The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-21

ings hither and thither of a system
 which ought, in order to work effec-
 lively, to have worked in harmony as
 unite and not as a system of rivalrles
 and suspicious checks
 of we are as now seems probable, to
 follow along the lines upon which we
 have started in the matter of our city
 governments, it is evident that we are
 going to benefit ourselves greatly by giv- ing up our ancient ingenious art or ere
 atine ambushes and jungles in which our
 politicians can play hide and seek with us. The thing which the astute politician should most desire Is that authority
 should be as much subdivided as possible, that each officer should have function so obscure that nobody could have the time or the curiosity to watch him, that there should be no system of central con- trol that no one officer should be subordi- mated to any other officer, and that above all there should be independent elections
 to the several places to be filled. This de- lightfui confusion constitutes the most ad-
 mirable opportunity for management and
 contrivance and private combination
 imaginable. Anything that simplifies the
 system of necessity purifies it, because
 simplification means that there are no
 hiding places for schemes and framed-up
 combinations,
 Tt cannot be an accident that the best
 governed cities in the world are those in
 which there is short ballot, concentrated
 authority and, by consequence, expert
 service; for expert service is bound to
 come in America, as elsewhere, by req
 son of this concentration of authority and
 simplification of political methods. There lis no reason why our cities should not
 have a practical permanent corps of ex-
 aN n two instances
 the commission form of government has
 assumed this form: Instead of putting ac- tual administration of the government in
 the hands of commission of five, each
 one of whom should have charge of dis
 tinct department of the city government, 1t has in one or two American cities been arranged that the commissioners should
 be merely the guiding and consultative
 body They have been authorized and. di-
 rected to choose business manager who
 should have charge of the administration
 of the city as their servant, subject to
 be removed by them at any time and
 obliged in all particulars to carry out
 their directions, cut nevertheless em-
 ployed as a professional. an expert,
 genuine business manager Should this
 form of commission government be gen.
 eraIly adopted it would undoubtedly re-
 suit in the growth of a professional class very much to be desired-the develop ment of a body of men whose business 1t
 would be to understand the various de-
 partments of city government and to take charge of them. Our bureaus of municipal
 research are producing men who might
 easily be trained for such purposes, and it is not beyond hoping for that we may be within sight of the time when we shall be able to conduct our cities with real business efficiency at the hands of ex- lperts.
 .'The indispensable conditions of suc- cess in city government. as in all govern ment, are first, publicity; and. second, alert public opinion guided in some def-
 nite way by those who really understand Ithe business in hand. Nothing ought to be done by city government, or by any other government information regarding which is not accessible day by day to any citizen who desires to obtain it. With out publicity public opinion has not suffi- cient matter to work upon. With pub llicity will come the necessity that those who conduct the government should ex- plair the things which are not easily un- derstood by the newspapers or by critics lof any kind, and with the necessity of explaining will come, as natural con- sequence, the necessity of leading. It is the principal business of those who con- stitute the responsible governing authori- ties of a city or of a state to explain mat ters that need explanation and to guide opinion regarding them by something more than explanation, that is, by argu- ment, by proposals of measures of vari- ous kinds, by all the legitimate means by which opinion is guided and developed Government is of necessity in many of its parts a technical and complicated thing. We shall not be saved merely by having experts We shall be safe only when we have experts who are also cap able of being leaders
 After the Dreamland meeting Governor Wilson and his party were rendered a reception at the Seattle Press club.