New Britain herald., 1929-10-09
CRITJCIZING CITY HALL GENERAL PASTIME

Public statements that have been made about City Hall be- ing overmanned with em- ployes naturally interest those identified with the city gov ernment. Those who are employed in the civic building can be pardoned for being uneasy. There is no telling what might result from such agita- tion.
 A recent writer has declared that the most popular sport in America is "criticizng the government Per haps wiser words were rarely spOk- en. We all do it. No citizen is ex- empt from an indulgence in the sport. Such criticism, of course, in cludes the city government. A city government is rarely ideal. nor do many of them work 100 per cent efficiently.
 The charge is made that there isn't sufficient courtesy on tap in City Hall. This, if true, ought 10 be easy to rectify. All that is necessary is to let the boys and girls in the building know that lack of courtesy is being noted and made use of in public criticism and it will stop al- most automatically. If officials are discourteous the mayor can effect an improvement. Newspaper boys are in no position to judge the courtesy score at the building, nobody in 1t caring to be otherwise than eX- ceedingly agreeable to members of the press. This may be natural, of course, and is much appreciated.
 The charge is made that there are too many clerks and executives and officers and what not in the building. We do not pretend to be an expert on the number of assistants to the assistants to the department chiefs that are necessary 10 operate any city's business; but we do know that the city's business is extensive, and that it is better to err bit on the safe side than to err on the wrong side.
 The charge has been made that salaries are too high. It vas just recently that the claim was in the other direction. The city has to con- pete with other concerns in gaining capable servants, and the last ex- perience along this line was in se- curing q new superintendent of health. Of the several score Of appH- cants it was found that nearly all had applied for the job merely on q speculative basis, and that there really were only q few capable men willing 10 come to the city for the money offered; and when the show down came the city had to raise its salary for this office before anyone could be brought here. Evcn then. had it not been for the fact that the official refused 10 stay where he was after the other municipality had raised his salary the city probably would have been forced to pay even more to somebody else. Those in the know say the city was fairly lucky.
 Our own opinion is that officials in the average city hall Of the average city have not multiplied in anything like the proportion they have multi piled in the average corporate busi- Hess. As one observer said recently several decades ago the officers of a corporation consistoi mainly of q president, vice president and treasur- CT. Now We have executives with q dozen titles in nearly every corpora ton, the vice presidents alone some. times numbering six. That is no. body's business outside of thc corporations. of course; but some thing Of the same tendency has beer noted in civic affairs. There are more departments to every city thar there used to be; and or the whole cities are better managed.
 Only an investigation could show whether our own City Hall is over manned or inefficient or lacks rcsponsiy" good will to the public But it is easy to make charges ant risk not having them substantiated Making due allowance for the pos sbtlity that political efficiency in ; city building may not be the sam thing as efficiency elsewhere, wh' can prove that the tax rate migh