The Connecticut labor news., 1921-05-13
The City Manager Plan

It order that both sides Of the City Munger Plan suggeSted for NeaV HdUen, aud OIL zVhich the U0ters aViU regiSter on June l4, n1ay De discussed, THE LABOR NEVIS gVW publish Me Oie7Vs Of either side, 90ithOut byejndiCe or taking dny re- Sb0nSibHity for the arguments contained Merein. Communications are, because Of Limited space, expected to be brief and to hte point.
 The following communication from Donald A. Adams, who has been appoint ed to manage the campaign for the change III government, gives the reasons why the change is sought.
 "The principle underlying the City Manager idea is not a new one but it's application to American Municipalities has come during the last decade. The principle is well set forth in passages in Theodore Roosevelt's autobiography. In one passage i'll which he tells of things which he was trying to accomplish in New York City he says, Accordingly we fought for the principle, which 1 believe is needed in our popular government IS to give plenty of power to a few officials, and to make these few officials genuinely and readily responsible to the people for the exercise of that power. He states that If the people choose to elect the wrong kind of officials they will have bad government no matter what the form of the law is. But we should try to secure to them the chance to get good govern ment If they desire, and this was i1npos- sible in his opinion under the old system. He further says that any change of this kind will be fought and the batter cries used will be that we are changing the old constitutional system, that we are defaCing the monuments of the wisdom of the founders of the government, that we are destroying the distinction between legislative and executive power and that we are violent and interruptions radicals with no reverence for the past.
 ''In addition to these principles which we believe are sound we have further ground for our support of the City Man ager Form of Government in the experi- ence of large number of cities in the United States which are already using 1t. This experience has been one of consis- tent progress, efficiency and economy, with a paying off of a floating and bonded indebtedness in many incidences and many accomplishments of great benefit to the communities which are not purely financial. In Dayton, Ohio, the tax rate was reduced about one mill per year for the first four years under this new form of government and in addition to this the death rate and the infant mortality rate were appreciab1y lowered. In Norfolk, Virginia, which adopted this plan of gov ernment September 6, 1918, the tax rate has just been lowered from 25 to 20 mills and the people there are enthusiastic in its support. One of the leading business of he c1+1 fol If you can get the people of New Haven to realize that the management of the city is business problem and not politi- cal one, you will have no trouble in put ting in the City Manager form of Gov ernment but-like everything else that is human, 1t will not run itself
 The advantage Of the plan, however, | is not solely financial. It is democratic i form of government. If by democracy | one means dictatorship of the proletar- | iat," then the City Manager plan IS not democratic The ideal which it does serve is government by the whole people. | Class government, whether 1t be by the l business class or the working class Is con- trary to its spirit; nevertheless whenever organized labor has sought more def- mite representation, it has been accorded.
 For instance, in the first commission in l Dayton, Dubuque, Sandusky, Springfield, l O., and various other cities there were representatives of organized labor. In
 fact labor's leadership was taken in on the ground floor and given a voice in the
 framing of the charter; condition
 which has been repeated in many cities.
 "Labor has sometimes been suspicious that the plan would be 'capitalistic,' es- pecially where the movement for its adoption originated with a chamber of commerce. But, in more numerous in- stances, it has done what it did in Dubu- que, Ia., one of the towns where labor initiated the movement and where the trade and labor congress states, in a let ter to the city manager: Expressing the
 feeling of the laboring people i'll general as to our change to the manager plan of | government, we can say with pleasure that there seems to be cooperative xuit hin nart ion lar in 111St