The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-26

"
providing there is publicity of all Of the
mayors acts. He appoints department.
heads OF the city. without consent of
the council. providing the civil service
board of the State passes favorabiy on
the qualifications OF the appointee. Ev-
cry department head must be an ex-
pert. Thus the parks. roads. build
ings, pavements, sewers, ETC., are all
under experts, who are under the
mayor. He can remove a department
head whenever he pleases. II the
streets. parks. or sewers are bad. It's
the mayors fault"
4 "But what can you do to the mayor
II he Is to blame7"
after two years, II he Is not capa-
BILE, we can have special election by
petition, and remove him. naming an
other one. II he Is a good mayor and
we like him we don't even have an
other election. A good man might be
mayor OF Boston for twenty years.
without having to so to the polls for
reelection. II the people liked him well
enough"
An explanation was asked.
swell. at every State election, two
years before the mayors term Is UP, we
print on the ballot. Shall Boston hold
an election for Mayor two years from
nowf" If the people like the present
mayor they will vote No. and that
means that the mayor shall remain In
ONCE. and the question won't come up
again for four years. until the next
State election. though the citizens. IL
he should suddenly turn bad. might re-
move him any day by the recall. ;"
what does the City Council have to
do?"
"All city business originates with II.
more or less. The mayor has the right
to veto everything 1t does. Yet II has
the right to call the mayor before IL
and question him on any matter IT
pleases.
"The best thing about our charter. ]
think, is that II keeps the white light
of publicity on every official. For in
stance, the mayor has to issue little
newspaper called The City Record. All
contracts, resolutions. orders--every-
thing the mayor signs or does--is re-
ported in this paper.
'sThen every meeting of the council
must be public. Not even committee
can hold a secret session"
but how does all this prevent graft
ing? How can you tell that graft -
not going onT'
eWeli, we discovered that no city can
be clean of itself. It has to have out
side help. This applies to every city
of the United States. So we called
upon the state of Massachusetts, to help
us, We provided for a finance COM
mission OF flve members to be appoint
cd by the Governor. The duty Of this
commission is to inspect the finances
of the city regularly"
well, the inspection is 30 simple
that even a lazy man can do 1t. The
reports will be made out under the
uniform city accounting system. now
in effect in all OF the cities OF Ohio
and in many other cities. Under this
system. graft will come to the surface
every time; IT Is as easy to see IL In
a report as a chunk of coal in snow
bank. 1t can't be hidden"
Have you elected any officials I'M
der the new charter"
mo. The first election comes in
January. It will be high test. too. Of
how high the unit of citizenship is In
Boston. Mayor Fitzgerald, who. under
the new charter, automatically runs
again, unless he specifically asks to be
excused--is running against James f..
Storrow.
"Boston has been poorly managed
under Fitzgerald.
Boston has chance to choose be-
tween the old type political mayor, who
wanted everybody to vote for him, not
because he was good man. but be-
cause he was a party man. and man
of the new type. who roesn't belong to
any party. in city politics.
BY the new charter the police are out
of politics. The policemen are state
officials, appointed by State official,
who is not even resident OF Boston.
No citizen can now evade a police
man by saying I'm have you broken
for this"
A policeman need not fear the loss OF
his posiIion, so long as he does his duty.
The city gives money to the State to
nay policemen.