Arizona republican., 1912-08-26

$2500 per annum and the commission CTS $2OOO each, a total of $450O It is not proposed that they give all of their time to the work but that ad- ditional help shall be employed to permit them to attend to the city's business and their private business businss as well Hence this expense should be added and will total to about $2000 or more, making $650O l Under the Phoenix plan the mayor was to receive $500 and each com missioner $12OO, a total of $39OO. If a manager were employed at $30O0 the total would be but $4OO more and we would have a whole man on the job all the time. If he couldn't save ten times the difference every year the commission ought to fire him. This cutting down of salaries in the charter and the elimination of the manager is a pseudo economy of the most perniciOus sort and the people | should be brought to realize it. It is saving at the spigOt and wasting at the bunghole, a sancitmonious bluff that is far too common and for which people have poid far too much.
 The Lockport. plan looks forward to a time when municipal government will be conducted by real experts To suppose that popular election in the great majority of instances will se cure expert services seems almost fat uous. Even the most educated of our citizens may fail if called upon to choose, for example, between the technical qualifications of two can didateS for a position which requires an engineers training One the other hand an appointive expert could be found to take general charge of the city administration who could select trained assistants under the most fa- vOrable conditions and recommend their appointment The city manager himself would presumably be rather a high salaried officer and might be taken from any part of the country tho l am not so optimistic as to think that this would be done at once. It will probably take several years to get people to look upon municipal administration as a business propo sition and to expect results rather than a judicious division of the spells. In the event that the Lockport plan should receive wide adoption. now tNtII u lS tb0llN NOiNCiN cApiC Niit't there would arise in the United States a class of municipal experts. The profession would be a most alluring one to men of talent and vision, and it is not too much to suppose that we would eventually come to have com bination of democracy and efficiency which has never before feen effected.
 The salaries which are paid under
 
 cient to attract our best men and cause them to give the very large amount of time essential to efficient administration. However, if the best brains of the community were re- quired to simply pass judgment on policies and leave the execution of those policies to a salaried executive of their own choosing, many men of large calibre would be willing to de vote to the citys business the small amount of time and energy which such a commissionership would re quire.
 That the electorate of Phoenix would vote down charter contain ing a provision for a city manager in the face of it's possible advantages and despite the other more manifest improvements which it contains. the writer dos not believe. It provides for direct primaries, non- n-partisan nominations, elections at large, the rotary ballot, initiative, referendum, recall. the budget system for appor- tioning and raising funds, increased power for the commission to control public service corporations, to ac- quire or construct it's own public util- ities, to cause paving and sidewalk construction, the cleaning of vacant lots and making any expense incurred therein a lien against the property control of bond issues by the tax payers. limitation of franchises and such a list of other advantages as would give any patriotic citizen req son to hesitate in voting against it. It should be emphasized that the charter will be easy of amendment and any undesirable feature could be stricken out or otherwise modified by vote of the people.
 EDWARD S. GODFREY, Jr.