Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1909-12-01
The Commission Form.


There's something doing over in Bur
lington. Iowa, something big. The
fight for the adoption OF the commits
sion form of municipal government
has ended VIGOROUSLY.
Or course over in Burlington, like
IN every city where this great issue
arises, there are opponents of the plan.
The wire-pulling politicians and some
Of the business interests" which they
can swing, advised against the
commission form. On the other side
there are many earnest, patriotic peo-
pie whose advocacy of the plan is in
spired by the lofty motive of benefit
ting Burlington: They have public
service at heart, and they won.
AT a great mass meeting in Bur-
lfngton Friday night, last. addresses
were delivered in favor of the plan by
many prominent citizens, and the folks
in the audience rose and voiced their
approval of the plan. One address in
particular, that by c. c. Clark, was
very interesting. In addition to anal
wing the Iowa commission form law
and lauding the new plan, he read the
objections to il and met them then and
there. Reading from a list of objec-
tions, the first was:
The ward system IS all right be-
cause it has been tested"
$50 has the OK team been tested"
laughingly answered Mr. Clark 80
has the sailing ship been tested. So
has a stage coach been tested. So
has a horse and buggy Deen tested.
They are all right. But who would
ride after an OK team nowadays. or
go in a sailing boat where he could
go in a steamship, or go through the
country in buggy when he could ride
in an automobile. The old methods
have been tested and some of them
are all right, but there are better and
more modern methods"
Those are timely comparisons. The
old stage coach is an especially useful
comparison. The old stage coach is
primitive, slow and out of date rs
compared with the modern, space-au-
Initiating railroad trains.
So is the old, cumbersome, unwieldy,
unbusiness-like alder:nanic form IF
government primitive and out-of-date
as compared with the commission
form.
One OF the Burlington speakers
summed the whole situation up in a
few words when he said:
This commission plan IS the bust
ness administration of the city's af-
fairs. Nothing else.''
The conservative St. Louis Globe
Democrat adds its pertinent indorse-
ment OF the new plan. After telling
Of q number OF cities which have dem
onstrated the success of the plan, the
Globe says:
For this form Of government. sim
p1icity, directness and economy are
claimed. 1t places responsibility upon
a very few persons, these are always
in sight and they can be reached
quickly by any wave of popular dis
content. Graft Is said to have been
made much more difficult under this
plan than under the old form of gov
eminent. On its municipal side the
American government system has been
unusually weak. European authorities
condemn it. Americans who have &C
quainted themselves with the way
London, Paris, Berlin and other great
cities In the more progressive coun-
tries of the Old World manage their
affairs point at many defects in the
methods in vogue in New York, Chi
cago, St Louis and other American
municipalities. Possibly these may be
corrected by the commission plan Of
government.
'Tt was the tidal wave and wreck of
the city which compelled Galveston to
devise the commission plan. And that
was only nine years ago. In the col
lapse of the whole social order in that
crisis desperate expedients suggested
themselves The old machinery was
too slow and too uncertain for the
exigency. The commission was swift
and as direct In its methods as the
vigilance committee In San Francis
cos early days. The Gordian knots
which could not be united quick
enough were cut. Socie,y was reduced
to its simplest terms and the machin-