The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-10-16
Battle of Wits or Dis cussiOn to Find the Truth - King and City Manager Plan Charter Machines Also Must Deliver Good Product-Vo- ting on BOnds-Ma- yOr Atwater Broad Outlook.

to MT. Cooper, expresses a pre- ference for "a battle of wits" where political discussion is cos cerned. This is what political discussion mostly is, and what it ought not to be. Discussion should be carried on for the sole purpose of getting at the truth, the best way. It is unfortunate that politics, a noble science, should be treated like a sport, or a game.
 MT. Kings conversion to the theory of the city manager plan is not the product of a battle of wits, but of a belief that between two methods of carrying on, one is better than the other. His re- servation about the instrument it. self is proper. The machine must do the work. It must be the kind of a. machine it is designed to be. If the machine were a typewriter nobody would have any doubt about what it should be and do.
 When the machine is an in- strument of government the name must not be taken for the fact. A charter is a machine the results of which cannot all be known. Juch a machine cannot be produced ', +o a typewriter, or a, sewing machine. Nevertheless the city manager plan is a machine of government perfected to the point where per- sons reasonably well informed can know that it is. what it claims to be.
 This method is the invention of skf1lfu1 thinkers, who have had in view a charter machine which will make it easier to govern cities inte1l1gently, with economy, thrift, efficiency, progress and justice. The city manager plan involves certain clements. which are un-  out the party label. The execu- tive duties are confided to man. ager, who has such powers as are usually conffded to the super intendent of schools. in a we'll managed school system.
 The manager form of govern ment is modelled on the business corporation which has been so successful in America The people are the stockh elders. The commissioners are the board of directors, the manager is the equivalent of the works manager, business manager and so on. of the private corporation. The plan has simplicity. directness, speed and certainty.
 
 The business corporation gives large powers to its manager, but it reserves the right to remove him speedily in the event of fail ure, Incompetence. abuse of au- thority ana the like. Concentra- tion of power is attained, with the necessary check upon abuse. In the city manager plan, this check Is known as the recall. It means that the commissioners can be removed for failure or other gross offense. The recall over the manager Is their power to re- move him.
 Under the present system of flee holders come up for renord- nation and reelection. This is not the same thing. Those come up who have offended, with those who have not. The voting body cannot stop to discriminate com pletely. When the general cleo ton comes. the interests of hun dreds or thousands are directly involved, and the people vote to the larger purposes of the hour forgetting the smaller.
 There may be someday a people so intelligent. so discriminating. and with leisure, who will pick and choose between all the in- div1duals and all the measures that make up the city govern ment- They do not now. The manager plan is a labor saving machine, which enables timely and direct expression to the very man and the very measure. Just as the stockholders in a private corporation may themselves adopt the larger acts of legislation. so may they under the city mana ger plan interpose with the ini- ttative and referendum.
 The new charter in the mat ter of bonding alone should be worth more than the trouble of get ting it. It certainly will provide that bonds shall not in the general rule be issued without the consent of those who must meet the debt which will be created.