body should be in constant service, and members should 
 be paid a sufficient salary to induce exclusive attention to 
 public duties. 
 Powers should not be limited to making laws. If they truly 
 represent the electorate, they could be trusted with the powers 
 of the electorate, but subject to the initiative, referendum and 
 recall. And we would hope that they would serve the electorate 
 so satisfactorily that the initiative, referendum and recall would 
 seldom or never need to be invoked. 
 
 Large power of appointment could be intrusted to this body, 
 including regulative commissions, executive and administrative 
 officers, and extending to the judiciary. The definite term plan 
 for officers appointed by this body should not be adopted. Ap- 
 pointees should be under the constant and complete control of 
 the appointing power. And the appointing power should be 
 under the constant and complete control of the voters. Then 
 we would always get true representative action. 
 
 Later: In a recent address, Prof. John R. Commons said 
 the following: 
 
 The people can vote intelligently on two things: general principles, 
 and confidence or no confidence in the experts commissioned to put the 
 principles into piactice. The first is the initiative and referendum. The 
 second is recall of commissioners. The people tannot elect experts, because 
 experts are not good vote-getters; but the people can pass upon them after 
 seeing how they do their work. The governor is in a better position to 
 select and appoint them, because he can look over the field and pick out 
 the men best fitted. If he makes a mistake or abuses his power, the people 
 .can check him by recalling his appointee. 
 
 Such a scheme of government would offer a field for the student, the 
 investigator, or the expert, to train himself for public service. Public 
 business nowadays requires engineers and accountants to protect the 
 people against great corporations; chemists to protect them against adulter- 
 ated foods and drugs; agricultural experts and business organizations to 
 protect the farmers in raising and marketing their products, and so on. 
 If these experts do not serve the people they will serve the corporations 
 and special interests. 
 
 At the same time such a scheme would prevent the educated classes 
 
86 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 from running the state. The people should not be governed by experts 
 any more than by millionaires or political bosses. The problem of democ- 
 racy is how to make wealth, politicians and experts the servants instead 
 of the masters of the people. This can be done by the initiative and 
 referendum, civil service reform, appointment of commissioners, recall by 
 the people. 
 
 Our scheme is that the small single house shall appoint all 
 commissions and experts, and also all state administrative of- 
 ficers, probably including the governor, if a governor should be 
 needed. Probably it would select one of its own members as 
 president of that body, to be known as the presiding governor, 
 the body to be known as the board of governors. This body of 
 from is to 21 members, if chosen in a manner to truly focus 
 the electorate, would be the proper body to make laws, appoint 
 administrators of the laws, including the judiciary, and appoint 
 commissions and all experts for special service, unless the 
 selection of expertsi be left to the administrative heads of depart- 
 ments. In any scheme of government the I., R. and R. should 
 exist among the primary rights of the people; but in a scheme 
 like the above the occasion to use them would be very seldom. 
 The consciousness on the part of all officers that the people 
 can use them at any time would keep them constantly up to the 
 mark of best service. 
 
 This plan of government would stop graft and corruption 
 and give efficiency. It seems that Professor Commons' plan 
 would leave the legislatures just as they are, which is a grave 
 defect of any progressive plan. 
 
COUNTY GOVERNMENT 
 
 First Conference for Better County Government in New York 
 State, November 13-14, 1914. Proceedings, pp. 65-73 
 
 County Manager Plan. Richard S. Childs. 
 
 Consider now what the people of a county in New York 
 state are up against if they seek to control the present type of 
 county government. There is the board of supervisors, the 
 county clerk, the county treasurer, the county superintendent of 
 the poor, the sheriff, district attorney and coroner and the 
 county court. Sometimes there is a surrogate and county comp- 
 troller in addition. Seven county governments or more ; for 
 the coroner, elected by the people, is a separate government all 
 by himself, with no one who can give him orders, no one who 
 can, except on paper, compel him to do anything. The sheriff 
 is another little county government all by himself, and so is the 
 county clerk and all the rest. All these seven governments are, 
 to be sure, loosely connected up to each other by the moral and 
 latent power of certain memoranda called lawsi, the exact nature 
 of which they oftentimes seem to know little about, the real 
 bonding force of the county being often tradition rather than 
 law. 
 
 Can Those Properly Qualified Officials Be Chosen by Election? 
 
 To control the government of the county as now organized 
 the people must select competent and right meaning officials 
 for all these offices on election day. The voter in his polling 
 place must run his pencil down the list of candidates for each 
 of the seven or nine offices and pick a well qualified person. 
 This means that he must know something about the qualifica- 
 tions required for each individual office and the qualifications 
 of fourteen, sixteen or eighteen candidates. A man who will 
 make a good county treasurer might be a very bad man to 
 choose for coroner, and vice versa. That is the theory of the 
 voter's part in county government, but that is not all. After 
 election the voter is supposed to scrutinize the conduct of each 
 
88 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 of this list of officials and see if each official maintains a cor- 
 rect technical standard. For all the offices are technical offices, 
 with the exception of the supervisors. To be a competent critic 
 of the technical ability of seven, eight or nine such varied 
 officers with such varied functions implies an unbelievable 
 amount of acquaintance with county government in its detailed 
 management on the part of the voter. 
 
 But we are not through even now with the work which the 
 county plan requires of the voter. Not only must the voter 
 bring his share of public opinion to bear upon the conduct of 
 each of these seven, eight or nine little county governments, but 
 if one of these little governments quarrels with another little 
 government the voter must take notice of the fact and by intelli- 
 gent public criticism induce the little government which is in 
 the wrong to yield to the little government which has the right 
 side of the dispute. In other words, the voters of the county 
 must not only stand over each of these seven little governments 
 and make them obey, but must make them agree in their obedi- 
 ence and work harmoniously for the common good. The people 
 of the county constitute the one place where the big lines of 
 direct control are focussed. They are in theory the unifying 
 force and the only one. 
 
 The Need for a Strong Executive 
 
 Now, to make these seven governments work in unison is a 
 task which would keep a strong chief executive pretty busy 
 sometimes. A committee or board with complete power over 
 these seven little governments would probably not be nimble 
 enough for the task and would end by leaving most of the 
 details to some one person selected by them to give all his 
 time to the task. A group, let us say, of ioo persons meeting 
 under the forms of parliamentary law, would be baffled even 
 more than a small committee, and, in fact, would be compelled 
 to do the work through committees in order to get it done at 
 all. A great mass meeting of 5,000 voters would experience 
 still greater difficulties in trying to handle detailsi In fact, it 
 could do hardly anything except to create a committee and go 
 home. The people of the county, too numerous to meet in a 
 single hall, scattered, moreover, throughout the county over a 
 considerable distance, having no single common medium of 
 communication, being not even subscribers to the same news- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 89 
 
 papers, are many times clumsier than the mass meeting. Yet 
 to the most clumsy of all organisms, the electorate, you give the 
 task of unification and harmonizing, which is too much for even 
 a small committee to accomplish except with a suitable instru- 
 ment in the shape of a single executive. 
 
 This thing is ridiculous. The people simply can't do it. Our 
 people are as intelligent as any other, but no people on the 
 face of the earth can do it. We have given the people an 
 unworkable instrument, and it is no reflection on the people to 
 say that they don't rule and cannot rule under such circum- 
 stances. The practical result of the situation is that 99 per cent 
 of the people give only an offhand intermittent attention to 
 county government, and the remaining I per cent, who get into 
 the heart of the matter, become the real governing force of the 
 county and are given the name of politicians. A politician is 
 simply an expert in citizenship. To make the politicians give 
 way to the people at large the game of politics must be simplified. 
 Politics is the proper business of every citizen. It should not 
 be one of the learned professions. It should not be so com- 
 plex as to be a profession at all. It is not true that every 
 citizen ought to know what he is doing on election day; it is 
 only true that politics should be so simple that every citizen 
 would know what he isi doing on election day. We can't make 
 the citizen take more interest in a complicated and uninteresting 
 thing like county government, but we can make county govern- 
 ment so simple that the motive power of popular interest will 
 be sufficient to operate it. 
 
 Politics Should Be Made Simple 
 
 So, to make a long story short, the modern political scientist 
 demands that politics shall be made primitively simple. It is 
 easier for the people to control one government than nine gov- 
 ernments. That is .the theory of the "unification of powers." 
 It is easier for the people to control three or four big elective 
 offices than eight or nine little ones. That is the theory of the 
 Short Ballot. The way to keep unfit men out of public office 
 is to refrain from electing them. The way to refrain from 
 electing them is to elect no more officials at one time than the 
 citizens can get a good look at. In a small, rural county where 
 everybody knows every one else, the Short Ballot is not quite 
 as important as in large cities and states, but the unification of 
 
90 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 powers is important everywhere. A government in which all 
 parts are properly co-ordinated under the direction of a single 
 controlling brain will be an easier government for the people 
 to control than the loose-jointed, ramshackle of mutually inde- 
 pendent powers which we now call county government. Only 
 by uniting and consolidating the powers of the county can we 
 get away from supine, jellyfish disobedience. Present county 
 governments are something like an automobile with a separate 
 motor at every wheel, each going its own gait, pell-mell down 
 the road, with Mr. Voter in the driver's seat hanging on with a 
 sickly smile while he tries to control a dozen levers with only 
 two hands and feet. 
 
 County Needs a Head 
 
 Now, if we can keep away from the old fashioned doctrinaire 
 theories' which have made so much trouble for this nation in 
 the last hundred years, we should be able to agree that the 
 county, like any other organization, private or public, needs a 
 chief executive with appointive power over all other administra- 
 tive officials. Not until all the officials have a single common 
 superior on the job all the time, with plenty of authority over 
 them, can they be compelled to work in mutual harmony. Any 
 notion that the arms and legs of the county can make each other 
 work harmoniously by the threat of mandamus proceedings and 
 similar legal resorts to those printed memoranda called laws, 
 is thus discarded. But, of course, we are not going to vest the 
 government of the county in a single despot elected by the 
 people for a fixed term, for that system would have obvious 
 faults of its own, inasmuch as the despot would have 
 elective executive held in more or less restraint through the 
 necessity of obtaining the co-operation of a board of supervisors 
 corresponding to the mayor and council of old style city gov- 
 ernments. There has been ample experience to show that the 
 attempt to secure a good chief executive by popular election is a 
 failure. It always gives us a transient amateur who never 
 really learns his job, because he is not allowed to stay on the 
 job long enough. It always results in the development, under 
 such a shifty chief executive, of a "system" among the perma- 
 nent subordinates, a "system" which defies the control of these 
 transient executives and thus defies the control of the people 
 who elected that chief executive. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 91 
 
 Example Set by the Short Ballot Cities 
 
 The large cities have been all through that phase and are 
 abandoning the elective chief executive, or mayor, and moving 
 onward to the type of government in which the chief executive 
 is appointed and held subject to the continuous supervision of 
 the joint mind of a board or commission. Accordingly, let us 
 look forward to a time when counties will be governed by a 
 small board of supervisors, a board small enough so that each 
 member will be a really important officer with power enough in 
 the government to make it worth while for the people to scruti- 
 nize the candidate carefully and watch him after election. A 
 board of three or five or seven will be better than a board of 
 twenty or twenty-five or thirty, because you must have consider- 
 able power attached to a public office before it will attract can- 
 didates of first-class talent and before it will be conspicuous 
 enough to catch the public eye. 
 
 Let this small board of supervisors possess all the powers 
 now vested in all officers of the county, except the county judge. 
 Put upon them the responsibility for all of the work of the 
 county. Permit them to hire their county manager from any- 
 where in the United States and to pay him whatever salary they 
 believe necessary in order to secure the requisite ability. The 
 county manager will appoint, in turn, and control all other 
 county officials and employees, subject to civil service regula- 
 tions. The county manager will have no power of his own, no 
 independence of his superior. He is their executive agent. If 
 the new board of supervisors tells him to take money out of 
 the treasury and spend it for peanuts, he must spend it for 
 peanuts or take a chance of losing his job. The supervisors 
 who hire him can also fire him. 
 
 What a "County Manager" Would Do 
 
 The county manager, naturally, would be expected to relieve 
 the supervisors of all detail, and if they found him trustworthy 
 and devoted to their service they would probably leave him 
 considerable discretion, but they would have to take the respon- 
 sibility for him if he proved to be foolish or weak or dishonest. 
 This new board of supervisors would have the power to levy 
 taxes and spend them. When it was spending money it would 
 have to remember that it must raise that money and face the 
 
92 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 public resistance to taxes. On the other hand, in trying to keep 
 down taxes it would have to remember that the people would 
 criticise it if it went too far and starved the county service. It 
 would be continually between two fires ; the demand for good 
 service and the resistance to taxes. No matter what goes wrong 
 the supervisors, under this scheme, have power to fix it and can 
 fairly be held responsible if they fail to have it fixed after 
 it has been called to their attention. 
 
 Local Nullification of State Laws 
 
 In this plan of government one fault inherent in the county 
 would still remain. The supervisors would have two masters, 
 i. e., the people of the county and the state government, which 
 is continually making laws for them to enforce. The work of 
 the sheriff, district attorney and the county judge is really not 
 county work at all, except geographically. It is really state 
 work. Although elected by ,the people of the county they are 
 working for the people of the state. We had an interesting 
 instance of that recently when the district attorneys of all the 
 various counties in New York state were up against the propo- 
 sition of prosecuting the alleged frauds on the state highways, 
 and it was said that they could not be relied on to handle that 
 work because of the expense. There was a case where some 
 of the counties flatly declined to burden themselves with their 
 responsibilities to the state at large, and there was no effective 
 way of making the counties obey those printed memoranda 
 called laws, which I have previously referred to. The local 
 nullification of laws through the failure or hostility of the coun- 
 ties is a common phenomenon in America, and to that is due 
 much of our disrespect for the written law. To that is due much 
 of the careless passing of unpopular laws at Albany, where the 
 assemblyman cheerfully explains : "Well, it won't be enforced." 
 The governor by his approval helps to make the law, and it- is 
 made his duty to see that the laws are enforced. Yet the judges, 
 district attorneys and sheriffs, who are nominally his agents, are 
 put where they can laugh at him and the governor is helpless, 
 unless the situation gets so bad that he feels justified in utilizing 
 the rarely used whip which the constitution gives him in the 
 power of removal of such officers. In actual practice, as we 
 know, the governor rarely exercises any influence on these nomi- 
 nal agents of his, and they go their own sweet way. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 93 
 
 In the national government we see on a vastly larger scale 
 the correct method of handling these functions. The president 
 appoints the judges in all the districts and he appoints the attor- 
 ney-general, under whose direction are all the district attorneys 
 and all the federal marshals and federal prisons. That is the 
 obvious, logical plan. New Jersey has part of it in operation, 
 inasmuch as the governor appoints the judges and district 
 attorneys, and while the sheriffs are elective the governor has 
 an emergency power to do their work by other methods if he 
 cannot secure co-operation from the sheriff. I cheerfully con- 
 cede that to give the governor of New York the right to appoint 
 county judges and to give to an appointive attorney-general the 
 control of a state-wide department of justice has a strange 
 and novel sound, and the people of this state would have to get 
 used to the sound of the thing before we could hope to organize 
 on these lines. Until that time comes when the state will 
 enforce the laws it makes and pay the bills we must be content 
 with a county commission or board of supervisors which will 
 undertake to serve the two masters with as much justice as it 
 can. 
 
 One County Government; Not Several 
 
 Give to the people a single county government instead of 
 seven, with a Short Ballot instead of a long one, with a few 
 conspicuous elective officials instead of a lot of obscure ones — 
 a government that has power to get results and can thus be 
 held responsible if it fails to get results — and you will see the 
 same marvelous revival of public attention that has been seen 
 in every city that has adopted commission government. You 
 will see the citizens of the county really knowing something about 
 their county government, and you will see them discussing their 
 public servants with intelligence. Then you will get in the 
 county whatever kind of government the people of that county 
 want. I don't say it will be good government. I don't say 
 that it will be better than the present county government, but 
 I think it will be a great deal better, just as the commissioned 
 governed cities have almost all shown instant and marked im- 
 provement. Give a man a good automobile and you cannot 
 guarantee where he will go in it. You can only guarantee that 
 a good automobile will take him wherever he wants to go more 
 surely than a loose-jointed, ramshackle automobile will. 
 
94 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 But the most happy result to be obtained by the county man- 
 ager plan is the wiping out of the rank injustice inherent in the 
 present mechanism, where officials are damned for things they 
 did not do and praised for things which they could not help; 
 where good work goes unnoticed and bad work, too; where 
 officials are blamed for things they could not help because the 
 vital co-operation of some other county officer was lacking. 
 There will be no more sheriffs who deplore the condition of their 
 jails and cannot get money to make them right, and no more 
 boards of supervisors who give the sheriff money enough, but 
 can't make him spend it judiciously. When the lines of respon- 
 sibility are clear and straight and simple, we will find our 
 county governments in a new and brighter atmosphere, lighted 
 up by the healthy scrutiny of the whole people. 
 
 Short Ballot Bulletin. i:No. 7. 2-3. February, 1912 
 Personal Suggestion for a Model County. Richard S. Childs 
 
 Rules for planning a county or any government: 
 
 1. The tax levying and tax spending bodies should be one. 
 
 (a) So that it will have the power to raise money needed to 
 give good service — if the public demands good service. 
 
 (b) So that it will have power to compel economy of service 
 if the public demands low taxes. 
 
 2. The ballot should be short and the elective officers all 
 conspicuous. 
 
 In other words, put the officials between two fires ! 
 
 3. The power that makes the law should be obliged to face 
 the public resistance to its enforcement. 
 
 (a) So that public resentment will act only on those who 
 have power to amend the law. 
 
 (b) So that laws will not be nullified by local non-enforce- 
 ment. 
 
 As a judicial unit the county enforces state-made laws. The 
 people of the county should not have power to nullify a statute 
 by electing a local judge, sheriff or prosecuting attorney pledged 
 to ignore or soften a state law. A public sentiment hostile to 
 the law should find no vent save against the local members of 
 the legislature, who have power to correct the law at its source 
 in the legitimate way. As county courts cannot set aside or 
 
SHORT BALLOT 95 
 
 modify statutes the sentiment in favor of electing judges because 
 of their practically legislative powers does not apply. There- 
 fore let the county judges be appointed by the governor, 
 let the court appoint its own clerk and its own sheriff to 
 keep prisoners, execute warrants, summons and carry out 
 sentences. Make the prosecuting 1 attorney an appointive 
 subordinate of the attorney-general of the state, who in turn 
 should be appointed by the governor. Let the prosecuting at- 
 torney have as much of the sheriff's power as he needs to get 
 witnesses and evidence and to make arrests. 
 
 Thus far we have roughly followed in the state the federal 
 plan, the county courts being parallel to the federal district 
 courts, the sheriffs to the federal marshals, the prosecuting 
 attorney to the district attorney. The state will pay all the bills 
 of the judicial system, maintain the courthouses, prisons, etc. 
 
 The county clerk does what the state requires. The state 
 therefore should pay the bills and appoint the clerk, making him 
 the local member of the staff of the secretary of state, who in 
 turn should be appointed by the governor. 
 
 As a business unit for maintaining roads, schools, etc., the 
 county is purely local in function and it should authorize the 
 board of supervisors to do the work and collect the necessary 
 taxes to pay for it. The supervisors should have power to hire 
 and fire, for without this power they cannot compel efficiency 
 in subordinates or be held responsible for the tax rate. They 
 appoint their own treasurer, surveyor, road commissioners, etc. 
 
 Abolish the county auditor and establish a state examiner 
 under the appropriate member of the governor's cabinet, with 
 power to investigate and criticize any county management at any 
 time and report to the public, but not to interfere or dictate. 
 
 In many well settled parts of the country there are no purely 
 business functions of the county which could not easily and 
 appropriately be taken over by the several cities and townships 
 therein. This should be done where possible, whereupon the 
 county as a political entity would disappear entirely. Nobody 
 would mourn but the politicians, whose stoutest and most pic- 
 turesque citadel Would be destroyed. 
 
96 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 World's Work. 26:274. July, 1913 
 County Commission Government 
 
 A short ballot and a simple and responsible government are 
 hopeful political tendencies. There are two or three cities with 
 managers and two or three hundred with commission form of 
 government. Eleven governors this spring urged the principles 
 of the Short Ballot in their annual messages, and the Governor 
 of Kansas believes that "states as well as cities should be ruled 
 by commission." 
 
 In the meanwhile in the counties, a most important but some- 
 what neglected field of government, the new idea has taken hold. 
 On June 2d last, Los Angeles, County, Cal., took advantage of a 
 recent amendment to the state constitution that permits counties 
 to try the simplified form of government. It leaves only three 
 officers besides the supervisors to be elected : the sheriff, the 
 district attorney, and the assessor. The supervisors appoint the 
 other eight county officers from the eligible civil service list. 
 The supervisors can, also, have as many or as few deputies, 
 clerks, janitors, and the like as the county's business requires, 
 instead of a number fixed by the legislature, as had been the 
 case formerly. 
 
 The whole machinery that carries on the county affairs is 
 not only given a chance to be pliable and elastic but it is at the 
 same time greatly reduced and simplified. For example, for- 
 merly the sheriff and the constables were independent of each 
 other, and as their duties overlapped they were in constant 
 conflict. Now the constables are ex officio deputy sheriffs. 
 
 All the authority is in the hands of the supervisors and all 
 the responsibility is upon them. The people can tell whom to 
 praise and whom to blame, whom to defeat at the polls and 
 whom to reelect; and the ballot has been so simplified that there 
 will be little danger of the voters confusing the issue. 
 
 An additional purpose in putting the commission govern- 
 ment in Los Angeles County, which may also be characteristic 
 elsewhere, is the desire to get county "home rule," to free the 
 county from rigid adherence to general -state laws that have 
 been framed at the distant capital. 
 
 The operation of the provision for a county road commis- 
 sioner will be watched everywhere with great interest, for the 
 method of road construction and maintenance, now universal in 
 
SHORT BALLOT 97 
 
 the western states, by supervisorial districts and under the direc- 
 tion of the several supervisors, is a clumsy confusion of legisla- 
 tive and administrative functions that has had lamentable results 
 upon rural highways. 
 
 Los Angeles County has entered hopefully upon a most inter- 
 esting experiment that may very possibly be as important a 
 contribution to democratic government as the commission plan 
 has already proved itself to be in the cities. 
 
 Equity. 16:53-5. January, 1914 
 
 County Problem 
 
 The county problem in New York state is more serious than 
 most citizens realize. In fact, a very serious phase consists of 
 this very lack of recognition. Within the last few years the 
 administration of county affairs, at rather widely separated 
 points, has been brought dramatically, but temporarily, to the 
 attention of the public. When Martin H. Glynn was comptroller, 
 one of his greatest services to the state was hisi general raking 
 over of the boards of supervisors, county treasurers and super- 
 intendents of the poor in about five counties. The method 
 of conducting public business in these places was unspeakably 
 bad. In one county where maladministration had about run 
 its course, the board of supervisors had practically abdicated 
 its functions to an unbonded clerk, who proceeded to pay out 
 the county funds with no other audit or sanction than his own 
 sweet will. An investigation into his affairs led this official 
 finally to suicide. 
 
 Work of a far more constructive sort is now being 'done 
 by some of the same men in the comptroller's office, whose 
 investigations several years ago led to numerous indictments. 
 Also an exceedingly useful work is being conducted in the 
 large county of Westchester by the Bureau of Research in 
 Westchester County. 
 
 The secretary of this bureau, in a recent address, gave what 
 seems to be a description of typical conditions in the counties 
 of New York state, when he made this summary of his findings : 
 
 Complex and confusing masses of legislation affecting the different 
 communities in varying degrees. 
 
 Inadequate, unsatisfactory and wasteful taxation systems. Two hundred 
 and twelve paid tax officials performing the work of ten. Ten expert men 
 
98 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 for salaries of from five thousand down to fifteen hundred a year would 
 have performed that work much more efficiently and gotten the taxes 
 collected with a very much smaller residuum of arrears to be collected 
 by sale than these 212, who didn't know very much about it except how 
 the other fellow had done it before them. 
 
 Inadequate and antiquated systems of accounting for public funds. 
 
 Violations, evasions, misrepresentations and neglect of the laws, by 
 public officials — many of such irregularities unintentional, because the 
 men did not know they were violating the law. 
 
 Unnecessary sickness and needless deaths from preventable diseases, 
 due to inadequate sanitary inspection and control. 
 
 Waste and extravagance in many administrative departments. 
 
 Capable officials' compelled to depart from or very freely interpret the 
 law, or even to obtain special legislation to enable them to achieve efficient 
 and economical service. 
 
 Realizing the growing importance of the whole subject of 
 "county government, the New York Short Ballot Organization 
 has organized a series of conferences during the present winter, 
 at which various phases of county government will be discussed 
 and the men who have special information on particular sub- 
 jects will be invited to address the members. One very success- 
 ful meeting has already been held. The conference will devote 
 considerable discussion to actual legislation to be introduced 
 during the coming winter. 
 
 The constructive problem in New York state presents itself 
 somewhat in this way : In the first place, the constitution blocks 
 any thoroughgoing Short Ballot reform by a requirement that 
 the county clerk, the district attorney, the sheriff and the register 
 must be elective officers. It is probable, therefore, that one 
 measure to be promoted in the near future will be a constitu- 
 tional amendment which will permit the legislature to determine 
 whether or not these county officers shall be elective or appoint- 
 ive. In this way it will be legally possible to secure the passage 
 of alternative simplified forms of county organization, any one 
 of which may be adopted by the people of the county by a 
 referendum vote. 
 
 But even under the constitution as it stands, there is possible 
 a certain measure of Short Ballot reform, and what is perhaps 
 equally important, the greater unification of the official organi- 
 zation. New York is one of those few statesi in which the 
 county is organized on the basis of the township plan of local 
 government. The governing body of the county which is respon- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 99 
 
 sible for the general financial management of its affairs, is 
 composed of the supervisors of the various towns. In large 
 counties like Westchester, Erie and Onondaga, the board of super- 
 visors on this basis is an unwieldy body which has no continu- 
 ous and intimate connection with the various county officers'. 
 It is this fact, perhaps, more than anything else, which explains 
 the difficulties pointed out by Mr. Cartwright. No county officer 
 really represents the unity of the county. 
 
 To remedy this condition it is proposed to present a bill 
 providing for an optional form of county organization, in which 
 the governing body will consist of a board of three supervisors 
 elected at large. In order to give this board a point of contact 
 with the rest of the organization, provision will be made for a 
 county manager to act under their direction, who will appoint the 
 superintendents of the poor and the county treasurer. Later on, 
 if the constitutional amendment is passed, still greater appointing 
 power may be conferred upon this officer, who will also be 
 purchasing agent and budget commissioner and exercise in gen- 
 eral the range of functions conferred upon the city manager in 
 the cities organized under the new system. 
 
 National Short Ballot Organization 
 
 First Short Ballot County 
 
 When the great political turn-over took place in California in 
 1910, a legislature was elected which had been committed to a 
 number of progressive propositions, among which was the 
 Short Ballot principle. Soon the question arose in the party 
 caucus : "How are we to apply this principle to counties ?" 
 
 California has fifty-odd counties, varying in population from 
 less than five hundred to more than five hundred thousand ; 
 there is also every conceivable variation of physical, social and 
 industrial condition. The counties had all been governed in 
 substantially the same way by "general" laws. But every one 
 had its peculiar needs, so that, in order to avoid special legisla- 
 tion, the legislature had passed a number of "general" laws 
 which, in the nature of things could only apply to a single county. 
 This had become a nuisance. 
 
•oo SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Home Rule for Counties 
 
 Now the cities of California for over thirty years had enjoyed 
 the privilege of managing for themselves all their strictly local 
 affairs under the "home rule" provisions of the constitution and 
 had thrived under the system. The counties, on the contrary, 
 were enthralled by the theory, which is partly a fiction, that they 
 were mere civil divisions of the state and must be rigidly con- 
 trolled by state authority. But the legislature of 1910 saw the 
 county problem in a new light. They knew that there were a 
 -number of subjects which the local electorate and the local 
 authorities could pass upon far more intelligently than legisla- 
 tors coming from a section of the state perhaps seven hundred 
 miles away. So they frankly submitted to the people of the 
 state a proposition for limited constitutional home rule for 
 counties, which made it possible for the counties to decide upon 
 the structure or form of their own government, and to control 
 the county officers as they saw fit. The amendment was adopted 
 in October, 191 1. 
 
 The procedure under which the new charter may be adopted 
 is very similar to that by which home-rule charters may be 
 submitted in the cities. On petition of fifteen per cent of the 
 electors, or the initiative of the board of supervisors, an elec- 
 tion of a board of fifteen freeholders is held. The freeholders 
 then draft a charter which is submitted to the people for rati- 
 fication. The charter must then go to the legislature for 
 approval or rejection, as a whole (they cannot amend it in 
 details), which in practice, however, is a merely formal step, 
 as no legislature in thirty-three years has ever rejected a city 
 charter or an amendment to one. 
 
 The Short Ballot Principle 
 
 The central feature of this amendment is the power which it 
 gives the locality to determine whether the officers of the county, 
 except the board of supervisors, shall be elective or appointive, 
 and, if appointive, to determine the manner of appointment. 
 
 The first county to take advantage of the amendment was 
 Los Angeles, which contains the city of the same name and has 
 a population of about a half a million. 
 
 The charter which the board of fifteen freeholders presented 
 to the people and which was adopted by them November 5, 1912, 
 
SHORT BALLOT 101 
 
 is given here in full. It is absolutely a new conception of county 
 organization. 
 
 In the first place, the old notion that everybody must be 
 elected, is abandoned. Under the old legislative county law in 
 California, the people in the large counties elected, every four 
 years, the following officers : One supervisor for each of five 
 districts, county superintendent of schools, coroner, public admin- 
 istrator, county clerk, district attorney, sheriff, auditor, treas- 
 urer, tax collector, assessor, recorder and surveyor. In addition 
 to these, were a galaxy of elective constables and justices of the 
 peace. The new county charter wipes off the ballot most of 
 these officers because their duties are almost entirely ministerial 
 or clerical. The board of supervisors, of course, are to remain 
 elective as both the law and common sense require. The ballot 
 will also contain the candidates for the sheriff, district attorney 
 and assessor. By rotating the terms of the elective officers, not 
 over three of them will be chosen in any one year, after the 
 first election. This means that the county ticket in any single 
 year will be reduced from thirteen to two, or at most, three 
 officers. 
 
 A Unified System of Administration 
 
 In the second place, the charter provides for a unified, re- 
 sponsible system of administration. So long as all the heads of 
 departments were elected, they stood, each upon an independent 
 basis. The state law imposed upon the board of supervisors the 
 duty of supervision, but it gave them no power to enforce their 
 wishes. As a matter of fact, the only way of reaching these 
 elective department heads was by going into court and suing 
 them on their official bonds or convicting them of a crime. In 
 other words, you had to prove the officer an out-and-out crook, 
 or he stayed serenely by his job. There was no remedy for 
 incompetence, inefficiency and bad official conduct, so long as the 
 officer kept just within the law. 
 
 The Los Angeles charter changes this system radically. It 
 makes the board of supervisors the center of responsibility by 
 giving them the appointing power (under proper restrictions), 
 and holds them responsible in all ways for the administration of 
 county business. It thus adapts to counties the basic idea of 
 commission government. 
 
102 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Other Improvements 
 
 The selection of appointive county officers, from lowest to 
 highest (with certain exceptions), is to be made on the basis of 
 competitive examination, under the direction of an independent 
 civil service board. This, too, is an important advance, for it is 
 only in a handful of counties throughout the whole country that 
 the merit system applies. 
 
 The fee system is abolished. Officers are to receive salaries. 
 
 The constabulary is to be under the control of the sheriff. 
 There will not be, as formerly, two sets of peace officers con- 
 stantly disputing each other's authority. 
 
 A county counsel will be appointed to keep the various officers 
 keyed up to the complex procedure provided by law to direct the 
 county officers. They will have no excuse for developing a 
 "common law" of their own by following the precedents of the 
 office rather than the statutes. 
 
 The system which this charter sets up is not a perfect one. 
 For example, it does not do away with much unnecessary dupli- 
 cation of effort between city and county. It clings to the 
 tradition that makes the sheriff an elective officer, though nine- 
 tenths of his duties are simply those of executing court orders. 
 It continues the county assessor and district attorney as political 
 officers when they should be selected" for expert qualifications. 
 It leaves the justices of the peace on the elective list, in spite of. 
 the pettiness of their jurisdiction. 
 
 So much of criticism is due from our particular viewpoint. 
 But, on the whole, it looks like the beginning of a new age in 
 American counties. 
 
 The Alameda Plan 
 
 Los Angeles is the pioneer. But another California com- 
 munity is undertaking a much more pretentious piece of work. 
 The Tax Association of Alameda County has a plan of county 
 federation in which the Short Ballot and expert administration 
 under an appointive manager are the dominant principles. The 
 adjustment of city and county relations would be effected on the 
 principle that the county should be made more important and 
 incidentally, more interesting to its citizens, by charging it with 
 the whole system of duties which constitute the local exercise 
 of the police power, which is divided at present between the 
 
SHORT BALLOT 103 
 
 county and the cities. The county would also take over several 
 matters of routine administration, so that the office-work of the 
 cities and the county (a big item of expense), could be cen- 
 tralized and standardized. At the same time, the cities would 
 have every opportunity to develop their individuality in the 
 matter of public works, education, etc. 
 
 Conditions in California are not so very ''peculiar," after all. 
 New York, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, have quite as great a 
 diversity of conditions to deal with. County governments in 
 most of the states are working under substantially the same 
 form of organization which the old California law provides ; so ' 
 that these local systems have a very general significance. The 
 rest of the country will do, well to watch California's experi- 
 ments. 
 
 Survey. 31 : 490. January 24, 1914 
 
 Commission Government and Paid Managers for Counties. 
 H. S. Gilbertson 
 
 The New York legislature now in session will be asked by 
 the Short Ballot Organization to do away with the present cum- 
 bersome system of county government by a large board of 
 supervisors and a long list of elected officers. 
 
 A bill has been prepared in an optional form with provision 
 for its adoption in any county by referendum, substituting a 
 board of supervisors of three members, elected at large in rota- 
 tion for a term of three years, in place of the present cumber- 
 some body. This board would take over all the functions of the 
 present board except those specifically conferred upon a new 
 officer to be known as the "county manager." 
 
 This new official would be under the direct control of the 
 board and serve as their executive agent. He would have ample 
 powers of inquisition and would actually appoint the county 
 superintendent of the poor, the treasurer and other statutory 
 officers except the auditor, or comptroller, and coroners. He 
 would receive the fiscal estimates of the various officers and 
 present them to the board of supervisors with his recommenda- 
 tions. He would act as purchasing agent. 
 
 There would fall upon him, in short, all of the detailed 
 work of the present board of supervisors except the bookkeeping 
 
104 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 element in the auditing. In larger counties this latter function 
 would fall to the county comptroller who is now provided by 
 law as an optional officer. 
 
 It is the intention that the county manager have a salary 
 sufficient to attract trained men and, to widen the field of selec- 
 tion, it is specifically provided that he need not be a resident of 
 the county. This feature duplicates the "city manager plan" in 
 operation in Dayton and Springfield, Ohio, and other cities. 
 
 To make reasonably sure that the board of supervisors would 
 give the county manager power to carry out his duties, provision 
 is made in the bill for an administrative code, required to be 
 enacted by the board. This would contain in detail the pro- 
 cedure relating to the purchase of supplies, the form of contracts, 
 the regulations concerning the budget and department reports. 
 
 The coroners would be appointed by the district attorney, 
 thereby tending more closely to unify the machinery of criminal 
 justice. 
 
 When, if ever, the constitution is amended' so that the prin- 
 cipal county officers may be made appointive, a further unification 
 of the functions of the board of supervisors could be effected 
 by an extension of the county manager's powers of appointment. 
 An amendment with this end in view will probably be presented 
 to the legislature. 
 
 The need for the new plan is pressing. The organized Short 
 Ballot movement was not very old before it found that the 
 county is a field in which this reform is particularly appropriate. 
 For the purpose of scraping an acquaintance with the subject, 
 we made a rather thorough examination of the statutes in New 
 York state relating to counties and county officers, and found 
 some astonishing things. 
 
 Here was a unit of government which had been running along 
 for 20so years without the slightest semblance of an administra- 
 tive head, or chief executive. There was a board of supervisors, 
 to be sure, but its members consisted of delegates from the 
 various towns who met only at intervals. In the very nature of 
 the case, they could not be conversant with what was going on 
 in the other county offices. The latter were nearly all in the 
 independent elective class and this fact, of course, further mili- 
 tated against an effective organization. We diagramed this 
 statutory situation. The result was something which looked 
 very much like the tangled mass of steel girders in the ruins 
 
SHORT BALLOT 105 
 
 of one of the office buildings at San Francisco after the great 
 fire. 
 
 We then began to look around and see how the thing had 
 worked in practice. Soon we ran across an illuminating and 
 highly entertaining set of reports on certain up-state counties, 
 which were prepared during Martin H. Glynn's term as comp- 
 troller, about six years ago. 
 
 Among the things which the investigators found, in at least 
 one county, was a practically wide open treasury which could be 
 picked at the instance of half a dozen elective officers because of 
 the practical abandonment of anything like auditing. In another 
 county, by a series of illegal resolutions, the board of supervisors 
 actually abdicated its principal function as auditor of county bills 
 to an appointive employe who served without bonds and was 
 subject to no check beyond a perfunctory examination. Vouch- ; 
 ers for public expenditures in several counties were found to 
 have been burned. Sometimes they were stuffed away in barrels 
 in an utter lack of sequence or order. Officers like the county 
 clerk or county treasurer had been pocketing fees which the 
 statutes plainly said were the property of the state. 
 
 Some of these evils, of course, could have been corrected 
 superficially by better administrative measures. But at bottom 
 the trouble was one of bad fundamental organization. The 
 boards of supervisors in many of the New York counties are too 
 absurdly large to perform the administrative functions which are 
 imposed upon them. Think of thirty-eight men, as in West- 
 chester county, auditing a bill by acclamation ! 
 
 But size is not the only difficulty. There is no one to repre- 
 sent the unity of the county. And that is where the proposed 
 small board and the county manager will count strongly. 
 
 Review of Reviews. 46:604-8. November, 1912 
 
 Discovery of the County Problem. H. S. Gilbertson 
 
 The misdeeds of aldermen and legislators have a way of 
 bursting forth out of a picturesque, heroic setting. They break 
 into the headlines; the grand jury takes notice; public sentiment 
 drives along the prosecution and there follows a general cleaning 
 up, and perhaps some real constructive reform. Even under 
 normal conditions, the possibility of attracting public attention is 
 likely to be a useful preventive. 
 
106 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 But what of a government which does not make such an 
 appeal to the imagination and the dramatic sense? The county 
 falls in this category. It has no big franchises to give away and 
 no senators to raise a "jack-pot." It runs along in its dull, 
 prosy routine, filing records of real-estate transfers and court 
 proceedings, making surveys, executing court processes, and 
 keeping prisoners. Barring, here and there, the activity of a 
 vigorous district attorney, there are few visible and physical 
 evidences that the county is at work at all — except in the tax- 
 collecting season. 
 
 But for all that the county is not the center of the problem 
 of modern civilization, it is beginning to be a field of interesting 
 discovery. Particularly is it being brought into sharp and 
 unfavorable comparison, in many instances, with the city gov- 
 ernments within its own confines, and especially is this true 
 where commission government has gained headway. The deni- 
 zens of these cities have witnessed the passing away of the city 
 council, with its petty ward bickerings and its noisy inertia, and 
 of a hopelessly ineffective system of administration; they have 
 seen the foundations laid for efficiency and economy and secret 
 councils abandoned for the policy of the "open road." 
 
 The Contagion of Political Simplicity 
 
 The inference is natural : If commission government could 
 encompass these changes for cities, clearly there is a chance for 
 similar revamping of the county system. And so it happens that 
 in half a dozen widely separated states where the new simplified 
 city government has been in operation for a few years its first 
 by-product is now a demand for the reconstruction of the wider 
 political unit. In Iowa, the County Clerks' Association has 
 broken into the situation by going on record in favor of a 
 method of selection which would relieve them of their elective 
 independence and place them under the authority of the district 
 judges. New Jersey has caught the idea of simplicity, and has 
 enacted an optional law which would permit the abolishment 
 of the big, cumbersome board of supervisors and substitute a 
 small commission vested with broad powers of control. 
 
 But more notable than any of these, and entirely original 
 in its conception, is the constitutional amendment in California, 
 which was adopted in October, 191 1, and which is now being 
 brought into use in the counties of Los Angeles and San Ber- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 107 
 
 nardino and seriously discussed in several others. This is the 
 measure by which home-rule in matters of local self-government 
 was extended to counties, in somewhat the same form in which 
 it had been enjoyed by the cities for a period of over thirty 
 years. Its primary object is to bring within reach of the people 
 of the counties the advantages of the Short Ballot and the 
 consequent fixing of responsibility which it entails without im- 
 posing upon diverse communities any hard and fast form of 
 organization. 
 
 Proceeding from a still different point of view, the group of 
 Oregon Progressives, of which Mr. W. S. U'Ren is the leader, 
 have worked out a most interesting suggestion for county re- 
 form. This is part of a radical reconstruction of state govern- 
 ment toward which the initiative and referendum movement in 
 Oregon had been tending. But the details of the Oregon county 
 plan come in for discussion at the end of this article. 
 
 What Was Learned About New York Counties 
 And not only has the county been coming to the fore as the 
 result of the constructive measures taken in cities, but in a num- 
 ber of localities, on its own account, it has achieved an unenvi- 
 able reputation for eating into the finances of the tax-payers 
 without showing commensurate benefits. Some five years ago 
 several counties in New York began to contribute to the high 
 cost of living by sending the tax rate leaping and bounding 
 from thirteen dollars per thousand valuation to amounts varying 
 from twenty to thirty dollars. The state comptroller sent his 
 examiners successively into five or six counties where they 
 disclosed administrative conditions which were astonishing, even 
 in comparison with the revelations which have been made public 
 in affairs of great cities, — so very astonishing in fact that the 
 examinations came to a sudden stop. 
 
 Literally, the comptroller found a wide-open treasury, which 
 could be picked at the instance of half a dozen elective officers, 
 with no one raising a dissenting voice. In one county, by a 
 series of resolutions spread upon the minutes, and directly con- 
 trary to law, the board of supervisors had actually abdicated 
 its principal function as auditor of county bills to an appointee 
 who served without bonds and was subjected to no check what- 
 ever beyond a perfunctory annual examination. Vouchers for 
 public expenditures were sometimes burned, sometimes stuffed 
 
108 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 away in barrels and other receptacles without reference to order 
 or sequence. Officers like the county clerk and the county 
 treasurer for years had been pocketing fees which the statutes 
 plainly stated were the property of the state, not because they 
 were dishonest but because their predecessors had done so and 
 that was the only law they had to be guided by, and because 
 there was no one by to tell them any different way. 
 
 Incidents like these have their local causes and their local 
 significance. But when they come from a hundred isolated 
 localities throughout the country they picture the chief influence 
 which has molded county government, and influence no better 
 called than by the name of neglect. Neglect on the part of the 
 public and of publicists ; neglect on the part of everybody but 
 professional politicians, who have given the subject, in their 
 own peculiar way, the most continuous and solicitous care. 
 
 A Medieval Institution 
 
 The county, even now, is essentially a medieval institution, 
 with modifications at special points to meet the pressure of 
 modern life, and rarely has the slightest regard been given to 
 the incongruities and absurdities of some of the combinations 
 in making the adjustments. For how else could anything short 
 of a species of medieval-mindedness persuade us to take seri- 
 ously such an officer as the sheriff? Modern political organiza- 
 tion has reduced this erstwhile powerful officer to the dimensions 
 of a court messenger. Once he was the personal representative 
 of th? King in the county and the "Keeper of King's Peace." 
 Now, especially in populous centers, he has been displaced by 
 well-equipped municipal police forces and state militia ; and in 
 rural sections he is a joke. But while the office itself has 
 atrophied, its outward dignity is hardly less prepossessing than 
 formerly. If in any of the forty-seven states in which he is 
 now an elective officer, a proposition were made to reduce him 
 to his proper subordination to the judicial establishment, a storm 
 of protest would arise from ten thousand outraged democrats. 
 So highly is the sheriff regarded in some of the larger cities 
 that he is permitted to extract an income estimated at $50,000 
 per year, part of which, of course, is added to the "costs" of 
 litigants for extra quick service of processes and is hidden away 
 in lawyers' fees. 
 
 And the coroner! Surely there is a vast amount of humor 
 in our solemn march to the polls to select the gatherer-in of 
 
SHORT BALLOT 109 
 
 dead men's bones. Why has not some one suggested that this 
 officer be made an attache of the local health department? 
 
 This backwardness and conservatism in dealing with county 
 officers has been shown, in less ludicrous ways, by comparison 
 with some of the typical developments in the cities. To illus- 
 trate : the idea of the merit system of civil service which was 
 provided for the cities of New York state in 11883 was not 
 extended to counties until 1900. Massachusetts, which has had 
 a mandatory state-wide civil service law for cities for many 
 years, has not yet touched the problem in its own civil divisions ; 
 this, notwithstanding that precisely similar reasons for this sort 
 of protection are present. However, it may be scored on the 
 side of progress that Cook County, Illinois, is now about to 
 install a most complete and up-to-date system, while in New 
 Jersey, the three counties of Essex, Mercer, and Hudson, con- 
 taining, respectively, the cities of Newark, Trenton, and Jersey 
 City, have recently adopted the state civil service law by popular 
 referendum. 
 
 Likewise, the principle of non-partisan elections for local 
 officers, now in vogue in hundreds of cities and recognized in 
 these units as a practicably incontestable proposition, has made 
 little or no headway in counties, although the reasons for apply- 
 ing the principle here are doubtly cogent. The obscurity of 
 county officers, the uninteresting character of their work, and 
 the consequent lack of publicity which surrounds their activity 
 make for dark passages and by-ways of politics which directly 
 favor any sort of bad political and business practice of which 
 irresponsible individual officers or county rings are capable. 
 And, incidentally, these same "rings" are important component 
 parts of state machines. 
 
 The Long County Ballot 
 
 From the standpoint of efficient citizenship, the really serious 
 side of county politics is the effect which it has upon the 
 unwieldiness and confusion of the ballot. It usually happens 
 that the county officers are chosen at the same time as the state, 
 judicial, and sometimes even city ticket. As Mr. Roosevelt said 
 in his Columbus speech : 
 
 You cannot get good service from a public servant if you cannot see 
 him, and there is no more effective way of hiding him than by mixing 
 him up with a multitude of others so that they are none of them 
 important enough to catch the eye of the average work-a-day citizen. 
 
no SHORT BALLOT 
 
 If the district attorney were not mixed up with twenty other 
 county officers of decidedly less importance, his office would un- 
 doubtedly be stronger for standing in the concentrated rays of 
 public opinion. If the supervisors could stand out from the 
 county surveyor, the coroner, and the county clerk, the citizens 
 would not have to distribute their attention over a long line of 
 meaningless names. Aldermanic candidates in Chicago are no 
 longer mixed up with a multitude of unknown and unimportant 
 county candidates, and no doubt this fact has much to do with 
 the higher tone of Chicago's governing body in recent years. 
 The Los Angeles ballot in the November election in 1910 con- 
 tained a list of forty-five sets of candidates, more than half of 
 whom were for county offices. This situation, by the way, is 
 being dealt with by the present county charter framers, who 
 plan to put through drastic reduction in the number of elective 
 officers. 
 
 Faulty Organization 
 
 But in the last analysis, the county problem arises from its 
 bad ground plan of organization. Some time ago the consoli- 
 dated laws of New York State were searched to find out the 
 legal relations of county officers to one another and to the state 
 government. Without attempting to influence the result, but 
 simply drawing his lines through the most convenient open space, 
 a draftsman got the picture of unutterable confusion which ap- 
 pears on the opposite page. A perfect switchboard for tangled 
 lines ! And what is the meaning of it all ? Simply that there is 
 no positively real administrative headship and subordination in 
 the county organization. 
 
 The statutes contemplate that the board of supervisors shall 
 be responsible for the county's financial management. But this 
 board is a large body, consisting of one member from each town 
 and each ward of a city within the county; and, like county 
 boards of supervisors in other states, it convenes only at certain 
 stated intervals. Its members have no special qualifications for 
 administrative work. There is no continuous supervision of 
 the county business. 
 
 The other administrative officers of the county, like the treas- 
 urer and the superintendents of the poor, are independent of 
 their direct control because of their separate election and are 
 removable not by their putative superiors themselves, but by the 
 
SHORT BALLOT 
 
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ii2 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 distant governor, who may or may not act when his attention 
 is called to local conditions. In cases of actual malfeasance the 
 supervisors may recover on the treasurer's bond, or the attorney- 
 general may take such action at the instance of the comptroller. 
 But this is not that constant and instant control which is one 
 of the first essentials of practical administration. 
 
 To demonstrate that this absence of administrative control is 
 open to more than academic objection, let me cite the attitude of 
 the treasurer of Cook County, Illinois, an official who handles 
 funds to the amount of $50,000,000 a year. His is a fee office, 
 and according to the constitution of Illinois is under the super- 
 vision, as to the number of his assistants, of the district judges. 
 During the past year, after several of the other county officials 
 had submitted to the examination of their accounts and their 
 office systems, the Bureau of Public Efficiency undertook, at the 
 request of the judges, to make an examination of the treasurer's 
 office for the purpose of giving the judges data upon which to 
 authorize an increase in the number of clerks. But the treasurer 
 refused to open his office under circumstances which would per- 
 mit of effective examination. The judges, his legal superiors, 
 had no power to force his hand. He was responsible, as he him- 
 self declared, only to his bondsmen, and to them only does he 
 render any report for the annual flow of $50,000,000. The people 
 elect him. But they do not control him. They have not even 
 the boon of seeing what goes on in his office. 
 
 The position of the county treasurer just cited is an excellent 
 illustration of the theory generally underlying county organiza- 
 tion. It is a "government of laws," an intricate tangle of checks 
 and balances with positively no human force to drive it. Like 
 a big touring car, with the engine going and the clutch on but 
 no driver in the front seat, it follows a devious path which leads 
 to destruction. No wonder that county government, like the 
 old-fashioned city organizations, inevitably goes outside official- 
 dom and finds a driver in the person of a county boss, or an 
 irresponsible, unofficial form of commission government — the 
 county "ring." > 
 
 The Oregon Proposal 
 
 In sharp contrast with the typical county ground plan sug- 
 gested above is the one prepared by the Oregon Progressives. 
 Herein is recognized a principle which most other practical re- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 
 
 "3 
 
 formers appear to have overlooked. And this is the fact that 
 the county is neither a simple municipal corporation nor a mere 
 civil division of the state, but partakes of the attributes of both. 
 Remembering that the administration of law is a function of 
 the state, the Oregon leaders have consistently planned to keep 
 the judicial machinery distinct from that of functions which are 
 properly the subject of local control. Thus, although the judges, 
 
 
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 (governor) 
 
 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE 
 
 
 Richard S. Childs' Suggestions for a Short Ballot County 
 
 in deference to local sentiment, would remain elective, the dis- 
 trict attorney and the sheriff, who constitute the principal 
 agencies in the administration of justice, would be appointees of 
 the governor. All else in the county is regarded as the proper 
 subject of "business" treatment. In the latter department, the 
 principles underlying the commission plan have been brought 
 into play so that the governing board of the county would be 
 a small and "conspicuously responsible'' body vested with the 
 corporate powers and duties of the county. But, Oregon-like, 
 the Oregon plan goes just a step further than the commission 
 
ii4 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 plan, for, where the latter requires the members of the govern- 
 ing board individually to supervise the somewhat artificially divi- 
 ded departments of administration, the former arranges for an 
 expert county manager, who would act under the direction of 
 the county directors. This officer woula appoint all the local 
 subordinates, such as the treasurer, counly clerk, and so forth. 
 
 A? evidence of the practical basis of this suggestion, witness 
 this statement from Mr. U'Ren : 
 
 It is commonly believed that the average farmer and business man, 
 and even the average private corporation, gets as much value in business 
 for from forty to sixty cents as our state and local governments get for 
 $i. It is not unusual to hear a man of experience say, in speaking of the 
 county, "I could take half the money and get better results if I could 
 run it on business principles like I do my own affairs." 
 
 There is experience to justify this opinion. In the period from Janu- 
 ary to July, 1902, when the business that is now done by the county clerk's 
 office in Multnomah County was done in three departments by an elected 
 recorder of conveyances,- an elected clerk of the circuit court, and an 
 elected county clerk, the receipts were $13,968.50; expenses, $23,928.97. 
 It cost $1.71 to do a dollar's worth of clerical work and get the money. 
 In the period from January to June, 1908, with the three offices consoli- 
 dated in one, the receipts were $31,355; the expenses were $20,200.51. It 
 cost 64 cents for the county to do the work and get in one dollar under 
 Mr. Field's management of the business of the three departments con- 
 solidated in one. 
 
 Multnomah County is getting more work for 38 cents than it used 
 to get under the old system for $1. The direct- nomination law, by 
 elimination of the party bosses and of the machines, is in some degree' 
 responsible for the saving, but we believe it is in equal degree due to the 
 concentration of executive responsibility and power in the hands of one 
 man. 
 
 And now we shall possibly see in Oregon, replacing the anti- 
 quated incoherent anachronism which has passed for county gov- 
 ernment, a system which at least in the designing is thought 
 modern and scientific, — the direct antithesis of what every reader 
 of these lines has known. Based as it is upon a thorough 
 analysis of all the constituent factors in county organization, it 
 is an embodiment of the generally accepted constructive idea in 
 recent political thought; unity of organization, administration by 
 experts, and simplicity of citizenship through the Short Ballot. 
 
CITY GOVERNMENT 
 
 American City. 7: 339-43. October, 1912 
 
 City Charters and the Short Ballot. Harold S. Buttenheim* 
 
 Alderman Long— So St. Paul and New Orleans have been 
 bitten by that commission government mosquito ! It seems to be 
 stinging the big cities now as well as the small ones. I wonder 
 where it will light next. 
 
 Commissioner Short — I fear you lack proper respect for the 
 wisdom of the two hundred or more communities which have 
 adopted Short Ballot charters. I should prefer to say that they 
 have inoculated themselves with an antitoxin against some preva- 
 lent municipal ills. 
 
 Long — O, you think, then, that the cities and towns of the 
 United States could be divided into two groups — Group No. 1 
 comprising those under the commission form of government, in 
 which would be found efficiency, honesty and every municipal 
 virtue; while Group No. 2, comprising all the rest, would be 
 synonymous with inefficiency, waste and corruption! 
 
 Short — By no means; for I know full well that neither 
 group has a monopoly of all the virtues or vices ; and I doubt 
 not that here and there a city could be found which is better 
 governed under an old-fashioned charter than some other city 
 of corresponding size with the commission form. 
 
 Long — In other words, if the people really want good gov- 
 ernment, they will get it without one of these new-fangled 
 charters ; and if the reformers would spend as much time 
 preaching individual honesty as in devising ingenious plans for 
 running municipalities, they would accomplish much more that's 
 really worth while. 
 
 Short — I can't agree with you there. In the first place, all 
 the honesty in the world won't give us good city government 
 without efficiency. But assuming individual honesty to be the 
 most important thing, hasn't the reformer the best of authority 
 for asking that men should not be led into temptation? If the 
 
 * Read at the Annual Convention of the League of American Muni- 
 cipalities at Buffalo, N. Y., September 18, 1912. 
 
 10 
 
n6 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Short Ballot makes it easier to poll an honest vote, and elect 
 able and faithful officials, doesn't it thereby promote individual 
 honesty as well as governmental efficiency? 
 
 Long — That's a rather big If. But if you can prove your 
 premises, I am entirely willing to admit the logic of your con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Short — To save time, let us see if there are not some funda- 
 mental premises — axioms, we might almost call them — which we 
 can take for granted without argument. I think we will both 
 agree, for example: 
 
 (i) That the average voter would prefer to cast his ballot 
 for an able and honest official than for one who lacks these 
 attributes. 
 
 (2) That this preference, however, is not sufficiently active 
 to make the average voter spend very much time in studying 
 the comparative merits of rival candidates. 
 
 (3) That it is easier for any voter — average or not — to dis- 
 criminate intelligently between the candidates for a few offices 
 than between the candidates for many offices. 
 
 (4) That the more important the office to be filled, the 
 greater interest do the voters take in deciding who shall be 
 elected to fill it. 
 
 If you see any flaws in these statements, Mr. Long, let us 
 discuss them before proceeding further. 
 
 Long — I am entirely willing to concede the truth of your four 
 axioms, and must admit that, taken together, they form a strong 
 argument for the Short Ballot as an efficient type of election 
 machinery. You need only add a fifth "axiom" to the effect 
 that the success of municipal government is in direct proportion 
 to the efficiency of its election machinery, and you have appar- 
 ently proved your case; but that's an axiom I can't swallow. 
 
 Short — Nor have I asked you to. Instead of any fifth axiom, 
 suppose we take as our conclusion the proposition that, other 
 things being equal, election machinery designed with these four 
 axioms in mind may be expected to set in motion municipal 
 activities of a useful character with more certainty and less fric- 
 tion than would be possible under a clumsier plan. 
 
 Long — With your "saving clause of "other things being equal," 
 I am even willing to admit your conclusion ; but it strikes me 
 that you have by no means proved your case. You devise a 
 ballot, which — considered merely as a ballot — should be most 
 
SHORT BALLOT 117 
 
 pleasing to everybody except the printers and paper manufac- 
 turers ; then you liken it to a piece of machinery and assume 
 that it's the ideal thing with which to turn the wheels of a city 
 government. But to use a similar metaphor, I might mention 
 the fact that a watch, though a fine, compact piece of machinery, 
 is for some purposes hardly as useful as a larger (though 
 clumsier) steam engine; though, other things being equal t it 
 might be. The trouble is, other things aren't equal. 
 
 Short — It remains, then, to prove that the Short Ballot, 
 which you consider desirable in itself, has no countervailing dis- 
 advantages to offset its merits. 
 
 Long — Exactly; and to be more specific, I will mention three 
 or four of what I think are conceded to be the chief weaknesses 
 of the Short Ballot plan as applied to municipalities. You might 
 knock them down, if you can, one at a time. First : 
 
 The Short Ballot means concentration of power and responr 
 sibility in a very few hands. While this may work well in small 
 cities, I am convinced that in very large municipalities it would 
 be unwise. 
 
 Short — My answer to that objection is that we have both 
 been tacitly assuming the Short Ballot -and cbmmision govern- 
 ment to be synonymous terms. As to the wisdom of putting 
 the government of a city the size of St. Paul or New Orleans 
 into the hands of five or eight men, that is a question we might 
 postpone till we have agreed — as I am sure we will — on the 
 wisdom of the Short Ballot for every city, no matter how large. 
 
 There are, roughly speaking, two (partially overlapping) 
 groups of men in every city government — those who determine 
 policies, and those who do the actual work of administration or 
 engineering. It is a fundamental requirement that the people 
 shall have the right to participate in the policy-determining 
 function by choosing the men who are to exercise it. But, hav- 
 ing chosen, for example, councilmen who are known to favor a 
 sewage disposal system for their city, the choice by popular vote 
 of an engineer to design the plant or a superintendent to man- 
 age it, would obviously be unwise. 
 
 Lo NG — Of course there are many important positions which, 
 from their very nature, cannot wisely be filled by popular vote. 
 I am well aware, too, that there are many little offices which, 
 because of their comparative unimportance, will never arouse a 
 lively popular interest. Such offices, likewise, should be filled by 
 
n8 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 appointment, perhaps under civil service rules. But you have 
 not yet explained how, with your Short Ballot, you would make 
 the policy-determining branch of the government sufficiently 
 large in numbers to represent the various sections and interests 
 of a great city. 
 
 Short — Assuming a large governing body to be desirable, the 
 difficulty could readily be met by a judicious use of the ward 
 system. Suppose, for example, that in a city of a million inhab- 
 itants it were deemed wise to have the people elect thirty coun- 
 cilmen and a mayor. The city might be divided into fifteen 
 wards, each to be represented by two councilmen. By making 
 the length of term four years, and providing for the election of 
 one representative from each ward every two years, you would 
 have a ballot on which the voter would have to choose" only 
 one name every second year, or two names — councilman and 
 mayor — every fourth year. 
 
 In British cities, as you probably know, the ward system 
 prevails — and their governments are admirable. The voter in a 
 municipal election in Glasgow, for example, has the shortest 
 possible ballot, for he chooses only the one member of council 
 from his own ward. The councilmen in turn choose the alder- 
 men, who also sit in the council. The function of the council is 
 to determine policies, which are carried out by the mayor and 
 other city officers chosen by the council. 
 
 Remember, I am not expressing approval or disapproval of 
 the ward system for large American municipalities, but am 
 merely pointing out that a comparatively large governing body 
 and a very Short Ballot are not necessarily incompatible. Of one 
 thing I am very sure — that with too many councilmen the selec- 
 tion of each becomes of such comparative unimportance as to 
 minimize popular interest. In any case, municipal elections 
 should be held in a separate year, or, at any rate, at a separate 
 time, from state and national elections. 
 
 Long — The advantages of the Short Ballot, as you outline 
 them, seem unanswerable; and, pointing out, as you do, that the 
 Short Ballot and commission government are not necessarily 
 synonymous, I am ready to concede the desirability of the former. 
 How would you define the Short Ballot principle in the briefest 
 possible terms? 
 
 Short — Perhaps I cannot do better than to quote the defini- 
 tion of the National Short Ballot Organization : 
 
SHORT BALLOT 119 
 
 "First: That only those offices should be elective which 
 are important enough to attract (and deserve) public examina- 
 tion. 
 
 "Second : That very few offices should be filled by election 
 at one time, so as to permit adequate and unconfused public 
 examination of the candidates." 
 
 Long — Just what effect does the Short Ballot have on our 
 American system of checks and balances as exemplified by a 
 legislative body consisting of an upper and lower chamber and 
 an independent executive? 
 
 Short — The Short Ballot might, conceivably, be used to elect 
 a government organized on that plan ; but do you really consider 
 the "separation of powers" to be a desirable way to get the best 
 results in a municipality? What would you think of a business 
 corporation whose stockholders would elect two boards of direc- 
 tors with practically co-equal powers, and an executive respon- 
 sible to neither? 
 
 Long — I must admit that I am coming to believe in the con- 
 centration of power and responsibility in the hands of one group 
 of men, chosen by the people and with no other elective city 
 officials to interfere with them. I am less afraid of hasty and 
 unwise legislation under such a system than I used to be ; par- 
 ticularly if the voters have the initiative and referendum for use 
 in case of emergency. 
 
 Short — Why, that sounds like the beginning of an argument 
 for the commission form of government ! Have you become 
 converted so suddenly? 
 
 Long — I might as well admit that my "mosquito^ bite" remarks 
 which brought on this discussion were intended more to draw 
 you out than anything else ; but I may say frankly that I am 
 not prepared to accept any of the "standard" forms of com- 
 mission government charters as the absolutely final thing for 
 American municipalities. 
 
 Short — Nor am I; though I believe that most, if not all, of 
 the cities and towns which have adopted the commission form of 
 government are being, or will be, better governed than under 
 their former charters. And this belief on my part is based chiefly 
 on the Short Ballot and the unification of powers which the 
 new charters have brought about; but there may be certain 
 weaknesses in these charters which further study will remove. 
 
 Long — One serious danger of a small commission to govern 
 
120 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 a great city, in the opinion of many, is that too much power 
 is thus placed in the hands of too few men. A commission of 
 five, if three of them are not of the right kind, might be man- 
 ipulated with great ease by franchise grabbers. 
 
 Short — That fear doesn't worry me a bit. In the first place, 
 men who can be manipulated are not apt to be elected on a 
 Short Ballot; should any such men happen to slide into office, 
 the office itself is so conspicuous that manipulation is rendered 
 exceedingly difficult. In any case, the public interests can readily 
 be protected by providing in the charter that every franchise 
 grant shall be submitted to popular vote; or, if this is not con- 
 sidered desirable, provision may be made for an optional refer- 
 endum, under which thirty or sixty days must elapse before any 
 franchise grant shall take effect, within which time a certain 
 percentage of the citizens may demand its further postponement 
 until ratified by popular vote. 
 
 Long — The most conspicuous weakness of the commission 
 form, in my opinion, is that these charters usually place in the 
 hands of five men, not only the policy-determining function, but 
 the administrative function also; the same small group of men 
 are given power to legislate and to enforce their own laws; to 
 appropriate money for public works and to spend this money 
 themselves. 
 
 Short — There I think you have hit upon the most funda- 
 mental objection to the commission plan. But we both agree 
 that our vaunted American system of checks and balances hasn't 
 solved it. The problem, I think, will be partially solved by the 
 increasing perfection of our municipal civil service laws. And 
 of great importance also will be the gradual development and 
 training in this country of municipal experts who will be em- 
 ployed by our city commissions just as the directors of a cor- 
 poration now employ a business manager. To return to our 
 machinery metaphor, we must remember that it's the man with 
 his hand on the lever on whom the final responsibility must rest. 
 The actual running of the complicated machinery of a city gov- 
 ernment shouldn't be left to novices like you or me — or even to 
 five of them. But this city manager must, of course, be respon- 
 sible to the commissioners and not independent of them. 
 
 Long — I understand that some such plan is already being 
 tried. 
 
 Short — Yes; the city of Staunton, Va., some four years ago, 
 
SHORT BALLOl 121 
 
 elected a general manager, while retaining the mayor and council 
 plan of government; and in June of this year Sumter, S. G, 
 adopted a new charter providing for three commissioners draw- 
 ing nominal salaries ($300 for the mayor and $200 for the 
 others), and giving only part of their time to directing the city's 
 business. These commissioners in turn choose a city manager, 
 who need not be a local resident, and who will hold office at 
 their pleasure. Provision is also made in the charter for the 
 initiative, referendum and recall. The Sumter plan strikes me 
 as being an admirable one for a small city. 
 
 Long — An interesting elaboration of this idea is embodied in 
 the new form of city government proposed by the Business Sys- 
 tem of Government Committee of Indiana. Are you familiar 
 with it? 
 
 Short — I understand it is an attempt to adapt to municipali- 
 ties the system of successful business corporations, but am not 
 familiar with the details. 
 
 Long — In brief, the Indiana proposal contemplates the elec- 
 tion on a non-partisan ballot of a board of councilors, consisting 
 of 25, 17, 11 or 9 members, the number depending on the size 
 of the city. The term in each case is four years, half of the 
 councilors to be elected from the city at large every second year. 
 The salary of each member is fixed at $5 for each meeting 
 attended, and not to exceed $200 per year. The board of coun- 
 cilors has no primary legislative functions and no administrative 
 duties and powers, though it finally passes on all ordinances, 
 fixes the tax levy, and audits the public accounts. Its chief func- 
 tion is to elect (and fix the salaries of) the board of administra- 
 tion of the city, comprising the mayor and four commissioners. 
 The board of councilors also appoints two commissioners of elec- 
 tion and three members of the civil service commission, as well 
 as the members of the school board and park commission. The 
 city government is divided into five departments, in charge of 
 the mayor and the other four members of the board of admini- 
 stration, any one of whom can be removed by the councilors by 
 a two-thirds vote. The councilors, in turn, are subject to recall 
 by the citizens, who also have the initiative and referendum 
 privileges. I understand that an active campaign for this 
 "business system of government" is now being conducted 
 by its sponsors in Indiana. How does the proposal impress 
 you? 
 
122 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Short — I judge that the plan is based on the theory that the 
 proposed board of councilors corresponds to the board of direc- 
 tors of a business corporation; and that the mayor and commis- 
 sioners correspond to the business manager and heads of depart- 
 ments, chosen by and responsible to the board of directors. But 
 I see this important distinction: a corporation's directors have 
 a personal financial interest in the successful management of 
 their enterprise, for the directors are usually chosen — or choose 
 themselves — from among the largest stockholders. In a muni- 
 cipality, on the other hand, it is essential that the governing 
 board be kept free of men who have financial interests of their 
 own to serve ; the spur to effective work must be civic pride, 
 or, at least, nothing more selfish than the desire to share, in the 
 same degree as all other citizens, in the city's welfare. The 
 success of the Indiana plan would, of course, depend largely on 
 the personnel of the board of councilors; and I fear that, with 
 17 or 25 men elected from the city at large, the ballot would be 
 too long and the responsibility not sufficiently concentrated, to 
 secure the best results. 
 
 If the board of councilors is kept as large as is proposed, 
 and elected from the city as a whole, I believe the Indiana com- 
 mittee would do well to provide that such elections be held 
 under some plan of proportional representation, such as the 
 Hare system of a single transferable vote, which is in successful 
 use in municipal elections in Denmark and the Union of South 
 Africa. 
 
 It strikes me, also, that — in the smaller cities at least — the 
 dividing of the municipal government into five executive depart- 
 ments, in charge of five separate commissioners, chosen from 
 outside of the board of councilors, would be a rather expensive 
 and cumbersome plan. In cities of less than 20,000 population, 
 I believe that three commissioners would be ample; and it may 
 be that, in cities of 10,000 or less, one man of real ability would 
 be able to supervise the administrative end of the city's business. 
 The Indiana proposal is, however, a very interesting one, and 
 with such modifications as further discussion and practical ex- 
 perience may suggest, it may develop from an Indiana plan into 
 an American plan. 
 
 Long — If I had the ear of that Indiana committee and other 
 charter makers, I would suggest that they try to work out a 
 scheme by which effective cooperation would be established be- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 123 
 
 tween their municipal governments and the commercial and civic 
 organizations of their respective cities. 
 
 Short — -This, I believe, could be done under various forms 
 of charter by the creation of an advisory board composed of 
 representatives of the several commercial and civic bodies of the 
 city, duly elected by their respective organizations ; this advisory 
 board to suggest needed improvements and to recommend legis- 
 lation, but to have no actual vote in the municipal government. 
 By some such means the best thought of the business men and 
 civic workers would be placed at the disposal of the municipal- 
 ity. Should the governing body fail to adopt any recommenda- 
 tion which the advisory board felt to be desired by the majority 
 of the citizens, recourse might be had to the initiative, or the 
 advisory board could give its endorsement to candidates favor- 
 able to its proposition at the next municipal election. I have 
 long thought that our municipal governments ought in some way 
 to employ more effectively the latent energy of commercial and 
 civic organizations, and am sure that this is a subject deserving 
 of careful study by charter makers and municipal officials. 
 
 Long — We seem to be agreed on that subject. 
 
 Short — I wonder if we can agree, too, on a short definition 
 of an ideal city charter. ' 
 
 Long — Perhaps we can. What have you to suggest? 
 
 Short — That city charter is ideal which regards municipal 
 government, not as an end in itself, but as an aid to the health, 
 happiness and prosperity of every citizen; and which, in actual 
 practice, accomplishes its object with the greatest degree of 
 economy, simplicity and certainty. 
 
 Long — And here is mine: That city charter is ideal which, 
 both at and between elections, secures the most effective co- 
 operation among all citizens of the municipality to the advance- 
 ment of their present and future welfare. 
 
 And that's the long and the short of it. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 38:816-22. 
 November, 191 1 
 
 Short Ballot and the Commission Plan. Richard S. Childs 
 
 The commission plan is at least a relative success. Few cities 
 that have the old style plan of government by mayor, council and 
 
i2 4 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 miscellaneous minor elective officers are disposed to jubilate 
 over the results they are getting, whereas the cities that have 
 the commission plan seem to be unanimous in their willingness 
 to keep it indefinitely, on the ground that whether it be perfect 
 or not, it is certainly a, vast improvement over its predecessor. 
 Nothing in political science can be demonstrated with mathe- 
 matical certainty, but I submit that for the reasons that follow, 
 it seems reasonable to believe that the essential factor in this 
 relative success of commission government is the fact that it has 
 happened to involve complete acceptance of "the Short Ballot 
 principle.'' 
 
 As defined by The Short Ballot Organization, "the Short 
 Ballot principle" is — 
 
 First — That only those offices should be elective which are 
 important enough to attract (and deserve) public examination; 
 and 
 
 Second — That very few offices should be filled by election at 
 one time, so as to permit adequate and unconfused public exami- 
 nation of the candidates. 
 
 Commission government, vesting the power in a single board 
 which is so small and so powerful that the individual member 
 is conspicuous, conforms precisely ta this principle. There are 
 observable certain phenomena in the operation of commission 
 government which are clearly traceable to its Short Ballot. 
 
 First, the people know what they are doing on election day. 
 Any foreigner would instantly take it for granted that this is a 
 necessity for a workable democracy, but in this country so 
 obvious a fact has been consistently ignored. In every city under 
 the old style of government, we see great multitudes of people 
 voting a "straight ticket," not because of any overwhelming 
 loyalty to their party, but because they know of nothing better 
 to do. The typical American voter votes for his mayor with 
 clear conviction. He can argue about the mayor on the street 
 with any voter, can explain his reasons for his vote, is armed 
 with a considerable array of facts and history, and his vote 
 represents a well-formed opinion. The mayors of typical old- 
 style cities are correspondingly better representatives of public 
 opinion than the' various obscure officers who make up the rest 
 of the ticket, and politicians consistently nominate figureheads 
 for the mayoralty because they must have as candidate some 
 man who can stand the limelight. In this matter of the con- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 125 
 
 spicuous office, on which public discussion focuses, the politician, 
 despite the fact that he holds complete possession of the nomi- 
 nating machinery, is exceedingly deferential to Mr. Plain Citi- 
 zen. A typical American voter, however, finds on his ballot not 
 merely a set of candidates for mayor, but also a host of can- 
 didates for a string of petty offices. There are weak council- 
 men, for instance. The power of the council as a whole may 
 be large, but it is usually so dissipated by division among an 
 unreasonably large number of members that the individual 
 councilman is of no account, and public opinion refuses to 
 waste its breath upon him. There are also various minor 
 elective administrators such as city treasurer, comptroller, board 
 of public works, president of council, etc., offices which are either 
 insignificant in power or so uninteresting in character that they 
 completely escape public scrutiny. 
 
 The people are human beings and excepting under some com- 
 pulsion, are not to be expected to take an interest in uninterest- 
 ing things. This simple and well-known unwillingness of the 
 people to get excited over uninteresting matters has not been 
 taken into account in designing city governments. Charter com- 
 mittees have said, in effect : "The citizens ought to be interested 
 in getting the right man for city treasurer. Therefore, we will 
 make the city treasurer elective." Subsequent elections showed 
 that the citizens were not interested; the great majority of them 
 paid no attention to the matter, and in consequence the control 
 of that office was left in the hands of a small minority. This 
 "apathy" of the citizens can be explained and is not inexcusable 
 when it is considered that the office of city treasurer has nothing 
 to do with the broad policies of the town and is not truly 
 political, the only issue involved being the question of which of 
 the several aspirants shall hold the job and draw the salary. 
 That is not an issue large enough, unless there be great scandal, 
 to cause all the men of a city to stand up, divide, and be counted. 
 For the Charter Revision Committee to say "it's the people's 
 duty to live up to these requirements which we lay down for 
 them" is sheer impertinence. If the people will not graciously 
 deign to do certain work that is laid out for them to do, the 
 sensible and proper solution of the difficulty is to change the 
 requirements in accordance with the people's action. If the 
 mountain will not come to Mahommed, Mahommed must go to 
 the mountain. 
 
126 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 In the commission plan there are at most only five elective 
 officers in the whole city. They are all important and share in 
 the determination of policies, and the people consequently take 
 a great, natural, and spontaneous interest in every one of those 
 elective positions. Mr. Plain Citizen can argue about every one 
 of the five men just as in the old days he could argue about 
 the mayor. On election day he expresses a clear conviction 
 regarding every elective office. He is completely the master of 
 his ballot and his mastery has been acquired without conscious 
 effort. It is as if the exhortations of reformers had succeeded 
 in inducing all good citizens to go into politics ; only in this case 
 politics has been simplified and thereby brought to the people. 
 Surely this unique phenomenon of the commission-governed city, 
 the fact that the people know what they are doing on election 
 day, is a very vital and important one. It is due to the shorten- 
 ing of the ballot, and not to any excitement of civic interest 
 among the people. The people of Galveston were the same 
 after the flood as before. The people of Houston did not 
 undergo a moral upheaval when commission government was 
 established. Neither did the people of Des Moines, Cedar 
 Rapids, or Leavenworth. It was the ballot that changed, not 
 the people. Incidentally, does it not seem possible that the peo- 
 ple of the much-admired British cities, which also have an exceed- 
 ingly "short ballot," may not be individually a bit more alive 
 naturally on civic questions than our own people? Is it not 
 reasonable to believe that their human nature is the same as 
 ours, and that if an American city adopted that "Short Ballot" 
 plan it would get similarly satisfactory results? 
 
 It is obvious that when all the people of a city know what 
 they are doing on election day, that separate class of political 
 specialists known as "politicians" coincidentally disappears. The 
 politician is simply a citizen who knows what he is doing on 
 election day. He is a man who does all the work which citizen- 
 ship requires of him. In the old style city where the work 
 of the voter is obscure and complex, these "complete citizens" 
 are so few as to constitute a definite ruling class — an oligarchy. 
 Simplify the work of the citizens sufficiently and all the citizens 
 automatically become effective politicians, and the political spe- 
 cialist of the past finds himself no more influential than the 
 average citizen. 
 
 In the last analysis, I think our complaint against our city 
 
SHORT BALLOT 127 
 
 governments comes down to just this: that they have been oli- 
 garchies ; that the office-holders have been under obligations to 
 the little ruling class of politicians, and that government has 
 consequently been in the interest of the politicians rather than 
 in the interest of the people. The citizens, to protect their 
 interests, have been pitted against the politicians to whom the 
 work of politics was a means of livelihood. It was a case of 
 the amateurs against the professionals. With the disappearance 
 of this ruling class the great bulk of our problems may be 
 expected to vanish. In the commission-governed cities the Short 
 Ballot made it possible for a man to campaign and get elected 
 without the permission of the politicians. That this would hold 
 true in a large city where the difficulties of getting before the 
 people stagger individual effort and create a special function for 
 the experienced machines, I am not certain ; but in the small 
 cities, where commission government has thus far been tried, a 
 candidate can get himself into the limelight and make a success- 
 ful campaign, simply because the office for which he is running 
 is important, the citizens are looking for him and are ready to 
 listen to him, and the work of the citizens is not so complicated 
 as to cause them to ignore the candidates and rely on ready- 
 made tickets prepared for them by political specialists. When 
 the citizen makes up his own ticket in his head, as he does on 
 the Short Ballot basis, the candidate must run to the citizen for 
 approval instead of running to a group of self-established ticket- 
 makers. It is this simplicity which has made it possible for 
 Colorado Springs, for example, to prescribe that each candidate, 
 before he is granted a place on the official ballot, must swear 
 that he represents no political organization — nobody but himself 
 and his prospective constituents. 
 
 It is this same simplicity which made possible the non-partisan 
 ballot. A non-partisan ballot must be short. In most of the 
 cities, thanks again to the Short Ballot, the Des Moines plan 
 of the non-partisan primary has been copied to advantage, and 
 the people, big, unorganized and clumsy as they are, have been 
 able to take over the function of weeding out the aspirants and 
 deciding the contests, without accepting the help of private 
 machinery. 
 
 The Short Ballot is also responsible for the way the elective 
 officials are held accountable after election. It is not enough to 
 establish accountability for official acts in law. A bureau of 
 
128 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 municipal research by diligent delving may determine who is to 
 blame for departmental inefficiency in almost any city, but that 
 is by no means the same thing as having every citizen in town 
 know beyond doubt who is responsible, without any investigation 
 at all. A citizen of a commission-governed city finding a street 
 dirty knows that five men whom he can name by name are re- 
 sponsible, that they have power to raise enough money to keep 
 the street clean and to hire the sweepers and to see that they 
 do the work. In such circumstances, the citizen feels some 
 satisfaction in making a complaint, and every city has seen a 
 most spectacular revival of interest and activity fn municipal 
 affairs among the citizenship. If the commission were a very 
 large one so that the individual members of it were not clear 
 targets, there would be much less satisfaction for the citizen, 
 since the failure of a member to give the proper attention to a 
 reasonable demand would be less conspicuous and would start 
 less talk. The fact that each commissioner in the small com- 
 mission is public property, so to speak, and is known to every 
 citizen, as the mayor alone was known in the old style plan, 
 causes every citizen to take notice of any fault or failure to do 
 right. The commissioner's reputation in the community is con- 
 stantly fluctuating in accordance with these criticisms. When 
 an attack is made on him, his conspicuousness forces him to 
 reply, and his reply is waited for by the people. The same 
 attack aimed at an obscure and inconspicuous alderman of the 
 old regime would go unnoticed and the alderman's political 
 strength might not fluctuate at all. A conspicuous official is 
 naturally more sensitive than an inconspicuous one. Put a 
 typical old style politician into the spotlight of a commissioner- 
 ship and he will break loose from old associations and tempta- 
 tions, because he is unable to withstand the public criticism 
 which is launched at him if he fails to serve the whole people. 
 Time and again we have seen this phenomenon in the case of 
 machine mayors. In the commission government we have prac- 
 tically entrusted the power to a board of mayors. 
 
 There is no such thing in democratic problems as inconspicu- 
 ous accountability. Conspicuousness is essential. It is only an- 
 other way of saying that the people as masters of an elective 
 servant can control him only if they see what he is doing. When 
 all the people see what a man is doing, that man is, ipso facto, 
 exceedingly conspicuous. Conspicuousness to a certain extent 
 
SHORT BALLOT 129 
 
 means "standing alone.'' One of a crowd cannot be conspicuous 
 — and there we are, back at the Short Ballot again ! Government 
 in the light is safer than government in the dark — that is 
 obvious — and any system which provides for such concentrated 
 scrutiny as the commission plan does should be able to show 
 superior results over the old style jungle of obscurities. 
 
 The commission plan is more than a Short Ballot plan, how- 
 ever. It is a fairly correct Short Ballot plan. 
 
 An efficient organization must have a single head; not neces- 
 sarily a single man, but at least a single board or committee in 
 which all the reins of power are centered and unified. How 
 often do we see voluntary organizations, ranging from a social 
 picnic up to an informal association, go to pieces or develop 
 serious inefficiency, not because of the weakness of any par- 
 ticular members, but from the simple lack of a single boss. Our 
 old style governments are headless. Neither the mayor nor the 
 council nor anyone else constitutes the court of ultimate appeal. 
 Nobody is boss unless the people, with that singular political 
 genius of the Americans, delegate their functions to a machine 
 boss who will nominate and control puppets and keep them 
 working in harmony by the use of unlawful influence. 
 
 The commission plan breaks with our old superstitions re- 
 garding the desirability of the "separation of powers" and pro- 
 vides a complete unification of powers ; a unification that is abso- 
 lutely essential to accountability. The single board has power 
 to do everything and hence can be held responsible for any 
 ■failure to do anything which the people want done. The com- 
 mission is stripped of all excuses. It cannot say "it is the other 
 man's fault." If the people demand low taxes, the commission 
 has power to compel the departmental economies necessary to 
 bring them* about. If the people want higher departmental 
 efficiency, the commission has power to raise the money needed 
 for it. In a desire to please critics on both sides, the commission 
 is under strong inducements to attempt to secure both depart- 
 mental efficiency and low taxes. The knowledge that it will 
 secure credit for good deeds and discredit for bad, by reason of 
 the conspicuousness of the work of the individual members, sets 
 even political hacks to resolute endeavors to please the public. 
 
 A ballot of five officers could be arranged along other lines, 
 and, in fact, we frequently do have ballots in American cities as 
 short as that, but the unequal division of power and the unequal 
 
130 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 interest of the people in the officers, results usually in the over- 
 shadowing of some of the officers, both before and after election. 
 Usually, the mayor gets all the limelight at the expense of the 
 other elective officers In the commission plan, however, the 
 practical equality of the commissioners results in a correspond- 
 ingly equal division of the iimelight. Each man gets his share 
 of public scrutiny and is not overshadowed. The New Jersey 
 plan represents the latest developments on this point and is cor- 
 rect, inasmuch as the five men are elected without designations 
 to office and choose the mayor from among their own number 
 after election. 
 
 There are other features besides the Short Ballot which are 
 characteristic of commission government, and are comprised in 
 the usual definition of the plan, but I do not see how even the 
 most ardent supporters of these features can prove that they 
 are essential. The initiative, and referendum-by-protest are 
 much lauded by certain enthusiasts, but Galveston and Houston, 
 where the wave first started, have never had those features. For 
 the same reasons it cannot be said that it is the recall which puts 
 officials on their good behavior and accounts for the success of 
 the plan. Neither can it be the non-partisan ballot. For the 
 commission plan succeeded before any of these features were 
 added to it, and has continued a success in Galveston and Hous- 
 ton despite their absence. 
 
 The Short Ballot is the magic in the commission plan and 
 our ultimate salvation from government by politicians lies in 
 the hope of universal recognition of the fact and the application 
 of the same vital principle to our counties and states. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 38:877-83. 
 November, 191 1 
 
 Municipal Government Administered by a General Manager — 
 The Staunton Plan. John Crosby 
 
 In order to obtain a more economic and business system of 
 municipal government, a large number of cities have, within the 
 past ten years, adopted the commission plan, with which every 
 person is more or less familiar. 
 
 The city of Staunton, Virginia, some three years ago adopted 
 the unique and business method of government by a general 
 
SHORT BALLOT 131 
 
 manager, whose prototype is found in every large private cor- 
 poration. As every person is, no doubt, familiar with the cum- 
 bersome and expensive operation of municipal government 
 through council committees, it is hardly necessary to dwell on 
 the disadvantage of a system so antiquated, which should have 
 been abolished years ago. 
 
 Councilmen as a rule are, or should be, business men, who 
 have their private affairs to look after, which naturally consumes 
 all of their time 1 and attention,, and it is not reasonable to pre- 
 sume that they, receiving neither :pay nor thanks for anything 
 they may do for the interest of the city, can afford to neglect 
 their private interests to look after the business of the city. 
 Hence, under the old system, the affairs of the city, were run by 
 the heads of departments with the assistance of a few council- 
 men who, in a great many cases, were contractors bidding for 
 city contracts. Not infrequently, also, the heads of departments 
 were men totally unfit for the .positions they occupied, who had 
 received their appointments and held their jobs through political 
 or other favored influence. Under the present "Staunton plan" 
 this is all a thing of the past, and the business of the city is 
 conducted on the same .general business principles as all large 
 industrial private corporations are conducted. 
 
 The constitution of Virginia requires cities to maintain their 
 mayor and council, and in cities of the first class, those having 
 a population of ten thousand or more, two branches of the 
 council are required. Therefore, we were unable to abolish the 
 council and adopt a commission form of municipal government. 
 However, as the provisions of section 1038 of the Virginia 
 Code permits the council to establish such offices as may be 
 necessary to properly conduct the city's affairs, the idea of a 
 general manager was conceived and a general manager was 
 elected by the council. 
 
 In discussing the merits of this system, I will compare it with 
 that of a private industrial corporation, in order that the "Staun- 
 ton plan" may be more fully understood and appreciated. 
 
 There is this difference between the municipal corporation 
 and the private corporation. The private corporation is a busi- 
 ness proposition entirely, while the municipal corporation con- 
 sists of two distinct branches which do not conflict but work in 
 harmony, the one with the other. By the two branches is meant 
 the legislative and the executive; The executive is also sub- 
 
 11 
 
132 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 divided into two branches. The one consists of the mayor and 
 the courts who have charge of the enforcement of the laws, 
 particularly the penal ordinances. The other, or business 
 branch, is under the control of the general manager who takes 
 the place of council committees, and has full charge and control 
 of all the business of the city, gives bond for the faithful 
 performance of his duty and is responsible to the council. In 
 this article I am discussing the business portion of the executive 
 branch of municipal government. 
 
 The "Staunton plan" is a democratic government "for the 
 people and by the people." Neither the people nor the council 
 have surrendered any of their sovereign rights; they have simply 
 created an office known as that of a general manager, a paid 
 employee, who devotes his whole time and attention to the 
 business of the city and who is responsible to the council and 
 the people, instead of intrusting the affairs of the city to the 
 committees of the council. For each councilman thinks that the 
 other members of the committee have more time than he has 
 for looking after the business of the city, and each committee- 
 man is of the same opinion — always willing to let the other 
 fellow do it. As a result, that which is every one's business is 
 no one's business, and the poor old city gets along the best she 
 can to the detriment of the taxpayer in particular and the people 
 in general. Would any private corporation consider for a 
 moment conducting its business through committees composed 
 of stockholders who receive no pay for such service, who have 
 other business affairs to look after, and who would devote only 
 spare moments, so to speak, to the business of the corporation? 
 A corporation run on this plan would hardly produce dividends, 
 neither would its stock be sold at a premium. Now, we have 
 simply done as do the private corporations. We have elected a 
 general manager, a paid employee, to attend to the business of 
 the city and produce dividends for the taxpayer by keeping 
 his taxes down to the minimum rate and by giving him value 
 received for every dollar he pays into the municipal treasury. 
 
 The mayor is the official head of the municipality and corre- 
 sponds to the president of the private corporation. The general 
 manager of a municipality is the executive and business manager, 
 whose duties correspond in every particular with those of the 
 general manager of a private corporation. The council adopts 
 the ordinances, fixes the rate of taxation, and formulates the 
 
SHORT BALLOT 133 
 
 policy, and the mayor and general manager see that they are 
 carried out. Under our constitution the mayor has entire 
 charge of the police and fire departments. The general man- 
 ager, however, does all of the purchasing for these departments 
 on a requisition from the chiefs. We retain the finance, ordi- 
 nances, and auditing committees, as their duties require very 
 little time and attention, and serve as a check on the general 
 manager. At the beginning of the fiscal year, the general man- 
 ager submits his estimates to the finance committee, showing 
 in detail the needs of the various departments, together with 
 his recommendations. From this report the finance committee 
 makes its recommendation to the council of the amount of taxes 
 to be levied for the fiscal year. The general manager has no 
 authority to fix the rate of taxation or to contract loans on 
 account of the city, but this is all left in the hands of the 
 finance committee and the council, who are the representatives 
 of the people. The ordinance committee, with the assistance of 
 the city attorney, draws up all of the ordinances and puts them 
 in proper legal form to be presented to the council for adoption. 
 The auditing committee passes on all of the accounts of the 
 general manager each month, and makes a report to the council 
 in addition to the regular quarterly report submitted to the 
 council by the general manager. 
 
 The general manager is required to make quarterly and annual 
 reports to the council, showing in detail all work done by him. 
 In the general manager's office is kept a regular set of double 
 entry books, which serve as a complete check on the office of 
 the city treasurer. Both the general manager and the treasurer 
 render monthly balances to the council, and these balances must 
 agree, the one operating as a check against the other. The books 
 in the general manager's office are kept in such a manner that a 
 detailed statement can be had at any time on, any account, and 
 are always open for inspection. 
 
 There is nothing new in our system; we have simply adopted 
 for the government of our city the business methods of the 
 private corporation. We believe that our system is in many 
 respects better than the commission plan. In Des Moines, for 
 example, a recall was threatened against the commissioner who 
 had charge of the police department. He said he was not to 
 blame for conditions since the other commissioners had, against 
 his will, installed a chief of police who defied him. It seems to 
 
134 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 me that our system can be adapted and made just as applicable 
 to a large city as to small cities and towns. Of course, in a large 
 city, the general manager would require a large number of 
 subordinates, superintendents, heads of departments, etc., but he 
 would be the central and responsible head. And if adaptable 
 to large cities, why not to counties and states? What would be 
 the saving to taxpayers in the large cities if their business affairs 
 were conducted on the same business principles as are the large 
 private corporations, such as the Standard Oil Company, the 
 United States Steel Corporation, the great railroad corporations 
 and others? This system is not calculated to meet the approval 
 of the political grafter ; he prefers the old system as good enough 
 for him. 
 
 As we have had this system in operation for more than three 
 years, and passed the experimental state, it will quite naturally 
 be asked, what have been the results? It has not only been a 
 success in every particular, but has produced better results in a 
 shorter time than was anticipated by its most enthusiastic sup- 
 porters. The people, with few exceptions, are well pleased and 
 would not, under any consideration, return to the old system. 
 The casual observer cannot help noticing the marked improve- 
 ment in our streets and sidewalks. If the citizens 'have any 
 business with the city they know exactly whom to go to. They 
 also know where and how every dollar of their taxes is spent, 
 and what the results are. Under the old system, if a citizen had 
 any business with the city he was sent from one party to another 
 until he frequently became disgusted trying to find the proper 
 party to attend to his case, and gave up all hope of ever being 
 able to transact his business. To be able at all times to know 
 exactly where and how your money is being spent, the cost of 
 each particular piece of work, and the maintenance of each de- 
 partment of the city government, is certainly worth a great deal. 
 This feature of the new system is sufficient to justify the main- 
 tenance of the office. I believe that it is the general opinion that 
 under the old system we never did one-half of the improvements 
 that we have been able to do under the new system, particularly 
 in the matter of streets, sidewalks, sewers, and extension of 
 water mains. 
 
 Under the old system our bonded debt was largely due to 
 bad business methods. It was the custom to allow free rein 
 to the council committees, and usually wind up at the end of 
 
SHORT BALLOT 13S 
 
 the year with a deficit. This would be repeated each year 
 until the deficit grew to such proportions that it could be no 
 longer carried as a floating debt, and would be taken up with 
 an issue of bonds of the thirty year period kind. Since the 
 adoption of our new plan, generally known as "The Staunton 
 Plan," we have not increased our bonded debt nor raised our 
 tax rate; notwithstanding the fact that two years ago the city 
 voted out the saloon, thereby causing a loss in revenue derived 
 from saloon licenses of $12,500 per annum. In addition to this 
 loss in revenue, we had the misfortune within the last year to 
 have two catastrophes, a cave-in and a fire, which caused a loss 
 of about $40,000. Had it not been for these, over which we had 
 no control, we could this year have reduced our tax rate from 
 ten to fifteen cents on each $100.00 taxable value. 
 
 By reason of the improvements in streets, sidewalks, sewers, 
 water and electric lights, real estate values have increased fully 
 25 per cent. We have, under the new system, constructed 23,237 
 lineal feet of macadam street, 3,710 lineal feet of which is sur- 
 faced with asphalt binder; 15,083 lineal feet of granolithic side- 
 walks; 4,925 lineal feet of concrete gutters; 14,301 lineal feet of 
 sewers; 14,789 lineal feet of water mains and 215 water con- 
 nections, the latter increasing the revenue derived from water 
 rents fully 15 per cent; we have increased the electric light and 
 fire alarm service at least 10 per cent; improved our park, con- 
 sisting of about 115 acres, 50 per cent; increased our police force, 
 and raised the salaries and wages of a large number of officials 
 and employees whose salaries and wages were small; established 
 the office of city health officer, and increased the appropriation 
 for schools 16% per cent. 
 
 By reason of the extension of the corporate limits one year 
 prior to the adoption of our new system, there was added 100 
 per cent more area, which greatly increased the cost of main- 
 tenance of streets and sidewalks, and required the extension of 
 the water mains, electric light, fire alarm, and sewer systems. 
 The amount of money expended in the annexed territory was far 
 in excess of the revenue derived from taxation in that district. 
 Under the order of the circuit court in extending the corporate 
 limits, the tax rate was not to be raised from the county rate for 
 five years from the date said order went into effect, thereby 
 causing a loss in revenue to the city of sixty-five cents on the 
 $100.00 taxable value thereof for five years. 
 
136 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 As the accounts under the old system were kept in a general 
 way, without regard to any detail, it is almost impossible, without 
 consuming a great deal of time and labor, to make a comparison 
 of the amount of money expended in the various departments 
 and the results obtained, with that of the new system. I will 
 illustrate this by only one item, that of granolithic paving. Under 
 the old system we were paying from $1.75 to $2.25 per square 
 yard for a very inferior grade of granolithic work which was 
 done by contract; under the new system we are doing a much 
 better class of work with hired labor under the supervision of 
 our general manager (who is a practical engineer), for ninety 
 and a half cents per square yard. Under the old system it was 
 frequently found that the same article was purchased at different 
 prices for different departments. Under our new system all 
 supplies are purchased by the general manager in bulk, large 
 quantities of supplies are advertised for and contracts are 
 awarded to the lowest responsible bidder. 
 
 Under the old system the responsibility was distributed 
 among the heads _ of the various departments and there was 
 really no responsible head. Under the new system the respon- 
 sibility is centered in the general manager. All departments 
 report to him and work in harmony as a unit. Where there is 
 unity there is strength; where there is division there is friction. 
 A city's forces must be united and work in harmony to make 
 its operations successful and obtain the best results. 
 
 In order to adopt this system properly, the council should be 
 abolished, and in lieu thereof, a board of directors elected con- 
 sisting of five members in cities of fifty thousand and under. 
 In larger cities it would probably be well to increase the number 
 of directors according to the population. One of these should 
 be the mayor. Each director should be paid a salary com- 
 mensurate with his duties. The board of directors should em- 
 ploy the general manager and give him sufficient authority to 
 properly manage and conduct the business of the city. The 
 general manager should hire and discharge all heads of depart- 
 ments and employees should be placed under civil service to 
 prevent the general manager from abusing his authority or 
 impairing the service, and at the same time to allow him to 
 secure the most competent employees. That is, the city should 
 be managed and operated in the same business manner as the 
 private corporation. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 137 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. Commission Government 
 in American Cities, 2d Ed., 1914: 872-6 
 
 City-Manager Plan and Expert City Management. 
 H. S. Gilbertson 
 
 From the standpoint of general municipal progress, perhaps 
 the greatest contribution of the city-manager plan is the environ- 
 ment it furnishes for expert city management. 
 
 Dayton, Ohio, to take the most conspicuous example, is a 
 typical American city in a state where politics is rated as a 
 basic industry and where politicians, presumably, have always 
 regarded local offices as strictly local property. But Dayton 
 forcibly tore itself away from the grasp of this tradition. Its 
 new charter expressly states that the chief executive need not 
 be a resident of the city; and the first commission elected under 
 the new system, true to the spirit of the charter, chose the first 
 city manager by a method which is altogether new to the prac- 
 tice of American cities. Week after week, they met in earnest 
 consultation, going over the qualifications of some forty or fifty 
 excellent candidates, until, finally, they determined upon a man 
 in another city whose record of public service was of the very 
 highest, but whose political claim upon the commissioners was 
 absolutely nil. He secured the position apparently, on pure merit. 
 
 But Dayton is not unique in this practice: Sumter, South 
 Carolina, got its first city manager from another state. The 
 second largest city under the new plan, Springfield, Ohio, has 
 chosen Mr. C. E. Ashburner, who was formerly the city manager 
 of Staunton, Virginia — a suggestion of the German system under 
 which men go from city to city as professional municipal execu- 
 tives. 
 
 Too much emphasis cannot be laid on this removal of the 
 residence qualification as applied to the most responsible and 
 most remunerative position in the city. It is questionable if 
 the limitations which the former restrictions have placed upon 
 municipal development have been more than half realized, for 
 the very life of what we are wont, invidiously, to call "politics" 
 depends on an atmosphere of provincialism. To have imposed 
 high qualifications for public service or to have thrown the 
 offices open to outsiders would have shut out too many of "the 
 boys." And so, city affairs have revolved in little circles of local 
 
138 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 experience bounded by the narrow outlook of men who were in 
 the game for today and out tomorrow and who, for the large 
 part, if honest, were primarily interested in the petty and tem- 
 porary emoluments which went With their jobs. Automatically, 
 there has been excluded from the public service a great class 
 of public-spirited men who have had all the potentialities for 
 serving the public in an effective way. The experience of distant 
 cities has been neglected, with the result that many costly admini- 
 strative blunders have been perpetrated, which an executive from 
 the outside, with a broad knowledge of city needs, could have 
 forestalled. 
 
 In contrast to this state of affairs, the city-manager plan makes 
 municipal' Management a field of unlimited opportunity to capable 
 men and encourages a friendly attitude toward scientific ideas of 
 government.' "Wherever 1 the true spirit of the plan is observed, 
 the broad experience of distant cities will be brought to bear on 
 local problems of finance, engineering, public health, recreation. 
 What the sponsors for the municipal reference libraries are now 
 trying to' do under a serious handicap, and with none too much 
 encouragement from official sources, will have a compatible of- 
 ficial environment. ' . 
 
 But the elimination of the residence requirement is not more 
 significant for the growth of expert administration than the very 
 structure of the city-manager plan. The new system, while 
 keeping trUe to the doctrine' of the unification of powers, pro- 
 vides for "a complete divorce of the personnel of politics from the 
 personnel of administration. It recognizes that these two func- 
 tions' of gbvernmerit demand the services of two distinct types of 
 men. It' conserves' the principle of democracy by keeping open 
 to the representative citizen the elective office of commissioner, 
 or councilman, but the political element ceases at the very point 
 where the organization' for the actual operation of the govern- 
 ment begins.' 
 
 This is a' J< radical departure. ' Heretofore our conception of 
 democracy has impelled us to carry politics much further down 
 into- the administration. We have feared bureaucracy, and to 
 lay that particular ghost, have installed at the head of depart- 
 ments men whose chief qualification, in many cases, seems to 
 have been their obvious unfitness' for administrative work. The 
 trained man has been too often rated the enemy of free govern- 
 ment. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 139 
 
 But the experience of American cities has proved the folly 
 of this theory. No bureaucracy was ever more insolent, more 
 unresponsive to popular wishes than the very guardians of 
 democracy themselves at the heads of some of our city depart- 
 ments. The theory of the city-manager plan, on the contrary, is 
 that the interests of the people are safe when the controlling 
 or governing body, and that only, is "politically" constituted. 
 
 Another feature of the plan which favors the highest type 
 •of public service is the scheme of administrative organization. 
 Every self-respecting executive demands a clear and unmistak- 
 able definition of his powers and duties. In the city-manager 
 charters, with one exception (Sumter), this definition is adequate. 
 Responsibility within the administration is focused in a single 
 officer. His powers are commensurate with that responsibility; 
 he is free to choose his own instruments, subject only to the 
 merit system of civil service, which, when properly administered, 
 is the kind of check which aids rather than obstructs. 
 
 As to compensation, this, too, has in practice thus far been 
 made attractive. The commissioners have seemed to understand 
 that the qualities desired in their city manager must be pur- 
 chased at an adequate remuneration. Sumter, with a population 
 of 10,000, has fixed the salary at $3,600, Phcenix at $5,000, La 
 Grande, Oregon at a maximum of $3,600, Dayton at $12,500. 
 
 Tenure of office, under the new plan, though not fixed, seems 
 reasonably protected, because of the publicity attached to the 
 city manager's acts and his opportunity to make' good with the 
 people of the city. An additional assurance that improper influ- 
 ence will not be brought to bear upon him is the fact that, in 
 self-defense, a commission elected upon a non-partisan basis 
 and representing a clear majority of the people, and being 1 con- 
 spicuously powerful and responsible, will hardly care to select 
 an inferior person of the political type to carry out their wishes. 
 Greater protection than this it. would be difficult to give, without 
 interfering with the complete responsibility of the governing 
 body itself.- 
 
 Herein appears to be a new field of opportunity for civil 
 service commissions. These bodies have long been investigating 
 the fitness of candidates for the lower and more or less stan- 
 dardized positions in the city's service. The city managership, 
 however, presents new difficulties. It has not been standardized, 
 and perhaps it never will. Elements of personality, training, and 
 
.140 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 experience enter in a higher degree than in the case of such 
 posts as the librarianship in Chicago, or the chieftainship of the 
 New York fire department. The city manager will come squarely 
 and continuously into contact with the public, and should be a 
 politician in. the sense of being an accurate judge of the public 
 mind ; the kind of a man who could get elected to public office 
 under a favorable electoral system. He must be prepared to 
 create public opinion and to forestall criticism. Moreover, the 
 city manager must be a person of vision and initiative, with a 
 constructive grasp of the destiny of American cities, for while 
 he is in theory the servant of the council, he will be no errand 
 boy. He will in actual fact be the chief policy-maker of the city, 
 while the council serves as a checking, controlling agency. There 
 is no bigger job in America. 
 
 The description, of course, applies to the rare 100-per-cent- 
 efficient man. But there are, and have been, men of this type, 
 George McAneny, Cyrus C. Miller, John Purroy Mitchel, all of 
 the last administration in New York City, approach this 
 standard. Colonel Waring was a man of such qualifications. It 
 is doubtless owing to the former lack of opportunity that more 
 of them have not come to the surface. Without doubt the engi- 
 neering profession alone could be made to yield up many. 
 
 But the growth of this new municipal system creates a far 
 wider problem than that of the mere selection of executives from 
 the visible supply of material. If the city-manager plan develops 
 as rapidly as the commission form (and the present indications 
 are that it will), whence come the city managers? The uni- 
 versities and the schools of engineering and technology furnish 
 but a very imperfect preparation for this field. We have no 
 schools of municipal administration, and even our graduate 
 schools of political, science content themselves with a study of 
 the mere skeleton features of the municipal problem. In Ger- 
 many, at least two cities (EKisseldorf and Coin) have established 
 such schools as a part of their municipal civil service system. 
 Their graduates go out from these into important executive 
 positions in smaller cities, and, if successful, their services are 
 in growing demand in scores or hundreds of cities. Municipal 
 management there is actually a recognized profession. 
 
 The future of the city-manager plan, as of all experiments, 
 at the present moment, is, of course, problematical. But the 
 principle of expert, non-political management is fortified by at 
 
SHORT BALLOT 141 
 
 least one striking bit of municipal experience. The school sys- 
 tems in our largest cities have passed through the political 
 period ; subsequently through a period of disgust for the political 
 management. But for a long time, in many cities, their man- 
 agement has rested upon something approximating a professional 
 merit basis. Back of this development was a growth of civic 
 consciousness. It began with the schools; it is rapidly coloring 
 our views of public health administration. Politics is gradually 
 being weeded out of the police systems. Where will this ten- 
 dency stop? Is there any likelihood that it will cease to com- 
 mend itself until we have finally discovered that, after all, 
 "politics" has no proper place in any department of city admini- 
 stration — that its presence anywhere in the system is conductive 
 to expensive provincialism and that its very existence breeds 
 inefficiency and extravagance. 
 
 Review of Reviews. 45:82-5. January, 1912 
 Short Ballot in American Cities. H. S. Gilbertson 
 
 It is eleven years since the Galveston disaster. But out of 
 that exigency, with beginnings in the merest of accidents, has 
 grown a movement which has re-created the structure of one 
 hundred and sixty American cities, shaken some of the most 
 cherished traditions of our politics, and put a new note of optim- 
 ism in our political thinking. 
 
 Galveston's rehabilitation needed a strong, efficient direction 
 from its governing body ; its complex unworkable government 
 could not give it. Straightway, without resort to theory, some 
 of the leading citizens proceeded to map out a very simple plan 
 of control at the hands of five men, who were to have ample 
 powers and be unhampered in their choice of means. The plan 
 was adopted and worked exceedingly well, but it was not democ- 
 racy, for the commission was chosen by the governor. The 
 legislative act creating it was declared unconstitutional on these 
 grounds. But it was revived in substantially its original form 
 with this vital difference : that the "commissioners" were to be 
 chosen by popular vote. 
 
 The shifting of control from governor to people caused 
 uneasiness to the local leaders, who were only too familiar with 
 the results of the popular rule under the old government. But 
 
142 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 the electors made good this time by electing to office the very 
 men whom the governor had appointed. And for ten years they 
 have been reelecting them again and again, so that with one 
 exception the original commission has been at the helm in Gal- 
 veston till this year. 
 
 It was a new phenomenon; the people actually selecting for 
 office not men who had been identified with office-getting organi- 
 zations, but bankers and business men of ability with reputations 
 to sustain and interests of their own to protect. So that the 
 Galveston experiment not only solved the local problem of 
 efficient government, but it did so without a sacrifice of demo- 
 cratic principles. In fact, the theory which has grown up out 
 of Galveston's success is that the simplified conditions of citizen- 
 ship have been all that is really needed to put the people of a 
 community in effective control. 
 
 From Texas to Iowa 
 
 The idea spread to Houston, which adopted in 1905 not the 
 exact plan of organization, but its essential simplicity — five men, 
 the only elective officers, copious in power, conspicuous. Two 
 years later Dallas fell in line, and in the same year the idea took 
 root in Des Moines. From then on the "commission govern- 
 ment" idea has been a national possession, for the citizens of 
 Des l.Ioines did not content themselves with having a popular 
 and workable government for its own sake, but advertised it far 
 and wide as the city's chief civic asset. 
 
 In obtaining permission from the state of Iowa to adopt the 
 commission form of organization, Des Moines hit upon a device 
 which has accelerated the movement in the country by several 
 degrees. This was the adoption of a state-wide permissive law, 
 which made it possible for any city (within certain limits of 
 classification) to put the plan into operation by a popular elec- 
 tion, called upon petition of 25 per cent of the qualified electors. 
 Seven Iowa cities reorganized under this arrangement. South 
 Dakota adopted a similar law in the same year. 
 
 Commission Laws in Twenty States 
 
 In 1907 and 1909 Kansas adopted two such laws, for her 
 first- and second-class cities, respectively, and now every impor- 
 tant city in Kansas is under the commission form. The other 
 states which have adopted such blanket laws are Illinois, Ken- 
 
SHORT BALLOT 143 
 
 tucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Carolina, 
 Texas, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Alabama, Idaho, Montana, 
 Utah, Washington, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Wyoming. The 
 six last named have enacted such legislation during the past 
 year. The home-rule charter states of California, Oregon, Colo- 
 rado, Washington (cities of over 20,000 population), Michigan, 
 Minnesota, and Oklahoma, all have "commission" cities. In 
 Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Maine several cities have 
 charters by special act of legislature. So that altogether cities 
 with a total population of nearly four million either are now or 
 shortly will be governed under this plan. 
 
 Galveston is a city of moderate size, with a population of 
 36,981. For a time the movement was identified with cities of 
 this class, but later it was spread both to the larger and smaller 
 communities so that now in the "commission" group are hamlets 
 like Canton, S. D., too small for a separate census enumeration, 
 and Oakland, Cal. , Omaha, Neb. , Birmingham, Ala., and Mem- 
 phis, Tenn., all having a population in excess of 100,000. Buffalo 
 with a population near 500,000 has voted favorably on the idea, 
 but has been unable thus far to bring the New York legislature 
 to see it in the same light; and some enthusiasts even suggest 
 the "commission" form for New York City. 
 
 On November 7, last, Lowell and Lawrence, Mass. , Sacra- 
 mento, Cal., Chanute, Kans., Lexington, Ky., and Fremont, 
 Mich., adopted the plan. The people of Salt Lake City elected 
 the first commissioners under the new system. • Soon also Padu- 
 cah, Ky., Eugene and Salem, Ore., and Pasadena, Cal., will pass 
 upon the question. In Denver, Colo., Baltimore, Md., and 
 Wheeling, W. Va., the inauguration of the new system is being 
 vigorously urged by the leading commercial or civic associations 
 of the respective cities. It is doubtful if any specific political 
 reform ever spread with such rapidity and achieved such popu- 
 larity within the short period of four years which is virtually the 
 age of the movement, reckoning from the time of its adoption 
 in Des Moines. 
 
 What Is "Commission" Government? 
 
 The particular plan of organization adopted in Des Moines 
 is not the universal type. When the charters are analyzed it is 
 found that they vary somewhat widely in detail. The basic 
 structure of all, however, is this : A body of five men (three in 
 
144 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 smaller cities, seven in Omaha) on each of whom is devolved 
 the supervision over a department of the city's activities. Thus 
 in Galveston, there are four departments (the mayor in Gal- 
 veston is not specifically assigned to one), designated, (i) 
 Finance and revenue, (2) Streets and public property, (3) Water 
 and sewerage, (4) Police and fire. The five men sit as a body 
 in a deliberative capacity. All of the commissioners are elected 
 by a vote of the whole city. Normally and logically they are 
 the only elective officers, but a few charters provide for a 
 separately elected fiscal officer on the theory that the audit of 
 the commission's accounts should be conducted by an officer who 
 is not one of their servants. Under the Alabama law this sepa- 
 rate audit is conducted by a state examiner. 
 
 The Des Moines charter added to the structure what were 
 at the time unknown and untried "devices" of the initiative, 
 referendum, and recall, measures designed to make doubly sure 
 that the people would control. This instrument also included 
 civil service and, corrupt practices provisions and a scheme of 
 non-partisan elections. These features, however, were all taken 
 from older forms ; and they constitute no essential part of the 
 commission movement, inasmuch as one or all of them are 
 absent from nearly every law except the Iowa statute. The 
 initiative and referendum have rarely been used, and of the recall 
 the most striking instances of its use lie outside the commis- 
 sioned-governed cities. The only commissioners ever removed 
 were those of Tacoma, Wash., and during September, 191 1, the 
 mayor and one other commissioner in Wichita, Kan. 
 
 The Galveston plan was hewn in the rough. Wide applica- 
 tion has shown that certain adjustments must be made in locali- 
 ties to make the instrument thoroughly responsive to the will of 
 the people. Here is a rather fine question in social psychology: 
 How to arrange the popular selection of the elective body in 
 such a way that every member of it shall receive such adequate 
 scrutiny as to secure his full responsibility to the voters of the 
 city. In Wichita the mayor was separately designated on the 
 ballot, i. e., voted for as mayor, although under the Kansas law 
 he is no more important than any of his confreres. But the 
 people thought he was more important, with the result that the 
 interest in the Wichita elections has been centered on the mayor, 
 at the expense of the other commissioners. To remedy this 
 defect, a radical step has been taken in New Jersey and Nebraska : 
 
SHORT BALLOT 145 
 
 a commission of five is elected by the people and from their own 
 number the commissioners select a mayor. Thus every candi- 
 date for commissioner elected is, potentially, the head of the city 
 government, and, presumably, receives a corresponding share of 
 attention at the hands of the electors. 
 
 The Sacramento, Cal., charter, which was voted on November 
 7, is a remarkable one in several respects : the board of education 
 is wiped out and its functions vested in the city council, one of 
 whom will be commissioner of education ; the commissioners 
 will be elected in rotation, one every year (the Short Ballot idea 
 reduced to its lowest terms) ; the system of recall is unusual 
 and almost unique. 
 
 Perhaps the most radical proposal pf any is that which has 
 been made by the Board of Trade of Lockport, New York, in 
 its bill which it introduced in the last session of the legislature. 
 Under this proposal, the Short Ballot feature is retained; i. e., 
 the five elective officials are responsible for the entire conduct 
 of the city's affairs. But the council (commission) is a regulative 
 body only, like a board of directors. The individual members 
 would have no special administrative duties and responsibilities 
 as in Des Moines. The administrative work would be con- 
 ducted under the direction of an appointive expert to be known 
 as the city manager, who would have full powers of appoint- 
 ment and removal. The arrangement would give a type of gov- 
 ernment exactly parallel to that of a private business corporation. 
 It is also a close approximation to the German type of city 
 government, in which the Burgermeister plays the part of man- 
 ager. The advocates of this scheme point out the difficulties, 
 which have arisen under the Des- Moines type, of securing the 
 proper kind of men to perform administrative work by popular 
 election. They also claim that this 1 plan affords a better oppor- 
 tunity for representation for the different interests in the popu- 
 lation, since no man would be excluded from public office for 
 lack of executive training. 
 
 Business Efficiency 
 
 A most striking feature of this movement is the vigor with 
 -which it has smitten some of the favorite traditions of American 
 political thought. Theorists have, in fact, furnished less resist- 
 ance to the spread of the plan than any party to its discussion; 
 and the enemy has rested less upon theoretical objections than 
 
146 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 in any prominent constructive political movement in the past. 
 Thus the theory of separation of powers, familiarly known as 
 "checks and balances," has come in for some heavy hammering. 
 The old style of city government was devisedly complex, studi- 
 ously "checked," and ingeniously balanced. But the commission 
 plan rudely brushes the theory of separation of powers aside. 
 
 The fruit of this iconoclasm is reasonably inferable from the 
 mass of testimony to the business efficiency of the system. The 
 word "mass" is used advisedly, for, in view of the variations 
 of the individual charters, any deductions in support of the 
 essential commission type must be comprehensive in scope. 
 These are some of the results reported: 
 
 Dallas, Tex. A deficiency of $200,000 wiped out and a credit balance 
 established in two years. 
 
 Topeka, Kan. Municipal bonds sold at private sale at a higher rate 
 than under the old administration. 
 
 Burlington, Iowa. The old city debt refunded in serial bonds bearing 
 4% per cent interest instead of 6 per cent as formerly. 
 
 Columbia, S. C. Extensive reduction in budget for corresponding items 
 under the old administration. 
 
 Hutchinson, Kan. Bonds selling at a lower rate than ever before. 
 Cherryvale, Kan. The bonds of the city selling at par for the first 
 time. 
 
 Corpus Christi, Tex. Extensive improvements in streets and side- 
 walks, etc.; property values greatly increased. 
 
 Chattanooga, Tenn. Bonds of the city selling at a better premium 
 than formerly. 
 
 Bartlesville, Okla. City warrants worth par and city deposits now 
 bearing interest. 
 
 Houston, Tex. The credit of the city restored from eighty cents on 
 the dollar to par, and the tax rate reduced from $2.00 to $1.70 on the 
 same valuation. 
 
 Leavenworth, Kan. Bonded indebtedness reduced by $112,000 in three 
 years while the tax rate remained stationary. 
 
 Haverhill, Mass. A saving of $97,900 effected by the first year's admin- 
 istration. '>.., 
 
 This evidence, of course, is ex parte. Not every commission 
 has realized the hopes of the dreamers; not all of the cities 
 have reduced the tax rate, — Oakland, Cal., for example, has 
 materially raised hers. But this fact is unimportant ; for effici- 
 ency has a wider meaning in that, while some cities have -a 
 constituency demanding retrenchment, more often the demand 
 is for expansion. The significant thing is this : Supporting the 
 activities of every city is an undercurrent of popular optimism 
 
SHORT BALLOT 147 
 
 and hope, if not actual satisfaction. Even in Spokane, Wash., 
 where the selection of commissioners' is said to have been some- 
 what unfortunate, there is a disposition to see the experiment 
 through. No city has ever gone back to its former plan of 
 government, nor has any evidence appeared that any of them 
 is seriously thinking of so doing; not even Tacoma, in spite of 
 recent unpleasant experiences with the mayor and two members 
 of the council whom she found it convenient to recall. In com- 
 mercial and financial circles such a sentiment has a ratable 
 value; to the commissioners it has been found to be an earnest 
 of faith and confidence which begets a courage to attack bigger 
 problems and conditions. 
 
 The Short Ballot as a Solution 
 
 The commission government has found, not a perfectly de- 
 fined, but a roughly formulated solution for the residuum of big 
 political evils which previous reforms, like the merit system of 
 civil service and the Australian ballot, have not reached — the 
 solution of the Short Ballot. This has been formally enunciated 
 by the National Short Ballot Organization, as follows : 
 
 First — That only those offices should be elective which are 
 important enough to attract (and deserve) public examination. 
 
 Second — That very few offices should be filled by election at 
 one time, so as to permit adequate and unconfused public exami- 
 nation of the candidates. 
 
 There would be, not an addition of new features and "de- 
 vices" to the original political structure but a re-creation of the 
 structure itself, starting at its point of contact with the individual 
 citizen. The re-created structure would have in mind the capaci- 
 ties, and the limitations of the American citizen of this, the 
 twentieth century, and it would not overtax those capacities or 
 exceed those limitations. Governor Woodrow Wilson, the head 
 of this new movement, expresses himself in these words : 
 
 Simplification! Simplification! is the task that awaits us; to reduce 
 the number of persons voted for to the absolute workable minimum, 
 knowing whom you have selected; knowing whom you have trusted, and 
 having so few persons to watch that you can watch them. That is the 
 way we are going to get popular control back in this country, and that 
 is the only way we are going to get political control back. Put in other 
 elected officers to watch those that you have already elected, and you 
 will merely remove your control one step further away. 
 
 The commission plan has made the adjustment at least fairly 
 
 12 
 
148 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 well for a number of our cities. Will the movement stop here? 
 Is not the broad doctrine of simplicity germane also to the prob- 
 lems of states and counties? 
 
 Wider Short Ballot Prospects 
 
 At a special election in California on October 10, the state 
 adopted three Short Ballot amendments. One, frankly such, 
 took the clerk of the supreme court off the ballot and vested 
 his appointment in the supreme court. Another made the mem- 
 bers of the state railroad commission appointive by the governor. 
 The third provided a plan for county home-rule charters under 
 which it will be possible for any county to draft a scheme of 
 organization suited to local needs. The amendment specifies 
 that all county officers except county judges and supervisors may 
 be made appointive instead of elective as at present. Thus it 
 ■will be possible for a big county like Los Angeles to shorten its 
 ballot from forty-five to about twenty-three officers, by reducing 
 the elective list. 
 
 The California election, by the way, is the first step of the 
 Short Ballot movement from the cities into the wider fields of 
 state government. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 38:844-7. 
 November, 1I911 
 
 Lockport Proposal. P. E). Silvernail 
 
 Municipal conditions in the city of Lockport are much the 
 same as in many others which have suffered from the typical ills 
 of American democracy. The city has a population somewhat 
 under 20,000, and has been ruled for years by a triumvirate of 
 bosses. Popular control has been a negligible quantity, and the 
 rule of the self-appointed trio has been anything but one respon- 
 sive to the will of the people of the city. As a natural conse- 
 quence of the aloofness of the government, needed improvements 
 have been delayed for years at a stretch, and when actually 
 undertaken, have been executed in a most inefficient and expen- 
 sive manner. It was these conditions which led the Lockport 
 Board of Trade to become sponsor for the plan of municipal 
 organization which has come to be known as the "Lockport 
 proposal," which was embodied in a bill introduced into the 1911 
 
SHORT BALLOT 149 
 
 session of the New York legislature and supported by the Com- 
 mission Government Association of New York State. 
 
 The "Lockport plan" is built upon the same basic principle as 
 the Des Moines commission government law, but it aims to 
 correct what seem to many to be illogical features of that plan. 
 The commission government movement is based primarily upon 
 the theory of the union of legislative and administrative powers 
 in the hands of a small body of men who are the sole responsible 
 agents of the people. It is a theory, borne out in practice, that 
 this small group of men, because of their conspicuous position, 
 tend to feel a responsibility to their constituents in a degree 
 which virtually restores government to the people. The Des 
 Moines plan, however, does not carry this theory of responsibility 
 to its logical conclusion. The commission of five men are not 
 collectively responsible for the acts of the municipality. Neither 
 are the individual commissioners. At first blush these state- 
 ments may startle some readers, but note carefully the following 
 hypothetical situation. Let us suppose that the majority of the 
 commission have passed an ordinance providing for the repave- 
 ment of the main thoroughfare. Let us suppose that the com- 
 missioner of streets and public property was not a member of 
 the majority which passed the resolution, and happens also to 
 be a man of independent ideas. What action can the responsible 
 commission take to force one of its own number to execute its 
 orders ? Now suppose another situation : The commissioner of 
 streets is desirous of placing electroliers in the public squares. 
 Public sentiment is clamoring for such action, but on looking 
 over his annual budget, the commissioner finds that it is insuffi- 
 cient to cover this added expense. He applies to the commission 
 for a larger appropriation and they refuse. In that case, who is 
 responsible for the inaction of the city government? Cases of 
 such conflict have actually been brought forward in some of the 
 commission governed cities. 
 
 Under the Lockport plan responsibility would be vested in 
 five men, acting always collectively. They would meet with no 
 such difficulty in enforcing their orders as in the case cited, 
 for the party responsible for the actual execution of orders 
 would not be one of their own number but an appointive crea- 
 ture of theirs — the city manager. In short, the Lockport plan 
 corporation, with the city council corresponding to the board 
 of directors and the city manager to the general manager. This 
 
150 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 city manager is the unique feature of the "Lockport plan." But 
 while it is a unique proposal in the organization of city govern- 
 ments; it is by no means novel in other forms of organization. 
 Not only have private corporations reached what appears to be 
 their ultimate form in this particular type of organization, but 
 it is the plan which operates in large school systems throughout 
 the United States/ in which the superintendent of schools corre- 
 sponds to the city manager. It is also a very close approxima- 
 tion to the German type of city government, in which the Biir- 
 germeister is the central administrative agent and the council is 
 the ultimate responsible body, which lays down the policy of the 
 municipality. Of course, the German cities look back upon a 
 totally different set of traditions from the American. Still, the 
 naked question of municipal administration is not one which is 
 concerned with the political genius of a people. Certainly, under 
 the "Lockport proposal," the voice of the people has just as 
 effective a medium as under the Des Moines plan. And, once 
 we concede this fact, there remains the simple question of best 
 organization. 
 
 The "Lockport proposal" looks forward to a time when 
 municipal government will be conducted by real experts. To 
 suppose that popular election in the great majority of cases will 
 secure expert service seems almost fatuous. Even the most 
 educated of our citizens must fail if called upon to choose, let 
 Us say, between the technical qualifications of two candidates for 
 a position which requires an engineer's training. On the other 
 hand, an appointive expert could be found to take general charge 
 of the city administration who could select trained assistants 
 under the most favorable conditions. The city manager himself 
 would, supposedly, be a rather high salaried officer and might 
 be taken from any part of the country. There would seem to 
 be in this country ample material from which to choose such an 
 officer. In the event that such a proposal should receive wide 
 adoption, it is easily conceivable that there would arise in the 
 United States a class of municipal experts. The profession would 
 be a most alluring one to men of talent and vision, and it seems 
 hardly too much to suppose that we would come to have a 
 combination of democracy and municipal efficiency which has 
 never before been effected. 
 
 : The Lockport plan, again, has certain possibilities which seem 
 to place it on a higher level as a democratic instrument than the 
 
SHORT BALLOT 151 
 
 ordinary commission plan. The latter system has been strongly 
 advocated by. "business" interests. Labor, for this reason has 
 frequently looked askance at the movement, and perhaps not 
 always without some just cause. In order to achieve true democ- 
 racy, every important element in the city should be represented 
 in the council, but if every councilman is to be both a representa- 
 tive of certain class interests and desires, and also a municipal 
 expert, what is labor to gain? Many men who would prove 
 most excellent representatives of labor would fail when con- 
 fronted with problems of municipal administration. What is a 
 barber, for example, apt to know about the administration of 
 finance? And yet that same barber may be the truest repre- 
 sentative and best spokesman of labor in the community. The 
 "Lockport plan'' would not embarrass him by requiring him to 
 take charge of a department, but would simply require him to 
 exercise his representative functions on the council. 
 
 The salaries which are usually paid Under the commission 
 plan are not sufficiently large in all cases to attract real experts. 
 If the best brains of the community were required simply to 
 pass judgment on policies and leave the execution of those 
 policies to a salaried chief executive, many men of large calibre 
 would be Willing to devote to the city's business the small amount 
 of time and energy which such a commigsionership would require. 
 
 On the whole, then, it seems as though the "Lockport plan" 
 has made a certain contribution to the solution of the twofold 
 problem of municipal government in this country, viz. : that of 
 securing administrative efficiency, which at the same time pre- 
 serves all the essentials of democracy. 
 
 Aside from the features above noted, the Lockport plan 
 embodies the usual minor features of the commission plan, in- 
 cluding non-partisan nominations, elections at large, initiative, 
 referendum, recall, etc. One minor feature, however, should be 
 noted viz. : nominations by deposit. Under this plan, the candi- 
 date, in lieu of a petition, may put up a deposit of fifty dollars, 
 in order to have his name appear on the ballot. In case he 
 receives fifteen per cent or more of the total vote cast, or turns 
 out to be, in other words, a serious candidate, his deposit is 
 returned. This method is borrowed from the Canadian election 
 law, and is believed to be a wise alternative to the system of 
 nomination by petition. 
 
153 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 Annals of the American Academy: Commission Government 
 in American Cities, 2d Ed. 1914:862-70 
 
 City-Manager Charter of Dayton. L. D. Upson 
 
 The Dayton charter is an endeavor to retain the strength of 
 the commission plan — the concentration of policy determining 
 authority in a small non-partisan legislative body — and to add 
 to it a permanent administrative force of trained executives. 
 Neither the commission nor federal scheme of government 
 secures this last end. The federal ward plan of representation, 
 and the biennial change of departmental heads, has been dis- 
 credited. And investigations showed that commission govern- 
 ment, while an improvement, had not secured the desirable 
 efficiency in city administration. 
 
 It does not appear practicable to select men from the average 
 walks of life, and require them not only to determine the policies 
 of a municipality, but also to direct the technical details of 
 conducting a city department. The obvious solution of this 
 problem is the complete separation of the legislative from the 
 administrative functions of government in conjunction with a 
 short non-partisan ballot. This was effected in the Dayton 
 charter, which was modeled closely upon the Lockport plan. 
 The representative body is limited strictly to legislative duties — 
 determining what shall be the large, general policies for the 
 government. The execution of these policies is delegated to 
 an appointed city manager held definitely responsible for them. 
 
 Five commissioners or councilmen, elected at large on a non- 
 partisan ticket for a term of four years, constitute the legislative 
 division of the city's government. After consideration of both 
 proportional representation, and the preferential ballot, it was 
 decided that nominations be secured by at least two per cent of 
 the registered voters signing a petition to place their candidate 
 on the primary ballot. At the first election five candidates were 
 selected, the three receiving the greatest vote to serve for four 
 years. The remaining two hold office for two years. 
 
 Thus the board of commissioners becomes a continuous body, 
 two members, then three members being elected every alternate 
 two years. In this manner a legislative body will be assured, 
 a portion of which will be always familiar with the affairs of the 
 city; and at the same time there will be a tendency to prevent 
 
SHORT BALLOT , 153 
 
 the wholesale removal of administrative officers, such as might 
 be attendant upon a quadrennial choosing of entirely new 
 representatives. 
 
 The commissioner receiving the highest vote at the election 
 at which three commissioners are chosen — that is once every 
 four years, acts as mayor. His major duties are to act as chair- 
 man of the commission and to represent the city as one of the 
 members of the county budget commission for the fixing of the 
 tax rate. In addition he is recognized as the official head of 
 the city by the courts, and by the governor for the purposes of 
 the military law. There is no veto power, and the mayor is in 
 reality only the ceremonial head of the government. 
 
 Objection has been made to this method of choosing the 
 mayor, in preference to having candidates run for this desig- 
 nated office. It is now possible for any disgruntled faction by 
 failing to vote for all but one candidate to insure the choice of 
 the most undesirable member of the commission as mayor. This 
 has not proved true locally, but is doubtless a theoretical objec- 
 tion with considerable foundation. 
 
 Commissioners receive a nominal salary as only a portion 
 of their time is necessary for the performance of their public 
 duties, which may be summarized as : 
 
 1. The appointment of a city manager. 
 
 2. The enactment of the city appropriation ordinance, and 
 approval of the mayor's budget upon which the tax rate is based. 
 
 3. Enactment of police ordinances. 
 
 4. Enactment of resolutions and ordinances determining 
 upon public works to be paid for by special assessment. 
 
 Aside from the city manager the commission is empowered 
 to appoint a clerk, several members of an unimportant county 
 board, and a non-partisan board to execute the civil service 
 clause of the charter. The appointments of the city manager 
 may be made from the entire eligible list, as determined by the 
 civil service board, and dismissals can becom'e operative only 
 after an appeal to that body has been heard. Such latitude in 
 employing would permit a commission and manager so inclined 
 to create a political machine almost impregnable. On the other 
 hand, the privilege granted of a dismissed employee to appeal 
 to a board whose decision is final, practically compels the man- 
 ager to prove incompetency beyond any question. The manager 
 is directly responsible, not only to the commission, but to the 
 
fS4 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 public for the efficient administration of the city, and inability 
 to dismiss freely undesirable employees would seem to throw an 
 unwarranted obstacle in the way of that accomplishment. 
 
 The city manager, appointed by the commission, is the 
 administrative head of the city government, and responsible for 
 all departments. This administrator is appointed without regard 
 to political beliefs, and "may or may not be a resident of the 
 city of Dayton when appointed." But whether the manager 
 may be a resident of a state other than Ohio is questionable. 
 The state constitution requires that "no person shall be elected 
 or appointed to any office in this state, unless he possess the 
 qualifications of an elector." The manager holds office at the 
 will of the commissioners and is also subject to popular recall. 
 This last provision is of course a departure from recognized 
 good practice, but was believed, necessary to secure public en- 
 dorsement of so radical an innovation in the method of local 
 government. 
 
 Doubtless also the position and political independence of this 
 executive would have been strengthened had it been made neces- 
 sary for the commission in discharging their employee, to prefer 
 formal charges and hold a public hearing upon the same. The 
 Short Ballot and the recall will probably inhibit a repetition of 
 the political jobbery in the dismissing and hiring of a manager, 
 which is seen so frequently in the instance of school superin- 
 tendents, yet it might have been well to make this prohibition 
 doubly sure. 
 
 Summarized briefly the duties of the manager are as follows : 
 
 i. To see that the laws and ordinances are enforced. 
 
 2. To appoint, and except as herein provided, remove all 
 directors of departments and all subordinate officers and em- 
 ployees in the departments in both the classified and unclassified 
 service. 
 
 3. To exercise control over all departments and divisions 
 created herein or that may be hereafter created by the commis- 
 sion. 
 
 4. To attend all meetings of the commission with the right 
 to take part in the discussion but having no vote. 
 
 • 5. To recommend to the commission for adoption such 
 measures as he may deem necessary or expedient. 
 
 6. To keep the commission fully advised as to the financial 
 condition of the city, and 
 
SHORT BALLOT 155 
 
 7. To perform such other duties as may be prescribed by the 
 charter or be required of him by ordinance or resolution of the 
 commission. 
 
 It will be noted that these duties are in no way political or 
 policy determining, and their delegation to an appointive officer 
 cannot be considered as relinquishing any rights that the public 
 may have in the government. 
 
 For administrative purposes the municipal government is 
 divided into the 
 
 1. Department of law. 
 
 2. Department of public service, comprising the construction 
 and maintenance of streets, sidewalks and sewers; collection and 
 disposal of waste; and management of public utilities. 
 
 3. Department of safety, comprising the divisions of fire and 
 police, building inspection, and the enforcement of ordinances 
 relating to weights and measures. 
 
 4. Department of finance, comprising the divisions of ac- 
 counting, and the purchasing of supplies, the office of treasurer 
 being abolished as a duplication of the work of the auditor. 
 
 5. . Department of public welfare, comprising the divisions 
 of health, parks and playgrounds, charities and correction. 
 
 At the head of each department is a director, chosen by the 
 manager, responsible to him and to the commission for the 
 economical, efficient and proper conduct of the division. The 
 commission may, however, by ordinance discontinue any depart- 
 ment and determine, combine and distribute the functions of 
 government as they see fit. The municipal judicial election and 
 educational systems are by law without the jurisdiction of the 
 charter. 
 
 It is possible, however, that the division of the government 
 into these five principal departments, inherent in the commission 
 plan, was too slavishly copied in the local document. The newly- 
 elected commissioners seriously considered exercising their 
 authority to abolish this proposed organization and increase 
 the number of divisions or bureaus to a total of twelve. While 
 this proposal would increase the supervisory duties of the man- 
 ager, it would have made the head of each division an actual 
 working unit rather than an administrative position. The sal- 
 aries of the supervisory places abolished could have been distrib- 
 uted in part to the heads of divisions, with a view to securing a 
 higher grade of executive, and very advisedly might have been 
 
156 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 partially invested in securing an assistant city manager, thereby 
 insuring a more than one-man organization. The manager 
 might then resign, be recalled, fall ill or be otherwise incapaci- 
 tated and there would be ready to assume his responsibilities, 
 as manager, a subordinate fully familiar with the duties, program 
 and organization of the government. Under the Dayton charter 
 so many obligations devolve upon the manager personally, some 
 of which unfortunately are of a purely routine character, such 
 as the signing of all the orders for city supplies, that a few 
 days' neglect would bring the local administration into grave 
 disorder. 
 
 During the campaign antecedent to the writing and adoption 
 of the charter, considerable discussion was raised concerning 
 the proper status of the city solicitor and auditor in the proposed 
 plan. It was contended that the financial officer, being account- 
 able for any illegal payments by his department, should have a 
 discretion independent of managerial influence. It was also 
 advanced that an independent solicitor would be ample security 
 to this end, since the auditor must accept the opinion of this 
 officer as to the legality of financial transactions of the muni- 
 cipality. At ane time it was proposed to have both the solicitor 
 and auditor appointed by the commission rather than by the 
 manager. This proposition probably arose from a natural reluct- 
 ance to desert entirely a government of checks and balances so 
 long common in American practice. It was, however, a struggle 
 between political theory and a desire for concentrated authority 
 in which the latter prevailed. The correctness of either position 
 can only be empirically determined. 
 
 The broad social character of the document may be judged 
 from the creation of an entire department concerned with the 
 welfare of the citizen body. . Not only is the promotion of public 
 health, parks and recreation centered in this division but the 
 director must provide for research into the causes of poverty, 
 delinquency, crime and disease, and other social problems in the 
 community ; and must by lectures and publicity facilitate a wider 
 understanding of these questions. If this section is made 
 effective in the same spirit in which it was written, the city 
 government will not only reflect the progressive socialized opin- 
 ion of the citizen body, but will create it, and the city itself 
 become an active leader in promoting the difficult art of com- 
 munity living. 
 
SHORT BALLOT 157 
 
 Unique in American practice is a provision borrowed from 
 Germany, which provides for the possible appointment of citizen 
 boards to act in an advisory capacity with departmental heads ; 
 and the appointment of a similar city-plan commission is made 
 mandatory. No powers are granted such bodies, except that 
 their recommendations become departmental records, and there 
 must be regular stated meetings. 
 
 In addition to the easy amendment of the charter, democratic 
 government is safeguarded by the provision for the initiative, 
 referendum and recall. It is unfortunate, however, that the 
 ballot at recall elections not only contains the proposition for 
 recall, but also the names of such candidates for the possible 
 vacant office, as may have secured the required number of signa- 
 tures. No recall petition may be filed against any officer until 
 six months after the election or the failure of a recall election 
 against him. The percentage of electors required to initiate or 
 refer legislation and to recall officials is the same or less than 
 that found in over one-half of the cities having similar legisla- 
 tion provisions, but is relatively high when compared with the 
 percentage — ten per cent — necessary to amend the charter. This 
 discrepancy was knowingly incorporated from a desire to pre- 
 vent the harassing of the commission by disgruntled political 
 elements. 
 
 Aside from the separation of the legislative and administrative 
 divisions of government, it is in the procedure laid down for 
 the operation of these latter branches, that the charter is most 
 notable. While all government is dependent on the quality of 
 chosen officials and the extent of citizen interest, yet it is be- 
 lieved that the charter provisions governing budget making, 
 accounting procedure, the purchasing of supplies, service and 
 operating cost, standardization of duties and compensation, etc., 
 are of such a character as will tend to insure a desirable mini- 
 mum of efficiency in city government even should there be an 
 after-election slump in public interest. No matter what char- 
 acter of men are later chosen to administer the government of 
 Dayton, they must of necessity use the most modern methods 
 in that administration — methods which most readily raise danger 
 signals at neglect, inefficiency or corruption. 
 
 Frequent comment has been made upon the almost universal 
 failure of commission-governed cities to install modern scientific 
 methods of city business, and upon the fact that a few cities 
 
158 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 operating under a cumbersome form of federal government have, 
 by the adoption of these same hitherto neglected ordinances, 
 placed themselves in the first rank of efficiently governed muni- 
 cipalities. Even were there no lesson to be drawn from these 
 circumstances, it is to be anticipated that, in developing a system 
 of government modeled closely upon the plan of incorporated 
 commercial organizations, an endeavor would have been made 
 to include also certain characteristic features of their manage- 
 ment. Most notable of these is perhaps the care used in the 
 collection and disbursement of funds. 
 
 Beginning with the appropriation of funds, it is required 
 that departmental estimates shall be compiled by the manager 
 from detailed information registered on uniform blanks. In 
 substitution for the heterogeneous division of expenditures for- 
 merly prevailing, the new classification must be uniform for 
 each of the main functional divisions of all departments, and 
 departmental requests must give in parallel columns the follow- 
 ing information : 
 
 (a) A detailed estimate of departmental needs. 
 
 (6) Expenditures for corresponding items covering the past 
 two years. 
 
 (c) Expenditures of the present year, including transfers. 
 
 (d) Supplies on hand. 
 
 (e) Increases and decreases. 
 (/)' Other information required.. 
 
 (g) Recommendations of the city manager. 
 
 Additional provision is made for the publication of and 
 public hearing on the budget estimate before it can be enacted 
 into law. This is a notable gain. During the old regime the 
 public was recently able to obtain an informal hearing on the 
 departmental estimates, but was never allowed to learn the 
 contents of the final appropriation ordinance until it was pre- 
 sented to council for approval, and then it was not unfrequently 
 amended from the floor. 
 
 For the regulation of the accounting procedure it was decided 
 to incorporate two sections found in the Cleveland charter 
 which require that "accounting procedures shall be devised and 
 maintained for the city adequate to record in detail all trans- 
 actions affecting the acquisition, custodianship and disposition 
 of values." A corollary clause, but one upon which the above 
 depends for its interpretation reads in part as follows : "the 
 
SHORT BALLOT ^59 
 
 commission shall cause a continuous audit to be made. . . . 
 Such statements shall include a general balance sheet, exhibiting 
 the assets and liabilities of the city supported by departmental 
 schedules, and schedules for each utility publicly owned or 
 operated ; summaries of income and expenditure supported by 
 detailed schedules; and also comparison . . . with the last 
 previous year." A strict accounting interpretation of the terms 
 "income and expenditure" will place the city accounting upon a 
 basis, of credits accruing and liabilities incurred rather than the 
 usual cash receipts and disbursements basis, upon which most 
 municipalities operate. 
 
 Before the holiday season of 1912 the city found itself unable 
 to pay the salaries of the police and fire forces, although several 
 hundred thousand dollars were on deposit in other funds, and 
 all credits of the police fund had not been collected. At the 
 time the city was paying interest on a large floating debt, for one 
 department and loaning other money to the banks at reduced 
 interest. Recalling this anomaly the paper demarcation between 
 funds was withdrawn, and for purposes of paying bills there now 
 exists only one city pocket. However, only money actually 
 anticipated to come into the treasury may be appropriated, thus 
 securing the treasury from over-draft. This section was also 
 designed to prevent further deficits, in the operating account, 
 which in the last six years has been exceeded by $360^000. 
 
 Supplementing these provisions for financial accounting are 
 clauses by which "the head of each department . . . shall 
 require proper time reports for all services rendered ... to 
 serve as a basis for the preparation of pay-roll vouchers," and 
 by which each departmental head must submit "current financial 
 and operating statements exhibiting the transactions (of his 
 department) and the cost therefor." It is believed that these 
 provisions adequately provide for progressive budget making, 
 general finance accounts, cost accounts and operative records — 
 the machinery of efficient government. 
 
 Revenue systems and forms of taxation are prescribed by 
 general law, not subject to charter modification. However, com- 
 plete detail, too lengthy to be discussed in a brief article, has 
 been provided for the financing of public improvements and the 
 control of franchises. 
 
 The brief time allowed for the preparation of the Dayton 
 charter prevented a thorough consideration of some sections, and 
 
160 SHORT BALLOT 
 
 a review by special authorities. No doubt it possesses many 
 weaknesses, a number of which have already become apparent 
 unde. - closer scrutiny. However, it does not assume to be the 
 last word, but rather the first word in government of this char- 
 acter. Only years of experience can solve many of the questions 
 which are daily presenting themselves, and doubtless the final 
 law controlling cities adopting the principles incorporated here 
 will have many essential differences. Yet it is believed that 
 there has been devised here a plan of government, the principle 
 of which will solve the grave problem of municipal administra- 
 tion in America.