The weekly Iberian. (New Iberia, La.) 1894-1946, 1910-10-01

ically give popular government. The
peoples will can he baffled or facilI
tated by the form Of government The
peoples work at the polls can be made
obscure, complex and difficult, or It
can be made clear, simple and easy.
Under the commission plan. with Its
short ballot, the peoples work Is very
4 clear, very simple, very easy And
that is all the secret there Is to the
) success Of the plan.
81 In theory citizenship IL the business
Of every citizen. But In our old style
city governments effective citizenship
Is one Of the learned professions. To
vote intelligently citizen must ego
into politics" That means work, and
the average man can't afford to do
much unpaid work SO politics be-
comes dominated by few men, and
the people at large helplessly leave
the bulk of the ticket to the party poll
ticlans to do az they please with.
In our old fashioned city govern
ments, we have committed two serI-
GUS errors.
First, we have scattered the powers
Of government among so many petty
officials that 1t is quite impossible for
the people to watch and control them
! all
i Second, We have subdivided the
power in such small fragments that no
single part is really worth watching
A member Of the city council, for In
stance, under the old form Of govern
ment, has SO little power that II is
really not worth while for the people
Of the town to become agitated over
the question Of who shall get the Job.
The typical old style city govern
men. of this country consists Of
mayor. with fairly large power,
string Of minor administrative off,
cials also chosen by popular vote. and
council which sometimes consists of
two legislative bodies. The feature Of
this plan is the distribution Of power
based on our ancient fear of kings.
We have always had superstitious
dread of giving to any elected official
power enough to do anything for us
without getting the consent Of several
others. We have overlooked the fact
that to make the former official obey
our wishes we had also to exert stimuli
taneous compulsion over the latter.
whose consent he needed. and that
popular control became thus anything |
but the simple matter It ought to be. |
The politicians can always get their
own way II they make the council
large enough. A council Of fifteen men |
might occasionally feel personally the
pressure Of public opinion, but triple
the size Of the council, and the individ
ual members become SO insignificant
and publicity so subdivided that each
member is safely "lost in the shuttle"
Those who promoted the idea Of hav-
ing a host Of elective officials in the
government have always taken 1t for
granted that there was something
democratic about this procedure. De
mocracy, however, does not consist In
electim0 everybody, but In controlling
everybody. The mayors office boy.
for instance, may be appointed by the
mayor, or elected by popular vote. He
Is a public servant, but there Is moth
ing democratic In electing him when
he can Just as well be appointed. The
vital thing is that he shall be con-
trolled by the people, and II he will
be under better control through ap-
pointment than through election. 1t Is
more democratic to appoint him.
The commission plan Of government
IA based on no false idea that the peo-
ple want to elect everybody. 1t gives
the power to five men. who thereby
become conspicuously responsible be-
fore all the people of the city. Each
one of them IL important enough to
make It worth while for the citizens to
inquire concerning bis record and
character. Each candidate for the Of
Ace can attract a crowd to hear him
speak, whereas an old time councilman
would have been utterly unable to get
1 hearing before the people. There
are not 30 many Of these officials but
what every citizen can flnd out about
ali Of them and vote intelligently on
election day. There are not so many
10 to cause q citizen to depend upon
tickets put together for him by polit-
Ical specialists. Each citizen can and
does make up his own ticket, and the
function Of the professional ticket
machines II thereby entirely
of.
II the commission wero composed Of
ten men instead Of Eve the list Of
names would be longer than the aver
lge citisen would be likely to remem-
ber for himself, and we should see
natural grouping Of candidates and
their election by groups instead Of
.ingly. Some good government asso-
.iation" or some party machine. even
IN Z nonpartisan ballot would be sure
10 advertise tickets for the guidance Of
ths voters, and in accepting these tick
sts the people would be sharing their
power with the ticket makers.
The Short Ballot.
The commission plan succeeds there
lore because It puts tho power where
The people can see it. The vital fea-
ture h not the method Of organization,
but the method q popular control. 1t
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