The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-23
GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION.

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 GOVERNMENT BY COMMISSION.
 We took occasion the other day to pay our respects to the New Haven commission plan of managing the city It was provoked by the activity of Police Commissioner Sulli- van at the Eighth ward polls on elec- ton day. The fact that though a Democratic commissioner he was at work to defeat the nominee of his party is an incident As police com missioner he should have been some- where else, but since he and other department commissioners do not take that view of the dignity which hedges them in theoretically the ar gument shapes itself to the effect that the sooner the city of New Haven abolishes Its commission system and substitutes single-headed departments the sooner a scheme of control will be introduced which will add to govern- mental efficiency and the eternal fit- ness of things otherwise.
 By another course the Hartford community is awakening to the need for fewer commissions, and in the po- Nice department in particular An in nocent man was arrested the other evening and taken to the lookup in the station wagon. He was kept in a cell all night, but before he was re- leased he was charged a dollar for the ride he did not elect to take. The affair eventually reached the atten- ton of the police commission, which like the New Haven police commis. sion, is composed of six members three from each party An investiga. ton was held which resulted in g most unsatisfactory finding. This ha. led to the inquiry whether on the whole it would not be better policy fo, the city of Hartford to substitute fol | it's bipartisan policy a single com missioner, who should hold office al of the while under pay II Is argued and intelligently so, that it woul, then be possible for skilled man [, keep his hands constantly on tn, force, holding mp its discipline an, ! improving it's morale It would. too be possible to relieve of an onerou duty six citizens who attend to th police business on the side, and wh, either bunge it if they attempt 10 ac | independently,/or who give good ser vice if they follow the counsel of th chief of the force. In comment'ng up on the suggestion the Hartford .,'uur ant says: "A great many other citizen are asking the same question: that oII correspondent propounds. l. is in of feet whether we in Hartford have m outgrown the conditions under whic a siX-headed commission was able f spare time of it's busy members f
 arry on the difficult and exacting wor of mandting the police of a grea city"
 Our esteemed contemporary make the same mistake others mak who take seriously the h partisan scheme of departmer organization. The only serious pun pose it ever had was to weaken th power of the political party which ha secured control of local government | taking from it one-half of the office awarded by the people It was intro duced here in the city of New Have not at all as scientific means of in proving local government but who'll to make the Democrats, who were the always in the majority, share in il spoils with the Republicans. Tt only reason a Republican legisIatu consented to the elimination of bi-paI tisan organization except in the polio department was because it was thougl that New Haven had been permanen lv taken out of the Democratic co
 umn and put in the Republican. Thel
 never was a minute when the prime
 pie of municipal government along b r partisan lines felt the inspiration of q honest thought The sooner this fa
 sinks into the consciousness of me the sooner will if be possible to estal fish form of local government whic
 will put a premium on efficient SC
 vice and rock about the neck of tl , offensive partisan commissioner. Go
 ernment by commissions. as we ha, i it in too many Connecticut cities. , worse than a delusion and more ths , snare.