The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-12-26
Managing Cities.

| The Illinois Municipal league has gone on
record as favoring the city managership plan
and will ask of the legislature passage of law
| that will extend permission throughout the
state to place municipalities on this basis of
administration
There good arguments to support the
city managership idea. It has been expert
mented with in different parts Of the country
and in most instances has worked out salts
factorily. Hence the position that has been as
sumed by the Illinois Municipal league. But
the experience of one community does not prove
that the same results will be had in the next
city to adopt the plan. City managership i'm
| plies the last word in municipal specialization.
| 1t concentrates all responsibility on one man.
| He must be specially trained for the work he is
| to do. As a rule he is imported from such re-
mote section of the country and has no inter-
est in the city that employs him other than in
carrying out the details of his position He
knows his work like the man who is engaged
TO manage factory. The city, like the fac
tory. has it's different departments The city
manager understands those departments and
hires to fill them. He is the head of the
institution. What he says goes. He may or
he may not listen to the counsel of interested
citizens. Naturally he wishes to make sue
cess of his job and may be trusted to do the
best he knows by the city that pays him his
salary.
But there are many who will disagree with
the ACCESSIBILITY of turning their municipality
over to the direction of any one individual,
especially if he happens to be an outsider. The
commission form is the nearest approach Hi
nois has had to the city managership plan The
commission form has worked out satisfactorily
in those cities where the people have chosen
the proper men to fill the several posts of the
city government. But there have been very
sorry experiences in those communities where
the jobs have been doled out as political re-
wards, the incumbents being given the jobs sim
ply in order to give them salary.
In this day of expert and scientific direction
in business, the drift is inevitably towards the
city managership plan, and may expect to
see 1t adopted in Illinois, at least by some COM
munities. Yet most citizens will refuse to con-
cur in the thought that a municipality should
be conducted on the same basis as a private
business. A city is not private establishment
1t belongs to the people, and because of this
fact every citizen feels he should have a voice
in the management of the community in which
he resides. His ideas may not be as practi- |
cable as those of highly trained specialist |
yet he is paying the bills through taxation and |
ne rlghtly feels he ought to be permitted to |
say something to how he should spend his |
own money
The chief criticism of centralized govern |
ment is that it deprives the average citizen of
that intimate contact with his city that he
would Ike to enjoy, and which he did have in
the days before the advent of commissions and
managers. In those days the council of the
city would meet couple of times a month al
ways in the evening, and the interested citizen
could meet with the aldermen and get hear
ing on any question in which he had an inter !
est. Under the modern plans of city manage
nent all business is done in the day time and
his makes it inconyenient for the average citi-
zen to get hearing before those running mn
liclpal affairs, with the result that he aban- t
Ions that intimate touch that he formerly en- I
Dyed. and accepts matters as they are being
operated, although they may not be to his Xix
ng. No city grows so big that it can't he RIM !
" the people who populate it. After all. the
own meeting idea, while it may sound old
ashioned is thoroughly democratic and every t
ltlzen gets chance to express himself and
rule things work out, despite the ineyita- l.
lie wrangling, to the satisfaction of all CON- b
erneG