[Illustration: THIS IS A NEW YORK COUNTY--ALL OFFICERS ELECTED
INDEPENDENTLY OF EACH OTHER AND CO-ORDINATED THEORETICALLY BY ELABORATE
LAWS. HEADLESS, IRRESPONSIBLE, INEFFICIENT, OBSCURE.]




  The County

  The “Dark Continent” of American Politics

  By

  H. S. Gilbertson

  [Illustration]

  New York

  The National Short Ballot Organization
  1917




  The Knickerbocker Press, New York




PREFACE


The American people have never ceased, nor do they give any signs
of ceasing, in their effort to master the mechanics of political
democracy. Curiously, however, they have quite neglected one of the
most promising of all the approaches to this study--the government of
counties. It is in the belief that a discussion of this subject would
tend to throw a great new light upon the “democratic experiment” that
the author has prepared this volume.

This is not a hand-book or a treatise on counties. Such a work cannot
be successfully carried through without a much wider and more thorough
research into the subject than has as yet been attempted. The author
hopes that this present work will do something to suggest and stimulate
such research. In the meantime the outlines of a very real and very
important “county problem” are visible and they mark the scope of this
volume.

The reader will doubtless note the complete absence of any
discussion of the county in its relation to the educational system.
The explanation of this omission lies in the great difficulty of
distinguishing anything like a universal interest of the county in
this branch of public administration, apart from those of the state
government and of the smaller divisions, except in the levying of taxes
and the distribution of tax money.

To Mr. Richard S. Childs, Secretary of The Short Ballot Organization,
the author is indebted for the suggestion that the book should be
written, and for criticisms of the manuscript. Assistance of the most
helpful sort during the manuscript stage was also rendered by Mr.
Herbert R. Sands, of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, and by
Mr. Otho G. Cartwright, of the Westchester County Research Bureau.

Inasmuch also as it has not seemed advisable to encumber the text with
an excessive number of footnotes, the author wishes to acknowledge
particularly his debt to Prof. John A. Fairlie’s volume, _The
Government of Counties, Towns, and Villages_, which was the source
of much of the historical material, and to Mr. Earl W. Crecraft, whose
studies of Hudson County, N. J., have been drawn upon at considerable
length.

  H. S. GILBERTSON.

  NEW YORK,
  January 15, 1917.




  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                PAGE

  I.--A POLITICAL BY-WAY                    1

  II.--JUST WHAT IS A COUNTY                9

  III.--A CREATURE OF TRADITION            16

  IV.--FALLING AFOUL OF “DEMOCRACY”        25

  V.--THE JUNGLE                           34

  VI.--A BASE OF POLITICAL SUPPLIES        43

  VII.--URBAN COUNTIES                     57

  VIII.--COUNTY GOVERNMENTS AT WORK        66

  IX.--THE HUMANITARIAN SIDE               80

  X.--ROADS AND BRIDGES                    94

  XI.--NULLIFICATION                      104

  XII.--STATE MEDDLING                    112

  XIII.--STATE GUIDANCE                   120

  XIV.--READJUSTMENTS                     129

  XV.--COUNTY HOME RULE                   145

  XVI.--CONSOLIDATION                     151

  XVII.--RECONSTRUCTION                   168

  XVIII.--SCIENTIFIC ADMINISTRATION       181

  XIX.--THE COUNTY OF THE FUTURE          193

  APPENDIX A--CONSTITUTIONAL COUNTY HOME
  RULE IN CALIFORNIA                      207

  APPENDIX B--THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY
  CHARTER                                 219

  APPENDIX C--PROPOSED COUNTY HOME RULE
  AMENDMENT IN NEW YORK                   247

  APPENDIX D--PROPOSED COUNTY MANAGER
  LAW IN NEW YORK                         251

  APPENDIX E--THE CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER
  IN NEW YORK CITY                        257

  APPENDIX F--A COUNTY ALMSHOUSE IN TEXAS 266

  BIBLIOGRAPHY                            275

  INDEX                                   285




  THE COUNTY




CHAPTER I

A POLITICAL BY-WAY


To close up the underground passages to political power, to open up
government and let in the daylight of popular opinion and criticism,
to simplify organization, to make procedure more direct, to fix
unmistakably the responsibilities of every factor in the State; that
has been the strategy of the reconstructive democratic movement in
America in the last fifteen years. Four hundred American cities,
without regret and with little ceremony, have cast aside the tradition
that complexity is the price of liberty. They have started afresh upon
the principle that government is public business to be administered as
simply, as directly, as openly and as cheaply as the law will allow.
Inasmuch as their former governments were not adapted to that ideal,
they have hastened to make them over. Contrary to prediction, the
palladium of liberty has not fallen. Business goes on as usual, public
business in a way that is amazingly satisfactory, as compared with the
“good old” days.

Where will the movement stop? Have all the secret passages been closed?
Have all the dark alleys of local politics been lighted? Or does work
for explorers lie ahead?

In 1915 the constitutional convention then in session at Albany, was
surveying the foundations of the political structure of New York,
undertaking to make adjustments to the sweeping changes that had
come over the life of the state in the previous twenty-year period.
Committees were chosen to rake the far corners of the system for
needed adjustment. Hundreds of experts were summoned and hundreds of
citizens voluntarily appeared to press their views and their wants.
The committee having in charge the organization of the _state_
government listened to an ex-president, the heads of two leading
universities, prominent efficiency experts and every important state
officer. The committee on _cities_ gave audience to the mayor
and chief legal officers of every important city in the state, while
the conference of mayors was sufficiently interested to send one of
its number to stump the state for an amendment which would promote
the welfare of New York cities. The work of these divisions of the
convention was of deepest concern to the state. It received from the
press and the public no small amount of interested comment.

There was also a committee which touched on an interest that includes
every inhabitant--county government. One might have imagined that this
body too could have attracted at least one or two celebrities. There
are sixty-one counties in New York State. Everybody lives in one. They
safeguard property, personal and civil rights. But not so. Two or three
public hearings; no ex-presidents; no college heads; no considerable
number of interested private citizens--such was the tangible display of
awakening to the subject at hand.

At a singularly appropriate moment, however, a brand-new association
of clerks of the boards of supervisors was formed. Several members
of the body appeared in person before the convention. The committee
appealed to them to enrich its fund of information concerning the home
government. They were given a free rein to tell of the needs of their
counties.

In view of collateral facts, the testimony of this notable group of
public servants is peculiarly illuminating. The representative of a
central New York county was there and blandly did he announce that his
people were perfectly satisfied with their county government; they
would not dream of modifying it. The clerk from a Hudson River county
was equally optimistic, and went to some pains to show in detail just
how very well his county was governed. Similar testimony was presented
from a county in the capital district. Then up spoke the clerk from
near the borders of Pennsylvania: the people of this neighboring
state had conceived so great an admiration for the form of his county
government that they were longing to substitute it for their own rather
simpler system.

Now for the collateral facts. Not more than two months following this
hearing, officers of the National Committee on Prison Labor got word
of misdoings at the jail in the central New York county and succeeded
in securing a Grand Jury investigation. The details of their findings
scarcely lend themselves to print. Enough to say that the sheriff’s
deputies had made a practice of allowing both men and women prisoners
to come and go at will and permitted most disreputable conditions to
prevail in the prison. Shortly after the committee hearings the state
comptroller completed his investigation of the financial affairs of
the Hudson River county. His report reeks with accounts of flagrant
and intentional violations of the laws on the part of not one but
nearly all of the county officers. As for the clerk from the capital
district, he was confronted at the hearing itself with several pieces
of special legislation passed, at the instance of the sheriff and the
superintendent of the poor, for the increase of salaries of deputies
over the head of the local governing body. That this appeal was not
so much in the interests of the county as of “political expediency”
and at the expense of the taxpayers, he cheerfully admitted. But as
for the near-Pennsylvania county, that was the earthly home of a man
who had conceived a clever method of breaking into the county treasury
by having the board of supervisors create for his benefit, contrary
to law, the position of “county custodian.” Once firmly settled in
his new position he persuaded the board to turn over to him (quite
illegally) their responsibility for auditing the claims against the
county, and persuaded the county treasurer to cash any warrant that
might have his “O. K.” When he had made away, in this manner, with some
ninety thousand dollars, the comptroller discovered his misdoings. Of
the whole bad mess, the solution which the “custodian” selected was
suicide. But the government of that county had not been fundamentally
changed to meet the defects of organization revealed in these
disclosures.

A collection of isolated facts? Familiar American graft and
inefficiency? Perhaps. But in the cities and in the states the public
has been going after such things. In the counties of New York the
people apparently did not know that such conditions were present. The
clerks who appeared at Albany and were, for the most part, the sole
representatives of their several counties, seem to have told the truth,
at least about the people’s complacency, but they might have been
more accurate and more complimentary if they had labeled it “lack of
knowledge.”

From coast to coast a deep silence broods over county affairs. Can
it be that, while cities have been reveling in franchise scandals
and police have been going into partnership with vice interests,
while state legislatures have been lightly voting away public money
on useless political jobs and extravagant public institutions, the
county alone is free from every breath of scandal and is a model of
official uprightness? Scores of municipal leagues and city clubs
and bureaus of municipal research are delving into city affairs and
finding opportunities for betterment at every turn of the hand.
But the number of county organizations that are doing critical and
constructive work could be numbered on the ten fingers, or less. Many
of the colleges offer courses specifically on municipal government,
but the “one pervasive unit of local government throughout the United
States” is disposed of with a brief mention. No political scientist
has ever had the ambition to plow into the soil, so that while there
is now available a five-hundred-page bibliography of city government,
there has never been written a single volume[1] devoted exclusively to
counties. Journalists for the most part have left the subject severely
alone.

And yet in those few instances where the county has been put under the
microscope or has been given more than a passing thought, the reward
of the investigators’ labors have always been so certain and rich as
to excite wonder as to how much further the shortcomings of the county
extend. In Hudson County, N. J., a few years ago, the cost of the court
house which had been fixed at nine hundred thousand dollars, threatened
to run up to seven million dollars. Impressed by this striking
circumstance, a body of citizens formed themselves into a permanent
Federation to look deeper and longer into this back alley of their
civic life. They found that the court house incident was but the most
dramatic of a hundred falls from grace. The Public Efficiency Society
of Cook County, Ill., the Westchester County Research Bureau, the
Taxpayers’ Association of Suffolk County, the Nassau County Association
in New York and the Tax Association of Alameda County in California
have all been richly repaid for their investments in county government
research. Sporadic cases? Possibly. And then again perhaps there is
something basically defective in the system.

But is it all a matter of importance?

If universality and magnitude of cost count for anything, yes. Nearly
all the inhabitants of the United States live in a county and nearly
every voter takes part in the affairs of one. There are over three
thousand such units. In their corporate capacity they had in 1913 a
net indebtedness of $371,528,268 (per capita, $4.33), which was a
growth from $196,564,619 in 1902 (per capita, $2.80). In that year they
spent for general government, $385,181,760, which is something like
one third the cost of the federal government for the same period. Of
this amount, $102,334,964 was for general management. Through these
county governments the American people spent for highway purposes,
$55,514,891; for the protection of life and property, $15,213,229; for
the conservation of health, $2,815,466; for education, $57,682,193;
for libraries, $364,712; for recreation, $419,556 (mostly in the
single state of New Jersey); for public service enterprises, $189,122;
for interest charges, $17,417,593; upon structures of a more or less
permanent nature, $89,839,726.

The figures, though of course not to be taken too seriously, are in
some cases as impressive for their paucity as in others for their
magnitude, for throughout a large part of the United States the county
is the sole agency of local government.

Counties pretty much throughout the nation are the corner-stone of the
system of partisan government and organization.

Counties, for this variety of reasons, therefore, would seem to be a
fit subject for scrutiny as to their relation to some of the vital
issues of American life.

[1] _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science_, May, 1913, contains a number of important monographs on
the subject.




CHAPTER II

JUST WHAT IS A COUNTY?


Before our forefathers had “brought forth upon this continent a new
nation,” there was no universal standard relationship in the colonies
between the local and the general colonial or state governments. In
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, the towns had begun as
separate units; then they federated and gradually developed an organic
unity; that is, the localities produced the general government. In the
South, on the other hand, the local governments had more the semblance
of creatures of the general government designed to meet the expansion
of the earliest settlements into wide and therefore less wieldy units
for administration.

By the time of the constitution of 1789, it became possible to
standardize the division of labor of governing the continent. In
the center of the scheme were placed the states, which reserved to
themselves all the governmental power there was, except what the
constitution specifically conferred upon the federal government.
Henceforth, whatever may have been its historical origin or its
ancient traditions, every local division of government was to content
itself with such functions as were to be portioned out to it by
superior state authority. It was to have no “inherent” powers. It was
to act simply as an agency of the state, which had power at will to
enlarge or diminish the local sphere of activity or wipe it off the map
entirely.

Now the duties which state governments assumed in the early years
of the republic were as simple as necessity would allow. This was
preeminently the day of “as little government as possible.” The people
of the states covenanted with themselves, as it were, to stand guard
over life, liberty and property. It was a broad enough program, but it
was the custom in those days to interpret it narrowly--no humanitarian
activities beyond the crude attempts to deal with the more obvious
phases of poverty; no measure of correction in the modern sense; no
“public works.” As an incident in meeting these obligations, the
constitutional convention and the state legislatures met and laid
down statutes or codes of conduct affecting these elementary needs
of a civilized people. They defined the various crimes (or adopted
the definitions of the English common law); they legalized a civil
procedure. It was definitely settled that the voice of the whole people
should control in determining _what_ the state should do for its
citizens.

Then came the question of getting the means for applying these
abstract principles to daily life, of bringing to every man’s own
door the means for enforcing his rights. Had the American people
proceeded from this point along logical lines they would have cut the
administrative machinery to fit their state-wide policies. But it was
not so ordered. The officers of the _state_ had determined upon
the policies; the officers of the _localities_ were to execute the
policies. The period of the American Revolution, with its deep-seated
distrust of kingly power, was the beginning of an era of decentralized
administration which gained rather than diminished in force for as
much as two generations. For the purpose, the existing counties served
as instruments ready to hand and their status now became fixed as the
local agencies of the state government. New counties were formed from
time to time as needs arose. In each of these counties was a loose, but
more or less complete organization, which it will now be fitting to
describe.

More important perhaps than any other enforcing agent of the county, in
these still primitive days, was the sheriff, who sooner or later became
a fixture in every American colony. This most ancient officer of the
county had been perpetuated through the centuries from Saxon and Norman
times. He had inherited nearly all of the powers and prerogatives
of his historical prototype as they obtained in England during the
seventeenth century. He did not preside over a court in the county,
but he could make arrests for violation of the law, with or without a
warrant. If his task was too much for one man, he could summon to his
aid a _posse comitatus_ of private citizens. And inasmuch as he
was obliged not only to apprehend, but to hold his prisoner for trial,
it very naturally fell to him to take care of the lock-up or jail.

There had been established, beginning with Connecticut, in 1666, a
system of local courts, whose jurisdiction in most states came to
be co-extensive with the county. Around this institution centered
the official life of the county, so much so that the county capitol
is universally known as the “court house.” The sheriff from its
beginnings acted as the high servant of this court, in the disposition
of prisoners, the execution of judgments, the service of warrants of
arrest and in similar duties.

To the account of Connecticut is also to be credited the most unique,
and in many ways most important county officer of modern times. In
the development of its criminal law, England had never worked out
a system of local prosecuting officers. The colonies in the early
days had assigned the duty of representing the state’s interest to
the magistrates. But in 1704 there was authorized for each county
in Connecticut an attorney “to prosecute all criminal offenders ...
and suppress vice and immorality.” From this beginning came the
distinctively American officer who is variously known as district
attorney, prosecutor of the pleas, solicitor, or state’s attorney.

Since the business of the county court (which formerly included
administrative as well as judicial matters) was too important not to
be recorded, there was established a clerk of court whose duties are
summarized in his title. In more recent times, however, the functions
of this officer have been both expanded and limited, according to
the amount of the transactions in the county. So that, in the larger
counties each court, or sometimes a group of courts, have a clerk
whose duties are solely concerned with judicial matters, while in less
important counties the “county clerk” finds it easily possible to serve
in no less than a dozen different capacities. It is the county clerk
who ordinarily issues marriage licenses and receives for filing, real
estate deeds, mortgages and a variety of other papers.

And then, without apparent good reason, the colonists had brought
over from England the coroner. In the days of Alfred the Great this
officer had had an honorable and useful place in the realm. As a sort
of understudy of the sheriff, he took the latter’s place when he was
disabled. Meanwhile he was the King’s local representative, charged
with the duty of laying hands on everything that seemed to be without
an owner and taking possession of it in the name of the King. But
through the lapse of time, the “Crowner” had lost both dignity and
duties until there was little left except for him to take charge of
the bodies of those who had died by violence or in a suspicious manner,
seek the cause of death and locate, if possible, the person responsible
for the circumstance.

So much for the organization to administer local justice, which is the
irreducible minimum of county government. In early colonial times (and
even yet in certain states), the judges and other judicial officers had
performed important duties outside this limited field of administering
justice. But in time the processes involved in the payment of salaries
and the up-keep of a county building, created in sizable counties a
“business” problem of no mean proportions. Since in most states these
costs have been charged against the county, it has been necessary to
install appropriate machinery of fiscal administration. In every county
a board of directors, variously selected and denominated, has taken
over the management of material things. With the help of a variety of
minor administrative officers like the assessors, the treasurer and
other fiscal officers, it raises and appropriates money; it audits
claims against the county; it borrows money.

Around this judicial and administrative nucleus was built the universal
American county. In the rural sections it expanded to meet the lack of
any other local government. As an incident to the theory that the state
is responsible for at least a minimum of protection of human life, the
state government had taken upon itself the care of indigents. This duty
it usually turned over directly to the county. The county authorities
have also had control (often exclusively so) of rural roads and bridges.

In the performance of these various functions the American people seem
to have thought it quite unnecessary for the county to be supplied
with the proper apparatus for doing its own policy making. Or, to look
at the matter from the other side, they deemed it quite appropriate
that the policy-making part of the state government, which is the
legislature, should not control the hands and feet, which in matters of
local concern consist of the county officials. Elaborate general laws
were enacted to prescribe in minute detail the daily round of routine
of each officer. Why should he or why should the people think? It was
not the purpose of the state that they should. And without thinking,
there could be no differences of opinion; without differences of
opinion, no “issues”; without issues, no real politics.




CHAPTER III

A CREATURE OF TRADITION


It all came about in this way:

The first settlers in the permanent Virginia colony found a climate
that was mild and a soil that was fertile. Numerous rivers radiating
through the country furnished a natural means for transportation.
Indians were not a serious menace. The settlers themselves were of the
landed gentry, closely identified with the established English Church.

Out of such a combination a very definite polity inevitably grew. The
people were destined to spread themselves far and wide; agriculture was
to be their chief pursuit; little government would be needed and the
forms and substance of democracy would have at best a slow growth.

For many years the local government consisted primarily of small groups
of settlements which were called hundreds or parishes and were presided
over by a vestry of “selected men.” When the plantations were large and
scattered, government was sometimes supplied by the owners themselves.
But in 1634 in Virginia, the example of English institutions took
firmer root and eight shires or counties were formed and made the
unit of representation in the colonial assembly and for purposes of
military, judicial, highway and fiscal administration. The officers
were the county lieutenant (the militia officer), the sheriff (who
acted as collector and treasurer), justices of the peace and coroners.
All were appointed by the governor of the colony on the recommendation
of the justices, and the latter thus became a self-perpetuating body of
aristocratic planters controlling the county administration. This body
of appointed justices constituted the county court, which to this day
in some of the southern states is not only a judicial body, but also
corresponds to the board of supervisors or the county commissioners in
other localities.

Such was one line of descent. The Virginians, like most of their
contemporaries, knew little and cared less for political science.
They simply turned to their English experience, pieced together some
old-country institutions and adapted them to the new world. Their
experiment succeeded for the time being at least. It could scarcely
have failed under such simple conditions.

Of quite a different sort were the influences at work in New England. A
severe climate, a rocky soil and menacing Indians drove the colonists
into compact communities, where they could live by shipping and
fishing. They too were fortunate in striking an environment that
rather exactly fitted their old-country experience. For they were
a homogeneous, single-minded body of people with firm traditions of
democracy and a common religious faith. From the congregational form
of organization that was characteristic of the Puritan movement to
the town meeting for purposes of civil government, was a single easy
step. Thus the “town” idea came to hold the center of the stage in New
England local affairs. But it never had the all-sufficiency in its
sphere which the county had in the South, and even New England had to
recognize a need for more comprehensive subdivisions. And so, in 1636,
Massachusetts was divided into four judicial districts in each of which
a quarterly court was held. In 1643 four counties were definitely
organized, both as judicial and militia districts, and before the
middle of the century there was established a system of representative
commissioners from each town, who met at the shire town to equalize
assessments. The office of county treasurer was created in 1654. Later
a militia officer was appointed, and within a few years county officers
were entrusted with the duty of registering land titles, recording
deeds and probating wills--functions transferred in part from town
officers and in part from the governor and council.

So from Virginia and Massachusetts flowed the two streams of
institutional influence, the former tending to make the county the
exclusive organ of local government, and the other emphasizing the
town. Maryland, though it had started out with a somewhat special type
of organization borrowed from the County Palatine of Durham, with its
manors and hundreds, later came under the sway of Virginian precedents
and three counties were established there in 1650. The Carolinas, which
were not thoroughly organized until the eighteenth century, followed
the Virginia plan in its main outlines. Georgia’s development was not
well begun until after the Revolution. Connecticut, Rhode Island, New
Hampshire and Maine all followed the lead of Massachusetts, though the
first two of these states minimized the importance of the county to an
even greater extent.

To these two lines of influence the central states added the idea of a
distinct administrative authority, which was composed in New York of a
new body made up of the supervisors of the towns, in New Jersey of the
local assessors and in Pennsylvania of special commissioners. These
new departures were established in the latter part of the seventeenth
century. In all of these states, it should be noted, the township also
existed for a limited number of purposes, such as the care of the poor,
for election, administration and for purposes of taxation.

The westward movement of population had begun before the Revolution.
Following in general the parallels of latitude of their native
soil, the pioneers carried their local institutions with them for
transplantation, regardless of the wholly different underlying
conditions that now confronted them. In their closely populated,
homogeneous settlements the New England pioneers that crossed over into
the Western Reserve had been accustomed to act through town meetings.
Nothing would do now but a reincarnation of the old institutions. The
six-mile rectangles into which the surveyors had divided the western
territory gave them their opening. There was accordingly developed in
the open prairie among the isolated homesteads a unit of government
that at least superficially resembled the old New England town. It was
but a geometrical expression, to be sure, but the mere shadow of it
seems to have given satisfaction. But in 1802, when the state of Ohio
was carved out of this territory, this exotic growth was cut short
and the “county-township” system of Pennsylvania was adopted. Indiana
followed Ohio in this step and the system came to predominate in the
Middle West, as for example, in Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.

The instinct for harking back to precedents appeared also in the
early history of Michigan. When it was organized as a territory it
was divided up into counties. But in 1825, under the stimulus of
immigration from New York where the township-supervisor plan was in
vogue, townships had to be established for particular purposes to meet
the prevailing demand for this type of self-government.

In the South, Kentucky and Tennessee took their cues from Virginia
and established the justices in control of the county administrative
affairs. Mississippi and Alabama took Georgia for their model.

In Louisiana, the parish authority corresponding to the board of
supervisors or commissioners is the police jury, which is elected by
wards very much on the principle of the New England town.

In the country beyond the Northwest Territory, the clash of New England
and southern influences was met by an interesting compromise. In
Illinois, for instance, the earliest settlement had been made under
southern auspices. The county type of local government was therefore
established, but of the style employed in Ohio and Indiana rather
than in Kentucky. In 1826, however, the justices were made elective
by precincts and later the township was made a corporation for the
purposes of school, road, justice and poor relief administration. By
1848 the “town idea” had grown strong enough to force the adoption of a
provision in the new constitution for a plan to afford each county an
option between the two systems. The northern counties quickly adopted
the township plan, while the southern ones clung to the original
forms. Wisconsin at an even earlier date (1841) had effected a similar
compromise which, however, was swept away seven years later when the
township system was made mandatory by the constitution. At a later
period Missouri (1879), Nebraska (1883), Minnesota (1878) and Dakota
(1883) permitted the adoption of similar optional laws.

In the new Southwest, the Northwest, the Rocky Mountain region and the
far West, owing in part to the comparative sparsity of settlement and
in part to the thinning out of the definite historical influences, the
county has acquired a greater importance than anywhere in the country
and the towns or townships, while they have been erected in a number of
the states, play but an insignificant part in local government. When
Texas became an independent republic, the American county system was
substituted for the earlier Mexican local government. Before the middle
of the nineteenth century counties had been established in New Mexico,
Utah and Oregon; ten years later in Nebraska and Washington; by 1870 in
Colorado, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and Arizona.

And so, the institution of the county has been driven westward in
obedience to precedent and through the instinct for imitation. Of
thoughtful foresight, of definite planning for a serviceable career,
about the same measure was applied as in the case of Topsy, who “jest
growed.” It could not be otherwise. Local government in pioneer days
had to be thrown together more or less on the “hurry-up” plan. On
the western prairies as in colonial Virginia, public needs were so
limited that it really mattered comparatively little what agencies were
employed.

Counties once established acquired a tendency to “stick” tenaciously to
nearly their original form. Even in the seventeenth century the county
in England was well into a decline. Its disintegration had begun with
the growth of populous centers, that demanded more government, both in
quantity and in variety. The seven Saxon kingdoms whence counties grew,
had ceased to be either natural or convenient self-governing units.
In a later period they have ceased to be even important subdivisions
for the central administrative departments, and they have been crossed
and recrossed by the lines of sanitary and other districts until the
original county may be said to be scarcely distinguishable.

In America even sharper and more pervasive social forces have been
assaulting this ancient institution. In our thinking of the Industrial
Revolution it has been customary to dwell upon its effects in urban
districts. This movement made the modern _city_. But its effect
did not stop there. Modern mechanical devices have also made the
original county boundary lines obsolete. Steam railway lines have
brought into close communication points which were once too distant
to be traversed easily and often, under all sorts of conditions.
Electric railways, in many instances have supplemented the process.
The automobile, particularly of the cheapest type, has brought within
easy reach of the court house points which a hundred years ago, when
the stage-coach was the standard of locomotion, were too remote for
frequent communication. And, finally, the extension of mail facilities
and the telephone have minimized the importance of face-to-face
business intercourse beyond anything ever dreamed of when counties were
first made.

Counties as we see them on the map often fail to take account of the
sweeping changes in the character of populations. On the western
prairies they were formed for a sparsely distributed people following
chiefly agriculture. In the midst of these regions at numerous points
have sprung up great centers of manufacture and commerce like Chicago,
Kansas City, St. Paul, and Omaha. In their train have followed the
multifarious problems of the modern city, which require a very
particular sort of governmental treatment.

To these conditions the county as an institution has consistently
maintained an attitude of stolid indifference. Division of old counties
goes on from year to year. (Bronx county separated from New York in
1914, to the accompaniment of a costly new court house and several
hundred new jobs and no benefit to the taxpayers and citizens except
a heavy increase in taxation.) But who can recall two counties that
have consolidated? Such an exhibition of modernity and of the spirit
of progressivism it is apparently not in the nature of the county to
afford.




CHAPTER IV

FALLING AFOUL OF “DEMOCRACY”


And yet we should do the subject less than justice were we not to
recall an historical adventure that befell the county in the period
of its coming of age, when it was assuming something like its typical
American form.

It was about the time of the Revolution when the atmosphere was
particularly uncomfortable for “tyrants” and for every created thing
that could be given the semblance of “tyranny.”

“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny over those States.” So ran the
Declaration of Independence, and if it was not a precise statement of
fact, it was at least an accurate gauge of the fighting public opinion
that was making political institutions. King George’s “frightfulness”
seems to have been chiefly and most concretely brought into the public
eye in the colonies by the acts of “swarms of officers” that had been
sent over “to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

From the point of view of the British Empire, it was a stiffening up
of the colonial administration to make effective the Navigation Acts,
the Stamp Acts, and similar measures. But it had come too late. Through
a century and a half the spirit of independence had grown firmer and
firmer and the colonists’ sense of identity with the British Empire
had sensibly diminished. So that when the imperial revenue collectors
began to “swarm” on their shores, the colonists were goaded into a
smashing antimonarchical mood. It was no mere temporary fit of rage,
and when physical violence of the Revolution was over, the intellectual
upheaval steadily gathered new force through the influence of men of
the Jefferson school. One of the feats to which the statesmen of the
Revolution devoted themselves was devising means for preventing future
“swarms” and the “tyranny” they brought with them.

What irritated them more than all else was the fact that these imperial
agents were not colonially selected and controlled. But now the people
had replaced the king. _They_ would now select the officers. A
happy thought! But how to work it out; that was the question.

It is easy enough to pick flaws in their handicraft, but it should be
borne in mind that the architects of the nineteenth century American
democracy were working in the dark without models or precedents and
without established principles of organization. It is easy now to look
back and say: “You carried your ‘democracy’ too far. It would have
been not only enough, but infinitely more effective to have let the
people select simply the legislative or ‘policy-determining’ officers
and subordinated the administration to them. The thing to do was to
control the _source_ of power. If you had been careful to separate
‘politics’ from ‘administration’ you would have saved our generation a
whole world of political woe.”

But the fact is that the then existing institutions had come into
being as a patchwork development to meet successive new needs. As for
local government, there was so little of it and it ministered to such
elementary wants that very few serious questions of policy ever rose
within its jurisdiction. Moreover, the officers who came in time to
have regulative or semi-legislative functions, seem to have been from
the beginning, concerned with the details rather than the policies of
government. This was true of the justices of the peace in Virginia, the
selectmen in the New England town, the supervisors in New York, and the
assessors in New Jersey. There was no choice except between selecting
and controlling (or trying to control) administrative officers and
foregoing any part whatever in local affairs.

It is of course not to be understood that no local officers were
elected before the Revolution. Massachusetts had always had its town
“selectmen” and even as early as 1854 each county elected its treasurer
and, beginning at a somewhat later date, the county lieutenants.
Supervisors were created as elective officers in New York in 1691, but
they were executive and representative officers from the very start.
And the same may be said of the town assessors in New Jersey (1693)
and the county assessors in Pennsylvania. But the real precedent for
“electing everybody” was set in Pennsylvania in 1703 when the sheriffs
were first chosen by the people--a step which was followed in 1726 by
the establishment of elective county commissioners.

But immediately after the Revolution the new notions of democracy began
to work more aggressively. Virginia now organized counties and its
constitution stipulated that officers not otherwise provided for should
be elected by the people. Sheriffs and coroners were made elective
under the New Jersey constitution and New York took away the governor’s
power of appointment and vested it in a council of appointment,
which was composed of the governor and four senators chosen by the
legislature.

There were cross-currents in this movement, however, and both in the
Northwest (under the ordinance of 1787) and in Kentucky and Tennessee,
county officers established in the closing years of the eighteenth
century were made appointive, in the one case by the governor and in
the other by the county judges. But in the new constitutions of Ohio
(1802), Indiana (1816), and Illinois (1818), the elective principle
worked without a hitch. Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri followed.
By 1821 the passion had seized New York State, and sheriffs and county
clerks were thereafter elected by the voters of the counties.

In Virginia at the constitutional convention in 1829-30, local
government was the subject of an acrimonious discussion, with the
Jeffersonian influences seeking to break down the established power of
the self-perpetuating justices, who were charged with inefficiency, and
establish in their place the New England town system. But Madison and
Marshall, who were both members of the convention, successfully upheld
the existing order. By the middle of the century both Virginia and
Kentucky succumbed to the democratic influence and there was a complete
reaction from the appointive system. New York extended the elective
idea to district attorneys and county judges, and Massachusetts and New
Hampshire in due time made similar alterations.

In the states west of the Mississippi the tendency to put all the
county officers in the elective class was assumed from the start to be
the only method of insuring popular control.

“The rule of the people” at last captured the whole country, except
Rhode Island, where even the sheriff is still appointive.[2] The
movement was at its height during the long period of democratic
control from Jackson to Buchanan, and it had behind it the powerfully
stimulating spirit of the new West. It was the conception of
practical, direct, but superficial thinkers and politicians. To be
sure, the particular appointive system in use in New York and other
eastern states under the earlier constitutions had behaved badly. The
Jacksonians leaped headlong at the conclusion that the trouble lay in
the idea of appointment _per se_. Other alternatives they did not
for a moment consider, but with an air of supreme finality declared
that “the people must rule”--by electing as many officials as could be
crowded on the ballot.

The fact also that the county possessed no satisfactory appointing
power left no other course but to let the people undertake the
intricate work of an executive. So that through the passing of the
years that single course has materially multiplied the number of
elective officers--the people themselves, enamored with the dogma that
“the cure for democracy is more democracy” looked on complacently while
complication has been heaped upon complication.

In the almost unique opportunity for a simplified government which
has been presented to the people of any county, they have strenuously
and successfully resisted the change. Such an instance happened a few
years ago in the county of San Bernardino, California. The people had
already adopted a county charter in which the powers of the county were
vested in a single small board of elective officers somewhat on the
commission plan now in use in many American cities. It was regarded
by many as the highest type of modernized county organization adopted
up to that time anywhere in the United States. But in the interval
that elapsed between the adoption of the charter and its going into
effect, someone discovered (or thought they discovered) that the people
were about to be deprived of their ancient liberties and that a local
oligarchy was about to be erected. Soon petitions were in circulation
and this perfectly good charter, which had been adopted but never tried
out in practice, was amended so as to nullify the very principle of
organization which pointed to greater simplicity and a better fixing of
responsibility.

For nearly a century popular government has been galloping down the
highway that leads to governmental confusion. Nowhere does the record
state that because the people elected long strings of officers, the
people therefore _controlled_ those officers. All the while the
services which government could render have become more and more
numerous and the public needs of the people more pressing. And all the
while too, the filling and holding of office for office sake has been
vested with exaggerated importance, so that the county more perhaps
than any other civil division has been the home of fictitious political
“issues.” At regularly recurring intervals the nation-wide county
system has been shaken to its foundations over the private futures
of their local Tom Joneses and Tom Smiths. One of these respective
gentlemen must leave his growing law practice and sacrifice his time
to his county by serving papers for the county judge or prosecuting
criminals before the Grand Jury. And none but the people is competent
to judge which of the two it shall be.

Is the district attorneyship to be filled? Then, properly speaking,
there would seem to be nothing to do but to search for the highest
technical ability in sight and place it above the influences of any
consideration but that of preserving the civil rights of the whole
people. It is a simple criterion, around which no “issue” could
properly arise. But popular government has regularly and almost
universally thrown the selection of the public prosecutor over into
the political arena, where tests of fitness for specific duties count
not half so much as a good campaign speech or the ability to swing a
township into the Republican or Democratic column.

In the same way many sheriffs might have set before them the plain duty
to obey the rigid prescriptions of the statutes. But American democracy
has all but universally decreed that sheriffs shall be selected after
the manner of discretionary, policy-determining officers. As for the
coroner, who would suppose that his grim services could be made the
subject of interested, intelligent popular discussion? But the coroner,
in a majority of states, is on the “ticket,” a subject ostensibly
for the citizens to weigh in the balance with a view to the fittest
selection. And then the ballot nearly always bears the candidates
for the office of county clerk. He, like the sheriff, has his duties
minutely described in the laws, to the dotting of an “i” and the
crossing of a “t.” But in the estimation of many good citizens it is
of supreme importance that a good Republican or a deserving Democrat
should be placed in the office, in order, presumably, that the office
forms may be arranged for the filing cases according to the historical
doctrines of one or the other of the national parties.

Never was there a serious movement to elect United States marshals or
district attorneys. Other and more satisfactory methods of selection
have been employed. But for the analogous officers in the states,
nothing but popular choice would satisfy the temper of the young
American republic.

[2] By the legislature.




CHAPTER V

THE “JUNGLE”


The long “bed-quilt” ballot of county officers, as a Chicago
newspaperman called it, at first innocently, and then maliciously,
deceived, misled and disfranchised the “average citizen.” As to the
manner in which this result was brought about, more hereafter.

But aside from all that, the long ballot principle turned out to
be the father of irresponsible organization. Each elective officer
received his commission straight from the people; his accountability
was solely and directly to them. No officer was to be entrusted with
much power for the fear that he might emulate King George and enslave
the county. Government generally was regarded as a natural but more or
less necessary enemy of the people to be tied with a short rope lest it
break loose and do incalculable damage.

To the devotees of this theory, the idea that the county should have
a directing executive head, if indeed it ever received consideration,
was apparently too suggestive of Hanoverian monarchy to be seriously
entertained. This was to be a “government of laws, not of men”--the
people would see that all went well.

It was such a spirit, no doubt, that guided the development of
the county system in an eastern state, which the writer studied a
few years ago. In the course of this effort the interrelations of
officers in a typical unit were diagrammed--with the result shown in
frontispiece. It was found, for instance, that the county clerk who
was “directly responsible to the people” was given duties to perform
under some twenty different laws, the enforcement of which under the
constitution was charged upon the governor as the chief executive of
the state. In fulfillment of these obligations he was found to be
under the direction, among others, of the superintendent of banking,
the superintendent of insurance, the commissioner of excise and the
secretary of state. For the routine of his office he was answerable
to the local board of supervisors. The sheriff, who “took his orders
from the people,” was found to be answerable to the supervisors, the
surrogate and the county judge. The district attorney was put down as
subject to at least three minor state officers besides the governor
and the board of supervisors. The county treasurer looked up (or was
supposed to) to the state commissioner of excise, the state board of
tax commissioners, the commissioner of education, the comptroller and
the state treasurer.

And in all this wilderness of conflicting responsibility there was, be
it reiterated, no single officer who could be called the executive.
The governor, it is true, had power to remove and fill vacancies, but
even this negative control was conditioned by the fact that there
were sixty-one counties in the state, that some of them were hundreds
of miles from the capital and that the governor was charged with a
thousand other responsibilities besides looking after the counties. It
was true that the state comptroller was given power to examine into
the fiscal affairs of the various counties, but this safeguard was of
limited value in practice, owing to the small number of examiners which
the legislature provides.

No, the ingenious Anglo-Saxon mind had discovered a substitute for
efficient personal supervision! If a given officer were to go wrong or
neglect his duties, then the supervisors were authorized to go to the
district attorney and persuade him, if possible, to take action on the
officer’s bond or to institute a criminal prosecution. If the district
attorney was negligent in the matter, the supervisors might go to the
governor with charges of neglect of duty. But if the original officer
in question was just lazy, slow or inefficient, then everybody simply
could wait “till he got round” to doing his duty.

To this day this circumambulation in the name of democracy actually
fulfills the conception of popular rule for no inconsiderable body
of political leaders. Where the system goes wrong, they inject a
little more confusion, a little more irresponsibility into the plan
of government. Take, for instance, the Indiana system. In 1898 the
county government became the subject of a state-wide scandal and was
made the political issue of the year. The governor in his biennial
message followed the good old American custom: more complications, more
division of responsibility. He recommended a system of “safeguards”
which had the effect of taking away power (and responsibility) from
the county board (commissioners) and vesting it in a brand-new body
known as the council, composed of seven members, three elected from the
county at large, and one from each of the four councilmanic districts.
This council was made the tax-levying and money-appropriating body
for the county and no money could henceforth be drawn from the county
treasury except upon their appropriation. It also was given the
sole authority to issue bonds and borrow money. And so the county
governments in Indiana were blocked at just one more point and the
county commissioners were made just one shade less accountable than
they were before the enactment of this ingenious piece of “reform”
legislation.

Two of the New England states developed equally clever methods of
breaking down financial responsibility. New Hampshire, with its boards
of commissioners elected by the people of the counties would seem to be
well-equipped with fiscal agencies. But not so! The commissioners may
only recommend appropriations for county expenses--and a “convention,”
consisting of the members of the House of Representatives of the
various towns then allows, or disallows, them. Such an institution was
created many years ago. Connecticut goes New Hampshire one better by
constituting the convention of the local members of _both_ houses
of the legislature. The convention may not only vote the amount of the
general county appropriation, but the appropriation for any specific
items of county expenditures for the two fiscal years following, or for
the repairs and alterations of county buildings.

Democracy via complication was applied also in the state of New Jersey,
when the legislature of 1898 took from the board of chosen freeholders
(supervisors) of Hudson County the control over the Hudson County
Boulevard. An act passed in that year created a separate new commission
of three members to be elected by the people, upon which was conferred
powers comparable to those of a separate municipality. The commission
was even given the right to maintain a separate police force, to own
and operate a separate electric lighting plant, to employ its own
cleaning and repairing force and to act in other ways entirely separate
from the county road and highway system and independent of the street
departments of those municipalities through which the road lies. This
independent body was authorized to fix its own appropriations and
make them mandatory upon the board of chosen freeholders, to let all
contracts for the construction of the roads under its charge and to
employ a separate engineer.

When Hudson County began to lay out its park system, the disintegration
of the county system was carried a step further. Another wing was added
to the amorphous county structure, a Park Commission to be composed
of four members. These were not to be elected like the Boulevard
commissioners, or appointed by an executive, as is done in most cities,
or chosen by the board of chosen freeholders, but appointed by the
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas! This commission also became a
separate corporation, like the Boulevard Commission, and now has power
to requisition appropriations on the board of chosen freeholders.

But the end of the tale is not yet. In 1912, Hudson County undertook
the extermination of mosquitoes. Another independent board! More
independent mandatory powers of appropriation! And the appointment
of six members in this instance was vested in the Judge of the
Supreme Court. Add to this layout a board of elections, appointed by
the governor, on the nomination of the chairmen of the two leading
political parties, and you have the county jungle in all its primeval
grandeur.

The people of New Jersey were thoroughly consistent in 1900 when
their legislature broke with precedent and undertook to supply their
counties of the first class with some sort of a head by creating
the office of county supervisor. The governing boards of these
counties were at that time composed of representatives from various
municipalities. So it was decided, in order to give the whole people a
voice in the government, to have the new officer elected at large. The
legislature had no notion of giving anyone any new power. They proposed
to further subdivide existing power. True, the law under which this new
office was created, designates the supervisor as the chief executive.
But, as has so often been the case in city charters, this designation
proved to be only a fiction. The law gave the supervisor the right to
remove subordinates, but no instrumentality with which to investigate
the conduct of hundreds of county officers and employees and thus to
make his authority effective. Moreover, he was crippled by the fact
that the board of freeholders might reverse his decisions and reinstate
the officers or employees suspended. But what is of more importance,
the supervisor was given no power of original appointment.

Similarly, Cook County, Ill., acquired a president of the board of
county commissioners, who is elected by the people. Kings County, N. Y.,
before consolidation with New York City, had a supervisor-at-large.
But neither of these dignitaries has or had any powers of appointment
comparable to, let us say, those of the mayor of Cleveland or of New
York. In the general run of counties, the executive is not a single
officer but the governing board itself. Where the “town plan” is in
vogue, as in certain Illinois counties, and throughout New York State,
this body may be very large and unwieldy and is wholly incapable of
supervising administrative detail, except through small committees,
with the added division of responsibility which that implies.

And so, county government everywhere was conceived in a spirit of
negation. The people elect their boards of supervisors or county
commissioners, hoping thereby to keep their fingers on the public purse
through direct agents. The supervisors, in their turn, undertake to
regulate the finances of the sheriff, the district attorney, the county
clerk and the rest. But, lo, these officers are no subordinates of
theirs; they are the people’s humble servants. The supervisors may set
out upon a program of economy and efficiency, including, let us say,
the standardization of supplies. But the county clerk may not recognize
their superior authority, preferring to run his office, to suit his
personal convenience; and if the supervisors undertake to check him he
may find some way of appealing to the people. The superintendent of the
poor, the treasurer and the auditor may likewise go their respective
paces in defiance of all superior authority. If in the course of their
official routine these officers collect sundry fees, they may account
for them or not, as they please, so far as the governing body is
concerned. They may be reached by some slow process of litigation, but
never in the direct summary way that is employed in private business.
It is a fatally ineffectual procedure. And when a dozen or nineteen
officers, chosen by popular election, are thrown together, it is
clear that every one of them is the legal peer of every other, since
everyone acknowledges a common superior. And since the people are a
rather too unwieldy body to look after the details of county business,
each officer must be a law unto himself. And it is perhaps just as
well that none of them has been designated as an official chief, since
the _facts_ of organization would refute and nullify any such
arrangement.

It is as though a board of directors were charged with the control of
a private enterprise, but were expressly denied the power to select
the manager and heads of departments to whom they might delegate their
authority over details.




CHAPTER VI

A BASE OF POLITICAL SUPPLIES


In the course of its democratic adventures the county was incapacitated
for standing on its own feet. When every independent elective officer
became a law to himself, the county ceased to be a single government.
Politically it became then little more than a convenient way of
speaking of a group of officers whose field of activity was closely
related. In these very close relations lay the material for serious
conflicts of interest that brought friction, delays, inaction. County
governments could really get nowhere. Their energies were consumed in
standing still and keeping alive. Since separate officers of the county
had no common superior, the county could not move in any particular
direction; no more than an army of self-directing divisions, each with
a will of its own.

Moreover there came to be counties which could not even organize
themselves, even after the imperfect fashion described in the laws of
the state. The people grew in numbers, their interests increased in
complexity and county affairs sank into comparative insignificance.
In their theory of pure democracy via the ballot, they spread out
their interest in county officers so thin that no single officer got
sufficient attention to make him realize their influence. County
candidates were mixed up on the ballot with a multitude of others,
state, national and municipal, so that it was practically certain
that not only unknown but often undesirable citizens would step into
power with the “people’s” stamp of approval. The voters of New York
have been electing coroners (or have been thinking they did). When
a few people in 1914 began to delve into the history of the office,
they turned up an astonishing situation. Scarcely one of the men who
had been elected to the office in a period of twelve years could be
said to have had even a modest part of the qualifications required for
the positions. Some of the worst rascals of all had been elected in
reform administrations and as one coroner admitted on the stand, the
controlling purpose in mind in the selection was that of “balancing the
ticket” so that geographical sections and racial and religious elements
would get their proper share in the spoils.

Rural electorates probably have done better all along the line with
their county officers than the voters in the cities. Measured by the
standards of personal acquaintanceship, the candidates for county
office have perhaps nearly always been known quantities in the rural
districts. The “glad-hander” and the accomplished back-slapper has
gotten on famously. They have made a business of knowing everybody. And
yet they have sometimes, as private individuals, failed to reveal to
their most intimate friends the qualities which have made them unfit
for a public trust. Placed in offices of conspicuous responsibility
where the sunlight of public opinion and criticism has beat upon them,
it is impossible that many men would have gone far wrong. But since
the work of county officers has had little to do with the shaping of
public policies upon which the average voter has any opinion; since the
county jail has not been a public museum where men were wont to take
their friends and families, and since there has been nothing especially
interesting about the serving of a warrant of arrest or attachment, the
officers involved have not always revealed their innermost personal
qualities. Year after year a smiling popular sheriff might go on doing
these services in the most expensive, inefficient way, with here and
there a touch of corruption; and the great body of voters who met him
every week at the lodge would be none the wiser. In the same way the
voters might elect a “good fellow” superintendent of the poor. They
might continue to know him as a good fellow but it has been a rare
constituency that has followed him up in his official duties to know
how “good” he was to the unfortunates under his care and to the public
in general. It has been a rare good fellow who has combined in his
single person the ability to shake every right hand and kiss every
baby in the county, with a really modern, scientific knowledge of the
treatment of poverty.

The county clerk upon assuming office shuts himself away in a forest
of filing cases and meets the public officially only as they come to
him for a marriage license or to file a deed or mortgage. And as for
the coroner, mostly people have been glad to leave him severely alone,
trusting that no untoward mishap will bring them into his clutches.
For all ordinary purposes they have regarded him as a grim joke, not
knowing that in many cases a misstep on his part might result in the
escape of a criminal or spoil the case of a litigant entitled to
damages or of a policyholder to his insurance.

A possible exception to this inconspicuousness is the district
attorney. American communities appear to have reserved high political
honors to the most efficient and best advertised “man-hunter.” A white
light of public interest has always beat upon the public prosecutor.
Many a reputation for skill and courage and all-around general
administrative ability has been built up around a record of convictions
of notorious criminals. The district attorney with a sense of the
dramatic has usually been in line for the governorship of his state. It
seems also to be regarded as conducive to efficiency that this officer
should be controlled directly through the ballot.

And so, the system of popular election has given no assurance that,
though the people may know them ever so well as individuals, they
would know their candidates in the sense that fixes their electoral
responsibility.

What has had to be done, but what the people of the county have been
unwilling or unable to do for themselves, has given to a public-minded
fraction of the community the opportunity of their lives. They have
generously taken over the people’s government and run it for them.

Gradually there has come to life a new profession, a governing class,
with leadership, discipline and resources. To the acknowledged head
of this fraternity have come aspirants to public honors and seekers
after favors. Power and influence have been laid at his feet. He has
become the virtual dictator of the county’s political destinies. The
laws underlying the organization of the county government have not been
changed; but there has grown up, quite outside the statute books and
outside the court house itself, a second government that has supplied
the great lack in the official, legal one, the lack of a definite head.
The new factor in the county’s affairs has come to exercise the powers
of an executive. _Theoretically_ the people have elected his heads
of departments; practically he has chosen them himself. The people have
retained the forms while he has arrogated to himself the substance of
political power.

He is with us yet, this clever, dominating, often silent personage,
sometimes in a single individual, sometimes in a group, sometimes
benevolent, respectable and public-spirited, sometimes brutal and
mercenary. It may not always be easy to find him, but he is _always
present in every American county_; for there is no stable government
without him.

For the development of his peculiar talents the county is a
particularly favorable environment. For the county, in a word, is in
the shadow--the ideal condition for complete irresponsibility, which is
the father of bossism.

But what do the voters do if they do not in fact elect their officers?

It is now perfectly well known to students of political science that
what the usual run of voter does in such a case is to ratify one or
the other set of candidates who have been previously culled over by
the county committee of either party. It is true that, under the
direct primary system, independent voters may start a revolt if the
politicians do something that is particularly “bold” and “raw.” But
even that privilege is of questionable value, for it breaks down even
the kind of responsibility that obtains under the rule of an unofficial
executive, since the boss, if criticized for a bad selection, is
always able to fall back upon the explanation that “the people did it
themselves.”

And when the votes have been counted and the candidates chosen, what
of the citizens and the politicians then? Armed with a certificate of
election “direct from the people,” the sheriff, the coroner, the county
clerk, owe no _legal_ allegiance to anyone save to them. But the
people have finished watching the election count and have gone home and
back to work on concerns which are infinitely more absorbing than any
which affects the county government.

Then there comes into play another political allegiance which is not
of law. The “governing class,” which gave the separate county officers
their jobs, is not in business for its health. It does not put men
in paid positions out of pure bigness of heart. It performs a public
service and it earns a right to collect a toll. _And it collects!_
The bosses collect “theirs” not only in terms of power to name the
officers whom the people shall elect, but insofar as no bothersome
civil service law is in the way they select also the subordinates. And
through this power of appointment they exercise various other powers
which make them to all intents and purposes the real seat of final
authority in the county.

And so we see the workings of a natural law. In nature the organism
that survives is that naturally selected one that adapts itself to
its environment. Just so the American democracy has adapted itself
to the difficult political situation which it has itself created.
The political unit, which in the present instance is the county, is
legally without a head; forthwith instead of going to pieces, it grows
this necessary piece of anatomy outside its own body, and lo, an
altogether unworkable system is made tolerably workable!

One reason why the boss flourishes so bountifully in the county is
the almost complete lack of any special legal qualifications for
filling the offices (except the district attorneyship). Anybody can be
a county clerk. He need only appoint as his chief deputy a faithful
easy-going person who has been on the job for years at a stretch and
has made himself indispensable as a master of the details of the
office. This deputy will, of course, be the real county clerk and he
will draw a comparatively modest salary because he is of no direct use
to the “organization,” while the elected official collects the high
compensation, spends a little time in the office every day, dividing
the rest between the interests of the “ring” and his own legitimate
private business, which goes right on as usual throughout his term.

Another attraction in the county offices is the large fees which are
paid in probably the majority of counties in lieu of stated salaries.
The county clerk collects from the person immediately benefited, a sum
fixed by statute for each document filed. The sheriff makes similar
collections for the service of each legal process. The coroner draws
from the county a fixed amount for each inquest.

The theory of the fee system is, first, that the service is paid for
by the party whom it most concerns and secondly, that a specific reward
for a specific service will be an incentive to the officer to do his
duty. Nearly everywhere, however, the theory has worked out very badly.
It is doubtless proper that every person who receives special service
should contribute accordingly to the expense of government. In small
counties where the work of the county is limited there seems also to be
much to be said in favor of the officer keeping the fees. But in large
counties having an enormous business the compensation from this source
is often all out of proportion to the amount of service rendered. It
would seem, for instance, that the sheriff of New York County, who is
never a man of special training, would be amply compensated for his
routine services by a salary of $12,000. But in addition to this sum
he is now (1916) receiving annually about $60,000 in fees. The county
treasurer of Cook County, Ill., within very recent years, is said
to have pocketed during his four-year term about the better part of
$500,000,--he was never willing to tell the public just what the amount
was and the law has protected his policy of silence.

But it must not be supposed that these rich prizes remain the personal
property of an individual officer. Nor is it to be supposed that the
numerous deputyships which often provide berths at a much higher
compensation than would be allowed for the same service under private
auspices, go to enrich the head of the office. No, the man or the
men, who put the sheriff or the county treasurer where they are have a
great deal to say about the disposition of this money. In New Jersey,
lest a single county officer should take himself too seriously in this
respect, the law provides that all appointments of the sheriff shall be
confirmed by the board of freeholders--and confirmation means control.
If the Cook County treasurer had kept the fees of his office, it is
hardly to be supposed that the county commissioners for years would
have bitterly fought to prevent an accounting for these funds.

The county is indeed a wonderfully bountiful base of supplies for the
spoilsmen. The circumstance goes far to explain the slow growth of
the merit system in this branch of government. Civil service laws are
in force to-day in eighteen counties in New York, four in New Jersey,
one in Colorado, one in Illinois, two in California and the more
important counties in Ohio. That is the extent of the merit system in
counties. Even in states like Massachusetts, Illinois and Wisconsin,
where state-wide civil service laws affecting cities are in operation,
appointments in the county offices are filled on the principle of
“to the victor belong the spoils.” In New York State the courts have
enunciated a principle with reference to the relation between the
sheriff and his deputies which has the effect of fortifying the system
against attack and its most prolific outlet. For, said the court in
Flaherty _vs._ Milliken,[3] “the relation between a sheriff and
his appointees is not merely that the sheriff is responsible for the
default of his appointee, but that the appointee for said default
is _liable to the sheriff and to no one else_.” “The practical
operation of this rule of personal agency,” says the New York Civil
Service Commission, “is in large measure to open the door for political
purposes of persons in whom no real trust is reposed. These offices are
in practice found to be a haven for political spoilsmen....”

But “spoils” often connotes something besides jobs that pay salaries
or fees. In Westchester County, N. Y., where county affairs are known
to the public rather more intimately than elsewhere (owing to the
activities of the local Research Bureau), it has been found that
perhaps the richest patronage of all is in the county advertising. The
state of New York requires, for instance, the publication in every
county of the complete session laws of the legislature, in two papers.
It means the setting up in newspaper type of two or more large legal
volumes of intricate matter that no one could possibly use in that
form. Then there are multitudinous formal legal notices that issue from
the various offices at the court house, that rarely, in the nature of
the case, interest more than the two or three parties who may never see
them at all. Every paper that prints this material gets paid, often at
a much higher rate than it would be compensated for ordinary commercial
work. In one case an honest printer in Westchester County was so
indiscreet and independent as to submit to the Board of Supervisors
a bill at something approximating a fair rate,--$600. His rivals
remonstrated and undertook to get him to raise his figure--they were
charging $1060 for the same matter. But the independent said: “No, $600
is the legal price and moreover it is good pay.” The board audited his
claim and of course cut down the rival papers accordingly,--but never
thereafter did the county printing go to the man who wanted to be fair
to the public.

Papers that go in for public advertising could not in many cases exist
without it. Indeed many papers are created for the purpose of absorbing
this business. Their circulation is usually limited to a few hundred
copies. They cannot afford to criticize the administration in power or
to express themselves independently on any public issue. Where there
are several such organs in a county (Westchester has about twenty) the
newspaper field tends to be closed effectively against the type of
legitimate journal which would exercise a wholesome influence on public
opinion.

Just to what extent and how intensely this stifling influence exists
throughout the country is one of the really dark secrets of the county
problem. It shows its head in so many widely separated places and
there are so many feeble “boiler-plate” weekly papers that carry county
advertising, that one is led to suspect that it is a very pervasive
factor, especially in rural politics.

The importance of county spoils is not merely local. Throughout the
northern states, except in New England, the county is undoubtedly the
strongest link in the whole nation-wide system of party organization.
Party politicians hoot when reformers suggest that local politics
has nothing to do with the tariff or the Mexican question. And they
are right! Whether properly or improperly, it has _very much_
to do with these questions, or rather with the selection of the men
who handle them. The power, for instance, of Tammany Hall in national
politics is measured by its power to swing the most populous county in
what is usually a pivotal state. Its power in the county is in direct
ratio to the number of offices with which it may reward party service.

Party organization for a great part of the country has the county
committee as its basis. This is especially true of the Republican
Party in Pennsylvania where the present organization dates back prior
to the Civil War. The state committee is chosen from districts based
upon counties and the state machine is an assembling of all the local
cogs and wheels. Politicians think and talk in terms of counties
in their party councils and in the legislature. State machines are
principally an assemblage of county units. In many states legislative
representatives are chosen from county districts.

Trace the political record of the members of Congress. An astonishing
proportion have come up either through county offices or through state
legislative positions filled by general county tickets. To that extent
the national legislature is the fruit of the county system. And is it
not safe to say, with the selection of certain Congressmen in mind,
that the stream of national politics is poisoned at the source?

It is not strange that machine politicians have come to look upon the
county as a source whence blessings flow. The county has both created
and sustained them!

[3] New Jersey courts have rendered a diametrically opposite opinion.




CHAPTER VII

URBAN COUNTIES


The county has been put to its severest test in modern urban
communities.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century began the
away-from-the-farm movement. The discovery of steam power and its
application to every department of industry began to draw men,
women and children from their homes to earn a livelihood in the
new industrial order. It became necessary for them to congregate
in factories; they could no longer spread themselves out over the
countryside. Out of the factory system came the city, came hundreds of
cities along the coasts and rivers and even on the open prairies. New
methods of transportation accelerated the process. The movement has
never stopped; not even yet, when more than a third of the country’s
inhabitants are living in cities of twenty-five thousand inhabitants
and more. Out of the growth of cities came congestion of population;
out of congestion, problems of very existence without number.

The colonial heritage of local government was wholly unadapted to
any such emergency. In simple pioneer communities it was easy to
provide government that met the unexacting standards of the times.
Efficient government was not a live issue. Government, good or bad,
was little needed and there was little of it. And if that little was
ill-conceived, what matter?

But the time came when local government began to feel the strain of new
responsibilities. Cities failed miserably--“conspicuously.” Counties
failed even more miserably but without observation. It was not so much
that local government was called upon to perform more services, but
that it was to adapt itself to new conditions of service, to execute
old forms of service in a more intensive fashion. For instance, in
a general way, the state had charged the county with the protection
of life. Under rural conditions the obligation seems to have been
performed tolerably well, because violations of the law are rarer where
population is thin. A sheriff, with the help of a few constables and
the power to summon citizens to his aid in times of special emergency,
was all the police that was needed in most communities. With the growth
of the city the police problem was intensified even out of proportion
to the numbers of the people. Keeping the peace came to mean no longer
the mere matter of quelling disturbances. The city with its teeming
population not only bred violence and disorder, but it afforded
opportunities for immunity through concealment. A new police problem
quite foreign to the capacities of the ancient office of sheriff grew
up. The city had to meet the professional, scientific criminal with
specialized instrumentalities and organization. Crowds on the congested
city streets had to be taken care of and numerous other incidentals of
the congested city had to be foreseen.

The city likewise developed an entirely new problem of public charity,
which quite outgrew the capacities of that amateur sociologist, the
county poormaster.

The coroner, too, sadly missed the mark in numerous cases. In the
new industrial order in the cities, not only was criminal violence
multiplied but industrial fatalities added heavily to the terrors of
city life for the working class. The civil liabilities which were
imposed upon employers and upon insurance companies made it more than
ever important that every sudden or suspicious death be investigated
with the utmost scientific thoroughness. Such service it was of course
impossible for the untrained elective political coroner to render, and
the world will never know the costly mistakes that are chargeable to
his inexpertness.

In the fullness of time court organization also revealed the necessity
for differentiation between various classes of cases which were
presented for settlement. Again, the protection of life against
communicable diseases and of property against fire were two functions
that the rural local government had completely overlooked or neglected,
and when urban conditions arose in the midst of the county there was
nothing in the original local government machinery that could be made
to respond to these needs. The county was apparently stereotyped to
minister to local conditions as they were conceived in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Its organization was merely adapted to
perform the simple cut-and-dried services that had been laid down for
it in centuries gone by. Its expansion into new and bigger fields of
service seems never to have been seriously considered.

But the pungent fact is that counties, when they have ceased to serve
the needs of urban life, have been so slow to retire from the field.

What state has stripped the sheriff of his power to interfere in a riot
or a strike to the infinite annoyance of the thousand per cent. more
competent police force of the city? How very few states have shown the
coroner the door and replaced him with a scientifically trained medical
examiner! Not less ridiculous the board of county supervisors in great
cities like Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee, solemnly ruling over a
territory almost identical in its extent with the bailiwick of the city
authorities. Why should not a single body do all the local regulating?

And so, the urban county problem is first of all a question of
ill-adapted instruments of government perpetuated long past their
period of utility.

In the second place it is a matter of duplication and conflict of
organization and effort as between the city and the county. When the
charter in Los Angeles County was revised in 1912 it was found that in
the urban communities three separate groups of officers were charged
with keeping the peace: the sheriff and his deputies, the constables
of the several townships and the police of the city. Their duties
were substantially the same, they covered the same ground. The public
scattered its civic attention accordingly. It was this same state
of California which within the last twenty years has authorized its
cities to have separate tax assessors--two sets of officials to go
out and get precisely the same information. Ever since that time the
taxable property in the city has been rated differently by the two sets
of officers. And the reason? Apparently a double one: to enable the
individual counties to beat down their proportion of the state tax and
at the same time to allow the cities to raise their valuations and keep
down the tax rate. The political value of a double set of officers is
of course not to be overlooked.

An unpublished report of the City Club of Milwaukee reveals a
paralleling of city and county services at numerous points. The city
was found to be maintaining an emergency hospital, a tuberculosis
sanitarium and a corps of milk inspectors, while the county maintained
similar services through a general hospital, a tuberculosis
sanitarium, a visiting physician and a district nurse. The county jail
and the police station were in close proximity but under separate
jurisdictions. Where the county handled public works through an
engineering department the city operated through a highway department,
each unit requiring practically the same sort of administrative and
technical direction. City and county did their purchasing separately
and in the respective public works departments there was a duplication
of testing laboratories and of engineering and other service records.
Separate city and county regulative or governing bodies added
materially both to the expense of government and to the number of
elective officers.

Then again, the urban county, including judicial officers, has
contributed more to the length of the ballot than any other division
of government. In the year 1910 before the adoption of the present
charter, the Los Angeles city ballot, which has been frequently
exhibited as a horrible example, contained the names of candidates for
forty-five separate offices. Twenty-eight of these belonged to the
county-township system!

The Chicago voter, as the result of the early influences plus the
additions to the number of offices which have been made from time to
time, casts a ballot for about twenty-five candidates, including the
sheriff, the treasurer, county clerk, clerk of the probate court, clerk
of the criminal court, president of the county commissioners, ten
county commissioners, judge of the county court. The voter in Omaha, in
addition to the usual run of county officers, selects also thirty-two
deputy tax assessors, all on a single ballot. In most states these
officers are chosen on the same day and on the same ballot with a long
list of state and judicial officers, so that the county election is
only an incidental and minor issue in the whole complicated business.

On election day the urban county offices are usually found at the
bottom of the ballot. Usually numerous and obscure enough in their own
right in the country districts, their contributions to the obscurity of
voting in the city are more than doubly important.

When to an immoderately long ballot, to duplication of functions
as between county and city, there is added a multiplicity of local
government units, all considerations of responsibility in government
or intelligence of citizenship fall to the ground. Such is the case
in Cook County, Illinois, where the Bureau of Public Efficiency
has issued a striking little pamphlet on _The Nineteen Local
Governments in Chicago_. (The number has since been increased
to twenty-two.) Twenty-two separate taxing bodies, and one hundred
and forty-four officials which every Chicago voter is expected to
choose! Is it a wonder that “Mr. Voter,” to quote the title of an
accompanying cartoon, is “dazed?” As the pamphlet says: “The large
number of local governments in Chicago, with their very large number
of elective officials, independent of one another, operates to produce
not only inefficient public service but an enormous waste of public
revenues. The present multiplicity of governing bodies, with a lack
of centralized control and the long ballot, results in confusing
complexity and makes gross inefficiency and waste on a large scale
inevitable.”

The city too has proven itself an altogether unfavorable environment
for clean, active county citizenship. A thousand and one preoccupations
and distractions in the city have strongly tended to drive the
populace to forget that it even lives in a county. The county does
little for the city dweller. It does not keep his house from burning
or his pockets from being picked. It does not build the streets on
which he travels nor perform any humane services which could stir his
admiration. The sheriff is no neighbor of his nor does he hear of
that officer from one year’s end to another, unless it be his rare
fortune to be a party to some legal action. The newspapers, to be
sure, are apt to give a great deal of space to criminal trials and
feature the activities of the district attorney. But even that is apt
to be directed more to metropolitan sensationalism than to helpful
citizenship.

The greater the power entrusted to the municipalities within the
county, the more interesting things it is given to do, in just that
measure does the county itself suffer from inattention on the part of
the citizens, till the extreme is reached in a condition described in
a report on Cook County by Prof. F. D. Bramhall of the University of
Chicago:

 “The city corporate stands in the mind of most men for their local
 government; it has its picturesque history, its visible physical
 embodiments, its corporate personality, its stimulus to the pride
 of its people and its claim upon their loyalty. The county can make
 no such appeal, and it is a political fact to be reckoned with that
 however you may urge that the county is an essential part of city
 government, that the city electorate is almost equivalent to the
 county electorate, and should assert an equal proprietorship, it is
 almost impossible to overcome the obsession that the county is an
 alien thing. There is no more serious consequence of the parceling out
 of our local governmental powers and the shattering of responsibility
 for our municipal housekeeping than just this forfeiture of the sense
 of identification with government and the force of local patriotism
 which should be a tremendous asset for American political government.”

Without a doubt, the urban, and particularly the metropolitan county,
is the county at its worst.




CHAPTER VIII

COUNTY GOVERNMENTS AT WORK


“Granted the truth of all you say; that every county officer stands on
his independent pedestal of authority, that the county is a headless
institution where responsibility is scattered in a thousand different
directions; that urban counties are the weakest brothers in the
political family--granted all that, but what of it?”

So cogitates the “average American”--or so it would seem. If he reads
his county paper consistently he has been held in his seat over and
over again by the hackneyed lines of Pope:

  “For forms of government let fools contest;
  What e’er is best administered is best.”

After a long course of mental stimulation along these lines, we are
quite prepared to hear him remark that after all what really counts
for government is MEN--an observation which is supposed to
silence all contradiction. Your “average” friend, if he has more than
an average political energy, then goes out and helps to see that the
“right sort” of man is elected coroner.

There is undoubtedly more than an element of truth and wisdom in all
these sentiments. The industrial world is coming more and more to
believe that the great essential in coöperative effort of any sort is
not plan of organization, not methods, but personnel--men. And even
government presents instances of men who have “made good” conspicuously
against a form of organization which favored insubordination, against
the interference of invisible powers, against the hundred and one
cunningly devised handicaps to good administration.

We might with good grace take kindly to a system that brought
distinguished, capable, honest, well-qualified men for the public
service. If we could get good men and good administration as the normal
output of the existing systems of county government, there would be
satisfaction all around.

But does the typical American government work that way? We shall
examine in this chapter the relationships between the system, the men
and the product.

To get the right angle on the subject, we should put ourselves in the
position of, let us say, the sheriff of Pike County. He is a likable,
popular fellow--that is how he happens to be sheriff. His likability,
his popularity, have made him a particularly valuable adjunct of the
Pike County Republican (or Democratic) organization. In the election
campaign he has proven himself a vote-getter, he has given the
organization a respectable tone. And now that he is in office his
congenital good nature has not been changed. His popularity has been
due to his unfailing loyalty to his friends and supporters. These good
people swarm about him on the first day of his term and he has it not
in his heart to refuse the only favor within his power to grant.

So much for one set of claimants upon his favor. But there is also the
whole body of his supporters, the general electorate and the tax-paying
contingent of the county; they have a claim upon him too and the new
sheriff enters upon his duties with a sincere desire to serve them by
running his office in the most efficient and economical manner. The
significant part of the whole business is that these two ambitions are
more than likely to prove inconsistent. Personal friendship dictates
that he should hand out deputyships to “the boys” of his own heart;
public service, that he should ignore the claims of friendship and
man his office with competent assistants, regardless of personal,
political or ecclesiastical connections. And so the new officer,
through a situation not of his own making, is caught in a dilemma.
Probably nine out of ten county officials either resolve the difficulty
on the grounds of friendship or strike a compromise between their
conflicting desires--and the efficiency of the office in either case
is impaired. Every man coming into an office with favors to dispense
has strings attached to his person. He cannot look his public duties
quite squarely in the eye, but has always to qualify every new plan,
every selection of a subordinate with “What will the county chairman
say?” And if he has ambitions to hold office for a second term, or to
go higher, he is naturally careful about irritating the goose that lays
the golden egg. For the county chairman is not apt to be keen about the
plans for economy or reducing the number of jobs for “the boys.” Such
plans do not fit in with his requirements.

The system hamstrings the man. Once a county officer in New Jersey
needed two additional clerks. Believing, however, that the board of
chosen freeholders was following a strict program of economy, he went
to them asking for four new men, with the thought that his requisition
would be cut in half. But not so. The official and the board were of
opposite parties. A member of the board came around and remarked that
“you need _eight_ new men.” The officer is said to have taken the
hint and jobs were accordingly provided for four deserving members of
each of the leading parties.

In such cases it is clearly not personality but the system that
dominates.

The enforced division of allegiance between party and people is but
a single source of personal inefficiency. Under the much lauded
“government of laws” that reaches the heights of absurdity in the
county, the chance of effective law enforcement is reduced to a
minimum. Take it for instance in the exact compliance with statutory
procedure. The sale of a piece of real estate for non-payment of taxes,
for instance, must be conducted in accord with a detailed series of
steps set forth in the law, or the title of the property is clouded.
Claims for payment for services rendered or material supplied, may
also be legally allowed only after the proper formalities have been
observed. And in countless other directions the efficiency of the
county officers and employees must be measured principally by a
meticulous obedience to the law.

But contrast the necessity with the performance: The former chief of
the Bureau of Municipal Accounts in the Comptroller’s office of an
eastern state, after examining the affairs of fifty-six counties,
was able in 1914 to say: “In not a single county examined has there
been found compliance with every provision of law. On the contrary,
in each of the counties examined serious irregularities in financial
transactions have been disclosed, and the taxpayers’ money illegally
expended, in some cases beyond recovery.”

The comptroller’s agents examined the affairs of county “A.” Of the
transactions for the year ending October 31, 1913, they said: “County
administration during that year was carried on, in many important
respects, illegally, and in many cases the officials completely ignored
the law, resulting in waste of public money, amounting to many
thousands of dollars.” The former treasurer of this county, according
to the official report, “had, it would seem, no proper conception of
the legal duties imposed upon him. He made payments of unauthorized
drafts of committees of the board.... His important statutory duty to
pay only on proper legal authority apparently constituted meaningless
words.” The same authority reported that:

 “The board of supervisors ordered payments that were without authority
 of law, to the extent of many thousands of dollars. The illegalities
 in the audits of the board of supervisors were particularly
 objectionable because of the fact that many of the subjects of
 criticism were called to the board’s attention in the report of
 a former examination. Illegal payments under such circumstances
 became a defiance of legal restriction.... The administration of
 the poor fund was not in accord with the law and through a failure
 of the officials to understand the requirements of the law and the
 necessities of the county, the lack of proper coöperation between the
 county treasurer, the superintendent of the poor, and the board of
 supervisors, confusion resulted in the poor fund finances and a large
 deficit accumulated which was financed by illegal temporary loans....
 The county has suffered to a material extent from inefficiency,
 indifference to law and neglect.”

That discoveries were by no means local or unique is indicated by
periodical complaints that have come up from other parts of the
country.

Was it men, as such, or was it not also a system that gave rise to the
evidences of bad government in County “B.”? Did it simply _happen_
that the treasurer, the county judge, the district attorney, the
sheriff and the justices of the peace were all breaking the laws at
once? Is it to be supposed that law-breaking flourished naturally in
the atmosphere of that particular region? The performances of these
officers are both so instructive and picturesque that they will bear a
brief recounting here.

The examiners of the affairs of this county a few years ago turned up
this quaint little document:

  “ELLENBERG CENTER, Nov. 21, 1900.

  County of....................., Dr.,
    to Wellington Hay.

  1898, Sept. 22. To 7 days’ labor with deputy
    sheriff looking up stolen horse              $14.00
  To paid all expenses
    per above                                     15.60
                                                 ------
                                                 $29.60

 “Mr. Hay performed services in following up two horse thieves who had
 stolen his horse at my request as sheriff, one of the men, George
 Burnham, had several indictments against him in this county and all
 who knew his doings were anxious for his capture, I certainly think
 Mr. Hay should be paid.

  “C. W. VAUGHAN,
  “_Late Sheriff_.”


In this instance, Mr. Hay, a deputy sheriff, was charging the county
for chasing up _his own_ horse. The county treasurer who paid this
claim was the one who, in spite of very definite provisions of law, had
failed to designate the banks which should have custody of the county
funds, and deposited them with a favored institution which paid the
county no interest; who failed to keep any cash book or any account
with any bank even on the stubs of his check book; who allowed at least
one creditor of the county to collect an illegal claim four times.
This is the county in which the county judge was found to have his
own private law offices elaborately furnished with all the up-to-date
filing devices and blanks, all at the public expense; in which the
coroner reports that between the 13th and the 19th of May he had worked
_fifteen days_ and collected in full from the county. The records
of practically every other officer in the county revealed similar
irregularities and a similar lack of any fine sense of the interests of
the public.

Did it just _happen_ that the people of county “A” or county “B”
elected none but law-breakers to office? Was it the character of the
officers which alone was responsible for “inefficiency, indifference to
law and neglect?” Would the condition have been different with another
average set of men in office?

This is certain: that upon the officers of county “A” was imposed
the duty of enforcing laws which were both intricate and difficult
for a layman to find, and when found, to understand. But over and
above all this, there was no constant discipline of a responsible
organization and no certain and swift penalty for non-compliance with
or disobedience of the law.

So difficult is the case, in fact, that it would seem from reports
emanating from different parts of the country, that county officers
have long ceased to worry about the legality of most of their acts. A
common practice is not to investigate the law at all but to look back
over the work of predecessors and follow in their tracks--an easier and
more natural method for the untrained mind than to seek legal authority
for action at its fountainhead in the statutes. But it makes a joke of
the statutes! And when, in the absence of a powerful executive head,
these written laws, which constitute most important connecting link,
between the various county officers, are broken, the directing hand of
the state is perforce withdrawn.

The failures of government in these counties were due in no small
measure at least to the system, rather than to the individual men. No
mere “good” man would necessarily have been better qualified or more
inclined to look up the law and follow it implicitly. For it is not of
such qualities that political “goodness,” from the voters’ standpoint,
consists!

Nor are these minor delinquencies the sole products of the evil system.
In Hudson County, New Jersey, with a citizenry somewhat less alert
and with state officials a little less vigilant, the essential factors
present in the counties mentioned gave rise to positive conscienceless
and willful waste of public funds. The story is illuminating:

The building of the court house was begun under an act of the
legislature which authorized a committee of the board of chosen
freeholders to purchase such lands and erect such county buildings
as might be needed. The committee was empowered to appoint its own
counsel and architect to go ahead and build. The only limitation upon
its powers was that it should spend not to exceed four fifths of one
per cent. of the county ratables. This was a restriction which, under
the amount of ratables as of the time when the project was authorized,
would have permitted a maximum expenditure of about $1,580,000. But
before even the contracts had been let the growth in valuations had so
increased that the committee might legally spend $7,500,000.

The original figure for the cost of the court house had been $990,000,
but before the citizens of the county were aroused it reached
$3,328,016. Investigation revealed such extravagance and carelessness
with the county’s money in every detail, that the legislature in 1911
abolished the committee and created a court house commission, the
members of which were to be appointed by the Justice of the Supreme
Court.

The building of county court houses under just such auspices and
with a similar outcome is a characteristic bit of local history the
country over. But county shortcomings do not always stop at willful
extravagance. Sometimes it is a tale of grafting of the grossest sort,
of which typical conditions a story is related by Herbert Quick, who
had charge of an investigation into the affairs of Woodbury County,
Iowa, some twenty years ago. The county supervisors apparently had
traveled unobserved, unchecked, along the same road but further, as the
officers of county “A” and the court house committee of Hudson County.
Says Mr. Quick:

“A supervisor would draw thousands of dollars from the road and bridge
funds on his own warrant, put the money in his pocket, and account
for it by turning in receipts for road or bridge work. Some of this
work was done and some was not. Most of the receipts were signed by
political supporters of the supervisors. To some of them were signed
names of persons who never existed.

“Everything the county bought was extravagantly bought. Any dealer who
was willing to put in padded bills could get the chance to sell his
goods.

“There was a regular system of letting bills go unpaid so that the
persons furnishing the goods would put in the statements the second
time, after which they would be paid twice--once to the firm to which
they were really owing, and again to one or more of the county ring.
In most cases the merchant furnishing the goods never knew of the
double payment. They had a system of orders and receipts by which the
merchant was kept in ignorance.

“In some cases the approaches to bridges were built and charged twice,
once to the road fund and once to the bridge fund. The man who did the
work got one payment and the grafters got the other. The people paid
twice in these cases, and sometimes three times.

“A merchant sold some blankets to the county for the use of the
prisoners in the jail. He was allowed about a hundred dollars on the
county claim register, but refused to accept the payment and sued the
county. In court he recovered judgment for all he claimed, and was paid
out of the judgment fund. The general fund claim he had refused to
accept showed as unpaid. Somebody on the inside went to him and got an
order for ‘any sums due me from the county’ and drew the original bill
over again. So the county paid the original allowance, the amount of
the judgment, and the costs of the lawsuit. Rather dear blankets!

“Orders of this sort were drawn in the names of the people who had been
dead for years.

“This is a sample of the sort of work which prevailed in that county,
and which plunged the county into debt from which it will not recover,
the way things generally go, for generations.”

In Indiana the leaven of obscurity and irresponsibility had long been
working when the state board of accounts took up its work in 1909. The
records of that office since that time show that more than one million
six hundred thousand dollars had been charged against local officials
and partly recovered. The board states that in their belief fully
ninety per cent. of this was not due to deliberate wrongdoing but to an
indulgent indifference, resulting in an almost endless confusion and
incomplete accounts. Like the county officers in many another state,
the officials in the Indiana counties, according to a message of former
Governor Mount, “had been following precedents on an ascending scale.”

If the whole trouble lies in the personnel of government, there is
either no real county problem or else the problem is unsolved. If it
is merely a matter of men, the voters of the county need only, when
the next election falls due, to “turn the rascals out” and elect more
promising successors. But then that is what the voters have been doing
these many years, and county government has not materially improved!

But if when the “good man” theory has been tested to the limit and
found wanting, nothing else appears, may it not be suggested that the
system has much to do with the man first in his selection and then in
the influence that determines his conduct? The officers in the counties
cited were creatures of the flesh. They found themselves involved in
an organization which not only gave them little or no moral support,
but which actually surrounded them with temptation to loaf, to commit
errors and to steal. They were under no discipline to obey the law or
to treat the interests of the county with any due consideration.

In the realm of government, as in the department of horticulture, it
would appear that figs are not gathered from thistles.




CHAPTER IX

THE HUMANITARIAN SIDE


But the delinquencies of the county are not wholly related in terms
of finance. Some good friend of the system is sure to come forward
with the remark that “county policies, like every other branch of
the business, may be expensive, but it has a good deal of wholesome
humanity about it.”

A view that is worth examining!

To the lot of the county, acting through the machinery and under the
influences which have been described, has fallen in large part, the
extensive and important governmental burden of looking after the poor
who are always with us, the sick in mind and those in prison. The
magnitude of this task in a populous center may be gathered from this
summary of the humanitarian functions of Cook County, by Dr. Graham
Taylor.

“It housed, fed and cared for about eleven thousand prisoners in the
county jail, nearly ten thousand of whom required medical treatment for
infectious diseases.

“It gathered in, temporarily cared for and committed to state asylums
or discharged, 2334 insane patients.

“It assumed and maintained care for 10,597 delinquent and dependent
children.

“It isolated and stamped out contagion.

“It housed, fed and furnished medical and surgical treatment for 34,000
sick people, 1000 tuberculosis patients, and 3000 aged, infirm or
irresponsible people.

“It supplied food, clothing and fuel to about 200,000 persons; buried
978 pauper and friendless dead, and granted $165,000 to 350 indigent
mothers for the support of 1126 children. To perform this service it
required the full time of 3000 employees and part time of about 10,000
others. The appropriations of Cook County for 1913 total $7,072,486.96.”

Such is the budget of what we may call the human problem of a great
metropolitan county. Between the services rendered in such a unit and
those of a sparsely settled, back-country county, almost anywhere in
the United States, the difference is one of degree rather than of kind.

This is the ancient heritage of the church, which it has gradually
transferred to the shoulders of the State, beginning at a time when
the treatment of unfortunates was yet mostly a matter of getting
undesirable citizens out of the way without actually assassinating
them. The recipients of relief in early times were all treated as just
so much of a public charge and all were obliged to wear the letter
“P.” There was no science of penology, and the insane were treated
as possessed of devils. Modern institutional care was practically
undreamed of.

But the care of unfortunates within the last half century has come
under the dominion of the scientific spirit. The old way was to
“bunch” all kinds of poor and all kinds of dependents and all classes
of criminals, regardless of all antecedent circumstances and all
hope of betterment. Science, on the other hand, has demanded first,
investigation into the causes and nature of crime and deficiency, then
classification of cases. New York led the way in the treatment of
these social relief problems by starting the process of segregation.
In the early part of the nineteenth century the almshouses in America
and the workhouse in England began to be built, as an expedient for
facilitating investigation of applicants and decreasing expense. These
institutions were soon used to house all sorts and conditions of men,
women and children. Says one authority[4]:

 “If you went into an almshouse in any of the counties of this State
 as recently as the ’70s of the last century, you would have found a
 mixture of the aged, who were in the almshouse simply because they
 were old and misfortune had come to them and they had lost their
 money and were therefore obliged to spend their last days in the
 almshouse. In addition, you would find children of all ages, beginning
 with infants. A large number of infants, especially illegitimate
 children, would be housed in the same building and would be cared
 for promiscuously with the older groups. You would also find large
 numbers of the insane, as there was no separate provision for them at
 that time. So with the epileptic and feeble-minded and every class of
 dependent vagrant and inebriate. It was a veritable dumping-ground for
 all sorts and conditions of humanity.”

In the movement for segregation of cases the first step was to secure
a prohibition against the commitment of children to the almshouses.
Special provision was later made for the insane. From time to time
other classes of cases, including the feeble-minded, the epileptics and
vagrants, have been transferred for appropriate treatment elsewhere.
Later came the public health movement, the basic idea of which is
the segregation of the sick poor from those who are sound in body
but destitute. Even at the present time the almshouses are used for
inebriates.

In a later period the standards for the treatment of prisoners have
been advanced somewhat more slowly but along the same scientific
principle of classification and segregation, but less with reference to
psychological and sociological causes or the nature of crime than to
the conveniences of administration. But segregation has been prescribed
by law in generous measure according to certain crude principles of
decency and justice. Thus the New York Prison law provides at least ten
classifications, involving separation of men from women, men from boys,
persons awaiting trial from those under sentence, civil prisoners and
witnesses from criminal prisoners.

So much for the modern standards. Against such standards the success or
failure of the county as a humanitarian agency must be measured.


THE POOR

First as to the poor.

We can do no better than to recount the performances of certain typical
states. Certainly in New York the substantial improvement of this
class has come through no strong impulse within the county itself, but
rather as the result of the activities of unusually strong volunteer
organizations which forced the fact of the evil conditions upon the
attention of the officers and the people of the county and upon the
state in general. But lest it should be supposed that New York State
is a model in this field, let it be recorded that when by more or
less of an accident Mr. V. Everit Macy, a real friend of scientific
charity, was elected to the office of superintendent of the poor, he
found a system more ideally fitted to take care of “the boys” in the
“organization” than the poor themselves. In describing the system he
said:

“The law ingeniously divides responsibility so that the superintendent
has no power over the admissions to the almshouse or hospitals or of
children to institutions but only the negative power of discharge,
while the local committing officials have little control after the
adult or child is committed. This often results in setting up an
endless chain of commitments and discharges, for, as fast as the
superintendent discharges an adult or a child, the local official may
recommit.

“The superintendent is on a salary but practically all the overseers
are paid on a _per diem_ basis, and the justices of the peace are
paid a fee for each commitment. If an Overseer issues an order for
groceries or signs a commitment, he can collect his two dollars for a
day’s work.

“Could ingenuity devise a more absurd and wasteful method of relieving
suffering or one where responsibility and control could be more
disastrously divided to the injury of the taxpayer and the poor?”[5]

The same authority is responsible for the statement that “the
greatest injustice to the individual and injury to the state is now
done through the haphazard handling of the cases of delinquent and
destitute children.” Overseers of the poor, justices of the peace,
police magistrates and judges can all commit children and most of these
officials have a monetary interest in committing. Few of them have
any means of investigating cases before acting and fewer still have
any training to fit them to deal wisely with either the destitute or
delinquent child.

But what of other states?

In Missouri where poor relief is a function of the county court, a
county almshouse is maintained and a certain amount of outdoor relief
is dispensed. Professor Isador Loeb[6] of the University of Missouri
reports:

 “While the county board is authorized to maintain a county hospital
 for the sick poor, this has been done in only one county. Nine
 counties still use the primitive system of sending the poor to board
 with private families. Most of the counties in abandoning this system
 have bought a farm and employed a superintendent to look after the
 poor and use them as far as possible on the farm. As a result the
 almshouse in the majority of the counties is a farmhouse, and the
 county is apparently more interested in the successful management of
 the farm than the welfare of the inmates. While a number of counties
 have erected modern buildings, the physical conditions in most of the
 almshouses are very bad.”

With respect to Pennsylvania, the special agent of the department of
public health and charities writes[7]:

 “Twenty-seven counties have now accepted the Children’s Aid Society as
 their agent for the care of dependent children. In the other counties
 nearly every possible method of caring for children is represented
 in the courses chosen. Where the township system is in use, the few
 dependent children are placed out by adoption or indenture, by the
 overseers themselves. Several counties have built homes for the
 children, an expensive method, with no merit so far as the favorable
 situation of the children is concerned. Some of the overseers place
 the children in institutions, while others use private homes to some
 extent, controlling and supervising the children themselves.”


THE INSANE

In no branch of humanitarian service is segregation, classification,
even to the point of individual treatment, more essential than in the
care of the insane. New Jersey puts no inconsiderable number of her
mentally afflicted on a par with offenders against the criminal law
for, according to the Commission on the Care of the Mental Defectives
for the year 1913, fifteen counties had confined insane persons in
penal institutions, in some cases for periods of from 85 to 223 days.
The State Charity Commission in Illinois recently reported that in
spite of a provision of the statutes forbidding such practices, only
eleven of the 102 counties did not so offend. Louisiana is reported to
have many lunatics in its parish jails.

In but few states are there no insane in the county almshouses, for
at least temporary confinement, and particularly is this true in the
South and Middle West. In such institutions a condition sometimes
prevails that staggers imagination. For the state of Pennsylvania, Dr.
C. Floyd Haviland has summed up the situation in these words:

 “As a result of the existing system, in these institutions, custodial
 care is generally substituted for active remedial treatment directed
 to the improvement or the recovery of the insane as such. As a
 rule, medical treatment for physical ills is satisfactory, although
 such is not invariably the case. With but few exceptions, the
 county institutions have no special medical facilities, nor can
 it be expected that such facilities can be provided under present
 conditions, for, with the comparatively small number of patients
 treated in the respective institutions, such provisions would require
 a prohibitive _per capita_ expense; but as a result of such
 lack of facilities, mechanical means of restraint and confinement
 are substituted for proper personal treatment and attention. With
 but a limited number of attendants, enclosed exercise yards and
 personal restraint and seclusion must inevitably result. Under
 existing conditions, one cannot blame the caretakers of the insane for
 resorting to such means, for while restraint and seclusion can and
 should be abolished, they cannot be successfully abolished without
 the substitution of other means of dealing with the disturbed insane,
 such as hydrotherapy, occupational training, and close personal
 supervision. In this connection it is agreeable to note that little
 evidence was obtained of actual physical abuse, but that gross neglect
 exists is indisputable.

 “That the theory of county hospitals for the chronic insane only
 does not obtain in actual practice is but a necessary result of the
 prevailing custom of determining the question as to whether a patient
 shall be committed to a state hospital, regardless of prognosis or
 medical issues, in many instances the decision being made by local
 lay authorities without medical advice. It is certain that many acute
 cases have lapsed into chronicity in the county hospitals simply for
 lack of proper treatment. Dreary, desolate wards, lack of recreation,
 or other means of exciting or maintaining active interest are alone
 sufficient not only to hinder improvement or recovery, but must
 necessarily result in actually hastening the terminal process of
 deterioration.”[8]

Writing concerning the treatment of the insane in Texas, Dr. Thomas
W. Salmon, of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene calls county
almshouse care of the insane the “saddest and most sordid spectacle
in American community life.” For a graphic picture of the practical
significance of the system in one of the almshouses in that state the
reader is urged to read the extracts from Dr. Salmon’s address in the
Appendix of this volume.


COUNTY PRISONS

But what of the treatment of the prisoner?

The county theoretically has very little to do with persons convicted
of serious offenses. By far the greater number of the inmates of the
prison are persons awaiting trial and therefore presumably innocent of
wrongdoing. The minimum standard of justice demands that such persons
be kept apart from hardened criminals. We shall see how this and other
standards are observed in the county.

To begin with, it should be noted that the head of the jail,
universally, is the sheriff. Bear in mind that this officer in
forty-seven states is elective, that his term is usually very short,
that he is usually ineligible to succeed himself and that he has
numerous special duties to perform. It is therefore obvious that
nothing but an exceptional piece of good luck can bring to the head of
the jail an expert penologist. Often, too, he will be under contract
with the board of supervisors to supply the prisoners with food at as
good a profit to himself as may be.

In this atmosphere it is certainly not to be expected that the finest
flowers of penology should grow. Massachusetts has so far fallen
below standard as to call forth this stinging description from the
Massachusetts Prison Association:

 “In fact, in the county prisons nothing is done but to give the
 inmates custodial care. The man who goes to the reformatory is dealt
 with with a definite purpose to reform him. Another man goes to a
 county prison and comes out unchanged.

 “Even worse is the indiscriminate association of all sorts of
 criminals in the county prisons. Beginners in crime are forced into
 close contact with hardened criminals. Men who are committed for
 being too poor to pay their fines for petty offenses, are compelled
 to associate with men who have spent their lives in crime. The county
 prison is, inevitably a school of crime.”[9]

The Prison Association in New York State is scarcely more complimentary
concerning the prison conditions in that state. According to Mr.
O. F. Lewis,[10], its secretary, the requirements of the statutes
respecting the classification of prisoners appear to be systematically
violated. Jails are frightfully overcrowded. The buildings are faultily
constructed and unsanitary. For a prisoner to make a six-months’ stay
in one of them is to undergo “the most serious possible contamination.”

The condition of the jails in Illinois is apparently no better, for
the State Charities Commission reported recently,[11], there had been
little improvement since the first examination of the former State
Charities Board in 1870. A large majority of the jails were reported to
be old and unsanitary. In seventy-two of one hundred and two counties,
the law requiring the segregation of minors from adults was violated
and in eleven counties there was no provision for women.

And so it goes. The county as a truly humanitarian agency has most
lamentably failed. As to the underlying cause of the failure, this is
suggested in a remark of the state prison inspector of Alabama in his
report for 1914: “Publicity is not only a political antiseptic, but
is the sure antidote for most, if not all, our governmental ills.” A
justifiable inference from this declaration would be that counties
are suffering from the lack of publicity. In the immunity from the
restraint which such a purifying influence would supply the elementary
human instincts of county officials has full sway--such instincts as
the inspector had in mind when he said:

 “The vile, pernicious, perverting, fee system beggars description, and
 my vocabulary is inadequate to describe its deleterious and baneful
 effects. It inculcates into the management of our jails greed for the
 Almighty Dollar; persons are arrested because of the dollar and shame
 to say, are frequently kept in captivity for months, in steel cages,
 for no other reason than the Almighty Dollar.”

The organization of the county for political purposes to secure
the utmost obscurity and irresponsibility breaks the force of any
humanitarian public opinion that might be developed for the betterment
of the lot of the unfortunate. The same influences render the county
practically uninhabitable for the expert administrator, who would
be likely to direct popular attention to the evil conditions which
we have described. His place has been preëmpted by the hanger-on and
the wire-puller to whom charity means the dispensing of favors to
“deserving” workers of all political faiths. In _this_ sense the
county is a very humane institution, and a very open-handed one. It
serves well such local officials as the overseer of the poor in an
up-state New York county who presented this remarkable annual report to
his superior:

 “I am a little late with my report. I hope you will excuse me and
 overlook the matter. Like last year, there are no county poor here;
 but if you will allow me $5.00 _for keeping them off_, you will
 oblige,

  “Yours respectfully,

  “----.”


This claim was paid and the poor were presumably “kept off”
indefinitely.

There is not a little evidence to support the statement that many
county officers believe that they have satisfied the requirements of
humanity when they have taken care of their own personal wants. Such
officers, and the system of which they are part, are very good--to
themselves.

[4] Bailey B. Burritt, in _Proceedings of the Second Conference for
the Study and Reform of County Government_, pp. 6, 7.

[5] _First Conference for Better County Government_, p. 22.

[6] _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science_, May, 1913, p. 56.

[7] _Op. cit._, p. 168.

[8] _The Treatment and Care of the Insane in Pennsylvania_, pp.
68-69. Philadelphia, 1915.

[9] _Leaflet._ 1911.

[10] _Proceedings of the Third Conference for the Study and Reform of
County Government_, pp. 6-7.

[11] _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science_, May, 1913, p. 70.




CHAPTER X

ROADS AND BRIDGES


To the county in most of the states has also been committed from early
times, the obligation to carry forward what is now generally recognized
as one of the greatest of unifying, nationalizing, civilizing factors
in this or any time--highways. Through these avenues of communication
the people of the wilderness were to break their solitude, establish
common understandings and give value to the products of the earth by
creating markets for their distribution. Over the highways access was
to be had with schools and churches.

From the colonial period and well down into the nineteenth century,
the construction and maintenance of roads was, in diminishing degree,
a private enterprise, operated by turnpike companies primarily for
the benefit of their stock-holders rather than that of the public.
Gradually road making came to be regarded as a public function, at
first in respect to the repairs upon the private toll roads and then in
original construction. In the year 1913 the amount which counties of
the country spent upon their highways had mounted to $55,514,891.

To the fulfillment of this great function the county brought those
weaknesses of governmental organization, that lack of equipment, that
defective loyalty to the service of the whole people which have been
described heretofore. The erection of a road system was a demand for
broad, foreseeing knowledge and appreciation of the needs of the whole
county, high technical skill in the art of road making and adequate
financial arrangements. The county supplied none of these.

What the county did supply and how it supplied it may be worth the
recital, even though in these days of the “good-roads” movement the
state government is constantly stiffening its hold upon highway matters.

To begin with, the whole public road function is rooted, historically,
in the tradition of the people’s infinite political versatility and
infallibility. The true democrat of the nineteenth century never
doubted his ability to select and control the human agents for
executing a technical and difficult engineering problem, which has
baffled the resources of modern specialists. And so, to this day, the
management of road construction and care over a great portion of the
country is entrusted to a farmer, a blacksmith, a plumber or some other
species of layman who has sufficient popularity with his neighbors
and the county chairman to get himself chosen as town supervisor. In
some states the rôle of road manager is played by the somewhat better
equipped county surveyor, who, however, like the supervisor, is picked
in the majority of cases because of his vote-getting qualities rather
than for any technical training.

Under these circumstances the roadmaster is apt to enter upon his
public duties with a sense of his obligation not to the whole community
and its ultimate interest, but to those articulate sections of the
people who are most likely to make themselves felt on the next election
day. As a certain highway engineer illustrated the situation: “Here’s
$10,000 to spend on roads. Here also is Jeff Browning up on Nut Creek,
who wants quite a little road work done. Of course, Jeff lives fifteen
miles from the county seat, and there’s fifteen miles of bad roads
between his place and town, _but Jeff voted the whole settlement for
me_, and he has some idle teams, and we’ll just help him along by
spending some money at his place.” It is one of the familiar processes
of practical politics and the imagination should have no difficulty in
picturing any number of equally accommodating transactions.

Quite as serious an aspect of road control directly by elective
officers is that it gives too great and too convenient an opportunity
for layman advice and prejudice to bear upon a technical problem. One
curious idea which is prevalent in middle western rural districts
is that a road, in order to be a road, must be on a section line,
regardless of the contour of the land, the convenience of users of the
highway or the character of the soil. The engineer above quoted tells
of a very bad hill about two miles north of Poplar Bluff, Mo. “The
grade,” says Mr. Edy, “must have been something like twelve per cent.
in places. It was estimated that by going around this hill, a grade of
six per cent. could be obtained, increasing the distance but slightly,
and traversing almost worthless ground. The owner, however, would
neither give nor sell a right of way, holding that unless the road were
maintained ‘on the line’ it would not be a real road. Something like
$400 was spent on this bill in an effort to make it passable, when half
that amount would have made a permanent road in a new location.”

Of course, when the organization of the county gives to Jeff Browning
and the philosopher of Poplar Bluff the predominating influence in road
affairs, there can be nothing in the way of a county road policy or
road plan that is based upon the economic and social needs of the whole
people. The system enthrones petty rural sectionalism and narrowness
and condones a form of graft which is without doubt as vicious in
principle as the stealing of a street railway franchise. Where the
township supervisor is the responsible official the case is at its
worst for it means just so many more executive units to be watched,
just so many more standards of road construction, just so many more
independent road plans.

The “business” end of county road administration is often weighted
down to earth with the same sublime faith in the wisdom of the average
citizen. Rarely have counties maintained anything that approximated
adequate records of cost or serviceability of their roads and bridges
or data upon which they could construct a satisfactory policy of
construction, if indeed their governing bodies have dreamed of the need
or the value of such aids. Even of so highly developed a community as
Monroe County, New York, in which the City of Rochester is situated,
it could be said concerning the office of highway superintendent that
“the only record now kept is a bill book in which are entered all
claims against the county highway fund which are paid through the
superintendent’s office, all payrolls and all claims for personal
service.”[12]

Much the same lack of appreciation for facts was revealed in a cruder
way in a grand jury investigation during 1912 of the methods of the
Board of Commissioners in Darke County, Ohio, where it was discovered
that minutes were rarely read and contracts were voted twenty at a time
and sometimes without the formality of a vote, in direct violation of
the law.

From another middle western state comes an illuminating description
of the method of awarding bids on bridge construction: “Each
competitor submitted his own drawings and an estimate to a board of
commissioners, not one of whom had the least technical knowledge or
practical experience, but was ‘led away’ generally _by the size of
the drawing_ and the accompanying estimate.

“The result was shoddy work, insufficient piers or abutments, piles not
driven down to any safe and permanent depth and finally a bridge that
was built for appearance, not durability nor permanency. Just as soon
as we had a flood bringing down logs, stumps and trees, some of these
would strike or swing against the piers and down came the structure,
floating away or lodging in the stream, causing a jamb to accumulate,
holding up the stream and overflowing land for miles.

“It took many years to get a system where an engineer designed a bridge
with details of construction, steel or iron cylinders filled with
concrete as piers, and a superintendent of construction who knew his
business to take charge of the work.

“Thus we spent thousands of dollars for bridges to be erected simply
to see them carried out; in one instance twice. But the cost and
failure combined in time brought forth such protests that such a system
would not be tolerated longer; but the waste was done and the money
practically thrown away.

“In county road repair and construction we were no better. The
district boss was elected politically, and of course he rewarded his
commissioner friends by working the road fund. He dared not complain
of short hours or little done or sitting by the road discussing how
to ‘fix the election,’ and usually the work was done just before the
nomination and election. The ‘dump of dirt’ was left in a pile, not
even leveled; every team avoided it if possible, and when winter then
came it was ‘slurry’ and mud. No ditches or outlets for same were made
or cleaned out, and if any suggestion was made for improvement, you
were told ‘it was good enough before you came and you can get out if
you don’t want to stay.’”

In Polk County, Iowa, an investigation in 1912 disclosed the fact that
the board of supervisors had paid out $100,000 for contracts without
asking for bids. They never required plans or specifications of any
bridge to be constructed. Bridges had been ordered without any idea of
what they would cost. No guarantee bond was required and bridges were
accepted without inspection. Certain companies had been favored to the
exclusion of others and the result was that in many counties bridges
were built at a cost fifty per cent. higher than their reasonable value.

To the rich opportunities for “turning an honest dollar” which lurked
in such systems and in such an attitude on the part of the public
officers, the “powers that prey” have been keenly alive. The tale that
was told a few years ago, with a multitude of specifications, by a
few enterprising farm journals in the Middle West, rivals, except in
dramatic quality and the size of the sums involved, the characteristic
falls from grace which have been heretofore associated with ward
aldermen and legislators hailing from wicked urban districts. It was a
serious indictment of county officialdom which is contained in a letter
of the chairman of the Roads and Highways Committee of the lower house
in Kansas, who wrote in 1913:

“I know there are comparatively few county commissioners who profit
personally by the manipulations of the bridge companies but the
representatives of the companies are shrewd men who understand
thoroughly that the average county commissioner is very jealous of his
bridge patronage, and brooks no interference with his handling of the
bridge business with a free hand. Consequently the bridge men play this
feature to the limit and to their own profit.”[13]

That Iowa was inoculated with the same germ is suggested by remarks of
Alson Secor, the editor of _Successful Farming_:

“The bridge men are not depending upon a lobby at Des Moines, or any
state capitol, to put through what they want, or to prevent legislation
that will make bridge letting competitive. They work to elect or defeat
supervisors. They finance state supervisors’ annual meetings and give
the watchdogs of the public treasury that contains your tax money such
a good time that the ‘boys’ fall under lasting obligations to the
bridge companies.

“Bribe the lawmakers? Oh, no! You can’t say that. It isn’t a bribe
to hand a man a line of soft talk, is it? It isn’t a bribe to give a
county official a hilarious good time at a summer resort, is it? Or to
pay his hotel bills when he attends the state meetings? No--a thousand
times no--legally.

“But the bridge men get there just the same. They have for years
prevented any legislation that would give them a dollar’s worth of
bridge work for a dollar’s worth of taxes.”

So well satisfied were the favored bridge builders with the _status
quo_ in Nebraska in 1913 that they are said to have maintained at
the state legislature a powerful lobby to oppose by corrupt methods a
bill whose one purpose was to require bidders to furnish estimates on
uniform blanks. The information thus obtained would have been placed
on file at the state capitol and made available to all who might wish
to compare the cost of construction in different counties--light would
have been let into the operations of the counties in bridge-building
matters.

It would seem, then, that the _system_ did have much to do with
waste of public funds and inefficiency of every sort and was the basis
of a certain amount of corruption, in all the states mentioned. It was
not all simply a matter of “good” men and “bad” men. But the breakdown
of the county in highway affairs is fast becoming ancient history, not
directly, through a process of regeneration, but through forces playing
upon the county from without which we will again identify for the
present simply as the “good-roads” movement, of which more hereafter.

[12] From an unpublished report of the Rochester Bureau of Municipal
Research, 1915.

[13] _Successful Farming_, June, 1913.




CHAPTER XI

NULLIFICATION


Every now and then we shall have to remind ourselves that the county
made the politician, rather than the other way round.

And the county in its turn, is pretty well rooted in the good graces of
human nature. When American counties had been formed and their legal
status as subordinates of the state had been established, the people
throughout the length and breadth of each of the states were pretty
much of one mind in the fundamental standards of personal conduct. A
tradition of strict morality dominated New England. Its dominion was
not seriously questioned. The South and the middle states may not have
been so strict but they were homogeneous in their own brand of morality.

Then in due time two movements took place in the northern states.
Just as the constitution follows the flag so the Puritan morality
(more or less modulated and diluted) trailed the westward drift of New
England population, first into New York, then into the Western Reserve
and finally into the Middle West and Northwest. But another force
contended for mastery with the New England influence. The growth of
the cities and particularly of the factory centers was simultaneous
with the great waves of immigration from central and southern Europe.
With the new immigration came a conflicting standard of morality. The
German and southern European immigrants particularly, brought with
them liberal ideas of Sabbath observance. They also loved their beer
and red wine. In time they upset the moral balance of the cities,
coming into sharp collision with the New England (we might also say,
American) conception of the Sabbath and with the total abstinence idea
which began to get a firm foothold in the nineteenth century. This
complex influence gave us the setting for at least one phase of that
never-ending feud that rages between New York City and “up-state.”
It pitted Chicago against rural Illinois. It made Cincinnati a more
or less alien city in Ohio. It gave us a permanent body of citizens
who resent having their conduct dictated (as they apparently view it)
from above. Preponderantly foreign in their origin, they are loud in
their proclamation of their rights as American citizens, while the
New England element, still most influential on the whole in the rural
districts, is properly horrified at the low estate of virtue in the
cities.

It was inevitable that this clash of interests should be reflected
in politics. Our curiously illogical state system lent itself most
obligingly, if albeit rather ludicrously, to a compromise; the New
England conscience should get the necessary laws and the “foreign
element,” where its political force predominated, should control their
enforcement! The state of Illinois has carried on its statute books
a law requiring the closing of saloons on Sundays, which applies
uniformly throughout the state. Never till recently was a serious
attempt made to enforce it in the city of Chicago, which was quite in
accordance with the _modus vivendi_. Then, in 1915, a new mayor
took it into his head to close the saloons up tight. On a bright Sunday
afternoon the populace, thirsty and indignant, turned out and demanded
their American rights. The mayor’s attitude came from reading the law
literally but without a due regard to the great body of voters who are
“for the law but ‘agin’ its enforcement.”

The state system regularly provides against such mistakes of official
judgment by carefully divorcing the _duty_ to enforce from the
_incentive_ to enforce. The New York laws forbid the placing of
wagers on horse races. They stand there presumably as a monument to
the enlightened conscience of a majority of the people. They were
not enacted as an expression of moral sentimentality to be ignored
at will, but as an instruction for the governor, the administrative
establishment of the state and the courts to carry out. The statute
is of course obeyed in all counties where there are no race tracks
and no facilities for placing bets! But in the other counties? The
legislature has provided no means of execution other than the locally
controlled peace officers, the sheriffs and the constables. These are
the servants of the state, to be sure, and they are sworn to protect
its laws. But in a more direct human way they are of the county, bound
to the local hotel keepers, the local retail merchants and the jitney
bus owners whose business thrives on the patronage of the race-track
crowd. Local public opinion in the race-track district flouts the will
of the people of the state and it says to the state, as President
Jackson said to the Supreme Court, “You have made your decision; now
enforce it.”

Only occasionally does moral sentiment run strong enough to force
the governor to be in fact as well as in theory the real head of the
state in the sense that he employs state instruments to enforce state
desires. Such an incident occurred a few years ago when the governor of
Indiana was compelled to order out the militia to enforce a law against
race-track gambling because he had no power to compel the elective
sheriff or other local officers to do their duty.

In practical politics this clash of moral standards produces not
only the anomalous situation referred to but often the strictly
administrative matter of law enforcement is consciously and designedly
a political issue. The popular desire to graduate or temper the
enforcement of the law is doubtless the real secret of interest which
so often centers in the election of a district attorney. Shall we have
a “liberal” administration or shall we “clap on the lid,” that is
about the form the question takes--euphony for: “Shall the prosecutor
shut his eyes and ignore the law, or shall he obey it according to
his official oath?” The liberal candidate goes before the people with
promises to go easy and the strict morality candidate to make the way
of the transgressor hard.

Which is right? For the present it matters little. It remains simply to
point out that since the organization of the state and county provides
no organ of expression for local policy, the people in their infinite
capacity to adapt themselves to a hard condition proceed to make a
policy-determining body out of a strictly administrative officer, like
the district attorney or the sheriff.

Nullification shows itself also in the administration of the tax law.
Most of the states derive a portion of their revenues from the general
property tax. But the power of taxation lies in the legislature and
no state has its own local agents directly and fully responsible to
a central authority for fixing the valuations upon which the levy
is based. The county (except where state revenues are derived from
distinct sources) is required to contribute its proportionate share to
the central treasury and is left to do the right thing by the state,
with such supervision as will be hereafter noted. The people of the
county are allowed to select their own assessors, on the theory that a
man on the ground knows valuations better than any outside impartial
person and that no one is more competent to select such a man than his
own neighbors.

And so it happens, just as in the case of the sheriffs, that the local
tax officers are confronted with conflicting obligations. They must
take their choice, on the one hand, between strict observance of the
law and unpopularity, with the probable loss of their jobs at the end
of their term, and popularity with prospects of possible political
advancement and a more or less assured living, on the other. Inasmuch
as there is never any question as to which of these courses is the
more practical and immediately profitable, the tax assessors of the
county invariably find it infinitely to their personal advantage to
serve the locality that pays their salaries. Assessors in the sister
counties do likewise; with the ultimate result that general competition
arises among the counties as to which shall value property lowest and
thus pay the smallest proportion of the state’s tax. The system is
ideally designed to reward dishonesty and perjury and punish faithful
obedience to the law. For, as a former New York State Tax Commissioner
has said, “Under assessment is the rule throughout the state, and in
nearly all the tax districts intentionally and purposely so.” The range
of these assessments is well known to be anywhere between twenty-five
and ninety per cent. of the full value of the property. And the
assessors “make their own laws as to the basis of assessing property,
in deliberate violation of the statutes and then proceed to make oath
to the assessment rule that they have assessed all property at its full
value.” That what is true of New York is equally true of most other
states where an analogous system prevails, is the testimony of tax
authorities.

These frailties of human nature the states have weakly connived at by
the provisions they have made for equalization of assessments. It is
the old story of reform via complication and, as one county attorney in
New York has testified, “equalization in this state is an abomination,
a joke, a cover for deals and trades, a means of purchase and sale,
in its results most unfair and unjust, based on the assumption of
accomplished perjury, in itself a chief cause of the perjury.” A
Missouri authority corroborates by remarking:

 “The county board of equalization ... does little to improve the
 situation as it is affected by the same conditions which influence
 the acts of the assessor. Much the same is true of the state board
 of equalization which consists of the Governor, Secretary of State,
 State Auditor, State Treasurer and Attorney-General. This board has
 authority to equalize assessments among the counties, but not among
 different persons or property within the county. The officials who
 make up this board have neither the time, information nor powers to
 adequately correct the evils. _Political considerations also affect
 the solution of the problems._”

But the way to a sincere and logical system is not easy. Popular
sentiment seems to favor the _status quo_. For the first time in
the history of this country, Governor Cox of Ohio in 1913 persuaded
the legislature to establish a unified plan of organization for local
assessment. Inasmuch as taxation is the prerogative of the state
government, he proposed a system of tax assessment which would have
made this idea an actual as well as a legal fact. The law would have
abolished the locally elected assessor in the counties. Full control
would have been placed in the hands of the state government, since
the Governor would appoint the local officials. There would probably,
in the nature of things, have been an end to log-rolling and to
competition between the counties to “beat” the state. The law was
passed, but it was so unpopular that Governor Cox’s opponent in the
succeeding election used it for political capital. One of the earliest
and proudest achievements of his administration was the repeal of this
law.

And so our old friend the “average citizen” finds it often acceptable
to have a county government that is not built in strict conformance
with logic. It is a complicated mechanism to be sure, but what matter,
if he can employ a chauffeur to run it? To meet just such specific
demands as this the professional politician and his illogical system
have arisen and continue to exist.




CHAPTER XII

STATE MEDDLING


Now the other side of the story.

While the county nonchalantly and with seeming impunity has been
breaking all the inconvenient statutes, the state in its own peculiar
way has been working out a method of “taking it out” of the county
for the indignities of nullification. The state’s “big stick” (which
it does not always employ to a public purpose) is a policy of
meddlesomeness which expresses itself through special legislation. Of
which, more herewith.

In times gone by, when counties were almost universally located in
the open country, and before the rush for the cities had set apart
centers of population which developed their special mechanism of local
government, it was doubtless appropriate that constitutions should
impose upon legislature the duty to legislate “uniformly” for all
counties, even to the point of anticipating some of their more detailed
needs.

Practically every state legislature was given a considerable, if not
complete, power to bend the county to its will in every particular of
government. In the logic of the law, the county was a subdivision of
the state before it was an organ of strictly local government. The
legislature might erect new counties or change boundary lines at will,
with the one limitation in some states that its decision is subject to
a local referendum. It might also erect new county offices in addition
to those mentioned in the constitution and fix their powers and duties.
Long ago it became the accepted principle of law that local authorities
might exercise only such powers as were specifically conferred upon
them.

The theory was, apparently, that since counties exist to execute the
will of the whole state and have the same general duties to perform,
all counties can and must perform them in the same manner. It is a
plausible theory. If a county is to administer justice it needs a
judge, a sheriff, a prosecutor and a court clerk. And each of these
officers in the several counties should follow as closely as possible
an identical or similar procedure. Every county must have a fiscal
agency, a governing board, and be required to observe certain minimum
standards in the handling of the funds entrusted to its care.

Uniformity up to this point is doubtless not burdensome but helpful.
But by carrying a good idea too far the legislatures have often gone
beyond the point of setting up a general organization and procedure
and have descended into minor details which would usually best be
determined in the light of the more perfect knowledge of local
conditions which the people of the locality may be expected to possess.

The New York legislature, for instance, has accepted the inertia of
long-standing custom and permitted to stand on the statutes a county
law under which the boards of supervisors in all counties, except those
of New York City, are organized in precisely the same manner. No regard
for the far-reaching historic shifts of population; no thought as to
how deeply the social and political unity of a particular county may
have been shattered by the growth of great cities in the midst of apple
orchards or grain fields. The law has passively assumed that voters
are voters (just as “business is business” and “pigs is pigs”) whether
they reside in a crowded city or sparsely settled countryside where
everybody knows everybody else’s business and has plenty of time to
play politics.

And so it turns out that Erie County, containing the city of Buffalo,
with its half million inhabitants surrounded by a farming district,
is equipped with the same general form of government as the rough and
sparsely settled counties of Warren and Essex in the Adirondacks.

In other states, for Buffalo substitute Cleveland, or Chicago or
Milwaukee--great cities unequally yoked with an agricultural population
of divergent interests.

It is inevitable under the circumstances that the states through their
legislatures should do a good deal of polite nullifying on their own
account. The provisions of the constitutions relating to legislative
powers over counties, instead of being strictly construed have
ingeniously circumvented. What some legislatures could do in defiance
of good political science but yet without legal evasion the California,
New Jersey and other legislatures have accomplished by stretching the
meaning “general” or “uniform.”

Take the California practice. In the words of the constitution the
legislature is required to establish “a system of county government
which shall be uniform throughout the state.” But it happens that
these counties range in population from a few hundred to over half a
million, and in area from 755 to 23,000 square miles. Some are strictly
rural, while, at the other extreme, is one geographically identical
with the city of San Francisco. All sorts of combinations of urban
and rural conditions intervene. Some of the territory is traversed by
steam railroads and trolley lines and some of it is inaccessible to a
stage coach. But all of it is “uniformly” governed. Inasmuch as the
legislature never could bring itself to withhold its hand from the
minute details of county business, it had to find a way to “beat” the
constitution. It placed each of the fifty-six counties in a separate
class, and passed fifty-six “general” laws, each applying in fact to a
single county, but not mentioning the county by name!

In Illinois the habit of special legislation has led the Bureau of
Public Efficiency to remark that: “The General Assembly of Illinois
might with propriety be added to the list of nineteen local governing
bodies of Cook County, for it is continually interfering in an
arbitrary manner in matters of local administration.”

New Jersey has sinned quite as grievously and its courts have
consistently upheld the act even against a provision of the
constitution which expressly prohibits the legislature from “regulating
the internal affairs of towns and counties.”

But lest the full import of these statements should be lost, the
following titles of special county bills in a single session of a New
York legislature, are cited in evidence:

Authorizing conveyance of land on Holland Avenue.

Striking out the provision authorizing county treasurer to appoint an
attorney.

Regulating tax collection procedure.

Fixing compensation of unskilled laborers.

Correcting 1915 tax roll.

Creating a county auditor.

Increasing salary of sheriff, etc.

Levy of taxes to meet cost of sanitary trunk sewer.

Regulating management of penitentiary and workhouse.

Creating commissioner of charities.

Too often the motive of the legislators has not been to make the
county the state’s more obedient servant, but to “bleed” it to the
utmost for political purposes. Back of the real difficulties of
adjusting the state’s responsibilities to the idea of local control
over administrative details, is too evident the suspicion that the
political machine needs the county very much “in its business.”

For this reason, doubtless, special legislation affecting counties
is so often inseparably associated with the forcible opening of
the county treasury. New York City in recent years has suffered
grievously from mandatory salary increases, imposed in many cases by
a party of the opposite political faith from the one in control over
the local budget. Thus in 1915 out of a total budget allowance of
$7,003,716.82 for county purposes, the sum of $4,858,773.47 or 69.1
per cent. represented mandatory appropriations which could not be
increased or diminished by the local budget makers either because the
exact amount was fixed by law or because the power of fixation was
conferred upon other officers than the appropriating body of the city.
Many of the measures in question dealt with the salaries of clerks,
stenographers and messengers. Of the total allowance in the same year
for personal services (salaries, etc.) of $5,809,481.75, 78 per cent.
or $4,576,985.75 was beyond local control. While by far the greater
proportion of these sums were just and necessary, the margin of waste
which represented one hundred per cent. politics, was, without a
doubt, exceedingly large.

Nor have the legislatures been led to take this course for reasons of
public economy. In thus appropriating other people’s money according
to its professedly superior knowledge of the state’s needs, it does
not often appear to give heed to standards of experience or of service
rendered. Often it is but the old story of the influences back of the
bill with this title: “An Act, providing for the appointment by the
sheriff of ---- County, of an undersheriff, fireman and court officers,
and for their compensation and duties.” When the truth came out it
appeared that the sheriff and the board of supervisors were of opposite
parties. The sheriff (whether rightly or wrongly) was not to be put
aside. He simply appealed over the heads of his “superiors” to a higher
authority for what he wanted--and got it. The people had elected a
Board of Supervisors, to manage the county finances, but at the moment
when this body might have effected a just economy, it was forcibly
stripped of their powers.

Theoretically the legislature in the case cited intervened, but what
probably happened was that someone saw the representative in the
legislature from the county in question and he “fixed” it with the
proper committee. The speaker let the bill go through on the floor of
the legislature.

From the standpoint of the local politician or petty officeholder who
is looking for special privilege, via the back-door method, and of
the home legislator who does the “fixing,” special legislation is thus
doubtless a benevolent privilege which enables men to put various local
people in their debt for future purposes. For the “organization” of
the dominant party, the power to give to or withhold from the local
municipalities is often not the least important element of its power.

As for the county, for its sins of nullification it would seem to be
appropriately penalized, particularly if it belongs in the metropolitan
class. It has been placed under a sort of patriarchal discipline,
robbed of much of its individuality and initiative; its responsible
officers subjected to humiliation from subordinates; its resources
diverted to partisan uses.




CHAPTER XIII

STATE GUIDANCE


At this point the indictment of the county ceases. It is not an
altogether hopeless situation. The very thoroughness of the county’s
failure is the chief promise of ultimate redemption.

Not because the county is constructed on an unsound political theory,
not because it has shocked the sense of humanity, but because of its
riotous misuse of public funds, it has begun to attract the attention
of higher authorities.

Where does the county’s money go? It has been strongly intimated in
previous chapters that the citizens of the county and sometimes even
the county officers know little and care less. Is it economically run?
No one can easily tell, without knowing what other county governments
are costing, service for service and unit for unit. And no one can make
such a comparison between counties unless they have some common basis
of understanding. To establish standards in the use of terms, to make
in other words, each county tell its financial story in a language
understood throughout the state, to bring the information from the
various counties together for comparison, to insist upon a sufficiently
detailed description of financial activities, is the object of uniform
reporting.

And who can force such a coming together for a common understanding
other than the state itself?

Among the states where county government is of appreciable importance,
Ohio was the pioneer in the direction indicated by this suggestion.
The law enacted in that state in 1902 approached the county problem
with the conviction that what was needed above all else was more
light--in an administrative sense; that when the shortcomings of county
government could be reduced to statistics and comparisons (invidious
if necessary) could be made between various units, then some real
improvements might be reasonably expected. Provision was made in the
enactment for a state Bureau of Inspection and Supervision of Public
Offices which should install a uniform system of public accounting,
auditing and reporting in every office in the state. A corps of field
agents known as state examiners were employed on a civil service basis
to make personal examinations in each of the taxing districts. The
findings of the examiners are published, and if money is due the county
the enforcement of the law is left first to the county prosecuting
attorney and then to the attorney general.

New York followed the lead of Ohio by passing in 1905 a law which
requires counties, villages and cities, to report annually to the
comptroller on forms prescribed by him.

“Indiana and Ohio,” says Professor John A. Boyle,[14] “has gone
into the science and art of uniform accounting very seriously and
very effectively. The Indiana law (1909, ch. 55, amended March 3,
1911), creates a Department of Inspection and Supervision of Public
Offices having jurisdiction over every public office in the state.
The administration of the law was entrusted at the outset to one
state examiner, two deputies, one clerk, and fifty-two field agents
working on a civil service basis. Uniform accounting is prescribed and
installed. Comparative statistics are compiled by the state examiner
and published annually, so that the fruits of this department are
available to the public.”

Wyoming has a fair system of audit.

The North Dakota law, while it requires the state examiner “to
prescribe and enforce correct methods,” does not call for a uniform
system. Massachusetts, Kansas, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Florida,
Tennessee, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Washington,
Minnesota, West Virginia, Louisiana, California and Michigan have
more or less complete systems of state financial supervision. The
“black sheep” among the states in this respect are Alabama, Arkansas,
Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri,
New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas,
Utah, Vermont and Virginia.

Now for the results of this supervision.

Professor Boyle has summed up the sort of assistance that the state
bureaus of accounting have been able to give. One instance of such help
is that where county officers had been accustomed in the past to take
long and expensive junkets to inspect public buildings, expert advice
under the new system has been rendered to them in much cheaper form
through the investigators of the state. Examiners have also been able
to point out to county officers many deviations from the letter of the
law, the strict compliance with which is of the most vital importance
in the performance of certain county functions, such as taxation.
In a similar way they have checked up illegal charges against the
county, inadequate audit (or no audit at all), instances of additional
compensation (under various guises) for personal service, illegal
temporary loans and misapplication of funds.

It will at once be seen that the mere possibility of a state examiner’s
visit will have an admonitory effect which in itself will often be
sufficient to keep an official in the straight and narrow path. The
county, in conforming to the reporting requirements, derives a local
benefit wholly apart from any obligation to the state. Upon the basis
of a sound and permanent system of accounting the local officers are
in a position accurately to inform the county of their doings and
make comparison of a financial transaction of one year with those of
previous years. Herein is one foundation stone of a scientific budget.

Under a complete system of state regulation not only are the forms and
standards of uniform accounting established, but a staff of expert
examiners is created to determine by periodical investigation, whether
or not these standards are lived up to.

The remarkable conditions preceding the establishment of the Ohio
Bureau and the important services which it has rendered the state,
are revealed in the following summary[15] of its findings in counties
during the first ten years of its existence.

STATEMENT OF FINDINGS TO NOVEMBER 15, 1912

COUNTIES

------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
      | Findings for|  Illegal  | Unclaimed |    Total    |
 Year |   Recovery  |  Payments |  Moneys   |   Illegal   |  Returns
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
 1903 |   $50,268.93| $18,808.91|    $807.92|   $69,884.76| $10,741.93
 1904 |    57,805.54|   2,504.41|  10,339.95|    70,649.90|   2,222.31
 1905 |   246,280.58|   7,421.87|  25,389.52|   279,091.97|  24,847.83
      |             |           |           |             |
 1906 |   295,082.80|  14,227.52|   5,218.21|   314,528.53| 232,156.78
 1907 |   646,397.50| 115,906.91|  18,049.13|   780,353.54| 322,911.08
 1908 |   103,764.26|  43,333.31|   9,829.15|   156,928.92|  41,171.53
      |             |           |           |             |
 1909 |   410,282.51| 320,137.17|  23,219.42|   753,639.10|  66,219.91
 1910 |   146,024.04| 106,410.00|  22,241.18|   274,675.22|  24,438.36
 1911 |   233,547.24| 129,007.02|   7,921.90|   370,476.16|  37,735.34
      |             |           |           |             |
 1912 |   112,926.80| No report |     118.26|   113,045.06|  96,015.16
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------
 Ttls |$2,302,379.30|$757,759.32|$123,134.54|$3,183,273.16|$858,460.23
------+-------------+-----------+-----------+-------------+-----------


TAX ADMINISTRATION

A branch of local fiscal administration which is in far less
satisfactory shape is that of taxation. In no department is
“nullification,” as has been already shown, more constant and
serious. The situation is complicated. In seventeen of the states,
including every one north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers, and east of
the Mississippi, except Illinois, Indiana and Maryland, the county
as a whole has very little to do with assessments for the general
property tax, the unit for assessment in that section being the town
or township. That in nearly all these states the general property tax
may be said to have broken down, would seem to be indicated by the
establishment of a permanent state tax commission or commissioner in
all of them except Pennsylvania. In thirty-one states in the South and
West, the county is the unit of assessment, and in its favor it may be
said that in this rôle it has proven a far more satisfactory performer
than the town. The county is small enough to serve as a convenient
unit for assessment operations and assessment records and furnishes
the basis of a system of fewer units than if the town were the basis.
Under the county plan, moreover, there are fewer opportunities for
communities to compete against each other in their effort to escape
their just share of the general burden of government. It is significant
that most of the western states have seen the advantages of the county
as the local unit of administration.

But the county, for all that, appears to be incapable of standing
on its own feet in tax matters. Even under the most favorable
circumstances there remains an important duty for a state commission to
supervise the work of the county assessor or board of assessors to the
end that the letter of the law may be obeyed with the utmost uniformity
throughout the state. Such a commission must see that the county
does injustice to neither individuals nor the state through inequal
assessment and that the tax sales are in accordance with the law.

The county, in short, has a useful place in the general scheme of tax
administration, but it must be a _supervised_ unit.


CIVIL SERVICE

In the administration of the civil service law the county also does
well to lean upon the state. The same considerations that apply in
accounting and tax matters apply with equal force in the selection of
the employees. Most of the counties are too small to serve as units in
which to install facilities for conducting examinations and publishing
useful records. The superior powers of the state commission over
the localities in these respects are emphatically not a destructive
check upon the county’s officers. They do not detract from local
responsibility. They simply enable them to apply to their work the
most effective means available.

In New York the state civil service commission regulates the service in
eighteen counties. In New Jersey the adoption of the civil service law
involving state control rests with the people of each county. Hudson,
Essex, Mercer, Passaic and Union counties have taken advantage of the
law.

Administration apart from fiscal supervision in other departments,
such as charities, prisons and public health, has advanced much more
slowly than reform in the fields which have been mentioned. But every
indication for the future is toward greater control through accounting
and supervision. The county acts locally in the enforcement of state
obligations. The real trouble comes when one undertakes, arbitrarily,
to place any given county activity in the local or state category.
The catching of a thief, for example, is a very essential part of the
state’s most fundamental duty to protect property, but the locality
where the crime is committed is very keenly interested in having the
machinery of the county set to work to punish the deed. The locality
pays the sheriff his salary or his fees, but the state, in protecting
the property of its citizens, is probably justified in guarding against
extravagant or dishonest use by the people of the county even of their
own money.

And so it is impracticable and not by any means necessary to give the
county quite unbridled liberty to control all its officers. Central
supervision is a middle course that protects the state and instead of
impairing, really conserves the county’s interests. The state, without
instructing the county as to _what_ it may do with its purely
local powers, may lay a firm hand upon it in telling _how_ to
use those powers effectively. Such a course is conceived in quite a
different spirit from the destructive sort of state meddling which was
described in the preceding chapter, which proceeds from the legislative
branch of the central government. What the state government actually
does when it regulates or supervises is to hold up the county official
to standards of performance. This is the proper work of officers or
boards in the administrative branch. It relates not to _what_
the county shall do as a matter of broad policy, but _how_ the
county shall redeem its obligation in matters of routine, detail and
technique. The state agency may have only the power to “visit and
inspect,” like the New York State Board of Charities, or it may, like
the Comptroller of the same state, actually impose forms of procedure.
In either case, local officers otherwise unstimulated to efficient
work, as they must be under the present system of government, are thus
given moral support from a responsible quarter. They are subjected to
a cold, unescapable comparison with other officers in other localities
and they are given the benefit of expert advice on many obscure and
complex phases of public administration.

[14] See _Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science_, May 1913. pp. 199-213.

[15] Prof. John H. Boyle, _op. cit._, p. 203.




CHAPTER XIV

READJUSTMENTS


So much by way of accepting counties as they are. “State guidance” goes
a long way as a palliative of unsatisfactory conditions. It is a sort
of permanent first aid to the injured.

But the county needs surgical treatment! In some cases it is well to
_fix_ responsibility. In extremities it becomes necessary to
_amputate_.

Bear in mind, to begin with, the fact that the county at bottom is
really a piece of the state, a local agency. The prevailing practice
of local election of officers and its logical sequence, local
nullification, have done much to obscure the real interests of the
state at the county court house, till the average run of citizens have
long forgotten that the distinction exists; that officers like the
sheriff, district attorney, public administrator and coroner are not
strictly local officers at all but subordinates of the general state
government.

By far the most important branch of general administration with
which county officers serve is the judiciary. Counties, except in a
few states, are the units for selection of judges having original
jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases which involve moderate
amounts of money and less than the most serious offenses. With the
county court also is generally associated probate jurisdiction, which
is exercised in some of the eastern states by a special officer known
as the surrogate, who may be a judge as in New York, or a purely
ministerial officer, as in New Jersey.

Legally the judiciary is more nearly a part of a state system than any
other branch of the county organization. The decisions of the judges
are of course subject to appeal to a higher state court--that is an
important form of control. Sometimes, as in California, a part of the
salary of the county judge is paid from state funds. Probably too the
greater popular respect that hedges about the bench is sufficient to
set it apart from much of the sinister influence that often affects
the other officers of the county. Nevertheless, the county court in
common with other divisions of the judiciary, is subject to a wide
variety of disintegrating forces. It has a variegated allegiance: to
the people (in most of the states) for its original selection, to the
county governing body for many incidental items of financial support,
and to higher judicial authority for confirmation or revision of its
decisions. It does not control its executive agents, such as the
sheriff and the county clerk, who are usually independent elective
officers.

The readjustment of this situation can hardly be effected
satisfactorily apart from a complete reorganization of the state’s
judicial system. This will undoubtedly involve, among other things, a
much more complete central control on the part of a state chief justice
and a judicial council. The courts must be organized with a keener
appreciation that a judge in rendering just and learned decisions is a
part of a business machine--he is waiting on customers; that there is
no sound reason why the judicial department should defy the principle
of responsibility any more than a department which serves the public in
another way.

In the general overhauling of the systems, perhaps the elective county
judge will disappear. But liberty, for all that, will not vanish from
the earth. States as diverse in their location and composition as New
Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey and South Carolina never drifted
quite completely into the habit of “electing everybody,” and they are
good states. The Federal judiciary, too, is appointive, and it is
not more culpable, by standards of either the progressiveness or of
administrative efficiency, than most of the state courts.

The earthquake, we may hope, will also shake up the justices of the
peace, who in any self-respecting organization of the courts will
either disappear or be linked up, as the American Judicature Society
proposes, in a county system, with the county judge in control. The
justices are now associated with the town or a corresponding division
of the county and deal with very minor (but not for that reason
insignificant) civil and criminal cases, or act as a tribunal for
preliminary hearings and commitments. In cities the office has steadily
and hopelessly decayed by transfer of its jurisdiction to other courts
and through the abuses of the fee system. It was established moreover
when means of transportation were few and difficult and districts
consequently had to be made small in order to meet the convenience
of the litigants who came seeking justice. But times have changed!
Circumstances favor larger districts and infinitely better control over
this branch of the judiciary.

In making over the courts we cannot properly overlook the machinery
for enforcing judicial decisions. This is the function of the sheriff.
Where, in the reconstructed scheme of things shall he come in? Our
forefathers committed themselves to the theory of the separation of
powers, these three: the legislative, the executive and the judicial.
Under this scheme of things the duty of judges is to find or interpret
the law: nothing more. The sheriff as an executive officer is therefore
always independent of the court: he is the enforcer of state laws which
come to him in the form of very specific instructions by way of court
decisions. Such instructions are issued in the interest of parties to a
legal controversy.

But the sheriff is not the only law enforcer in the county. The state
has made the board of supervisors (or board of commissioners) and
county officers its agents in enforcing various state laws. And so
the question arises: why not bring all the enforcing agencies under a
single control? Two ways suggest themselves. If the judicial system is
to be a unified state affair, then judicial-decision enforcing should
also be a state concern and the county should keep its hands off. In
practice this would mean that the governor or some other general state
officer should appoint the sheriffs on the same principle which is
employed in the federal government, wherein the President appoints U.
S. marshals. But, if on the other hand, the county government is to be
considered as a general local agency of the state for enforcing all its
laws, then nothing remains but to put it up to the local governing body
or some local chief executive to select the sheriff. Such is the method
which has been applied in the city and county of Denver, Colorado,
where the mayor is the chief executive of the consolidated governments.

And what of the coroner? Every authority worthy of credence is agreed
that this office, above all others in the county, has long outlived its
usefulness. That one small head should contain the necessary skill of
criminal investigator, medical expert and magistrate is far too much to
expect of any ordinary mortal. A few states, following Massachusetts,
which abolished the coronership in 1877, have created an office under
various titles, such as “medical examiner,” “county physician” (New
Jersey), “medical referee” (New Hampshire), etc. They have modernized
the coronership by stripping it of its magisterial powers and taking
it off the ballot. In most cases the new medical officer is an expert
pathologist and his services are often of the greatest value in
criminal and civil actions and to the cause of science. In New York
City the coroners now in office in the five boroughs will go out of
office on January 1, 1918, their powers of investigation will then
be transferred to a chief medical examiner appointed by the mayor,
and a corps of assistants who will be equipped with ample laboratory
facilities. The judicial duties of the coroner will be turned over to
the city magistrates.

As for the district attorney,[16] his proper relations to a criminal
trial and to the public seem to be generally misunderstood. He is the
state’s advocate as against the breaker of the law. But it is no part
of his business to send every alleged offender to the penitentiary.
The efficiency of the prosecutor is not to be determined by a high
record of convictions. He is not, properly, a man-hunter. Nor is it his
province to decide when he shall bear down hard upon offenders and when
he shall soften justice. His functions, in short, are administrative
and not political. And when that fact is admitted every reason why he
should be popularly elected falls. In the ideal county, efficiency in
the administration of justice will not be a perennial local campaign
issue, for the prosecutor will be appointed by some responsible state
authority, such as the governor or attorney general, not as a reward
for political services but on the basis of merit and fitness. Or if,
perchance, it shall be deemed unwise so to centralize authority,
it would at least be logical to let the county authorities do the
appointing.

There remains to be disposed of the clerk of court.[17] His relation
to the bench is rather a closer one than that of the sheriff, so close
that in some jurisdictions it has not been thought a violation of the
theory of the separation of powers to allow the judge or the whole
court to appoint him. Such indeed would seem the proper course. But
in many counties the business of court-clerking is hardly onerous
enough to engage a separate officer and the duties have accordingly
been transferred to the county clerk. This officer usually performs
a variety of functions, among which are his services as clerk of the
county board and as the local custodian or register of legal papers
required to be filed under certain state laws. In counties where this
“bunching” of functions has to be resorted to, the least that should
be done by way of readjustment should be to help along the unification
of the county government by vesting the appointment of the county
clerk in the county board or a county executive to be established.
In the larger counties where the volume of county business warrants a
separation of functions, there seems to be no sound reason why such
duties as the filing of papers should not be in the hands of an officer
appointed by some state official, to represent him in the locality.
In this way certain counties at least would be completely divested
of responsibilities of which they appear never to have acquitted
themselves too well. The county’s ultimate place in the sun is being
determined by a stripping process: the state is taking up its work.

Thus in the domain of charities. We pointed out in Chapter IX that
the county was hopelessly deficient in caring for the insane, the
defectives and the criminals. Modern methods, which are humane methods,
have come to demand strict classification as the very starting point
for treatment. But unless the number of subjects for treatment is
reasonably large, the expense of such classification is prohibitive.
Most counties cannot supply the numbers. They find themselves in the
predicament of a rural sheriff who has in custody an average of perhaps
six prisoners. If his county were to obey the law it would have ready
at all times an establishment which provided special accommodations for
almost forty different classes of inmates.

Under these circumstances the only course is to transfer as many
classes of prisoners as possible to the care of a larger unit of
government that is able economically to segregate. This transfer
actually began in some of the older states in the eighteenth century.
Massachusetts led the movement by erecting a special prison on
Castle Island for the most desperate type of convicts. In 1796, New
York began the construction of two state prisons in New York and
Albany. In 1816, Ohio built a state penitentiary at Columbus and in
1839, Michigan completed its first state prison at Jackson. Reform
institutions in this country began to be established in Massachusetts
in 1846 when juvenile offenders were removed from local jails and
state prisons. Since then separate institutions for boys and girls
have been established in nearly all of the eastern states. New York in
1877 erected the first reformatory to which adult convicts could be
committed under an indeterminate sentence.

As for the care of the insane, this was the first department of
public welfare administration that was taken over by the whole state,
beginning with the establishment of the first hospital in Utica, New
York, in 1843. From time to time other states have followed New York’s
example until nearly every state has one or more hospitals. With
the increase in the number of institutions in a given state further
segregation and classification of inmates has been possible. State
institutions now furnish the means for appropriate education for the
mentally defective who formerly were left to shift for themselves in
mismanaged county almshouses. The deaf, dumb and blind have been taken
care of in similar fashion. Indeed, the function of county poor relief
would now seem to approach as its ideal, the complete transfer to the
state of all charity functions except possibly a certain amount of
temporary “out-door” relief. But even this rather narrow field has been
invaded, for, in New England and New York, at least, a class of “state
poor” is known to the statutes.

That the county has often sadly broken down in the guardianship of
life and property is a fact which has come into prominence within
very recent years. As the police force of the big cities become
more and more efficient the field of operation for criminals is
transferred to the suburbs, to the small towns and villages and to
the open country and the police problem in the rural sections takes
on a semi-metropolitan aspect. Good roads, the automobile and the
telephone have facilitated the business of thugs and burglars as well
as of honest citizens. Said the district attorney of Niagara County,
New York, recently, “Nearly every post office safe in Western New
York has been robbed, and I do not now recall anybody having been
convicted for these crimes. The ordinary constable or deputy sheriff
can serve subpœnas and make a levy under an execution providing he is
feeling well, but as a general rule he is incapable of coping with even
a third-class criminal.” Numerous other equally forcible official
statements of the same tenor have been collected by the New York
Committee on State Police.

To cope with these crimes of violence and cunning the untrained,
politically selected sheriff of the typical rural county is but
sadly equipped. He is a temporary elected official to begin with,
unschooled in the ways of criminals and unfamiliar with any of the
vast paraphernalia of investigation that go to make up a modern police
system. Certain parts of the country moreover have peculiar periodical
disturbances on a larger scale than criminals operate--riots, lynching
parties, flood disasters, strikes. These occasions demand the temporary
mobilizing of a comparatively large, well-organized and disciplined
force to handle the situation with firmness and fairness. It is no
place for the crude old-fashioned sheriff’s posse.

At the present time it is the frequent practice on such occasions to
call out the state militia. But while this organization has often
doubtless rendered effective service, police duty is not its proper
occupation. Every year enlistments fall far below the adequate figure
because young men in business and professional life deem it obnoxious
to leave their appointed tasks to do a professional policeman’s work.
In the discussion of “preparedness” measures it has frequently been
proposed that the militia be enlisted solely for national defense and
that a special fighting force be developed for state police duty. If
such a force were organized on a permanent basis it would practically
relieve the sheriff and the constables from police duty.

A model for such a force is found in the Pennsylvania State
Constabulary, which has been in existence since 1902. This is an
organization of two hundred and twenty mounted policemen formed
into four companies under a superintendent of police. Every year it
patrols 660,000 miles of rural roads and not only keeps the rural
sections singularly free from criminals but has performed numerous
other distinctive services. It has prevented disastrous fires and mine
explosions, quelled riots, stopped illegal hunting and maintained
quarantine during epidemics of disease. It was this constabulary that
handled the tremendous crowds at the Gettysburg Centennial in 1913.
The force is made up of picked men who are taught the laws of the
commonwealth and schooled to enforce them with absolute impartiality
against offenders of all classes. It has been free from politics and
has won the respect of all classes of the people.

In the domain of highways[18] the county, under the pressure of the
good-roads movement, has been rapidly yielding its control to the
central government. The good-roads problem simply outgrew the county.
It could not be handled efficiently through so small a unit. In the
course of railway development everywhere the old lines of tributary
traffic by wagon road from the farms to the shipping centers were
greatly modified. Their objective point came to have no particular
reference to the boundaries of the county or the location of the county
seat. Traffic from one county destroyed the roads of another without
supplying any compensatory advantages to the latter. Modern road
construction, particularly since the advent of the automobile, created
technical engineering problems far beyond the capacity of the local
officials to solve. Without the aid of better equipped agencies than a
unit so small as the county could afford most of the rural roads of the
county must have gone to rack and ruin, to say nothing of their meeting
the demands of present day traffic. But forty-two state governments,
up to 1915, had come to the rescue, either by supplying financial aid,
authorizing the employment of convict labor or by furnishing expert
advice founded upon scientific research. Up to the year 1914 only
Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas had
made no provision whatever for state participation in road work.

But the significant point to be noted here is the strong tendency
to take entirely out of the hands of the county the whole burden,
financial and otherwise, of the great trunk lines and in many cases
to impose standards and specifications for construction even where the
county does its own road building. Thus, Massachusetts, up to January
1, 1914, had completed more than one thousand miles of state highway
through the issuance of state bonds and the levying of automobile
taxes, the counties being required to refund the state twenty-five
per cent. of the cost of construction. New York established a highway
department in 1898 and has authorized bond issues of $100,000,000 for
a state system of roads which has already reached an advanced stage
of construction. Virginia, Ohio, Maryland and California have made
much progress toward a state road system, the California plan calling
for two main highways running the length of the state and a system of
laterals connecting the county seats with the trunk lines. The state of
Iowa has gone so far as to place all road work in the state under the
direction of its highway department.

And so, the dominion of the county is being invaded at sundry points.
The unification of the judiciary (which it must be admitted has not
yet progressed very far), the gradual transfer of the charity and
correctional work to the state government, the establishment of a
state police and the more imminent abridgment of county control over
highways--these movements unmistakably and definitely seem to point the
ultimate displacement of the county as an important agent of public
service in particular fields.

But that is but one side of the story. For while, on the one hand, the
importance of the county is threatened in particular fields there seems
to be before it in other directions a career of greater usefulness than
ever before. This present observation, however, applies only to those
states where the town or township has come in for particular emphasis,
or where, as will be suggested later in the discussion, the principle
of federation may be adopted by a number of contiguous municipalities
as a step toward consolidation of local governments.

In a number of states where the New England influence has been strong
the town is frequently the unit (though not always exclusively) for
the custodianship of certain records such as deeds and mortgages, for
public health administration, for commitment of paupers, for road
construction and maintenance or for tax assessment and collection.

The relation of the county to the town in these concerns is analogous
to that of the state to county in such matters as the care of the
insane and the control of trunk-line highways. It is a question of
finding a unit large enough (and not too large) to fit the problem in
hand. Public health, for example, is largely a matter of controlling
sources of disease in milk and water supply, which under modern methods
of living are usually much more widely distributed than the area which
is served. Effective control in that case would simply mean control
through a unit larger than the town, to wit: the county, unless control
on a still wider scale should prove feasible. Similarly in the matter
of police protection: the town constable is an anachronism in these
days of rapid transit. The county is a more appropriate police unit
than the town. Town custodianship of records means duplication, lack of
standards and waste. Town commitment of paupers to the county almshouse
or poor farm is a temptation on the part of the smaller locality to
shift its burdens on to the shoulders of the whole county.

When it comes to highway construction, the high technical skill which
needs to go into the work is a commodity which comes too high for a
town and even, as we have pointed out, for the county.

But the most serious misfits of town government are the local agents
of tax administration. Wherever the town is the smallest tax unit not
only is the number of officials needlessly multiplied, but diverse
standards of property valuation are set up and competition is resorted
to between towns with a view to escaping their just share of taxation.
Without a dissenting voice the recognized tax experts of the county are
firmly of the opinion that the town as a unit of tax assessment and tax
collection must give way to the county.

And so, the readjustments that are working out the ultimate destiny of
the county are not wholly of a negative sort. It is not all a matter of
trimming the county’s wings.

[16] Variously designated in different states as state’s attorney,
prosecutor of the pleas, county attorney and solicitor.

[17] In Pennsylvania known as the “prothonotary.”

[18] This discussion of highway matters is based principally upon a
monograph by J. E. Pennybacker, Chief of Road Economics, Office of
Public Roads, Department of Agriculture. Y. B. Separate, 1914.




CHAPTER XV

COUNTY HOME RULE


Some counties indeed are awakening to a sense of their identity and are
asserting with much vigor their ability to organize and manage many
concerns which have been conspicuously mishandled either by the state
authorities or by the smaller local units.

Nowhere has the need for “readjustment” to meet this demand been more
keenly appreciated than in California. Elsewhere in these chapters
we have referred to the great diversity in the underlying social and
physical conditions in that state. To meet this situation fifty-six
“general” laws (that were not general at all) had been enacted, for as
many counties. No other method of individualizing county government
had been resorted to until 1911. At that time the progressive leaders
in the legislature wished to bring government, all down the line,
into sympathy with standards of simplicity and efficiency that were
then beginning to be accepted. For a time county government seemed to
present an insuperable obstacle: how could a state system be devised
that would square with these new ideas? Then it was remembered that
for upwards of thirty years the _cities_ of California had been
determining for themselves what municipal officers should be chosen,
how they should be chosen and what powers they should exercise.
California was a pioneer in municipal home rule and the system had
worked pretty much to everybody’s satisfaction.

Inasmuch, however, as counties have much more intimate relations with
the state government it seemed impracticable to allow them quite so
large discretion as the cities, in determining the powers they should
enjoy. And so, the California amendment gives the people of the county
freedom to determine the form and detail of the county organization,
subject to the proviso that each of the necessary county officers such
as sheriff, district attorney, etc., must be maintained to execute the
state law within the county. Members of the county board of supervisors
must be elected, but not necessarily by districts. All other county
officers, except the superior court judges, may be either elective or
appointive in a manner set forth in a county charter.

The procedure by which California counties may take advantage of the
home-rule privilege is as follows: A board of fifteen freeholders is
elected, either in pursuance of an ordinance adopted by three fifths of
the members of the board of supervisors, or of a petition signed by
fifteen per centum of the qualified electors of the county, computed
upon the total number of votes cast therein for all candidates for
governor at the last preceding gubernatorial election. Within one
hundred and twenty days from the time their election is declared the
board of freeholders must prepare and cause to be published a charter
for the government of the county. Within sixty days after its first
publication (unless a general election intervenes) the charter is
submitted to the voters of the county for adoption or rejection. It is
then submitted to the legislature at its next session for approval or
rejection but not for amendment. But since a California legislature
in thirty-seven years has never been known to reject a charter or
a charter amendment of a city, the outlook for a policy of county
non-interference would seem to be good.

It may be, however, that the California plan is too radical a change
for states which have not yet granted freedom to their cities. A less
sweeping way of affording relief from iron-clad forms of government is
found in the statutes of Illinois, New Jersey and other states, through
which it is possible for any county to pass from one prescribed form to
another by petition and popular election. Similar laws are in operation
in a number of states permitting cities to adopt the commission plan,
and in four states the cities may make a choice between three or four
forms under an optional law.

Following the passage of such a city law in New York, the County
Government Association and the official commissions on the
reorganization of government in Nassau and Westchester counties
memorialized the constitutional convention of 1915 for amendments which
would authorize the counties to adopt a plan of organization suited to
their local needs. These associations formulated the question of county
adjustment for “up-state” New York counties in these words:

 First: That the Legislature should be required by the Constitution
 to provide optional plans of county government, any one of which any
 county may adopt by a vote of the people.

 Second: That the Legislature should in such plans confer upon the
 Board of Supervisors or other governing body in such county such
 powers of local legislation as the Legislature may deem expedient.

 Third: That the Constitution should require that no such plan of
 government should be imposed on any county until approved by the
 electors thereof and that no amendment to any plan of government
 should affect any county which has previously adopted such plan,
 unless such amendment is accepted by such county, or unless such
 amendment relates to some state function.

 Fourth: That the Constitution should require that all laws relating
 to the government of counties should be general both in terms and in
 effect, except that special or local laws relating to such government
 may be passed, but shall take effect only on approval of the county
 affected.

The California amendment has been put to use in the four counties of
Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Tehama, and Butte, all of which have their
special “home-rule” charters. Its early use is contemplated in Alameda,
Napa and Santa Barbara counties. Since 1911 the scope of the amendment
has been broadened so as to permit of considerable latitude in the
consolidation of city and county governments.

Such is the counter-movement to centralized state control. In no wise
are the two in the least inconsistent, for the latter tendency is to
limit the subjects in which the county acts in the capacity of a local
state agent while the former concerns itself simply with _methods_
of performing service under local popular control.

The home-rule movement, if it may so be indicated, is practical
evidence that people are regarding counties as something more than mere
geographical expressions. Counties are _thinking_ units. They are
capable of framing local policies. Therefore they would extend their
opportunities to think and to express themselves.

This idea seems to be at the bottom of the local option policy of the
organized anti-liquor forces throughout a great portion of the country.
Shrewd tactics, of course, has a good deal to do with it, for county
and other forms of local option are but the thin side of a wedge to
state-wide and even nation-wide prohibition. But for the present
at least, organizations like the Anti-Saloon League realize that
counties are very handy and convenient units of public sentiment and
have been instrumental in securing county option laws in many states,
including Idaho, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
Montana, Oregon, Texas. Incidentally, the county option plan makes the
public policy district in liquor matters coincide with districts for
enforcement, thus minimizing the danger of nullification.




CHAPTER XVI

CONSOLIDATION


The battle cry of local freedom comes up loudest from urban centers.
The simple reason is that the counties were devised originally for
communities in a state of nature--a few people, widely scattered, all
but oblivious to the existence or need of government. City communities
on the other hand are highly complex, individualized, differentiated
units. Accordingly, their governmental garments must be custom-made.

City governments indeed were instituted partly to escape the
strait-jacket inflexibility of the counties. Gradually, as we have
seen, they elbowed the county governments into a dark corner, to the
infinite debasement of the sheriff, the coroner, the poor master and
the tax collector and other typical accessories of the county.

But almost everywhere, at some point short of full county annihilation,
the pressure of the city stopped. Perhaps it was the politicians who
intervened, to save “the boys” at the court house; or perhaps it
was the feeling that seems to have settled down upon our political
thinking, that counties, like death and taxes, have to be.

Within very recent years, bold spirits in some of the metropolitan
centers have begun to feel that the county, in their particular
communities, was a public nuisance and have been “going” for it.
Thus the New York _Times_, when the New York Constitutional
Convention was in session in 1915, delivered not a few strokes for a
proposition to abolish existing boundaries of the sixty-one counties
and substitute therefor eight administrative districts. Cleveland,
Ohio, reformers would like to have that city divorce itself from the
rural part of Cuyahoga County. In Rochester, a recent survey has
suggested a similar course with reference to Monroe County. Studies
have also been made recently (1916) by the City Club of Milwaukee.
A member of the city commission in Jersey City has recently caused
to be passed in the legislature a bill providing for a vote on
consolidation of municipalities in Hudson County on a sort of borough
plan. In Cincinnati the question of consolidation of the city with
Hamilton County was recently opened, apparently for the first time,
in newspaper discussions. In the 1916 New York legislature there was
under discussion a bill extending control of the board of estimate
and apportionment in New York City over the employees of the five
counties within the city. This was in line with a recent report by the
chamberlain and the commissioner of accounts of New York City submitted
to the Constitutional Convention, which pointed out the advantages
of the abolition of counties in New York City and the transfer of
their functions to the control of the city authorities. St. Louis City
actually accomplished the fact in 1876 when it separated from St.
Louis County. Baltimore and a number of Virginia cities have long been
separated (for historical rather than reformatory reasons, however,)
from the surrounding rural or suburban territory.

In practice, the process of relocation of county boundary lines is very
much like the reversing of a long series of court decisions. Local
tradition and the gradual crystallizing of the interests of local
politicians militate powerfully to maintain the _status quo_. And,
yet, for all that, the shifting of boundary lines must inevitably come,
if local governments are to meet their obligations.

Just where and by what criteria the new lines are to be laid is no
easy question to decide; our metropolitan centers are of such various
origins and in such differing degrees of development. The committee
on City-County Consolidation of the National Municipal League in
a preliminary report rendered in 1916 seeks to classify the urban
communities in this fashion:

 “The simplest type of urban county is that in which the geographical
 limits of the two local units are identical and the population has
 grown up out of a single well-defined historical nucleus. Among other
 communities there would fall within this classification the cities of
 Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco and Baltimore and eighteen cities
 in Virginia.

 “A second type is that in which a single city furnishes an
 overwhelming proportion of the population, but occupies a relatively
 small part of an otherwise rural territory. Among the cities which
 fall in this classification are Buffalo, Milwaukee and Cleveland.

 “The third type is that in which a city of predominating size
 and importance is surrounded by a number of smaller but vigorous
 municipalities which have grown up not as suburbs of the main city,
 but out of independent historical beginnings. Cases in point are the
 two largest counties of New Jersey, Hudson and Essex.

 “A fourth type is one which contains several strong municipalities,
 no one of which has achieved a position of undisputed leadership.
 Alameda County, Cal., which contains the cities of Oakland, Alameda
 and Berkeley will serve to illustrate.

 “The most advanced type of the city-county problem involves the
 adjustment of the political to the physical and social unity of a
 great urban area, regardless of established boundaries of either
 cities or counties. The metropolitan districts of New York and
 Massachusetts are the most conspicuous illustrations of this problem.”

The key to reconstruction is the same in every case: simplification.
Eliminate duplication of civil divisions; substitute one government for
two or many (in the case of Chicago, twenty-two!). There is a good deal
of _logic_ in a separate local government to serve as a state
agency. But everywhere the people have waived the right or privilege of
a logical government when they have illogically insisted upon selecting
their officers locally. When the district attorney, for instance, is
chosen by the electors of the county he may be legally the state’s
representative but he is _practically_ a local officer in very
much the same sense as the mayor. Then why, for legal fiction’s sake,
distinguish between the city and the county?

One American city-county has not only seen the inefficiency and
hypocrisy of the dual system but has actually wiped out the last
semblance of distinction between the two divisions. The story is told
in legal form in Article XX of the Colorado constitution:

 “The municipal corporation known as the city of Denver, and all
 municipal corporations and that part of the quasi-municipal
 corporation known as the County of Arapahoe, in the state of Colorado,
 included into the exterior boundaries of the said city of Denver, as
 the same shall be bounded when this amendment takes effect, are hereby
 consolidated and are hereby declared to be a single body politic and
 corporate, by the name of the city and county of Denver.”

By this same amendment the city and county were declared to be a single
judicial district of the state, and county officers were disposed of by
prescribing that

 “the then mayor, auditor, engineer, council (which shall perform the
 duties of a board of county commissioners), police magistrate, chief
 of police and boards, of the city of Denver shall become respectively,
 said officers of the city and county of Denver, and said engineer
 shall be _ex-officio_ surveyor and said chief of police shall be
 _ex-officio_ sheriff of the city and county of Denver; and the
 then clerk and _ex-officio_ recorder, treasurer, assessor and
 coroner of the county of Arapahoe and the justices of the peace and
 constables holding office within the city of Denver, shall become,
 respectively, said officers of the city and county of Denver, and the
 district attorney shall be _ex-officio_ attorney of the city and
 county of Denver.”

In 1913 an amendment to the Denver charter, adopted by popular vote,
provided for the commission form of government with the usual divisions
of administration into five departments respectively of Property,
Finance, Safety, Improvements and Social Welfare. To some one of these
commissionerships was assigned jurisdiction over each of the several
county officers, as appropriately as the conditions would permit.

The process of amalgamation was made complete when in May, 1916, Denver
abandoned the commission plan and made the mayor chief executive of the
county as well as of the city, with appropriate appointing power.

In New York, consolidation has extended to most of the fiscal
functions, tending to leave intact only so much of the original
county structure as is incidental to the administration of justice,
including the courts themselves, the sheriff in his capacity of court
executive and the court clerks. The functions of the county treasurer
have been transferred to the city chamberlain and the comptroller,
and the department of taxes and assessments has been attached to the
city organization. The separate governing bodies of the five counties
have been swept away and their powers transferred to the city Board
of Estimate and Apportionment and Board of Aldermen. New York City
also has not only taken over the function of public charities, but
its Department of Corrections has been steadily encroaching upon the
prerogatives of the sheriffs. The future issue of city consolidation
there is accordingly reduced to a matter of abolishing the five
counties and transferring their functions to officers under city
control and making the independent elective officers such as the
sheriff, district attorney, clerk and register appointive by either
city or state authorities.

[19]In spite of much that remains to be done, consolidation has
proceeded to an advanced stage also in Boston, though hardly in a
direct line towards greater simplicity. Before it became a city in 1820
a conflict had arisen as to the jurisdiction of the town, and of the
court of sessions for Suffolk County, respecting highways and taxation.
The legislature thereupon abolished the court and transferred its
administrative functions to the mayor and council of Boston. Boston,
however, is not geographically identical with Suffolk County, since
the latter for the purposes of the administration of justice, includes
the city of Chelsea and the towns of Revere and Winthrop. Boston has
the title to all the real and personal property of Suffolk County but
also pays the entire expense of its administration. The treasurer and
auditor of accounts of the city act in similar capacities for the
county of Suffolk. But there are seven elective county officials and
several, virtually independent of each other, who are chosen by the
governor or the justice of the Superior Court.

This situation as to the actual political Boston is confusing
enough. Metropolitan Boston on the other hand, comprises thirty-nine
municipalities situated in five counties, which make up a compact
community of a million five hundred thousand inhabitants. These centers
have every facility for communication and transportation. And the state
has indeed recognized the unity of the district by establishing such
agencies of administration as the metropolitan park commission and the
metropolitan water and sewer board.

San Francisco has proceeded so far as to have a single governing body
and a single set of fiscal officers for city and county.

With this, the recital of actual accomplishments toward formal
consolidation is about complete. The advantages of consolidation as
they appear to a disinterested observer are obvious. But the process
is usually difficult in the extreme, especially as it relates to the
equitable distribution of assets and liabilities of the parts to be
consolidated. New York City only accomplished this by assuming the
debts of the outlying counties and municipalities. But in the course of
nineteen years not even that generous concession has sufficed to the
vigorous local spirit of Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens and Richmond.


FEDERATION

Where immediate consolidation at a single stroke is out of the
question, as is apparently almost always the case, a more easy
transition is suggested by the recommendations of the City and County
Government Association of Alameda County, California. Realizing
that a powerful local sentiment in the outlying territory militated
irresistibly against annexation to the city of Oakland or, in fact, any
form of complete organic union of the municipalities in the county,
this Association has proposed as the logical first step to a more
economically organized county, a plan of federation.

[Illustration: ORGANIZATION CHART For the City and County of Alameda
and its Boroughs as Proposed in the Tentative Charter Submitted by the
City and County Government Association]

[Illustration: SKETCH of PROPOSED CITY and COUNTY of ALAMEDA
SHOWING PROPOSED BOROUGHS]

Under the proposed plan the governing body would consist of one
councillor from each of twenty-one districts. Unlike the present
board of supervisors in Alameda County, the new body would have only
legislative functions. The functions of the county, as a public
corporation, would be broadened to include a number of interests
which the municipalities are conceived to have in common. Police
protection, for instance, would revert from the cities back to the
county, where it was originally lodged, on the theory that crime
thrives in a certain social and physical environment and knows nothing
and cares less for corporate limits. And inasmuch also as the ravages
of fire and disease are the interests of a territory rather than the
corporate boundaries of a city, the control of these perils would
also be transferred to the county. The installation of the plan would
also result in the abolishment of the dual system of tax assessment
and tax collection. To the smaller units would be left jurisdiction
over their more distinctively local affairs such as public works. The
identity of the individual cities, which would be known as “boroughs,”
would thus remain intact, for they would retain their local governing
bodies to frame strictly local policies. At the same time the general
organization of the local government would provide for the common
interests of the constituent members.

Some such plan of federation, as a transition step toward unity, would
seem to commend itself to several important counties which are made
up of communities like those which compose Alameda County. How these
communities in the face of increased cost of government and the greater
demands for public service are much longer to resist some measures
toward greater organic unity it is difficult to conceive.

Even in the domain of public works the desirability of unified control
is often of much importance. Thus in Essex County, N. J., it was
discovered as early as 1894 that no adequate provision for a public
park system could be worked out by the separate municipalities in
that distinctly urban county. In the case of certain thorough-fares
which ran through two or more of these cities, it was highly desirable
to effect some sort of a continuous, uniform improvement. Certain
lowlands, also, were found to lie partly in one municipality and partly
in another, so that neither city could act to advantage independently.
Some of the cities had no available space for park purposes, while
others had the space, without the resources or the need for developing
it. From every point of view the obvious course to pursue led to
a general consolidation of park interests, and a comprehensive
well-balanced park plan, county-wide in its scope. And so there was
created a county park commission which has exclusive jurisdiction over
park developments and maintenance. It is noteworthy however that this
commission, as we have already indicated, was not made an integral
part of the existing county government but a separate corporation; the
heads of this new department of government were made appointive by the
judges of the Supreme Court in order that politics might be eliminated
from its control. Had the metropolitan area been under a single
municipal control, no such complication would have been necessary. The
county government was deemed unfit to represent the unity of interest
throughout the several communities when an important new undertaking
was under consideration.

Of the realization of the idea of the metropolitan unification under
county control the London County Council[20] is the world’s most
striking and instructive example. London, through the centuries, as
some of our American cities have done in a lifetime, had grown from
a multitude of small independent local communities into a single,
continuous metropolitan district. However, the constituent units, of
which the ancient city of London is but one, retained their historic
identities and clung to their historic institutions. In this peculiar
way London perhaps resembles the metropolitan district of New York or
Boston or Essex County in New Jersey. From time to time new units of
administration were laid down to correspond to modern needs, until the
system of local government was complexity itself. In 1855, Parliament
took the first step toward adjusting this situation, creating the
Metropolitan Board of Works which, in the thirty-three years of its
life, was responsible for much of the city’s physical improvement.
But corruption and scandal entered its ranks and it was legislated
out of existence. The London County Council was then established
with a membership composed of one hundred and eighteen councillors,
two members being chosen from each of the fifty-seven “parliamentary
boroughs” or election districts and four from the city of London. From
within or without its own membership the councillors select nineteen
aldermen who serve for a six-year term. Through its committees the
Council gets into touch with its various problems of the county, while
engineering, medical, financial and other experts are held responsible
for actual administration. A “clerk” who is chosen by the Council is in
fact the coördinator of the whole system, somewhat in the manner of a
city manager in the United States. A comptroller serves as the fiscal
agent of the Council.

Upon the county of London thus organized are imposed many of the
functions which in America are almost universally entrusted to cities:
extensive authority over public health, all matters relating to
fire protection, all metropolitan street improvement projects, the
construction and maintenance of bridges that cross the Thames, the
administration of the building laws and the maintenance of tenement
houses. The Council has also limited powers over what we in this
country term “public utilities”; it has power to establish technical
schools and to build and maintain parks and recreation centers. Its
financial powers, while subject in their exercise to the control of the
Home Office, are comprehensive.

Nor is the county of London but a city by another name. The
metropolitan boroughs have their separate identity and a very real
authority, including a certain control over public health and public
lighting. In any conflict between the boroughs and the county the Home
Office acts as the final arbiter.

London county has a record of which it has good reason to be proud. To
its credit it has a long list of mighty public works, conceived and
executed in a spirit of public service. Apparently neither graft nor
the spoils system have obtained a foothold. Here is a county which
has become so conspicuous and interesting to its citizens that they
form themselves into local political parties, founded upon genuine
differences of opinion and policy to make their citizenship felt in its
government. In the seats of the governing body sit, not the typical
office seeker to which we are accustomed in America, but men of the
influence and ability of Lord Rosebery, afterwards the prime minister
of England, and Sir John Lubbock.

All of which would seem to go to prove that even at this late date,
the county is capable of a very honorable service, if it is taken
seriously.

The whole problem is of utmost importance to the future of American
cities. Aside from the obvious economies of a single local government
as opposed to two or more, it seems essential that the future
development of large centers of population should not be hampered
by conflicting policies of a double or multiple system of local
governments. It is obvious, moreover, that perils which continually
threaten the population of urban communities, such as fire, crime and
contagious diseases, constitute unified problems which are co-extensive
with congested areas. It would seem essential that the control of these
perils should be a unified one and that too much reliance should not be
placed upon a spirit of coöperation between different units.

[19] See Hormell, O. C. “Boston’s County Problems,” _Annals American
Academy of Political and Social Science_, May, 1913, pp. 134 _et
seq._

[20] See Munro, _Government of European Cities_, pp. 345 _et.
seq._




CHAPTER XVII

RECONSTRUCTION: PRINCIPLES, PRECEDENTS AND PROPOSALS


We have been at some pains to put the county into right relationships.
Ideally, it is to be a supervised local division of the state
administration (such supervision to insure strict accountability but
to be unobstructive); it is to be relieved by the state of not a few
incompatible, back-breaking burdens; it is to have (with some necessary
limitations) a free hand in making over its internal organization for
whatever obligations of public service may be laid upon it in the
future. In some respects its greatest service is to consist in receding
entirely from public service, while in other respects its importance
should be greatly enhanced.

Practically, these external adjusting movements will proceed
concurrently, with varying speed, according as the need for the one
or the other may exist or be recognized. Their full fruition will
still leave the county, within its restricted sphere, with a very
distinct and honorable body of functions to perform. And for this,
the county, now so largely an unfit instrument of a self-governing,
self-respecting community, must be made over from within.

The basic formula of reconstruction is not far to seek. In every state
the forward looking part of the citizenry which interests itself
in better government for long toyed with the theory of “checks and
balances,” which might be denominated for popular purposes as “safety
via complication.” Past generations put a premium on _ingenious_
political devices. Just as to some people medicine which is not bitter
is not efficacious, so to the old school of political reformers,
government was dangerous if it could be seen through and understood.
But ingenuity and complexity in city government “came high.” The cost
of them was “conspicuous failure.” In the end the people rebelled and
the end of the old way of thinking about government was in sight.
Witness: the movements of those cities which since 1901 have so
cheerfully though so thoughtfully “scrapped” the historic dogma by
the act of adopting the “commission” plan. Ingenious, complicated,
inefficient, corrupt, city governments have given way literally by
the hundreds to a new system, the corner-stone principle of which is
simplicity: one set of officials to elect and watch; one place to go to
get things done; one source to which to direct criticism when things go
wrong.

In a word, the Short Ballot, in its fullest implication. It is not
simply that there should be few officers to elect. County candidates
are not especially obscure to rural voters and the ballots in the
country districts are not often absurdly long. The farmer probably
makes a better job of it when it comes to making up his ticket than
any other class of citizen. It is also necessary that “those officers
should be elective which are important enough to attract _and
deserve_ examination,” that is, officers who stand at the sources of
public policy--not sheriffs or coroners or county clerks; not officers
who simply follow out a statutory routine, but those who are supposed
to lay out programs of county action.

And then, the Short Ballot connotes unification of powers. For what
does it avail to watch, to criticize a single set of officers if all
the while the really important work of the county is performed and the
really important damage is committed by the officials who are obscure
and therefore unwatched?

County government, as it stands, is the very personification of
non-conformity to these approved principles of political organization.
Starting, therefore, at the base of an ideal structure, let us proceed
to the task of reconstruction.

Under ideal home-rule conditions the county will have been brought face
to face with the obligation to stand on its own feet. It will look
about for appropriate means to redeem that obligation. The electorate
will be made responsible for its collective conduct by virtue of
accurate representation in the county’s council. Responsibility will
first be secured in the very make-up of the governing body, which is
the source of power in any popular government. No stereotyped uniform
plan of organization will do; no slavish copying of the “New England”
type, or the “southern” type: counties differ too widely for that. But
natural and legitimate cleavages of public opinion will be recognized
and represented. Minor geographical divisions which have a distinct
identity may be given a separate voice in the county board, but if the
county is a geographical and social unit, the form of the governing
body will reflect the fact. And if the county is co-extensive with a
city, that circumstance will be given due weight.

But the county board will be something more than an epitomized
electorate. It will be clothed, as such bodies rarely are, with the
power not only to discover what the people want, but to translate their
wishes into deeds of administration. Instead of working as now through
alien instruments in the person of independent officials, it will
control the operating mechanism of the county, which will be of its
own selection. Shall we take away from the people the power to choose
the sheriffs, the county clerk, the surveyor, the superintendent of
the poor? Yes, take away the selection, but reinforce their control.
Abandon the separation of powers? Yes, do away with the three-ring (or
perhaps twelve- or twenty-ring) circus, and get down to the serious
business of government. For business never was successfully organized
except on the principle that the head controls the tail and all that
intervenes. In terms of law, the county board, subject of course to
state legislative and administrative supervision, will exercise all the
powers of the corporation, including those of appointment, of revenue
raising and of appropriation.

A long step toward the fulfillment of these principles in actual
life has been taken in the county of Los Angeles, Cal., one of those
communities in which the doctrine of complexity was once carried
to absurd extremes. But the new charter of this county, which was
the first to be adopted[21] under the home-rule provisions of the
constitution, proceeded in great measure in the light of the theory
exemplified by the commission plan in the cities. The supervisors
are retained on the elective list as the constitution requires, but
the county superintendent of schools, coroner, public administrator,
county clerk, treasurer, tax collector, recorder and surveyor, all of
whom were formerly elected by the voters, are now appointed by and
are responsible to the county governing body, which is the board of
supervisors. The sheriff, the auditor, the assessor and the district
attorney are still elective. In thus extending the power of the
board of supervisors, the charter framers require that, with a few
exceptions, the officers shall be chosen from competitive lists on
the basis of merit and fitness. The fee system is abolished. The Los
Angeles achievement, while it falls far short of the measure of unity
which is present in many counties governed by the commissioner system,
is important as a recent conscious step toward greater simplicity.

And now that we have perfected a mechanism for expressing the general
will of the people of the county, it remains to arm the governing
body more effectively with the means for translating mere wishes into
concrete acts of administration. To put it otherwise, we must mobilize
the operating departments under effective leadership.

Recall, first, our statement in an earlier chapter that the county
in the United States is almost universally devoid of a definite
executive head. One exception is the two first-class counties of New
Jersey (Hudson and Essex) where until recent years the so-called
board of chosen freeholders were elected from districts. Under these
circumstances the need was felt for some agency to represent the
unity of interest among the several localities, in the government
of the county. Accordingly, the office of supervisor was conceived.
The incumbent is elected by the people of the county and has powers
not unlike those of the mayor in many cities. He is required “to be
vigilant and active in causing the laws and ordinances of the county
to be executed and enforced.” Subject to the civil service law he has
power to suspend and remove but not to appoint subordinates. He may
propose legislation and veto resolutions.

Fifteen years of experience have not commended this institution to
wider adoption. With one or two exceptions the supervisors, like most
mayors of cities, have not been men of force or imagination and they
have been controlled, apparently, by the same political elements as the
board of freeholders upon which they were supposed to have served as a
check.

As these pages are being written, a single county in the West, almost
unconsciously it would seem and under influences that upon the surface
seem reactionary, has taken one of the longest progressive steps toward
administrative unity ever taken by an American county. The county in
mind is Denver, Colorado. Ever since the constitution was amended in
1902 the city and county have been geographically identical. Article
XX, Section 2, stipulates that “the officers of the city and county
of Denver shall be such as by _appointment_ or election may be
provided for by the charter.” On May 9, 1916, Denver abandoned the
commission plan of government and vested the appointment of city _and
county_ officials in the mayor.

The New Jersey and Denver experiments point in the general direction
of administrative unity; they do not come within hailing distance of
the expectations which seem to be justified by recent developments
in American cities. For after all, the practical problem is the same
in every civil division: to dispose effectively and economically
of the visible supply of work to be accomplished or service to be
rendered. And this, some of the more aggressive of our cities, such
as Dayton and Springfield, 0., Niagara Falls, N. Y., and some forty
others have essayed to do through a form of organization which is unity
and simplicity reduced to its lowest terms: the plan of the typical
business corporation. A board of directors to represent the people; a
city manager to appoint and direct the heads of departments--that is
all there is to it. And it works!

In similar fashion the people of our counties will surely consent to
a reorganization of _their_ public affairs. The members of the
county boards will not follow the example of some of our present county
commissioners and personally descend to the management of the details
of administration. They will learn the art of delegating authority
without losing control. And just as the people will have simplified
their problem of citizenship by concentrating their attention on the
governing group, so the representative body will focus administrative
responsibility in a chief subordinate. To be specific, the county
of the future will employ a manager chosen appropriately with sole
reference to his fitness to manage public affairs and without regard to
residence, religion or views on the Mexican situation, who will pick up
the authority of the county where the board of directors leaves it off.

With the installation of the manager with adequate powers, the county
will have supplied the largest single essential in any collective
effort: leadership. Without that directing, driving force it is hardly
strange that counties, up to the present, have headed for nowhere in
particular.

And leadership in county affairs signifies specifically what?

To begin with, it will now be possible to build up the correct sort
of subsidiary organization. For instance, with such leadership it
should not have been necessary, for the lack of a proper executive
responsibility, for Hudson County in New Jersey to impose upon the
local judges the odd function of selecting a mosquito commission, and
to dispose the rest of the appointing power as the fancy of the moment
might dictate.

A county manager who has the power to appoint and discharge will of
course be in a position to issue orders with a reasonable assurance
that they will be obeyed without a writ of mandamus or some other
form of judicial intervention. Public business will be speeded up
accordingly.

And then, the presence of a responsible executive will supply
an indispensable condition of a scientific budget. The finance
committee of the governing board is no proper substitute, for, as
Mr. Cartwright[22] says: “Such a committee cannot have either the
understanding of the full meaning of the budget, or the personal
interest in properly performing the work of preparation that an
executive head should have who is personally responsible in very large
degree for the success or failure of the entire county administration.
The man who is officially responsible ought personally to lay the
plans, summoning to his aid such advisers as he deems best suited to
give him counsel.” The budget is the financial plan or program in a
given year. It must see the needs of the county in their unity. It is
the proper occupation of a single directing mind which is continuously
and intimately in touch through his subordinates, with every need of
the county. Not that the county manager will have the “power of the
purse” and dictate the financial policy of the county. On the contrary,
he will simply formulate the financial program for his employers to
accept or reject, in whole or in part as they see fit.

The county manager will also act as a balance against any undue
pressure from any geographical division in the county or any division
of the public service. He will discover possible new services or better
methods of performing old services. In short, he will be the specially
accredited agent of the county board in carrying out its policies and
the initiating force of public opinion. Through the governing board
and the county manager there will be a clear and direct succession of
authority from the people to the scullion at the almshouse and the
assistant turnkey at the county jail.

A proposal that practically squares with this formula was put forth
some years ago by a group of Oregon citizens under the leadership of W.
S. U’Ren, in a proposed amendment to the state constitution. Under the
projected scheme the county business would be in the hands of a board
of three directors to be elected by the voters of the county for terms
of six years. This board would have power to “make all expedient rules
and regulations for the successful, efficient and economic management
of all county business and property.” It would be necessary, however,
to employ a business manager who would be the “chief executive of the
county”; the choice of this officer not to be limited to the state
of Oregon; his salary to be determined by the board. With him would
rest the appointment of the subordinate county officers. The board of
directors would be empowered to audit bills, either directly or through
an auditor.

A more complete and detailed plan of county government, following the
same general principles, was embodied in a bill introduced in the New
York legislature in 1916.[23] It provided that any county, except those
comprising New York City, might adopt the statute by petition and
referendum. The county would therefore be governed by a board of five
county supervisors who would act through a manager, whose duties would
be:

 (_a_) To attend all meetings of the board of supervisors;

 (_b_) To see that the resolutions and other orders of the board
 of supervisors and the laws of the state required to be enforced by
 such board, are faithfully carried out by the county, including all
 officers chosen by the electors;

 (_c_) To recommend to the board of supervisors such measures as
 he may deem necessary or expedient for the proper administration of
 the affairs of the county and its several offices;

 (_d_) To appoint all county officers whose selection by
 the electors is not required by the constitution, except county
 supervisors and the county auditor or comptroller, for such terms of
 office as are provided by law.

Subject to resolutions of the board of supervisors, he shall:

 (_e_) Purchase all supplies and materials required by every
 county officer, including the superintendent of the poor;

 (_f_) Execute contracts on behalf of the board of supervisors
 when the consideration therein shall not exceed five hundred dollars;

 (_g_) Obtain from the several county officers reports of their
 various activities in such form and at such times as the board of
 supervisors may require;

 (_h_) Obtain from the several county officers itemized estimates
 of the probable expense of conducting their offices for the ensuing
 year, and transmit the same to the board of supervisors with his
 approval or disapproval of each and all items therein, in the form of
 a tentative budget.

 (_i_) Perform such other duties as the board of supervisors may
 require.

In the exercise of these duties the county manager would have power to
examine witnesses, take testimony under oath and make examination of
the affairs of any office.

Inasmuch as the constitution of New York State requires the election
by the people of the sheriff, district attorney, county clerk and
register, the method of choosing these officers could not be affected
by statute.

The Alameda County plan referred to in the preceding chapter provides
for a city-and-county manager who would have charge not only of county
administration but of the execution of the policies of the several
constituent boroughs.

Such are a few definite proposals for fundamental political
reconstruction of the county. Recalling, again, the low estate of our
_city_ governments, a decade since, the hope for an early and
thoroughgoing betterment of the county system, in the department of
fundamental structure, would seem to be not altogether vain.

[21] November, 1912.

[22] Otho G. Cartwright, Director of Westchester County Research Bureau.

[23] For text see Appendix, pp. 251-256.




CHAPTER XVIII

SCIENTIFIC ADMINISTRATION


Better county government, however, involves a good deal more than a
mere skeleton of organization. It is not enough to provide the means
for fixing responsibility in a general though fundamental sense, in
officers who are conspicuous and powerful. That is the beginning of
efficiency. And yet “responsibility” in its greater refinements, in
its more intimate applications, is precisely the key to what all the
various prophets of better government and public administration are
preaching. Turn on the light! That is what the Short Ballot movement
proposes by the more sweeping fundamental changes in the structure.
Turning on the light is also essence of the doctrine of better
accounting, better auditing, better budget making, better purchasing
and the whole tendency to greater publicity in the conduct of public
affairs.

Those county commissioners out in Kansas and Iowa who paid too much for
their bridges--what was the real trouble with them? A writer in the
agricultural journal which exposed these scandals wound up his article
with an exhortation to the people to “elect good honest men.” Such
advice was at least a shade or two more constructive than the political
preaching of a century ago (which still has its adherents) that public
officials tend inevitably to become thieves and crooks; that the best
that we can do is to tie their hands by ingenious “checking” and
“balancing” devices until it is almost impossible for them to move.
To-day one group of political reconstructionists says: “Give these
officers plenty of power, and then watch them,” and another group,
supplementing the former, says: “Give officers the means of knowing
exactly what they are doing; give also the public the means of watching
intelligently and minutely; and if their public servants go wrong it is
‘up to the people,’” actually as well as formally. One is quite safe in
assuming, for instance, that the offices of those middle western county
officials were terribly “shy” on reliable data on bridge construction
with which to meet the wiles of the combined contractors.

To begin with, what kind of a bridge was most needed? Did they have
records as to the volume and weight of traffic which was likely to come
over the structure? Did they seek light from an engineer of untarnished
reputation or did they just trust to their “horse sense” and the fact
that they “had lived there all their lives and they ought to know, if
anybody did”? What did the records in the county engineer’s office show
as to the relative durability and maintenance expense of steel bridges
as against wooden bridges, under the peculiar local conditions?

Then as to the bids on the proposed structure: how did these compare
with the cost of bridges of equal tonnage in other states and counties?
How about the current state of the steel market--would it be better to
buy now or wait a few months until business at the mills was likely to
be slack?

How about financing the bridge project? Should the cost be borne out
of the current year’s revenues, should it be covered by a ten-year
bond issue or should the next generation of taxpayers be saddled with
payments long after the bridge had outlived its usefulness?

A board of supervisors or a county manager or a county engineer armed
with an answer to this series of extremely pertinent questions and a
modicum of common honesty would be proof against ninety-nine per cent.
of the “slick” deals which are so often “put over” on an unsuspecting
public and their easy-going servants.

The science of public administration consists principally in knowing
_exactly_ where you are and what you are doing--knowledge
gained through experimentation, investigation and comparison and by
consultation of authoritative standards and with authorities themselves.

We will illustrate this principle in a few of its applications:


ACCOUNTING

The accounting system of any organization, public or private, is useful
in proportion to the definiteness of its analyses or classifications,
according to what is most important to be known. Thus, in New
York State, the statutes authorize boards of supervisors to allow
claims on the basis: (1) of specific amounts imposed by state law,
such as the stated salaries of judges, (2) of amounts fixed by the
board of supervisors under authority of law. In at least one county
(Westchester) it was formerly the custom to lump a great variety of
claims under the second heading--under the title “county audited
bills”--a procedure which was satisfactory enough perhaps, if to know
the _authority_ for payment were the only information desired.
By such a system it was impossible to tell the cost of running any
county office or department without actually tracing each voucher back
to its source. Thus, it was found that, in the year 1907 the budget
authorization for the superintendent of the poor was $17,485.61, while
the expenditures shown by the treasurer’s report were $108,906.58
and the actual cost of the office, when proper additions were made
from the “county audited bills,” was $118,464.33. Discrepancies of an
equally serious nature were revealed in the case of most of the other
offices. The accounting system through its inexact classifications gave
information which was useful in protecting the treasurer but which
was practically without value as a description of what the county’s
departments were doing and how economically they were doing it.

Exact classification is also essential to the last degree in the
making of the budget, to the end that actual experience in the way of
revenues received and funds disbursed may be made the reliable basis
of future activities. In a well-ordered system of state supervision of
local accounts the classifications will be made by a state official
who will have the power to enforce compliance upon the part of the
fiscal officer in each county. So that in time each county will have
the inestimable advantage of being able to compare its finances with
those of other similar units. A proper accounting system will proceed
so far in its analysis as to provide a large amount of data concerning
the cost of _units_ of service rendered and materials consumed.
Among other things, it will reveal at any and all times precisely what
is the condition of the county’s assets both in the shape of funds and
of investments; it will show how much the county actually owes and is
to owe at any future date.


THE BUDGET

On the basis of accounts that tell in detailed classification the
needs and the resources of the county, the governing body will be able
to embark upon the financial voyage of each new year with chart and
compass. At a stated time before the budget-making period the heads of
departments, having before them the records of transactions and costs
in previous years, will frame their requests for future service. But
because of the exactness of the estimates required to be submitted, any
request for an increase of appropriation will stand out as a shining
mark. The department head will thereby be thrown on the defensive, will
be obliged to explain himself. The knowledge of that condition will
have a distinctly beneficial effect upon any desire of his to seek
increased appropriations without careful consideration.

The governing body will proceed, moreover, with the certitude that
the public has at its disposal the means of knowing in detail what
its government is costing. The business of the year will be treated
as a program of public service; and in the framing of that program
every interested citizen and group of citizens will be urged to take
part through the medium of public hearings. As the Westchester County
Research Bureau says: “It would be easy to provide an opportunity for
the filing of either objections or additional suggestions by taxpayers
and for consideration of these at public hearing at the county seat
before the board of supervisors by public notice of such filing and of
such public hearing. Such hearings would doubtless speedily end such
abuses as are exemplified in our bulletin on the Purchase of County
Supplies. In the face of public objection, few supervisors would vote
affirmatively for appropriations for such extravagant expenditures. The
difference in result would be that between the action of an informed
public, able to deliberate in advance upon proposed expenditures, and
the absence of action of a public ignorant of the character of such
proposed expenditures--the usual condition under present methods of
budget provision for public funds.

“It is easy to prevent the official adoption over public objection of
extravagant estimates. It is difficult to prevent extravagant misuse
of public funds appropriated in lump sums, or to rectify such misuses
after such expenditures have been incurred.”[24]

Complete knowledge and complete mutual confidence and understanding on
the part of the public on the one hand and its agencies of government
on the other--that is the big and seemingly reasonable promise of a
budget system of the right sort. It cannot be put into operation in the
fullest extent without those structural changes in county government
with which we have already dealt.


AUDITING AND PURCHASING

A special field in which exact knowledge is particularly essential as
a safeguard against theft is that of the auditor. To many a county
treasurer the auditing demands of the government appear to be met when
some basis of authority for a payment has been established. Sometimes
even then the authority in question is not a legal one for often it may
not be established by reference to the letter of the statute but by the
precedents set by previous incumbents. Not “What does the law say about
it?” but “What did ---- do in such cases?” is apt to be the question
uppermost in the mind of the official. How many millions of good money
have slipped through county treasurers’ hands through such a procedure
will never be known. The state examiner who has not discovered many an
old-fashioned county where many such illegal payments have been made is
rare indeed.

But such post-mortem checking of illegal payments is, for the most
part, but a sad business. Modern standards of auditing organization
and practice aim to insure more completely that the authority for
payment shall be established _before_ payment. The auditor should
certainly be wholly independent of the disbursing officer and some
authorities would also insist, of the appropriating body. Least of all
should the auditing be done by the appropriating body itself or through
its committees (as is true in some states) for such an audit through
lack of first-hand consideration and definite fixing of responsibility
rapidly degenerates into a perfunctory performance. It is even the
practice in some counties to audit bills in full board by acclamation!

And since so large a portion of county claims are for material and
supplies for use in the construction and maintenance of roads,
bridges and institutions, the work of audit cannot fail to be closely
associated with the purchasing system. The purchasing agent by
whatsoever name called, is, after all, a special sort of auditor,
dealing with a variety of commodities instead of funds. As in every
other branch of public service, successful purchasing depends primarily
on exact information, relating in this case, to standards of utility
of various articles, the present and the probable future state of the
market, the exact condition of present supplies, the honest fulfillment
of contracts. Such information may come through stock ledgers,
inspectors, trade journals or chemical tests.

In the county of Alameda, Cal., as a result of investigation, publicity
and political pressure resulting in changes in the purchasing procedure
in the county offices, the sum of $810,205 was saved on the one
item of cost of elections in the years 1912-1916. Blank affidavits
of registration dropped from $16.50 to $3.30 per thousand, election
ballots from $22.12 to $1.65. On advertising, election proclamation,
etc., there was a saving during the period of 1700 per cent. And
this is by no means an unique experience. It is typical of results
obtained under careful scientific purchasing methods in public work
everywhere.[25] Accurate records, a study of unit costs, “pitiless
publicity,” standardization and elimination of senseless waste and lost
motion constitute the explanation. The Tax Association is now urging
the consolidation of public purchasing agencies throughout the county
in order to take advantage of the still greater economies which accrue
to the large buyer.


OTHER FORMS OF ACCOUNTING

It is not only in its material interests that the county will be in
need of exact information. Where the county comes into contact with
the human factor the importance of working in the daylight cannot be
overlooked. It will not do for the officer in charge of the poor to
keep records “under his hat” concerning the inmates under his charge.
Similarly, the probation officer will investigate and account for the
delinquencies and the special needs of his wards, in a really informing
way. And the sheriff, so long as he shall be the peace officer of
the county, will furnish a record of crimes committed within his
jurisdiction which will possibly lead to suitable preventive measures.

It is a high standard of administrative efficiency which we have set
up. No single county so far as we know, measures up to it at present.
No county, apparently, without compulsion from the central state
government, has even made any serious progress along these lines except
at the instigation of a privately supported research bureau or tax
association. County administrative organization and procedure is virgin
soil for constructive civic effort.

But administrative procedure is not more important to county betterment
than the personnel of the organization. “Politics” in administration
has come to mean the antithesis of scientific standards. Mediocrity and
incompetency sit enthroned where party expediency takes precedence over
the interests of the whole county.


THE MERIT SYSTEM

Therefore abolish “politics!” No single county of its own initiative
has taken a more important step toward that end than Los Angeles,
California, under its special home-rule charter, which is not--able for
the advanced character of its civil service provisions. Among other
things it creates a bureau of efficiency, consisting of the civil
service commission (three members), the secretary thereof and the
auditor of the county. To quote the language of the charter, the duty
of this bureau is that of “determining the duties of each position in
the classified service, fixing standards of efficiency, investigating
the methods of operation of the various departments and recommending to
the board of supervisors and department heads measures for increasing
individual, group and departmental efficiency, and providing for
uniformity of competition and simplicity of operation.” The commission
is required to “ascertain and record the comparative efficiency of
employees in the classified service” and has power after a hearing,
to “dismiss from the service those who fall below the standards of
efficiency established.”[26]

With a combination of a structure of government designed to fix general
responsibility, an administrative procedure designed to let daylight
into public business and an administrative personnel free to serve the
interests of the public, the people of the county will be in a position
to just about get what they want, within the measure of power granted
to the locality under the laws of the state.

[24] “The Making of the County Budget,” Westchester County Research
Bureau, 1912.

[25] Excellent results have been obtained by the purchasing agent of
Onondaga County, New York, Mr. Frank X. Wood.

[26] For full text of provisions, see Charter of Los Angeles (Appendix
B).




CHAPTER XIX

THE COUNTY OF THE FUTURE


In our mind’s eye we have now completely made over the system.
Metropolitan counties have retired from the field; the remainder have
in a large measure been put in command of their own destinies through a
generous extension of the home-rule principle. The county politician of
the conventional type has been extinguished and single-minded service
of the whole people has replaced a hyphenated allegiance that put the
county chairman in the place of highest honor.

What could such a county do for its citizens?

It should be kept in mind that this county of the imagination with
which we are particularly concerned will be practically confined to
rural and semi-rural localities. Here, even while we dream, a very
actual metamorphosis is going on which inevitably promotes a sense of
community interest. Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Ford, the
countryside is getting together in spite of itself! The rural gentry
will think in bigger units and the basis of its allegiances will be
correspondingly broadened. And a more fundamental accomplishment for
county betterment could not well be conceived, for, as Herbert Quick
has asked: “Did you ever know a man that was proud of his county?” The
answer to which he gives himself: “I knew but one such man and his
relations were all in county offices.”

The county of the past has lacked opportunity to “do itself proud.”
The county of the future will be equipped to do interesting things in
an interesting way. But it must develop policies--real politics--as
a substitute for the interest that has made place hunting and place
holding a basic rural industry. The farmer of the future must be
given something more wholesome to think about “during the long winter
evenings” than who is to be the next coroner; and he must cease to
measure his freedom by the number of offices he attempts to fill with
his ballot.

But before county citizenship is raised to the point of appreciation
of the new order a benevolent deed of violence must be done to a
power in the community noted principally for sycophantic approval of
the administration in power, an utter lack of either conscience or
ideas, and “patent insides”--the county official newspaper. The cheap
“boiler-plate” weekly must go the way of old Dobbin and in its place
will come some means yet to be devised, for putting out official
advertising that really advertises and furnishing news that is not only
“fit to print,” but worth the while.

When these mechanical essentials of an efficient local democracy shall
have been acquired the county will be in a position to formulate a
genuine program of service. As to the ingredients for the same a few
suggestions may be in order:


PUBLIC HEALTH

Contrary perhaps to general opinion, the rural sections of the
country are not conspicuously free from a public health problem. All
the squalor, bad housing and contagion is not in the crowded city
tenements. Rural citizens have perhaps much more to learn about pure
milk and water, for instance, than their city brethren. But the public
health movement has struck the country districts. It seems to have come
principally by way of the nation wide attack on tuberculosis. During
the past six or seven years there has been a remarkable campaign for
institutions for the care of persons afflicted with this malady. It
is something entirely distinct from the idea of caring for the pauper
sick, for it has been found difficult to persuade many people in need
of proper treatment to go to an institution to which a long-standing
stigma is attached. New York now has such special institutions in
about half of its counties. In the South, North Carolina has made
more important progress than any other state. Ninety of its hundred
counties have part-time county physicians, while the other ten have
county health officers devoting their entire time and energies to
the preservation of public health and the prevention of disease. The
standard for the selection of these officers is very high.

Wisconsin has enacted a statute authorizing the board of supervisors of
any county to employ a graduate trained nurse whose duties are:

 “To act as a consulting expert on hygiene for all schools not already
 having medical inspection either by physician or visiting nurse, to
 assist the superintendents of the poor in their care of the poor in
 the county who are in need of the services; to give instruction to
 tuberculosis patients and others relative to hygiene measures to be
 observed in preventing the spread of tuberculosis; to aid in making
 a report of existing cases of tuberculosis; to act as visiting nurse
 throughout the county and to perform such other duties as a nurse and
 hygienic expert as may be assigned to her by the county board.”

That the spirit of the new public health movement is taking hold to
some extent in Minnesota is the testimony of a local authority[27]:

 “Koochiching County has the first and only county health organization
 in the state. The county commissioners and the county school board
 there see the economy of hiring a medical man to preserve the health
 of the community and to keep the children in school the maximum number
 of days each term.

 “Furthermore, they have chosen a health officer with a proper point
 of view; one who believes that a health department should be an
 educational agency more than a police bureau; one who reserves the
 ‘police club’ for exceptional emergencies, but who is ever ready
 to instruct and convert. In Koochiching County the authorities are
 laying the foundation for a type of citizenship that is not only
 going to grow up healthy, but will be so well informed that it will
 observe sanitary laws and insist upon proper health safeguards. A
 county health organization similar to the one in Koochiching County,
 or a better one if it can be afforded, is needed in every Minnesota
 county, southern as well as northern, but particularly in the pioneer
 district.”

The public health movement in counties is by no means limited to the
cited states.


COUNTY PLANNING

An example full of suggestive possibilities for almost any locality
comes to us from Westchester County, N. Y. It is a district which
is partly suburban and partly rural and has had very little unity
excepting a political one. The lines of railroad travel run not to
a common center within the county but to the Grand Central Terminal
in New York City. This situation the Westchester County Chamber of
Commerce set about to alleviate at least in some degree by means of
a county physical plan which would facilitate communication between
sections and possibly tend to distribute population more evenly. The
plan calls for a carefully thought-out system of roads, parks and
sewers. It is a private undertaking, but _cities_ have official
planning commissions; why not counties? What could better serve as the
starting point for a broad, comprehensive program for a modernized
county to undertake?


COUNTY LIBRARIES

Quite as fundamental to the welfare of the rural county as turnpikes
and bridges is the awakening of its intellectual life. The school
system is becoming everywhere more highly centralized, so that
educational policies and administration are controlled from the state
capitol. But the schools only meet the demand in an elementary limited
way, leaving the adult population and the graduate of the common and
high schools for the most part unprovided for. The United States
Commissioner of Education has discovered that “probably seventy per
cent. of the entire population of the country have no access to any
adequate collection of books or to a public reading room. In only about
one third of the counties of the United States is there a library of
five thousand volumes or more. In only one hundred of these do the
villages and country people have free use of the libraries.”

In 1901 an Ohio county through a legacy left by one of its citizens
was enabled to meet this deficiency at least partially by establishing
the first county library. It has grown rapidly and now has not only a
central building but a number of sub-stations. The county is said, as a
result of this beginning, to have experienced a general awakening which
has been evidenced in good county pikes, county parks and a hundred
other tangible ways.

Following the example of Ohio, county library laws were passed in
Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Maryland, Oregon, Nebraska and
New York. California has twenty-seven county libraries.


THE PUBLIC DEFENDER

Throughout Oklahoma and in Los Angeles county a humanitarian public
opinion has manifested itself in the erection of a new county office,
that of public defender. The purpose of this new institution is to
put the impecunious litigant actually as well as legally on an equal
footing with his opponent, whether he be a defendant in a criminal
action or a party to a civil suit. Hitherto the law had prescribed
that every defendant should have counsel, even if it be at the state’s
expense. But the lawyers assigned to this somewhat thankless task
(in a pecuniary sense) were either young and inexperienced or too
busy with more lucrative practice to give the “charity” cases the
attention they deserved. Under the new system the salaried defender is
a man comparable in his ability to the district attorney; he gives his
entire time to the county and has a number of assistants. The defender
serves also as an investigator for the court and often in this capacity
discovers circumstances which justify the judge in mitigating sentence.
Incidentally, two years experimentation with this office in Los Angeles
has shown that a considerable saving can be made as against the old
method of employing various lawyers in private practice.

While the public defender will doubtless acquire greatest importance in
city counties, rural communities will not fail to provide opportunities
for his services.


AN IDEALIZED POORMASTER

For another piece of successful experimentation we must again revert
to Westchester County, N. Y., this time to the work of V. Everit Macy,
the superintendent of the poor elected in November, 1914. Mr. Macy
entered upon his public duties, a man of wealth and long experience in
social welfare work. He found the poor administration of the county at
its political worst: petty graft in commitments and the purchase of
supplies, an archaic almshouse, a notable absence of informing records,
neglect of proper medical examinations. He began at the source of the
trouble by eliminating “politics,” in the making of appointments,
by the simple expedient of requiring applicants for positions to
state their qualifications. In time he had surrounded himself with a
group of trained social workers, men and women who, according to one
observer,[28] “are as unlike the staff commonly found with a poor-law
officer as the faculty of a university is unlike that of a one-room
country school.” The simple recital of a few of his achievements in
his first two-year term presages, perhaps, the county of the future
as somewhere in sight of its highest efficiency as a humanitarian
agency. Mr. Macy systematized records, required physical and medical
examination of all inmates, weeded out mental defectives and sent them
to custodial institutions, started competitive bidding in the purchase
of supplies (saving $18,000 in the first year), improved the diet
of inmates and their general level of health, tripled the amount of
produce raised upon the county farm, made the hospital a preventive
agency instead of a place for treating cases suffering obviously from
disease.

The superintendent’s basic interest, by the way, is the ultimate
causes and prevention of poverty, and to this end he has instituted
investigations and records of the habits, occupations and every other
matter concerning the inmates that might throw light upon their present
condition.

In the handling of children’s cases, his work has been particularly
effective. To begin with, unnecessary commitments, which had been
encouraged by the fee system prevailing in New York, have been
prevented. And during the first year of the term 311 children ceased
to be public charges, some of those previously committed having
been transferred to state homes, some having been placed in foster
homes, but the far greater number, 239, having been returned to their
relatives. Inasmuch as the annual cost to the county for each committed
child was $237, the public saving accomplished through this systematic,
intelligent handling of the child problem was over $17,000.

Before Mr. Macy’s first term had expired he had so far won the
confidence of the board of supervisors and the public in general that
they accepted plans for centralizing the public welfare work of the
county in a great plant for which nearly $2,000,000 has already been
appropriated. Within the confines of this new establishment will be
accommodated the almshouse, the county hospital and the county jail.
The office of superintendent of the poor, in the meantime has been
abolished (January 1, 1917) and a new officer to be known as the
commissioner of charities and correction, and having greatly extended
jurisdiction, will take his place.

It is a new conception which Mr. Macy has given us of the once
melancholy job of the poormaster and he has new revelations of the
possibilities of his position in store.


CITIZEN ORGANIZATION

But movements for better rural health, better library facilities,
better physical development and for a better conception of public
humane obligations do not spring out of the air. Always they are the
product either of some personal initiative or some organized effort.
Does any county clearly lack that element of citizen leadership?
Then the obvious need of the county is to bridge that gap. The rural
population of America suffers (the word is all too weak) for the
lack of a public community sense. Every “average” rural citizen is
a unit, he does not travel in droves--so much for his independence.
On the other hand, he has not fully learned the art of coöperation
and legitimate compromise. The end of this condition, however, will
doubtless come by way of his growing realization of a community of
private interest developed through such special organizations as
county chambers of commerce, boards of trade and county agricultural
associations.

Sometimes such bodies, founded with the idea of promoting a common
material advantage, as, for instance, by enhancing the value of local
real estate or attracting capital to local industries, discover by a
gradual process that the government is an indispensable leverage to
achieving the particular ends in view and that existing government is
a decidedly ineffectual instrument. It was through such a metamorphosis
that the Chamber of Commerce in Westchester County, N. Y., progressed
in its program of county planning, to a study of and attack upon
the faulty system of taxation, to plans for a revision of county
government and finally to an active interest in county home rule
through constitutional revision. County chambers of commerce are also
doing much to beat down the barriers of distrust that have existed
between the farmer and the business man. By a commingling of the two
in a common organization both have often come to an understanding of
their mutual interest in good roads, good schools and all the other
appurtenances of a developed community.


COUNTY STUDY CLUBS

An interesting effort to stimulate a healthy county consciousness
through a different intellectual means is being undertaken in North
Carolina. Under the auspices of the University of North Carolina
“home-county clubs” have been established in many counties and,
according to the prospectus, the members “are bent upon intimate,
thoughtful acquaintance with the forces, agencies, tendencies, drifts
and movements that have made the history we study to-day, and that
are making the history our children will study to-morrow.” The club
studies are mainly concerned with rural problems. Each county is
compared with itself during the last census period, “in order to learn
in what particulars it has moved forward, marking time or lagging to
the rearward.” But also it is compared with other counties of the
state, in every phase of the study, in order to show its rank and
standing.... “Meanwhile the state as a whole is being set against the
big background of world endeavor and achievement.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Such are just a few of the signs of the broadening of rural community
life. To plan, to put before the public for discussion and approval,
and to execute just such projects as these is the constructive
opportunity of the county of the future. It is a program which will tax
the county’s citizenship and statesmanship. It is the county’s real
“politics.”

[27] Dr. I. J. Murphy of the Minnesota Public Health Association.

[28] See Winthrop D. Lane, “A Rich Man in the Poor House,”
_Survey_, Nov. 4, 1916. Reprinted in pamphlet form by the County
Government Association, White Plains, N. Y.




APPENDIX A

CONSTITUTIONAL COUNTY HOME RULE IN CALIFORNIA

 [In response to a considerable demand for a reorganization of certain
 counties the Legislature of California in 1911 submitted to the people
 the amendment to Art. XI. of the constitution which appears herewith.
 It was adopted October 10, 1911. For summary and comments see pp.
 145-147 of the text.]


_County charters._

SEC. 7½. Any county may frame a charter for its own government
consistent with and subject to the Constitution (or, having framed such
a charter, may frame a new one), and relating to matters authorized
by provisions of the Constitution, by causing a board of fifteen
freeholders, who have been for at least five years qualified electors
thereof to be elected by the qualified electors of said county at
a general or special election. Said board of freeholders may be so
elected in pursuance of an ordinance adopted by the vote of three
fifths of all the members of the board of supervisors of such county,
declaring that the public interest requires the election of such
board for the purpose of preparing and proposing a charter for said
county, or in pursuance of a petition of qualified electors of said
county as hereinafter provided. Such petition, signed by fifteen per
centum of the qualified electors of said county, computed upon the
total number of votes cast therein for all candidates for Governor at
the last preceding general election at which a Governor was elected,
praying for the election of a board of fifteen freeholders to prepare
and propose a charter for said county, may be filed in the office of
the county clerk. It shall be the duty of said county clerk, within
twenty days after the filing of said petition, to examine the same,
and to ascertain from the record of the registration of electors of
the county, whether said petition is signed by the requisite number of
qualified electors. If required by said clerk, the board of supervisors
shall authorize him to employ persons specially to assist him in
the work of examining such petition, and shall provide for their
compensation. Upon the completion of such examination, said clerk
shall forthwith attach to said petition his certificate, properly
dated, showing the result thereof, and if, by said certificate, it
shall appear that said petition is signed by the requisite number of
qualified electors, said clerk shall immediately present said petition
to the board of supervisors, if it be in session, otherwise at its
next regular meeting after the date of such certificate. Upon the
adoption of such ordinance, or the presentation of such petition,
said board of supervisors shall order the holding of a special
election for the purpose of electing such board of freeholders, which
said special election shall be held not less than twenty days nor
more than sixty days after the adoption of the ordinance aforesaid
or the presentation of said petition to said board of supervisors;
_provided_, that if a general election shall occur in said county not
less than twenty days nor more than sixty days after the adoption
of the ordinance aforesaid, or such presentation of said petition to
said board of supervisors, said board of freeholders may be elected
at such general election. Candidates for election as members of said
board of freeholders shall be nominated by petition, substantially in
the same manner as may be provided by general law for the nomination,
by petition of electors, of candidates for county offices, to be
voted for at general elections. It shall be the duty of said board of
freeholders, within one hundred and twenty days after the result of
such election shall have been declared by said board of supervisors,
to prepare and propose a charter for said county, which shall be
signed in duplicate by the members of said board of freeholders, or a
majority of them, and be filed, one copy in the office of the county
clerk of said county and the other in the office of the county recorder
thereof. Said Board of Supervisors shall thereupon cause said proposed
charter to be published for at least ten times in a daily newspaper
of general circulation, printed, published and circulated in said
county; _provided_, that in any county where no such daily newspaper
is printed, published and circulated, such proposed charter shall be
published for at least three times in at least one weekly newspaper,
of general circulation, printed, published and circulated in such
county; and _provided_, that in any county where neither such daily
nor such weekly newspaper is printed, published and circulated, a copy
of such proposed charter shall be posted by the county clerk in three
public places in said county, and on or near the entrance to at least
one public schoolhouse in each school district in said county, and the
first publication or the posting of such proposed charter shall be made
within fifteen days after the filing of a copy thereof, as aforesaid,
in the office of the county clerk. Said proposed charter shall be
submitted by said board of supervisors to the qualified electors of
said county at a special election held not less than thirty days nor
more than sixty days after the completion of such publication, or after
such posting; _provided_, that if a general election shall occur in
said county not less than thirty days nor more than sixty days after
the completion of such publication, or after such posting, then such
proposed charter may be so submitted at such general election. If a
majority of said qualified electors, voting thereon at such general
or special election, shall vote in favor of such proposed charter,
it shall be deemed to be ratified, and shall be forthwith submitted
to the Legislature, if it be in regular session, otherwise at its
next regular session, or it may be submitted to the Legislature in
extraordinary session, for its approval or rejection as a whole,
without power of alteration or amendment. Such approval may be made
by concurrent resolution, and if approved by a majority vote of the
members elected to each house, such charter shall become the charter of
such county and shall become the organic law thereof relative to the
matters therein provided, and supersede any existing charter framed
under the provisions of this section, and all amendments thereof, and
shall supersede all laws inconsistent with such charter relative to the
matters provided in such charter. A copy of such charter, certified and
authenticated by the chairman and clerk of the board of supervisors
under the seal of said board and attested by the county clerk of said
county, setting forth the submission of such charter to the electors of
said county, and its ratification by them, shall, after the approval
of such charter by the Legislature, be made in duplicate, and filed,
one in the office of the Secretary of State and the other, after being
recorded in the office of the recorder of said county, shall be filed
in the office of the county clerk thereof, and thereafter all courts
shall take judicial notice of said charter.

The charter, so ratified, may be amended by proposals therefor
submitted by the board of supervisors of the county to the qualified
electors thereof at a general or special election held not less than
thirty days nor more than sixty days after the publication of such
proposals for ten times in a daily newspaper of general circulation,
printed, published and circulated in said county; _provided_,
that in any county where no such daily newspaper is printed, published
and circulated, such proposed charter shall be published for at least
three times in at least one weekly newspaper, of general circulation,
printed, published and circulated in such county; _provided_,
that in any county where neither such daily nor such weekly newspaper
is printed, published and circulated, a copy of such proposed charter
shall be posted by the county clerk in three public places in said
county, and on or near the entrance to at least one public schoolhouse
in each school district in said county. If a majority of such qualified
electors voting thereon, at such general or special election, shall
vote in favor of any such proposed amendment or amendments, or any
amendment or amendments proposed by petition as hereinafter provided,
such amendment or amendments shall be deemed to be ratified, and shall
be forthwith submitted to the Legislature, if it be in regular session,
otherwise at its next regular session, or may be submitted to the
Legislature in extraordinary session, for approval or rejection as a
whole, without power of alteration or amendment, and if approved by
the Legislature, as herein provided for the approval of the charter,
such charter shall be amended accordingly. A copy of such amendment
or amendments shall, after the approval thereof by the Legislature,
be made in duplicate, and shall be authenticated, certified, recorded
and filed as herein provided for the charter, and with like force and
effect. Whenever a petition signed by ten per centum of the qualified
electors of any county, computed upon the total number of votes cast
in said county for all candidates for Governor at the last general
election, at which a Governor was elected, is filed in the office of
the county clerk of said county, petitioning the board of supervisors
thereof to submit any proposed amendment or amendments to the charter
of such county, which amendment or amendments shall be set forth in
full in such petition, to the qualified electors thereof, such petition
shall forthwith be examined and certified by the county clerk, and if
signed by the requisite number of qualified electors of such county,
shall be presented to the said board of supervisors, by the said
county clerk, as hereinbefore provided for petitions for the election
of boards of freeholders. Upon the presentation of said petition to
said board of supervisors, said board must submit the amendment or
amendments set forth therein to the qualified electors of said county
at a general or special election held not less than thirty days nor
more than sixty days after the publication or posting of such proposed
amendment or amendments in the same manner as hereinbefore provided in
the case of the submission of any proposed amendment or amendments to
such charter, proposed and submitted by the board of supervisors. In
submitting any such charter, or amendments thereto, any alternative
article or proposition may be presented for the choice of the electors,
and may be voted on separately without prejudice to others.

Every special election held under the provisions of this section,
for the election of boards of freeholders or for the submission of
proposed charters, or any amendment or amendments thereto, shall be
called by the board of supervisors, by ordinance, which shall specify
the purpose and time of such election and shall establish the election
precincts and designate the polling places therein, and the names of
the election officers for each such precinct. Such ordinance, prior
to such election, shall be published five times in a daily newspaper,
or twice in a weekly newspaper, if there be no such daily newspaper,
printed, published and circulated in said county; _provided_, that
if no such daily or weekly newspaper be printed or published in such
county, then a copy of such ordinances shall be posted by the county
clerk in three public places in such county and in or near the entrance
to at least one public schoolhouse in each school district therein. In
all other respects, every such election shall be held and conducted,
the returns thereof canvassed and the result thereof declared by the
board of supervisors in the same manner as provided by law for general
elections. Whenever boards of freeholders shall be elected, or any such
proposed charter, or amendment or amendments thereto, submitted, at a
general election, the general laws applicable to the election of county
officers and the submission of propositions to the vote of electors,
shall be followed in so far as the same may be applicable thereto.

It shall be competent, in all charters, framed under the authority
given by this section to provide, in addition to any other provisions
allowable by this constitution, and the same shall provide, for the
following matters:

1. For boards of supervisors and for the constitution, regulation and
government thereof, for the times at which and the terms for which the
members of said board shall be elected, for the number of members,
not less than three, that shall constitute such boards, for their
compensation and for their election, either by the electors of the
counties at large or by districts; _provided_, that in any event
said board shall consist of one member for each district, who must be a
qualified elector thereof; and

2. For sheriffs, county clerks, treasurers, recorders, license
collectors, tax collectors, public administrators, coroners, surveyors,
district attorneys, auditors, assessors and superintendents of schools,
for the election or appointment of said officers, or any of them, for
the times at which and the terms for which, said officers shall be
elected or appointed, and for their compensation, or for the fixing of
such compensation by boards of supervisors, and, if appointed, for the
manner of their appointment; and

3. For the number of justices of the peace and constables for each
township, or for the number of such judges and other officers of such
inferior courts as may be provided by the Constitution or general
law, for the election or appointment of said officers, for the times
at which and the terms for which said officers shall be elected or
appointed, and for their compensations, or for the fixing of such
compensation by boards of supervisors, and if appointed, for the manner
of their appointment; and

4. For the powers and duties of boards of supervisors and all other
county officers, for their removal and for the consolidation and
segregation of county offices, and for the manner of filling all
vacancies occurring therein; _provided_, that the provisions
of such charters relating to the powers and duties of boards of
supervisors and all other county officers shall be subject to and
controlled by general laws; and

[29]4½. For the assumption and discharge by county officers of certain
of the municipal functions of the cities and towns within the county,
whenever, in the case of cities and towns incorporated under general
laws, the discharge by county officers of such municipal functions is
authorized by general law, or whenever, in the case of cities and towns
organized under section eight of this article, the discharge by county
officers of such municipal functions is authorized by provisions of the
charters, or by amendments thereto, of such cities or towns.

5. For the fixing and regulation by boards of supervisors, by
ordinance, of the appointment and number of assistants, deputies,
clerks, attachés and other persons to be employed, from time to time,
in the several offices of the county, and for the prescribing and
regulating by such boards of the powers, duties, qualifications and
compensation of such persons, the times at which, and terms for which
they shall be appointed, and the manner of their appointment and
removal; and

6. For the compensation of such fish and game wardens, probation and
other officers as may be provided by general law, or for the fixing of
such compensation by boards of supervisors.

All elective officers of counties, and of townships, of road districts
and of highway construction divisions therein shall be nominated and
elected in the manner provided by general laws for the nomination and
election of such officers.

All charters framed under the authority given by this section, in
addition to the matters herein above specified, may provide as follows:

For offices other than those required by the Constitution and laws of
the State, or for the creation of any or all of such offices by boards
of supervisors, for the election or appointment of persons to fill such
offices, for the manner of such appointment, for the times at which
and the terms for which such persons shall be so elected or appointed,
and for their compensation, or for the fixing of such compensation by
boards of supervisors.

For offices hereafter created by this constitution or by general law,
for the election or appointment of persons to fill such offices, for
the manner of such appointment, for the times at which and the terms
for which such persons shall be so elected or appointed, and for their
compensation, or for the fixing of such compensation by boards of
supervisors.

For the formation, in such counties, of road districts for the care,
maintenance, repair, inspection and supervision only of roads, highways
and bridges; and for the formation, in such counties, of highway
construction divisions for the construction only of roads, highways
and bridges; for the inclusion in any such district or division, of
the whole or any part of any incorporated city or town, upon ordinance
passed by such incorporated city or town authorizing the same, and upon
the assent to such inclusion by a majority of the qualified electors of
such incorporated city or town, or portion thereof, proposed to be so
included, at an election held for that purpose; for the organization,
government, powers and jurisdiction of such districts and divisions,
and for raising revenue therein, for such purposes, by taxation, upon
the assent of a majority of the qualified electors of such districts
or divisions, voting at an election to be held for that purpose; for
the incurring of indebtedness therefor by such counties, districts or
divisions for such purposes respectively, by the issuance and sale,
by the counties, of bonds of such counties, districts or divisions,
and the expenditure of the proceeds of the sale of such bonds, and for
levying and collecting taxes against the property of the counties,
districts or divisions, as the case may be, for the payment of the
principal and interest of such indebtedness at maturity; provided,
that any such indebtedness shall not be incurred without the assent
of two thirds of the qualified electors of the county, district or
division, as the case may be, voting at an election to be held for
that purpose, nor unless before or at the time of incurring such
indebtedness provision shall be made for the collection of an annual
tax sufficient to pay the interest on such indebtedness as it falls
due, and also for a sinking fund for the payment of the principal
thereof on or before maturity, which shall not exceed forty years
from the time of contracting the same, and the procedure for voting,
issuing and selling such bonds shall, except in so far as the same
shall be prescribed in such charters, conform to general laws for the
authorizing and incurring by counties of bonded indebtedness, so far as
applicable; provided, further, that provisions in such charters for the
construction, care, maintenance, repair, inspection and supervision of
roads, highways and bridges for which aid from the State is granted,
shall be subject to such regulations and conditions as may be imposed
by the Legislature.

Whenever any county has framed and adopted a charter, and the same
shall have been approved by the Legislature, as herein provided, the
general laws adopted by the Legislature in pursuance of sections four
and five of this article, shall, as to such county, be superseded
by said charter as to matters for which, under this section it is
competent to make provision in such charter, and for which provision
is made therein, except as herein otherwise expressly provided; and
except that any such charter shall not affect the tenure of office of
the elective officers of the county, or of any district, township or
division thereof, in office at the time such charter goes into effect,
and such officers shall continue to hold their respective offices until
the expiration of the term for which they shall have been elected,
unless sooner removed in the manner provided by law.

The charter of any county, adopted under the authority of this section,
may be surrendered and annulled with the assent of two thirds of the
qualified electors of such county, voting at a special election,
held for that purpose, and to be ordered and called by the board of
supervisors of the county upon receiving a written petition, signed and
certified as hereinabove provided for the purposes of the adoption of
charters, requesting said board to submit the question of the surrender
and annulment of such charter to the qualified electors of such county,
and, in the event of the surrender and annulment of any such charter,
such county shall thereafter be governed under general laws in force
for the government of counties.

The provisions of this section shall not be applicable to any county
that is consolidated with any city.

[29] This paragraph was adopted as an amendment, Nov. 3, 1914.




APPENDIX B

THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY CHARTER

 [This was the first charter to be drafted and adopted by the people
 of a county under the amendment of the California constitution (_q.
 v._). For summary and comment on its provisions see pp. 172-173.
 Date of adoption: Nov. 7, 1912.]

We the people of the County of Los Angeles, do ordain and establish for
its government this


CHARTER

ARTICLE 1.

_Name and Rights of the County_

SEC. 1: The County of Los Angeles, as it now exists, is a body
corporate and politic, and as such has all the powers specified by the
constitution and laws of the State of California, and by this Charter,
and such other powers as are necessarily implied.

SEC. 2: The powers mentioned in the preceding section can be
exercised only by a Board of Supervisors, or by agents and officers
acting under their authority or by authority of law or of this Charter.

SEC. 3: The corporate name shall be “County of Los Angeles,”
which must be thus designated in all actions and proceedings touching
its corporate rights, properties and duties. Its boundaries and county
seat shall remain the same as they now are, until otherwise changed by
law.


ARTICLE II.

_Board of Supervisors_

SEC. 4: The County of Los Angeles shall have a Board of Supervisors
consisting of five members, each of whom must be an elector of
the district which he represents, must reside therein during his
incumbency, must have been such an elector for at least one year
immediately preceding his election, and shall be elected by such
district. Their terms of office shall be four years, each shall hold
until his successor is elected and qualified, and they shall each
receive a salary of $5000 per year payable monthly from the County
Treasury. They shall devote all their time during business hours to the
faithful service of the public.

SEC. 5: The County is hereby divided into five supervisor
districts, the boundaries of which shall be and remain as they now are
until otherwise changed as provided in this Charter.

SEC. 6: At the general election to be held in November, 1914,
supervisors shall be elected from the First and Third Supervisor
districts, whose terms shall begin at noon on the first Monday after
the first day of January, 1915, and end at noon on the first Monday
in December, 1918; provided, that each shall hold office until his
successor is elected and qualified.

At the general election to be held in November, 1916, supervisors
shall be elected from the Second, Fourth and Fifth districts, whose
terms shall begin at noon on the first Monday after the first day of
January, 1917, and end at noon on the first Monday in December, 1920;
provided, that each shall hold office until his successor is elected
and qualified.

At each general election after November, 1916, there shall be elected,
either two or three supervisors, as the case may be, for terms of four
years, beginning at noon on the first Monday in December next after
their election, and ending at noon on the first Monday in December,
four years thereafter.

SEC. 7: The Board of Supervisors may, by a two-thirds vote
of its members, change the boundaries of any supervisor district. No
such boundaries shall ever be so changed as to affect the incumbency
in office of any supervisor. Any change in the boundaries of any
supervisor district must be made within one year after a general
election.

SEC. 8: Whenever a vacancy occurs in the Board of Supervisors
the Governor shall fill such vacancy, and the appointee shall hold
office until the election and qualification of his successor. In such
case, a Supervisor shall be elected at the next general election, to
fill the vacancy for the unexpired term, unless such term expires on
the first Monday in December succeeding said election.

SEC. 9: The Board of Supervisors shall elect a Chairman, who
shall preside at all meetings. In case of his absence or inability to
act, the members present must, by an order entered of record, select
one of their number to act as Chairman _pro tem_. Any member of
the Board may administer oaths, when necessary in the performance of
his official duties. A majority of the members shall constitute a
quorum, and no act of the Board shall be valid or binding unless a
majority of the members concur.


ARTICLE III.

_General Powers of the Board of Supervisors_

SEC. 10: The Board of Supervisors shall have all the jurisdiction
and power which are now or which may hereafter be granted by the
constitution and laws of the State of California or by this Charter.

SEC. 11: It shall be the duty of the Board of Supervisors:

(1) To appoint all county officers other than elective officers, and
all officers, assistants, deputies, clerks, attachés and employees
whose appointment is not provided for by this Charter. Except in the
cases of appointees to the unclassified service, all appointments by
the Board shall be from the eligible civil service list. The Board
shall provide, by ordinance, for the compensation of elective officers
and of its appointees, unless such compensation is otherwise fixed by
this Charter.

(2) To provide, by ordinance, for the number of Justices of the Peace
and Constables, to be elected and appointed, respectively, in each
Township. The Board may also provide, by ordinance, for the number and
fix the compensation, of such other judges and inferior officers of
such inferior courts as are now, or may hereafter be, provided by the
constitution or by general law.

(3) To provide, by ordinance, for the number of assistants, deputies,
clerks, attachés and other persons to be employed from time to time
in the several offices and institutions of the county, and for their
compensation and the times at which they shall be appointed.

(4) To provide, by ordinance, for the creation of offices other than
those required by the constitution and laws of the State, and for the
appointment of persons to fill the same, and to fix their compensation.

(5) To require, if deemed expedient, any county or township officer,
or employee, before or after entering upon the duties of his office,
or service, to give bond for the faithful performance thereof, in such
penal sum as may be fixed by the Board.

(6) To provide, publish and enforce, a complete code of rules, not
inconsistent with general laws or this Charter, prescribing in detail
the duties, and the systems of office and institutional management,
accounts and reports for each of the offices, institutions and
departments of the county.


ARTICLE IV.

_County Officers Other Than Supervisors_

SEC. 12: The elective county officers other than members of
the Board of Supervisors shall be: Sheriff, District Attorney and
Assessor.

SEC. 13: At the general election to be held in November, 1914,
a District Attorney shall be elected, whose term shall begin at noon
on the first Monday after the first day of January, 1915, and end at
noon on the first Monday in December, 1916. At the same election a
Sheriff and Assessor shall be elected, whose terms shall begin at the
same time and end at noon on the first Monday in December, 1918. At the
general election to be held in November, 1916, and every four years
thereafter, a District Attorney shall be elected, whose term shall be
four years, beginning at noon on the first Monday in December following
his election and ending at noon on the first Monday in December four
years thereafter. At the general election to be held in November,
1918, and every four years thereafter, a Sheriff and Assessor shall
be elected, whose terms shall be four years, beginning at noon on the
first Monday in December following their election, and ending at noon
on the first Monday in December, four years thereafter. All elective
county officers shall hold office until their successors are elected
and qualified.

SEC. 14: The appointive county officers shall be:

  Auditor.
  Board of Education, Members of.
  Board of Law Library Trustees, Members of.
  Civil Service Commission, Members of.
  Coroner.
  County Clerk.
  County Counsel.
  Fish and Game Warden.
  Health Officer.
  Horticultural Commissioner.
  License Collector.
  Live Stock Inspector.
  Probation Committee, Members of.
  Probation Officer.
  Public Administrator.
  Public Defender.
  Purchasing Agent.
  Recorder.
  Registrar of Voters.
  Road Commissioner.
  Superintendent of Charities.
  Superintendent of Schools.
  Surveyor.
  Tax Collector.
  Treasurer.

Such other officers as may hereafter be provided by law shall also be
appointive.

The Tax Collector shall be ex-officio License Collector.

SEC. 15: All fees collected by any county officer, Board or
Commission shall be paid into the County Treasury on the first Monday
of each calendar month, together with a detailed statement of the same
in writing, a duplicate copy of which shall be filed with the Auditor
at the same time.

SEC. 16: Whenever a vacancy occurs in an elective county
office other than a member of the Board of Supervisors, the Board
shall fill such vacancy, and the appointee shall hold office until the
election and qualification of his successor. In such case, there shall
be elected at the next general election an officer to fill such vacancy
for the unexpired term, unless such term expires on the first Monday in
December succeeding said election.


ARTICLE V.

_Township Officers_

SEC. 17: The Board of Supervisors must provide, by ordinance,
for not less than one Justice of the Peace and one Constable in each
township, and may provide for more in townships where population
and the business therein require a greater number; provided, that,
until the Board shall so provide for such Justices of the Peace and
Constables, the number of each thereof in each township shall continue
as now or hereafter provided by law; provided, further, that if the
Legislature shall hereafter, instead of the system of Courts of Justice
of the Peace now established by law, substitute some other system of
inferior courts, then and in that event, it shall not be compulsory
upon the Board of Supervisors to provide any number for, and the Board
may discontinue the existence of all Justices of the Peace in the
several townships, if such discontinuance be allowed by law, and the
Board may provide for such number of inferior Judges or Justices as may
be necessary for the needs of the county under such substituted system.

SEC. 18: Justices of the Peace shall be nominated and elected
at the times and in the manner and for the terms, now or hereafter
provided by general law. Constables shall be appointed by the Sheriff
from the eligible civil service list.

SEC. 19: The compensation of Justices of the Peace and of
Constables shall be fixed by the Board of Supervisors, and must be by
salary only, which need not be uniform for the several townships, nor
proportionate to population therein. Their duties and qualifications
shall be such as are now, or which may hereafter be prescribed by law,
or by this Charter.

SEC. 20: All fees collected by any Justice of the Peace or
Constable shall be paid into the County Treasury, on the first Monday
of each calendar month, together with a detailed statement of the same
in writing, a duplicate copy of which shall be filed with the Auditor
at the same time. The fees to be so paid into the Treasury by each
Constable shall include all fees charged and collected by him for
service of any writ or process of any court or for any act or service
done or rendered by him, or which he has power or which it is his duty
to do or render, in his official capacity; and every Constable shall
enter in the fee book kept by him all such fees charged and collected
by him and pay the same into the County Treasury as above provided,
without deduction for any such acts or services purporting or claimed
to have been done or rendered by him as a private citizen.


ARTICLE VI.

_Duties of Officers_

SEC. 21: The County Counsel shall represent and advise the
Board of Supervisors and all county, township and school district
officers, in all matters and questions of law pertaining to their
duties, and shall have exclusive charge and control of all civil
actions and proceedings in which the county, or any officer thereof, is
concerned or is a party. He shall also act as attorney for the Public
Administrator in the matter of all estates in which such officer is
executor, administrator with the will annexed, or administrator, and
the County Counsel shall, in every such matter, collect the attorney’s
fees allowed therein by law and pay the same into the County Treasury.

SEC. 22: The Superintendent of Charities shall be under the
direction of the Board of Supervisors, and shall exercise a general
supervision over, and enforce rules and regulations for the conduct
and government of, the charitable institutions of the county. He
shall perform such other duties as may be prescribed by the Board of
Supervisors or by law.

SEC. 23: Upon request by the Defendant or upon order of the
Court, the Public Defender shall defend, without expense to them, all
persons who are not financially able to employ counsel and who are
charged, in the Superior Court, with the commission of any contempt,
misdemeanor, felony or other offense. He shall also, upon request, give
counsel and advice to such persons, in and about any charge against
them upon which he is conducting the defense, and he shall prosecute
all appeals to a higher court or courts, of any person who has been
convicted upon any such charge, where, in his opinion, such appeal
will, or might reasonably be expected to, result in a reversal or
modification of the judgment of conviction.

He shall also, upon request, prosecute actions for the collection of
wages and of other demands of persons who are not financially able to
employ counsel, in cases in which the sum involved does not exceed
$100, and in which, in the judgment of the Public Defender, the claims
urged are valid and enforceable in the courts.

He shall also, upon request, defend such persons in all civil
litigation in which, in his judgment, they are being persecuted or
unjustly harassed.

The costs in all actions in which the Public Defender shall appear
under this section, whether for plaintiffs or for defendants, shall be
paid from the County Treasury, at the times and in the manner required
by law, or by rules of court, and under a system of demand, audit
and payment, which shall be prescribed by the Board of Supervisors.
It shall be the duty of the Public Defender, in all such litigation,
to procure, if possible, in addition to general judgments in favor
of the persons whom he shall represent therein, judgments for costs
and attorney’s fees, where permissible, against the opponents of such
persons, and collect and pay the same into the County Treasury.

SEC. 24: Subject to rules and regulations which shall be
adopted by the Board of Supervisors, by ordinance, the Purchasing Agent
shall be the buyer of furniture, fixtures, tools, supplies, materials
or other articles of personal property for the county and for county,
township and all other officers.

SEC. 25: Each county or township officer, Board or Commission
shall have the powers and perform the duties now or hereafter
prescribed by general law, and by this Charter, as to such officer,
Board or Commission.


ARTICLE VII.

_Road Department_

SEC. 26: The Board of Supervisors may provide for the formation of road
districts for the care, maintenance, repair and supervision of roads,
highways and bridges; and for the formation of highway construction
divisions for the construction of roads, highways and bridges; for
the inclusion in any such district or division of the whole or any
part of any incorporated city or town upon ordinance passed by such
incorporated city or town authorizing the same, and upon the assent
to such inclusion by a majority of the qualified electors of such
incorporated city or town or portion thereof proposed to be so included
at an election held for that purpose; for the organization, government,
powers and jurisdiction of such district or division, for raising
revenue therein for such purposes, by taxation, upon the assent of a
majority of the qualified electors of such district or division, voting
at an election held for that purpose; for the incurring of indebtedness
therefor by the county, district or division for such purposes,
respectively, by the issuance and sale, by the county, of bonds of the
county, district or division, and the expenditure of the proceeds of
the sale of such bonds, and for levying and collecting taxes against
the property of the county, district or division, as the case may be,
for the payment of the principal and interest of such indebtedness at
maturity; provided that any such indebtedness shall not be incurred
without the assent of two-thirds of the qualified electors of the
county, district or division, as the case may be, voting at an election
held for that purpose, nor unless before or at the time of incurring
such indebtedness, provision shall be made for the collection of an
annual tax sufficient to pay the interest on such indebtedness as it
falls due, and also for a sinking fund for the payment of the principal
thereof on or before maturity, which shall not exceed forty years
from the time of contracting the same; and the procedure for voting,
issuing and selling such bonds, except insofar as the same shall be
otherwise prescribed in this Charter, shall conform to general laws
for the authorizing and incurring of bonded indebtedness by counties
so far as applicable; provided, further, that the construction, care,
maintenance, repair and supervision of roads, highways and bridges
for which aid from the state is granted shall be subject to such
regulations and conditions as may be imposed by the Legislature.

SEC. 27: The Road Commissioner, subject to such rules and regulations
as shall be prescribed by the Board of Supervisors, shall have
direction and control over all work of construction, maintenance and
repair of roads, highways and bridges, other than work done under
contract, and it shall be his duty to examine and inspect contract
work as the same progresses and to see that the same is properly
performed, and when completed to file his written approval thereof with
the Board of Supervisors. He shall also have the control and management
of all county rock quarries and gravel pits, and of all other
materials, property and instrumentalities necessary for and connected
with the construction, maintenance and repair of roads, highways and
bridges.


ARTICLE VIII.

_Constabulary Department_

SEC. 28: There is hereby created a Constabulary Department, consisting
of the Sheriff and of all Constables, who are hereby made _ex-officio_
Deputy Sheriffs.

SEC. 29: The Sheriff shall be the head of said Department, and shall
so organize the same as to give the county efficient and effective
police protection. Each Constable shall be subject to the orders of the
Sheriff and must serve process within his township, or elsewhere, when
requested, and he shall also perform all the duties required of him by
law.


ARTICLE IX.

_Civil Service_

SEC. 30: On or before the first day of July, 1913, the Board of
Supervisors shall appoint three persons as members of the Civil Service
Commission, who shall so classify themselves as that one shall serve
until the first Monday in December, 1915, at noon, one until the
first Monday in December, 1917, at noon, and one until the first
Monday in December, 1919, at noon. Before the first Monday in December
of each alternate year after 1913, the Board of Supervisors shall
appoint one person as the successor of the member of the Commission
whose term shall then expire, to serve for six years. Any vacancy on
the Commission shall be filled by the Board of Supervisors for the
unexpired term. Each member of the Commission shall serve until his
successor is appointed and qualified. Not more than one member shall be
an adherent of the same political party. No member shall hold any other
salaried county office, nor shall he have been, within the year next
preceding his appointment, an active executive officer in any political
organization. Each member shall have been a resident of the county
for the five years next preceding his appointment, and his name shall
be upon the state and county assessment rolls at the time thereof.
The Board of Supervisors by a four-fifths vote of all the members may
remove a member of the Commission during his term of office, but only
upon stating in writing the reasons for such removal and allowing him
an opportunity to be publicly heard in his own defense. The Commission
shall elect one of its members president.

SEC. 31: Each member of the Commission shall receive a compensation
of Ten Dollars for each meeting thereof attended by him, not to
exceed five meetings in any calendar month. The Commission shall
appoint and fix the compensation of a Chief Examiner, who shall also
act as Secretary. This position shall be in the competitive class.
The Commission may appoint and fix the compensation of such other
subordinates as may be necessary.

SEC. 32: For the support of the work of the Commission, the Board
of Supervisors shall annually levy and collect a tax on all taxable
property in the county, at the rate of not less than one-half of one
cent on each One Hundred Dollars of assessed valuation thereof. Any
part of the tax so levied for any fiscal year not expended during such
fiscal year, or required to defray expenses incurred during such year,
shall on the first day of January next succeeding the end thereof, be
placed in the general fund of the county.

SEC. 33: The Civil Service of the county is hereby divided into the
unclassified and the classified service.

       *       *       *       *       *

The unclassified service shall comprise:

(a) All officers elected by the people.

(b) In the office of the District Attorney: The Chief and one other
deputy, one secretary, and three detectives; and special counsel and
special detectives for temporary employment.

(c) In the office of the Sheriff: The Under Sheriff, or Chief Deputy.
In the office of the Assessor: The Chief Deputy.

(d) Superintendents, principals and teachers in the school system.

(e) Members of the County Board of Education.

(f) Members of the Civil Service Commission.

(g) All officers and other persons serving the county without
compensation.

The classified service shall include all other positions now existing
or hereafter created.

       *       *       *       *       *

SEC. 34: The Commission shall prescribe, amend and enforce rules for
the classified service, which shall have the force and effect of law;
shall keep minutes of its proceedings and records of its examinations
and shall, as a Board or through a single Commissioner, make
investigations concerning the enforcement and effect of this Article
and of the rules and efficiency of the service. It shall make an annual
report to the Board of Supervisors.

       *       *       *       *       *

The rules shall provide:

(1) For the classification of all positions in the classified service.

(2) For open, competitive examinations to test the relative fitness of
applicants for such positions.

(3) For public advertisement of all examinations.

(4) For the creation of eligible lists upon which shall be entered
the names of successful candidates in the order of their standing in
examination. Such lists shall remain in force not longer than two years.

(5) For the rejection of candidates or eligibles who fail to comply
with the reasonable requirements of the Commission in regard to age,
residence, sex, physical condition or who have been guilty of crime or
of infamous or disgraceful conduct or who have attempted any deception
or fraud in connection with an examination.

(6) For the appointment of one of the three persons standing highest on
the appropriate list.

(7) For a period of probation not to exceed six months before
appointment or promotion is made complete, during which period a
probationer may be discharged or reduced with the consent of the
Commission.

(8) For non-competitive examinations for minor positions in the county
institutions when competition is found to be impracticable.

(9) For temporary employment of persons on the eligible list until
list of the class covering the temporary employment is exhausted; and
in cases of emergency, for temporary employment without examination,
with the consent of the Commission, after the eligible list has been
exhausted. But no such temporary employment shall continue longer than
sixty days, nor shall successive temporary appointments be allowed. Nor
shall the acceptance or refusal to accept such temporary appointment on
the part of a person on the eligible list be a bar to appointment to a
permanent position from said eligible list.

(10) For transfer from one position to a similar position in the same
class and grade and for reinstatement within one year of persons who
without fault or delinquency on their part are separated from the
service or reduced.

(11) For promotion based on competitive examination and records of
efficiency, character, conduct and seniority. Lists shall be created
and promotion made therefrom in the same manner as prescribed for
original appointment. An advancement in rank or an increase in salary
beyond the limit fixed for the grade by the rules shall constitute
promotion. Whenever practicable, vacancies shall be filled by promotion.

(12) For suspensions for not longer than thirty days and for leaves of
absence.

(13) For discharge or reduction in rank or compensation after
appointment of promotion is complete, only after the person to be
discharged or reduced has been presented with the reasons for such
discharge or reduction, specifically stated and has been allowed a
reasonable time to reply thereto in writing. The reasons and the reply
must be filed as a record with the Commission.

(14) For the appointment of unskilled laborers and such skilled
laborers as the Commission may determine in the order of priority of
application after such tests of fitness as the Commission may prescribe.

(15) For the establishment of a bureau of efficiency, consisting
of the Commission, the Secretary thereof and the Auditor, for the
purpose of determining the duties of each position in the classified
service, fixing standards of efficiency, investigating the methods of
operation of the various departments, and recommending to the Board of
Supervisors and department heads measures for increasing individual,
group and departmental efficiency, and providing for uniformity of
competition and simplicity of operation. The Commission shall ascertain
and record the comparative efficiency of employees in the classified
service and shall have power, after hearing, to dismiss from the
service those who fall below the standard of efficiency established.

(16) For the adoption and amendment of rules only after public notice
and hearing.

The Commission shall adopt such other rules, not inconsistent with the
foregoing provisions of this section, as may be necessary and proper
for the enforcement of this Article.

SEC. 35: In case of a vacancy in a position requiring peculiar
and exceptional qualifications of a scientific, professional or expert
character, upon satisfactory evidence that competition is impracticable
and that the position can best be filled by the selection of some
designated person of recognized attainments, the Commission may, after
public hearing and by the affirmative vote of all three members of
the Commission, suspend competition, but no such suspension shall be
general in its application to such positions, and all such cases of
suspension shall be reported, together with the reason therefor, in the
annual reports of the Commission.

SEC. 36: All examinations shall be impartial and shall deal
with the duties and requirements of the position to be filled. When
oral tests are used, a record of the examination, showing basis of
rating, shall be made. Examinations shall be in charge of the chief
examiner except when members of the commission act as examiners. The
commission may call on other persons to draw up, conduct or mark
examinations, and when such persons are connected with the county
service it shall be deemed a part of their official duties to act as
examiners without extra compensation.

SEC. 37: All persons in the county or township service holding
positions in the classified service as established by this Article,
at the time it takes effect, whether holding by election or by
appointment, and who shall have been in such service for the six
months next preceding shall hold their positions until discharged,
reduced, promoted or transferred in accordance with the provisions
of this Article. The Commission shall maintain a civil list of all
persons in the county service, showing in connection with each name
the position held, the date and character of every appointment and
of every subsequent change in status. Each appointing officer shall
promptly transmit to the Commission all information required for the
establishment and maintenance of said civil list.

SEC. 38: The Auditor shall not approve any salary or compensation for
services to any person holding or performing the duties of a position
in the classified service, unless the payroll or account for such
salary or compensation shall bear the certificate of the Commission
that the persons named therein have been appointed or employed and are
performing service in accordance with the provisions of this Article
and of the rules established thereunder.

SEC. 39: Charges against any person in the classified service
may be made to the Commission by any elector of the county, such
charges to be in writing.

SEC. 40: In any investigation conducted by the Commission it
shall have the power to subpœna and require the attendance of witnesses
and the production thereby of books and papers pertinent to the
investigation and each Commissioner shall have the power to administer
oaths to such witnesses.

SEC. 41: No person in the classified service, or seeking
admission thereto, shall be appointed, reduced or removed or in any way
favored or discriminated against because of his political or religious
opinions or affiliations.

SEC. 42: No officer or employee of the county, in the classified
service, shall, directly or indirectly, solicit or receive, or be
in any manner concerned in soliciting or receiving, any assessment,
subscription or contribution for any political party or political
purpose whatever. No person shall, orally or by letter, solicit, or be
in any manner concerned in soliciting, any assessment, subscription
or contribution for any political party or purpose whatever from any
person holding a position in the classified service.

SEC. 43: No person holding a position in the classified service shall
take any part in political management or affairs or in political
campaigns further than to cast his vote and to express privately his
opinions.

SEC. 44: Any person willfully violating any of the provisions of this
Article or of the rules established thereunder, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor.


ARTICLE X.

_Labor_

SEC. 45: In the employment of persons in the service of the county,
where sex does not actually disqualify and where the quality and
quantity of service is equal, there shall be no discrimination in
selection or compensation, on account of sex.

SEC. 46: Eight hours shall constitute a day’s work for mechanics and
others engaged in manual labor in the service of the county.

SEC. 47: In fixing compensation to be paid to persons under the
classified civil service, the Board of Supervisors shall, in each
instance, provide a salary or wage at least equal to the prevailing
salary or wage for the same quality of service rendered to private
persons, firms or corporations under similar employment in case such
prevailing salary or wage can be ascertained.

SEC. 48: Every person who shall have been in the service of the county,
continuously, for one year, shall be allowed a vacation of two weeks on
full pay, annually.

SEC. 49: The Board of Supervisors shall prohibit enforced labor without
compensation as a penalty for the commission of public offenses.
The net earnings of all county prisoners, based upon reasonable
compensation for services performed, shall go to the support of their
dependents, and if such prisoners have no dependents, such net earnings
shall accumulate and be paid to them upon their discharge.


ARTICLE XI.

_Recall_

SEC. 50: The holder of any elective or appointive county or township
office may be recalled by the electors at any time after he has
held his office six months. The provisions of this Article shall
apply to officials now in office, and to those hereafter elected
or appointed. Such recall shall be affected as follows: A petition
demanding the election or appointment of a successor to the person
sought to be recalled shall be filed with the Registrar of Voters,
which petition shall be signed by qualified voters equal in number to
at least fifteen per cent. of the entire vote cast within the county
for all candidates for the office of Governor of the state at the
last preceding election at which a Governor was elected (or at least
twenty-five per cent. of such vote cast within the district or township
for which the officer sought to be recalled was elected or appointed,
in case of an official not elected by or appointed for the county)
and shall contain a statement of the grounds on which the recall is
sought. No insufficiency of form or substance in such statement shall
affect the validity of the election and proceedings held thereunder.
The signatures to the petition need not all be appended to one paper.
Each signer shall add to his signature his place of occupation and
residence, giving street and number or if no street or number exist,
then such a designation of his residence as will enable the location
to be readily ascertained. To each separate paper of such petition
shall be attached an affidavit made by a qualified elector of the
county, stating that the affiant circulated that particular paper and
saw written the signatures appended thereto, and that, according to
the information and belief of the affiant, each of said signatures
is genuine, and the signature of a qualified elector of the county
(or particular sub-division thereof in which such signers are hereby
required to reside). Within ten days from the filing of such petition,
the Registrar of Voters shall, from the records of registration,
determine whether or not said petition is signed by the requisite
number of qualified voters, and he shall attach to said petition his
certificate showing such determination. If such certificate shows the
petition to be insufficient, it may be supplemented within ten days
from the date of the certificate by the filing of additional papers,
duplicates of the original petition except as to the names signed. The
Registrar of Voters shall, within ten days after such additional papers
are filed, ascertain from the records of registration, and certify
whether or not the names to such petition, including such additional
papers, are still insufficient, and if insufficient, no action shall
be taken thereon; but the petition shall remain on file as a public
record. The failure to secure sufficient names shall not prejudice
the filing later of an entirely new petition to the same effect. If
required by the Registrar of Voters, the Board of Supervisors shall
authorize him to employ, and shall provide for the compensation of,
persons necessary in the examination of said petition and supplementing
petition, in addition to the persons regularly employed by him in
his office. In case the Registrar of Voters is the officer sought to
be recalled, the duties in this Article provided to be performed by
him shall be performed by the County Clerk. If the petition shall be
found to be sufficient, the Registrar of Voters shall submit the same
to the Board of Supervisors without delay, whereupon the Board shall
forthwith cause a special election to be held not less than thirty-five
nor more than forty days after the date of the order calling such an
election, to determine whether the voters shall recall such officer.
If a vacancy occur in said office after a recall petition is filed,
and the office is elective, the election shall nevertheless proceed as
in this section provided. One petition is sufficient to propose the
recall of one or more officials and the election of successors to such
thereof as are elective. Nominations for any elective office under such
recall election shall be made by petition in the manner prescribed by
section 1188 of the Political Code. Upon the sample ballot there shall
be printed, in not more than two hundred words, the grounds set forth
in the recall petition for demanding the recall of the officer, and
upon the same ballot in not more than two hundred words, the officer
may justify himself. There shall be printed on the recall ballot,
as to every officer whose recall is to be voted on, the following
question: “Shall (name of person against whom the recall petition is
filed) be recalled from the office of (title of office)?” following
which question shall be the words “Yes” and “No” on separate lines,
with a blank space at the right of each, in which the voter shall, by
stamping a cross (x) indicate his vote for or against such recall. On
such ballots, under each such question there shall also be printed,
if the officer sought to be recalled be an elective officer, the
names of those persons who shall have been nominated as candidates to
succeed him, in case he shall be recalled at such election; but no vote
shall be counted for any candidate for said office unless the voter
also voted on the question of the recall of the person sought to be
recalled therefrom. The name of the person sought to be recalled shall
not appear on the ballot as a candidate for the office. If a majority
of those voting on said question of the recall of any incumbent shall
vote “No” said incumbent shall continue in said office. If a majority
shall vote “Yes,” said incumbent shall thereupon be deemed removed from
such office, upon the qualification of his successor. The canvassers
shall canvass the votes for candidates for said office and declare the
result in like manner as in a regular election. If the vote at any such
recall election shall recall the officer, then the candidate who has
received the highest number of votes for the office shall be thereby
declared elected for the remainder of the term. In case the person who
received the highest number of votes shall fail to qualify within ten
days after receiving the certificate of election, the office shall be
deemed vacant and shall be filled according to law. If the incumbent of
an appointive office be recalled at such election, his successor shall
be appointed immediately after the canvassing of the vote.

Before any petition can be filed under this section for the recall of
any person in the classified service of the county, there shall be
presented to, and be passed upon by, the Civil Service Commission, a
complaint in writing giving the grounds for and asking the removal of
such person. Such complaint must be considered and be finally acted
upon by the Commission within twenty days after such filing.

Until such time as the Board of Supervisors shall appoint a Registrar
of Voters under the provisions of this Charter, the powers and duties
by this section conferred upon the Registrar of Voters shall be
exercised and performed by the County Clerk. In case, at any time
prior to the appointment of such Registrar of Voters, the County Clerk
shall be sought to be recalled, such powers and duties, in and about
the matter of such proposed recall, shall be exercised and performed
by some other officer or person to be designated by the Board of
Supervisors.


ARTICLE XII.

_Miscellaneous_

SEC. 51: Each county or township officer, Board or Commission shall
appoint, from the eligible civil service list, for either permanent
or temporary service, all assistants, librarians, deputies, clerks,
attachés and other persons in the office or department of such officer,
Board or Commission, as the number thereof is fixed and from time to
time changed by the Board of Supervisors; provided, that appointments
to the unclassified service in their respective offices and departments
shall be made by such officers, Boards and Commissions, without
reference to such eligible list.

SEC. 52: The compensation of any elective county or township officer
shall not be increased nor diminished during the term for which he was
elected, nor within ninety days preceding his election.

No compensation for any position, nor of any person under civil
service, shall be increased or diminished without the consent of the
Civil Service Commission specifically given thereto in writing.

SEC. 53: Whenever any person in the service of the county is compelled
to travel in the performance of his duty, he shall, in addition to
his regular compensation, be reimbursed for his actual necessary
expenditures for transportation, the hire of conveyances, and for
lodging and meals. An itemized account of such expenditures shall be
filed with the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors and be approved by the
Auditor before being paid. The Board of Supervisors shall fix a maximum
price to be paid for such lodging and meals, which shall be uniform and
be made applicable to all persons alike, including members of the Board
of Supervisors.

SEC. 54: No attorney, agent, stockholder or employee of any firm,
association or corporation doing business under or by virtue of any
franchise granted by, or contract made with the county, shall, nor
shall any person doing such business, nor shall any person financially
interested in any such franchise or contract, be eligible to or hold
any appointive county office.

SEC. 55: The District Attorney, Public Defender, County Counsel, and
their deputies, shall not engage in any private law practice, and they
shall devote all their time and attention during business hours to the
duties of their respective offices.

SEC. 56: Nothing in this Charter is intended to affect, or shall be
construed as affecting, the tenure of office of any of the elective
officers of the county or of any district, township or division
thereof, in office at the time this Charter goes into effect, and such
officers shall continue to hold their respective offices until the
expiration of the term for which they shall have been elected unless
sooner removed in the manner provided by law; nor shall anything in
this Charter be construed as changing or affecting the compensation of
any such officer during the term for which he shall have been elected.
But the successors of each and all of such officers shall be elected
or appointed as in this Charter provided, and not otherwise.

SEC. 57: This Charter shall take effect at noon on the first Monday in
June, 1913.

We, the undersigned members of the Board of Fifteen Freeholders of
the County of Los Angeles, in the State of California, elected at a
special election held in the said County on the 14th day of May, 1912,
to prepare and provide a Charter for the said County, under and in
accordance with Section 7 1-2 of Article XI of the Constitution of this
state, have prepared, and we do hereby propose, the foregoing as and
for a Charter for said County.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, we hereunto sign our names in duplicate this
twenty-fourth day of September, 1912.

  LEWIS R. WORKS, _Chairman_.
  FREDERICK BAKER,
  WILLIS H. BOOTH,
  T. H. DUDLEY,
  WILLIAM A. ENGLE,
  DAVID EVANS,
  H. C. HUBBARD,
  J. M. HUNTER,
  GEORGE F. KERNAGHAN,
  FRANK R. SEAVER,
  J. H. STRINE,
  CHARLES WELLBORN.




APPENDIX C

PROPOSED COUNTY HOME RULE IN NEW YORK

 [Below is the text of a constitutional amendment introduced in the
 Legislature of New York in 1916 by the County Government Association
 of New York State. The general object of this amendment is to limit
 the amount of special legislation affecting counties by empowering
 boards of supervisors to deal with many subjects of administrative
 organization and detail over which at present they have no general
 jurisdiction. The amendment anticipates legislation under which
 counties by referendum would be able to adopt one of several
 simplified forms of government in substitution for the existing form.]


CONCURRENT RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE AND ASSEMBLY

 Proposing the repeal of sections twenty-six and twenty-seven of
 article three, the insertion of two new sections at the beginning of
 article ten, to be numbered sections one and two, respectively, and
 the renumbering and amendment of sections one to nine, respectively,
 of article ten of the constitution.

Section 1. Resolved (if the Senate concur), That sections twenty-six
and twenty-seven of article three be hereby repealed.

§ 2. Resolved (if the Senate concur), That article ten of the
constitution be hereby amended by inserting therein two new sections
at the beginning thereof, to be numbered sections one and two,
respectively, to read as follows:

§ 1. [30]_Laws relating to the government of counties and to the
methods of selection, terms of office, removal and compensation of
county officers shall be general laws, both in terms and in effect.
The board of supervisors of any county, the members of which shall
be elected in the year one thousand nine hundred and seventeen or
thereafter, may repeal such sections of any law then in force as shall
relate to the foregoing subjects and affect exclusively such county.
The legislature may pass a law authorizing any county, except a county
wholly in a city, upon petition of a percentage of the electors thereof
to be determined by the legislature, to adopt one of such optional
forms of county government as may be set forth in such law. Such law
may authorize the selection of any county officer or officers by the
electors, by the board of supervisors or by other county officers, and
provide for the removal of officers so selected; it may confer upon the
board of supervisors such powers of local legislation, government and
administration as the legislature may deem expedient._

§ 2. _There shall be in each county, except a county wholly included
in a city, a board of supervisors, to be composed of such members and
chosen by the electors of the county or of its several subdivisions
in such manner and for such period as is or may be provided by law.
In a city which includes an entire county or two or more counties,
the powers and duties of a board of supervisors may be devolved upon
the municipal assembly, common council, board of aldermen or other
legislative body of the city._

§ 3. Resolved (if the Senate concur), That sections one and two of
article ten of the constitution be renumbered respectively sections
three and four and be hereby amended to read as follows:

§ [1]_3._ Sheriffs, clerks of counties, district attorneys and
registers, in counties having registers, shall be chosen by the
electors of the respective counties [once in every three years and as
often as vacancies shall happen, except in the counties of New York
and Kings, and in counties whose boundaries are the same as those of
a city, in every two or four years], as the legislature shall direct,
_unless and until the electors in the manner provided in section
one hereof shall adopt other methods of selection_. Sheriffs shall
hold no other office and [be ineligible for the next term after the
termination of their offices. They] may be required by law to renew
their security from time to time, and in default of giving such new
security, their offices shall be deemed vacant. But the county shall
never be made responsible for the acts of the sheriff. The governor
may remove any officer, in this section mentioned, within the term for
which he shall have been elected _or appointed_; giving to such
officer a copy of the charges against him and an opportunity of being
heard in his defense.

§ [2]_4._ All county officers whose election or appointment is not
provided for by this constitution, shall be elected by the electors
of the respective counties or appointed by the boards of supervisors,
or other county authorities as the legislature shall direct. All
city, town and village officers, whose election or appointment is not
provided for by this constitution shall be elected by the electors
of such cities, towns and villages, or of some division thereof,
or appointed by such authorities thereof, as the legislature shall
designate for that purpose. All other officers, whose election or
appointment is not provided for by this constitution, and all officers
whose offices may hereafter be created by law, shall be elected by
the people, or appointed as the legislature may direct. _Nothing in
this section shall prevent the transfer in whole or in part, of the
functions of any town or village officer to any county officer, or the
transfer in whole or in part of the function of any county officer to
any town or village officer._

§ 4. Resolved (if the Senate concur), That sections three, four, five,
six, seven, eight and nine of article ten of the constitution be hereby
renumbered five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven, respectively.

[30]EXPLANATION:--Matter in _italics_ is new; matter in brackets [] is
old law to be omitted.




APPENDIX D

PROPOSED COUNTY MANAGER LAW IN NEW YORK

 [This is the text of a bill introduced in the New York legislature
 at its session in 1916 at the instance of the County Government
 Association of New York State. For summary and comment on its
 provisions see pp. 178, 179.]


AN ACT

PROVIDING AN OPTIONAL FORM OF COUNTY GOVERNMENT FOR COUNTIES NOT WHOLLY
INCLUDED IN A CITY

_The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and
Assembly, do enact as follows_:

Section 1. Chapter sixteen of the laws of nineteen hundred and nine,
entitled “An act in relation to counties, constituting chapter eleven
of the consolidated laws,” is hereby amended by adding after article
fourteen-a a new article, to be article fourteen-b, to read as follows:


ARTICLE 14-B

§ 240. _Application of article. This article shall apply to all
counties which shall adopt the same in the manner hereinafter
prescribed, providing that the question of its adoption may not be
submitted in counties included wholly in a city._

§ 241. _Submission of article. If prior to the first day of October
in any year one percentum of the registered electors of any county
shall file with the appropriate officer a petition for the submission
of the question of the adoption of this article, the said officer shall
prepare the following question to be submitted at the general election
held in that year, in the same manner as other questions are submitted:
“Shall article fourteen-b of the county law, providing for government
by a board of county supervisors and a county manager, apply to the
county of (name of county)?”_

§ 242. _Election of county officers. If a majority of all votes cast
on such proposition be affirmative, there shall be elected in the
county at the next succeeding general election, in the same manner
as are other county officers, five officers to be known as county
supervisors. The said county supervisors shall hold office for a term
of three years, commencing at noon on the first day of January next
succeeding their election; provided, however, that of those elected
at the first election under this article two shall hold office for
one year, two for two years, and one for three years, the designation
whereof shall be made on the election ballot._

§ 243. _County supervisors; qualifications; vacancies and removals.
County supervisors shall be electors of the county. When a vacancy
shall occur, otherwise than by expiration of term, in the office of
county supervisor, the same shall be filled for the remainder of the
unexpired term at the next general election happening not less than
three months after such vacancy occurs; and until such vacancy shall
be filled the governor shall fill such vacancy by appointment. A
county officer may be removed by the governor in the same manner as a
sheriff._

§ 244. _The board of supervisors; organization, powers, compensation
of members. The county supervisors in each county adopting this article
shall constitute the board of supervisors of such county and the powers
and duties conferred and imposed upon the board of supervisors and
the officers and committees thereof in any general or special law are
hereby devolved upon the board so constituted, together with such other
powers, duties and responsibilities as may be conferred upon them by
law, to be exercised subject to the provisions of this article. When
the county supervisors elected within such county shall have qualified
the supervisors of the several towns and wards of cities within the
county shall cease to convene as a board of supervisors or to exercise
any of the powers and duties required to be exercised by the board of
supervisors of the county. The board shall elect one of its number
president, whose powers and duties shall be determined by said board,
and shall adopt rules for the conduct of its business. Each member
of the board shall receive an annual compensation not to exceed five
hundred dollars, the amount of which shall be determined by the said
board for attendance upon each of its meetings, provided, that the
total amount shall not exceed five hundred dollars. Such compensation
shall be a county charge and in addition to the actual necessary
expenses incurred for transportation in going to and from the meetings
of the board._

§ 245. _Election officers. No person who shall hold or be elected
to any elective county office at or before the election at which this
article is adopted shall be removed therefrom under authority of this
article before the expiration of the term for which he was elected or
appointed to fill a vacancy._

§ 246. _The county manager; appointment; qualifications; tenure;
compensation. The board of supervisors shall appoint an officer who
shall be a citizen of the United States but who, at the time of his
appointment, need not be a resident of the county, to be known as the
county manager. The said county manager shall execute to the county
good and sufficient sureties, to be approved by the county judge,
in a sum to be fixed by the board of supervisors, conditioned upon
the faithful performance of his duties. He shall not be personally
interested in any contract to which the county is a party; he shall
hold office at the pleasure of the board of supervisors, and upon
removal, the said board shall furnish him with a written statement of
the reasons for such action, signed by at least two members thereof.
The board of supervisors shall prescribe the salary of such county
manager and the compensation of the assistants and subordinates to be
appointed by him, which shall be a county charge and may be increased
or diminished at any time. A member of the board of supervisors, during
the term for which he is elected or appointed, shall not be eligible
for the office of county manager._

§ 247. _Duties and powers of the county manager. The county manager
shall be the administrative agent of the board of supervisors. It shall
be his duty_

(_a_) _To attend all meetings of the board of supervisors_;

(_b_) _To see that the resolutions and other orders of the board
of supervisors and the laws of the state required to be enforced by
such board, are faithfully carried out by the officers and employees of
the county, including all officers chosen by the electors_;

(_c_) _To recommend to the board of supervisors such measures as
he may deem necessary or expedient for the proper administration of
the affairs of the county and its several offices_;

(_d_) _To appoint all county officers whose election by the
electors is not required by the constitution, except county supervisors
and the county auditor or comptroller, and for such terms of office as
are provided by law._

_Subject to resolutions of the board of supervisors he shall_

(_e_) _Purchase all supplies and materials required by every
county officer, including the superintendents of the poor_;

(_f_) _Execute contracts on behalf of the board of supervisors
when the consideration therein shall not exceed five hundred
dollars_;

(_g_) _Obtain from the several county officers reports of their
various activities, in such form and at such times as the board of
supervisors may require_;

(_h_) _Obtain from the several county officers itemized estimates of
the probable expense of conducting their offices for the ensuing year,
and transmit the same to the board of supervisors with his approval or
disapproval of each and all items therein, in the form of a tentative
budget_;

(_i_) _Perform such other duties as the board of supervisors may
require._

_In the exercise of the foregoing duties, the county manager shall
have the same powers to examine witnesses, to take testimony under
oath and to investigate the affairs of every county officer which is
conferred by this chapter upon the boards of supervisors and committees
thereof._

§ 248. _The administrative code. Within ninety days after the first
day of operation under this article, the board of supervisors shall
adopt, publish in pamphlet form and cause to be delivered to every
officer of the county, and to such other persons as shall apply for
the same, a code of administrative rules. Such code, subject to such
regulations concerning the conduct of various county officers as may be
made from time to time by the comptroller, shall contain the rules of
the said board on the following subjects_:

(_a_) _The methods by which the county manager shall exercise
the duties imposed upon him in sub-divisions (e) to (i), inclusive, of
section two hundred and forty-seven of this article._

(_b_) _The method by which, and the form in which, the several
county officers and employees shall order supplies and materials_,

(_c_) _The form in which, and the times at which, the several
county officers shall submit the estimates of the probable financial
needs of their offices for the ensuing year_,

(_d_) _The manner in which the county treasurer shall disburse
the funds of the county_,

(_e_) _Such other regulations as shall be necessary to secure
the efficient conduct of the affairs of the county and its several
offices_.

§ 249. _Application of certain laws. All general and special laws
applicable to the county shall remain in full force and effect except
in so far as they are in conflict with this article._

§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.




APPENDIX E

THE CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER IN NEW YORK CITY

 [An amendment of the New York City Charter (Chap. 284 Laws of 1915)
 abolished the elective coroners in the five boroughs and created the
 office of Chief Medical Examiner. This amendment was prepared by
 representatives of the principal medical, legal and civic societies in
 New York City working in conjunction with the Commissioner of Accounts
 and representatives of the District Attorney’s office. It is believed
 to embody important standards of organization and procedure in the
 prosecution of public medico-legal investigations. The provisions of
 the amendment will go into effect January 1, 1918.]


AN ACT

To amend the Greater New York charter, and repeal certain sections
thereof and of chapter four hundred and ten of the laws of eighteen
hundred and eighty-two, in relation to the abolition of the office of
coroner and the establishment of the office of chief medical examiner.

_The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and
Assembly, do enact as follows_:

Section 1. The office of coroner in the city of New York shall be
abolished on January first, nineteen hundred and eighteen, and after
this section takes effect, a vacancy occurring in such an office in any
borough shall not be filled unless by reason of the occurrence thereof,
there shall be no coroner in office in such borough, in which case the
vacancy in such borough last occurring shall be filled for a term to
expire on January first, nineteen hundred and eighteen. If, by reason
of the provisions of this section, the number of coroners in a borough
be reduced, the remaining coroner or coroners in such borough shall
have the powers and perform the duties conferred or imposed by law on
the board of coroners in such borough.

§ 2. Title four of chapter twenty-three, sections fifteen hundred and
seventy and fifteen hundred and seventy-one of the Greater New York
charter, as re-enacted by chapter four hundred and sixty-six of the
laws of nineteen hundred and one, is hereby repealed, and in its place
is inserted a new title to be numbered four and to read as follows:


TITLE IV

CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER

  Section
          1570.   Organization of office; officers and employees.
          1571.   Violent and suspicious deaths; procedure.
          1571-a. Autopsies; findings.
          1571-b. Report of deaths; removal of body.
          1571-c. Records.
          1571-d. Oaths and affidavits.


ORGANIZATION OF OFFICE; OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES

§ 1570. There is hereby established the office of chief medical
examiner of the city of New York. The head of the office shall be
called the “chief medical examiner.” He shall be appointed by the mayor
from the classified service and be a doctor of medicine, and a skilled
pathologist and microscopist.

The mayor may remove such officer upon stating in writing his
reasons therefor, to be filed in the office of the municipal civil
service commission and served upon such officer, and allowing him an
opportunity of making a public explanation. The chief medical examiner
may appoint and remove such deputies, assistant medical examiners,
scientific experts, officers and employees as may be provided for
pursuant to law. Such deputy medical examiners, and assistant medical
examiners, as may be appointed, shall possess qualifications similar to
those required in the appointment of the chief medical examiner. The
office shall be kept open every day in the year, including Sundays and
legal holidays, with a clerk in constant attendance at all times during
the day and night.


VIOLENT AND SUSPICIOUS DEATHS; PROCEDURE

§ 1571. When, in the city of New York, any person shall die from
criminal violence, or by a casualty, or by suicide, or suddenly when
in apparent health, or when unattended by a physician, or in prison,
or in any suspicious or unusual manner, the officer in charge of the
station house in the police precinct in which such person died shall
immediately notify the office of the chief medical examiner of the
known facts concerning the time, place, manner and circumstances of
such death. Immediately upon receipt of such notification the chief
medical examiner, or a deputy or assistant medical examiner, shall go
to the dead body, and take charge of the same. Such examiner shall
fully investigate the essential facts concerning the circumstances of
the death, taking the names and addresses of as many witnesses thereto
as it may be practical to obtain, and, before leaving the premises,
shall reduce all such facts to writing and file the same in his office.
The police officer so detailed shall, in the absence of the next of kin
of deceased person, take possession of all property of value found on
such person, make an exact inventory thereof on his report, and deliver
such property to the police department, which shall surrender the same
to the person entitled to its custody or possession. Such examiner
shall take possession of any portable objects which, in his opinion,
may be useful in establishing the cause of death, and deliver them to
the police department.

Nothing in this section contained shall affect the powers and duties of
a public administrator as now provided by law.


AUTOPSIES; FINDINGS

§ 1571-a. If the cause of such death shall be established beyond a
reasonable doubt, the medical examiner in charge shall so report to
his office. If, however, in the opinion of such medical examiner,
an autopsy is necessary, the same shall be performed by a medical
examiner. A detailed description of the findings written during the
progress of such autopsy and the conclusions drawn therefrom shall
thereupon be filed in his office.


REPORT OF DEATHS; REMOVAL OF BODY

§ 1571-b. It shall be the duty of any citizen who may become aware of
the death of any such person to report such death forthwith to the
office of the chief medical examiner, and to a police officer who
shall forthwith notify the officer in charge of the station-house in
the police precinct in which such person died. Any person who shall
willfully neglect or refuse to report such death or who without written
order from a medical examiner shall willfully touch, remove or disturb
the body of any such person, or willfully touch, remove, or disturb the
clothing, or any article upon or near such body, shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor.


RECORDS

§ 1571-c. It shall be the duty of the office of medical examiner to
keep full and complete records. Such records shall be kept in the
office, properly indexed, stating the name, if known, of every such
person, the place where the body was found and the date of death. To
the record of each case shall be attached the original report of the
medical examiner and the detailed findings of the autopsy, if any. The
office shall promptly deliver to the appropriate district attorney
copies of all records relating to every death as to which there is,
in the judgment of the medical examiner in charge, any indication of
criminality. All other records shall be open to public inspection as
provided in section fifteen hundred and forty-five. The appropriate
district attorney and the police commissioner of the city may require
from such officer such further records, and such daily information, as
they may deem necessary.


OATHS AND AFFIDAVITS

§ 1571-d. The chief medical examiner, and all deputy or assistant
medical examiners, may administer oaths, and take affidavits, proofs
and examinations as to any matter within the jurisdiction of the office.

§ 3. Section eleven hundred and seventy-nine of such charter is hereby
amended to read as follows:


BUREAUS

§ 1179. There shall be two bureaus in the department of health.
The chief officer of one bureau shall be called the “sanitary
superintendent,” who, at the time of his appointment, shall have been,
for at least ten years, a practicing physician, and for three years a
resident of the city of New York, and he shall be the chief executive
officer of said department. The chief officer of the second bureau
shall be called the “registrar of records,” and in said bureau shall be
recorded, without fees, every birth, marriage, and death, which shall
occur within the city of New York.

§ 4. Section twelve hundred and three of such charter is hereby amended
to read as follows:


MEDICAL EXAMINERS’ RETURNS

§ 1203. The department of health may, from time to time make rules
and regulations fixing the time of rendering, and defining the form
of returns and reports to be made to said department by the office of
chief medical examiner of the city of New York, in all cases of death
which shall be investigated by it; and the office of the chief medical
examiner is hereby required to conform to such rules and regulations.

§ 5. Section twelve hundred and thirty-eight of such charter is hereby
amended to read as follows:


DEATHS TO BE REPORTED

§ 1238. It shall be the duty of the next of kin of any person deceased,
and of each person being with such deceased person at his or her
death, to file report in writing, with the department of health within
five days after such death, stating the age, color, nativity, last
occupation and cause of death of such deceased person, and the borough
and street, the place of such person’s death and last residence.
Physicians who have attended deceased persons in their last illness
shall, in the certificate of the decease of such persons, specify,
as near as the same can be ascertained, the name and surname, age,
occupation, term of residence in said city, place of nativity,
condition of life; whether single or married, widow or widower; color,
last place of residence and the cause of death of such deceased
persons, and the medical examiners of the city, shall, in their
certificates conform to the requirements of this section.

§ 6. Such charter is hereby amended by inserting therein a new section,
to be numbered section fifteen hundred and eighty-five-a, and to read
as follows:


COUNTY CLERKS TO EXERCISE CERTAIN STATUTORY POWERS AND DUTIES OF
CORONERS

§ 1585-a. In the city of New York the powers imposed and the duties
conferred upon coroners by the provisions of title three of chapter
two of the code of civil procedure shall be exercised and performed
by the county clerk of the appropriate county, and said county clerk
shall, in the exercise and performance thereof, be subject to the same
liabilities and responsibilities as are prescribed in such title in the
case of coroners.

§ 7. Sections seventeen hundred and sixty-six to seventeen hundred
and seventy-nine, both inclusive, of chapter four hundred and ten
of the laws of eighteen hundred and eighty-two, entitled “An act to
consolidate into one act and to declare the special and local laws
affecting public interests in the city of New York,” and all acts
amending such sections, are hereby repealed.

§ 8. The officers and employees now exercising the powers and duties
which by this act are abolished, or are conferred or imposed upon the
office of chief medical examiner, including coroner’s physicians, shall
be transferred to the office of chief medical examiner. Service in
the office, board or body from which transferred shall count for all
purposes as service in the office of the chief medical examiner.

§ 9. All funds, property, records, books, papers and documents within
the jurisdiction or control of any such coroner, or such board of
coroners, shall, on demand, be transferred and delivered to the office
of the chief medical examiner. The board of estimate and apportionment
shall transfer to the office of the chief medical examiner all
unexpended appropriations made by the city to enable any coroner, or
board of coroners, to exercise any of the powers and duties which by
this act are abolished or are conferred or imposed upon such office of
chief medical examiner.




APPENDIX F

A COUNTY ALMSHOUSE IN TEXAS

BY DR. THOMAS W. SALMON

 [Portion of an address delivered at the meeting of the Association of
 County Judges and Commissioners at Waxahachie, Texas, on February 11,
 1916.]


This particular Poor Farm is in one of the richest counties of the
state. The taxable property of that county is assessed at more than
$45,000,000. It contains no large cities (the largest has a population
of 15,000), all but two per cent. of the people are native-born and
the proportion of negroes is much less than in the state as a whole.
It would be difficult indeed to find in this wide land a county more
prosperous, more pleasant to live in or more truly American than this
one.

Four miles west of the county-seat is the Poor Farm. There is a
substantial brick building for the poor and infirm which is heated by
steam and lighted by acetylene gas. Scattered around the main building
are some small wooden cabins, cheap in construction and not in very
good repair, but, on the whole, comfortable for the old people, the
paralytics and the epileptics who live in them. If we could leave this
Poor Farm, having seen so much and no more, we could think of it
again only with feelings of pleasure that the county’s unfortunates
were provided for so comfortably; but standing alone is an old brick
building in which the insane are kept and this must be visited too.
It is a gloomy place, coming out of the bright October sun, but when
your eyes become accustomed to the shadows, you see what this county
has provided for the insane who are neglected by the great mother
state. You see that there is a clear space running around three sides
of the one large room which forms the entire interior of the building.
In the center and across the rear end of this room are fourteen iron
cages--four extending across the rear and ten back to back, down the
center. They are made of iron bars, the tops, backs and adjoining sides
being sheet metal. Near the top of each solid side, are seven rows of
holes about an inch in diameter. Their purpose is ventilation but they
serve also to destroy what poor privacy these cages might otherwise
possess. Each cage contains a prison cot or two swinging from the wall
while a few have cots upon the floor.

In these cages, which are too far from the windows in the brick walls
for the sunlight to enter except during the short period each day when
it shines directly opposite them, abandoned to filth and unbelievable
misery lie the insane poor of this pleasant, fertile, prosperous
American county. Color, age and sex have no significance in this place.
All of those distinctions which govern the lives of human beings
elsewhere are merged in common degradation here.

Men and women, black and white, old and young, share its horrors just
alike. They are insane and that fact alone wipes out every other
consideration and every obligation except that of keeping, with food
and shelter, the spark of life alight. When, at dusk, the shadows
deepen, the creatures in this place of wretchedness cower closer in the
corners of their cages for there are no cheerful lights here as in the
other buildings and when the darkness blots out everything there are
only the moans of distressed human beings to tell you it is not a tomb.
Through the night, when persons with bodily illnesses are attended by
quietly treading nurses in the two fine hospitals which the nearby town
supports, these unfortunate men and women, who are sick in mind as well
as in body, drag through terrors which no human community would wish to
have its worst criminals experience.

Each day brings to the poor creatures here light and food--as it does
to the cattle in the sheds--but it does not bring to them the slightest
hope of intelligent care, nor, to most of them, even the narrow liberty
of the iron-fenced yard. One attendant, a cheerful young man, is
employed by the county to look after the forty-odd inmates who at the
least compose the Poor Farm population. He used to be a trolley car
conductor but now he receives forty dollars a month for attending to
the inmates, male and female, who cannot care for themselves. He brings
back the feeble-minded when they wander off, he finds epileptics when
they fall in their attacks and he sees that all are fed. He is called
the “yard-man”; his duties are those of a herdsman for human beings.
His predecessor, a man of about sixty years of age, is serving a term
in the state penitentiary for an attack upon a little girl who was an
inmate of this Poor Farm. At his trial it was brought out that he had
served a previous term in another state for a similar offense.

The present “yard-man” has not the slightest knowledge of any other
kind of treatment for the insane, nor has he had the slightest
experience in practical nursing or in caring for the mentally or
physically helpless. He has been employed here about a year. He found
the insane in these cages and he knows of no other way of keeping them.
All but three or four of them remain in their cages all day, crouching
on the stone floors instead of on the green grass outside. A feeble
white woman in bed, wasted and pale, who apparently has but a few
months to live, was pointed out in one of the cages and the “yard-man”
was asked if she would run away if she were permitted to have her bed
outside. He admitted that it was not likely but said that she was weak
and would fall out of bed. He was asked if it would be worse to fall
out of bed on the grass or on the wooden floor of the main building
than on the stone floor of her cage, but these matters were far outside
his experience and he had no reply to make.

How much more knowledge and experience would have been required of this
young man if the county had seen fit to maintain a menagerie! No one
would think of entrusting the animals to one so wholly inexperienced
in their care. This young man might be employed as an assistant, but
he would never be placed in charge of an animal house full of valuable
specimens.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that the wretched people who are
confined in these cages were selected from a larger number of insane
inmates of the Poor Farm on account of exceptional intractability
or because their brains have been so dulled by the final stages of
dementia that they are no longer conscious of their surroundings.
These people are not a few selected for such reasons; they constitute
all but one of the avowedly insane who are housed in this Poor Farm.
They include persons as appreciative as you or I would be of the
loathesomeness of their surroundings and of the personal humiliation of
being confined in such a place. In one cage is a man who has delusions
which doubtless make it unsafe for him to have his liberty in the
community. He has not been allowed outside his cage _for a single
hour_ in three years.

This place was built twenty years ago. Perhaps the brain which planned
it is now dust, nevertheless its ignorant conception of the nature of
mental disease still determines the kind of care this county affords
the most unfortunate of all its helpless sick. Perhaps, too, the hands
which laid these bricks and forged these iron bars are now dead,
nevertheless they still stretch out of the past and crush the living
in their cruel grasp. The conception of mental diseases which gave to
this county this dreadful place did not even reflect the enlightenment
of its own period. Eighty years earlier Esquirol had stirred the pity
of France by a recital of miseries no worse than those which you can
see in this county to-day. Many years before this place was built,
Conolly had aroused public opinion in England to such an extent that
it was possible for cages such as these to exist in only the darkest
corners of the land. Thirty years before this grim structure arose
from the fair soil of Texas, Dorothea Dix was showing the inhumanity
of almshouse care of the insane in this country and members of our
legislatures were profoundly stirred by her descriptions of conditions
less abhorrent than those which exist to-day in the Poor Farm which
I have just described. Great reforms in the care of the insane have
extended over the entire country ever since these walls were built
but they have left this place untouched and it stands to-day, not
a pathetic but disused reminder of the ignorance and inhumanity of
another age and of another kind of civilization, but an actual, living
reality reproducing, with scarcely a detail lacking, conditions which
were described in pitying terms by the writers of four centuries ago.

Standing in the doorway of this building you can see evidences of the
material greatness of the twentieth century; taking a single step
inside you can see exactly what the superstition, fear and ignorance of
the sixteenth century imposed upon the insane.


THE INSANE IN COUNTY JAILS

The sufferings of the insane in the county Poor Farms would so stir
the compassion of the humane people of this state, could they but
walk among these fellow-citizens of theirs and witness the misery to
which they have been abandoned, that almshouse care would not survive
the next session of the legislature. Take away, however, the meager
attention given in the Poor Farms by those who, while they know nothing
of mental diseases or of how to care for them, are moved by kindly
impulses and recognize that the insane are sent to them for care and
not for punishment; take away this and substitute the harsh discipline
of the prison which is designed, by its painful memories, to restrain
evildoers from crime. Then some picture can be formed of the lot of
these poor sick people in county jails. Almost without exception, they
have committed no crime, unless it be a crime to suffer from mental
illness, but they share the lot of criminals and in many cases through
the fears of their jailers they are denied even the small liberties
allowed the criminals. Men and women, white people and negroes,
those scarcely out of childhood and those filled with the pains and
infirmities of age, those with types of mental disease which would
yield readily to even the simplest treatment and those doomed to mental
darkness all their days, I have seen them in the cells of the county
jails of Texas and learned their needs and witnessed their sufferings
at first hand. I can only say that I have never witnessed such depths
of misery as those in which these unfortunate people drag out the
months and years. Death releases some--the more fortunate--but the
others continue to exist in filthy cells without that hope of release
after a definite period, which cheers the criminals whose lot they
share. The rigors of the jail are intended to impress evildoers with
the terrors of the law but with few exceptions the prisoners in county
jails are young men, most of them in sturdy health. It is needless to
point out how much more severe punishment confinement in such places
is to the unfortunate insane, broken in health, many of them acutely
conscious of the terrible wrong which their state is inflicting upon
them and the prey to delusional and hallucinatory terrors, as well as
to those which depend upon actuality.

In not a few instances I found the insane in solitary confinement,
simply on account of their mental disease, while the criminals enjoyed
the companionship of their fellows. Every convention of life is swept
away when these unfortunate people enter the jails. Women are bathed
by men in the presence of male prisoners, persons with elusions of sin
and impending punishment lie in cells which face the gallows, the weak
and helpless are not even protected from physical violence, and, in
most cases, there is not the slightest semblance of personal care or
nursing. The jailers feel that they have discharged their full duty if
the insane are prevented from escaping. Persons convicted of serious
crimes enter the jails, serve their sentences and regain their liberty
while the insane, who have led upright lives and have contributed by
their honest toil to the prosperity of their state, lie in their cells
without hope of release. A pathetic fact is that the counties pay the
sheriffs more just for feeding the poor people than their care would
cost in the state hospitals for the insane. It is needless to dwell
further on the inhumanity and the injustice of confining the insane in
the county jails. It constitutes a blot upon the honor of the state
which every citizen would demand erased were the actual facts widely
known.




  BIBLIOGRAPHY


  THE COUNTY GENERALLY


_Books and Collections of Papers_

 American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia,
 “County Government....” (_Its_ Annals, v. 47, whole No. 136.)
 May, 1913. 326 pp.

 FAIRLIE, JOHN A., _Local Government in Counties, Towns and
 Villages_. New York, The Century Co., 1906. 289 pp. (The American
 State series) Bibliography.

 The New York short ballot organization: _Proceedings of the First
 Conference for better County Government_. Schenectady, N. Y., Nov.
 13-14, 1914.


_Book References_

 BEARD, C. A. _American Government and Politics._ New and
 rev. ed. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1914. 788 pp. See Index under
 county.

 BRISTOW, A. S. H. “Counties.” (In _American and English
 Encyclopædia of Law_. 2nd ed. Northport, N. Y., 1898. V. 7:898-972.)

 CLARK, F. H. _Outlines of Civics_; being a supplement to
 Bryce’s _American Commonwealth_, abridged edition, ... New York
 and London, The Macmillan Company, 1899. 261 pp. “The County”: pp.
 148-178.

 FAIRLIE, J. A. “County Government.” (In _Cyclopædia of
 American Government_, New York, 1914. V. I: 492-497.)

 FISHER, S. B. “Counties.” (In Mack, William, _ed._
 _Cyclopædia of Law and Procedure._ New York, 1904. V.
 II: 325-615.)

 FISKE, J. _Civil Government in the United States,
 Considered with some Reference to its Origin._ New ed., with
 additions. Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1904, 378 pp. See
 Index under county.

 FLICKINGER, J. R. _Civil Government as Developed in the
 States and in the United States._ Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1901.
 350 pp. See Index under county.

 GOODNOW, F. J. _Municipal Home Rule; a Study in
 Administration._ New York, The Columbia University Press, The
 Macmillan Co., agents, 1906. 283 pp. See Index under county in United
 States.

 MARRIOTT, CRITTENDEN. _How Americans are Governed in
 Nation, State, and City._ New York and London, Harper & Brothers,
 1910. 372 pp. “Counties and Towns”: pp. 256-259.

 MILLER, W. A. _Civil Government, State and Federal; an
 Exposition of our Policy._ Boston, New York, B. H. Sanborn & Co.,
 1910. 264 pp. “The County”: pp. 23-37.

 MOSES, B. _The Government of the United States._ New
 York, D. Appleton & Co., 1911. 424 pp. (Twentieth Century Textbooks,
 ed. by A. F. Nightingale.) “County Government”: pp. 313-315.

 RADER, P. S. _Civil Government of the United States and the
 State of Missouri._ Rev. ed. Jefferson City, Mo. The Hugh Stephens
 Co. 1912. 351 pp. “Counties”: pp. 246-257.

 SHERMAN, W. H. _Civics: Studies in American
 Citizenship._ New York, London, The Macmillan Co., 1905. 328 pp.
 “The County”: pp. 48-53.


_Magazine Articles and Monographs_

 BAILEY, W. L. “The County Community and its Government.” In
 _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 14-25.

 CARTWRIGHT, O. G. “Some needs to be considered in
 Reconstructing County Government.” In _Proceedings of the First
 Conference for better County Government_. 1914. The New York Short
 Ballot Organization.

 CHILDS, R. S. “Ramshackle County Government.” _Outlook_,
 May 3, 1916.

 GILBERTSON, H. S. “The Discovery of the County Problem.”
 _American Review of Reviews_, Nov., 1912. V. 46: 604-608.

 GILBERTSON, H. S. “Elements of the County Problem.” In
 _Annals of the American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 13.

 TAYLOR, G. “The County, a Challenge to Humanized Politics and
 Volunteer Co-operation” (president’s address at forty-first annual
 meeting, National Conference of Charities and Corrections. 16 pp.)


_Individual States_

 MILLER, E. J. “New Departure in County Government:
 California’s Experiment with Home Rule Charters.” _American
 Political Science Review_, Aug., 1913. V. 7: 411-419.

 FAIRLIE, J. A. “County and Town Government in Illinois.” In
 _Annals of American Academy_, May 1913. pp. 62-78.

 Illinois. _Laws, Statutes, etc._ A compilation of the laws of
 Illinois, relating to township organization and management of county
 affairs. 26th ed., rev. Chicago, The Legal Adviser Pub. Co. 1910. 863
 pp.

 Indiana, _State Board of Accounts_. Information concerning the
 business in county and township offices during the fiscal year ending
 Dec. 31, 1911. (Indianapolis, 1912.) 352 pp.

 LAPP, J. A. “Checks on County Government in Indiana.”
 _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913. pp. 248-254.

 WILHELM, L. W. _Local Institutions of Maryland._
 Baltimore, N. Murray, publication agent, Johns Hopkins University,
 1885. 129 pp. (Johns Hopkins University studies in Historical and
 Political Science, 3rd ser. v. 5-7.)

 SCROGGS, W. O. “Parish Government in Louisiana.” In _Annals
 of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 39-47.

 BEMIS, EDWARD W. “Local Government in Michigan and the
 Northwest.” Read before the American Social Science Assn., Sept. 7,
 1882. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1883. 25 pp. (_Johns
 Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science._
 1st ser., V.)

 CARTER, C. P. _The Government of Missouri._ Boston,
 New York, Silver, Burdett and Company (1912). 171 pp. (_with_
 Lansing, Robert, _Government: Its Origin, Growth and Form in the
 United States_ ... New York, Boston, 1902). “The County”: pp.
 39-47.

 LOEB, I. “County Government in Missouri.” In _Annals of the
 American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 48-61.

 PAUL W. “County Management in New Jersey.” In _Proceedings
 of the Conference for the Study and Reform of County Government_
 (second meeting). 1914. The New York Short Ballot Organization.

 ---- “The Movement for County Reorganization in New Jersey.” _Annals
 of American Academy._ May, 1913. pp. 255-257.

 GILBERT, F. B. Bender’s supervisors’, county and town
 officers’ manual, containing the county, town, highway, general
 municipal, tax and poor laws in full and all other statutes of the
 state of New York, relating to boards of supervisors, town boards,
 county and town officers, and the affairs and business of counties and
 towns, as amended to the close of the legislature of 1912 ... 6th. ed.
 Albany, N. Y. M. Bender & Co., 1912. 1349 pp.

 CARTWRIGHT, O. G. “County Government in New York State.”
 _Annals of the American Academy._ May, 1913. pp. 258-270.

 GILBERTSON, H. S. “The New York County System.” _American
 Political Science Review._ Aug., 1914. pp. 413-430.

 BUCK, GEO. S. “The Organization of County Government.” In
 _Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science_, New York.
 Jan., 1915.

 ROCKEFELLER, L. K. “County Government from the Comptroller’s
 Standpoint.” _Proceedings of the Conference for the Study and Reform
 of County Government_ (third meeting). 1914. The New York Short
 Ballot Organization.

 GUESS, W. C. _County Government in Colonial North
 Carolina._ 1911. 39 pp. (The University of North Carolina.) The
 James Sprunt historical publications pub. under the direction of the
 North Carolina Historical Society, v. II, No. I.

 U’REN, W. S. “State and County Government in Oregon and
 Proposed Changes.” _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913. pp.
 271-273.

 RAMAGE, B. J. _Local Government and Free Schools in South
 Carolina._ Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1883. 40 pp.
 (_Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political
 Science._ 1st ser., v. 12.)

 CHANNING, E. “Town and County Government in the English
 Colonies of North America.” The Toppan prize essay for 1883.
 Baltimore, N. Murray, publication agent (_Johns Hopkins University
 Studies in Historical and Political Science_, 2nd ser., X)
 2nd ser., v. 10.

 HITCHCOCK, L. E. _Powers and Duties of Sheriffs,
 Constables, Tax Collectors, and other Officers in the New England
 States._ With forms and precedents. 2nd ed. Boston, Little, Brown &
 Co. 1914. 472 pp.

 UPDYKE. “County Government in New England.” In _Annals of
 American Academy_, May, 1913. pp. 26-37.


_Studies and Surveys of Individual Counties_

 _Alameda County, Cal._ Bulletins covering the investigation of
 many phases of county administration. Tax Association of Alameda
 County, 823 Oakland Bank of Savings Building, Oakland, Cal.

 _Cook County, Ill._ Surveys of various county offices, in
 pamphlet form. Bureau of Public Efficiency, 315 Plymouth Court,
 Chicago, Ill. 1911-1916.

 _Monroe County, N. Y._ Government of Monroe County, N. Y.,
 organization and functions. The New York Constitutional Convention
 Commission. 1915.

 _Nassau County, N. Y._ Government of Nassau County, N. Y.,
 description of organization and functions. Commission on the
 Government of Nassau County, Mineola, N. Y. 1915.

 _Suffolk County, N. Y._ First Annual Report of the Suffolk County
 Taxpayers’ Association. 1915. (Secretary’s office, 44 Court Street,
 Brooklyn, N. Y.)

 _Westchester County, N. Y._ Various pamphlet publications of the
 Westchester County Research Bureau, 15 Court Street, White Plains, N.
 Y. 1911-1916.

 _Hudson County, N. J._ The government of Hudson County.
 (Dissertation for Ph.D. degree, Columbia University, 1915.) The
 Citizens’ Federation of Hudson County issues reports on special phases
 of Hudson County affairs from time to time.

 _Cuyahoga County, O._ The Civic League of Cleveland, Guardian
 Bldg., Cleveland, publishes reports on county offices and methods from
 time to time.

 _Milwaukee County, Wis._ The Milwaukee County government, a
 bulletin of the City Club (a joint report of the committee on county
 administration, civil service and county institutions and buildings).
 1915. The City Club of Milwaukee, Wis.


_City-County Relations_

 BRUERE, H. and WALLSTEIN, L. M. _Study of
 County Government within the City of New York and a Plan for its
 Reorganization._ Prepared for the New York Constitutional
 Convention, 1915. 44 pp., diagrams, tabulations.

 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. _The Nineteen Local Governments
 of Chicago_, 1915. 30 pp., charts.

 HORMELL, O. C. “Boston’s County Problems.” _Annals of
 American Academy_, May, 1913. Pp. 134 _et seq._

 HATMAKER. “Schenectady’s City-County Plan.” In _Proceedings
 of the first Conference for better County Government_. The New York
 Short Ballot Organization, 1914.

 KING, C. L. “Report of the City-County Committee of the
 American Political Science Assn.” _American Political Science
 Review_, Feb., 1914, sup., v. 8: 281-291.

 LONG, P. V. “Consolidated City and County Government of San
 Francisco.” _American Political Science Review_, Feb., 1912,
 sup., v. 6: 109-121.

 LUDINGTON, A. “The Relation of County to City Government in
 New York.” _American Political Science Review_, Feb., 1912, sup.,
 v. 6: 73-88.

 PAUL, W. and GILBERTSON, H. S. “Counties of the
 First Class in New Jersey.” _American Political Science Review_,
 Feb., 1914, sup., v. 8: 292-300.

 YOUNG, T. P. “The Separation of City and County Governments
 in St. Louis, History and Purposes.” _American Political Science
 Review_, Feb., 1912, sup., v. 6: 97-108.


_Charities_

 BURRITT, B. B. “County Management of Charities and Special
 Institutions in our Own State (N. Y.).” In _Proceedings of the
 Conference for the Study and Reform of County Government_ (second
 meeting). The New York Short Ballot Organization.

 HARRIS, E. F. “Charity Functions of the Pennsylvania County.”
 _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 166-181.

 HAVILAND, C. F. _The Treatment and Care of the Insane in
 Pennsylvania._ The Public Charities Association. Philadelphia,
 1915. 94 pp.

 LANE, WINTHROP D. “A Rich Man in the Poor House.”
 _Survey_, Nov. 4, 1916.

 MACY, V. E. “Administration of County Charities.”
 In _Proceedings of the First Conference for better County
 Government_. 1914. The New York Short Ballot Organization.


_Civil Service_

 BELCHER, R. W. “The Merit System and the County Civil
 Service.” _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 101-111.

 PAUL, W. “The County Employee.” _Annals of American
 Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 81-84.


_The Coroner_

 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. _Administration of the Office
 of the Coroner of Cook County, Ill._ 1911. 68 pp.

 _Civic League of Cleveland_ (formerly the municipal association).
 _The Coroner’s office_, 1912. 30 pp.

 DU VIVIER, J. “Abolishment of the Coroner’s Office.” In
 _Proceedings of the Conference for the Study and Reform of County
 Government_ (second meeting). 1914. The New York Short Ballot
 Organization.

 New York Short Ballot Organization. _Abolishment of the office of
 Coroner in New York City._ 1914. 16 pp.

 SCHULTZ, O. T. “The Coroner’s Office.” In _Annals of
 American Academy_. May, 1913, pp. 112-119.


_County Courts and Court Clerks_

 Bureau of Public Efficiency, Nov., 1912. 44 pp. _Administration of
 the Office of Clerk of the County Court of Cook County, Ill._

 HARLEY, H. “The County Judiciary.” In _Proceedings of the
 First Conference for better County Government_.

 The Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. _The Judges and the County
 Fee Offices._ 1911. 15 pp.

 WOODS, K. P. “The Passing of County Courts.” (In Virginia.)
 _Outlook_, Jan. 31, 1903, v. 73: 264-265.


_County Politics_

 JONES, C. L. “The County in Politics.” In _Annals of
 American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 85-100.


_The District Attorney_

 GANS, H. S. “The Public Prosecutor: his Powers, Temptations
 and Limitations.”... _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp.
 120-133.


_Financial Administration_

 BOYCE, J. E. “County Budgets: Economy and Efficiency in
 Expenditures.” _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp.
 199-212.

 BUCK, GEO. S. “The County Auditor.” In _Proceedings of the
 first Conference for better County Government_. The New York Short
 Ballot Organization. 1914.

 CARTWRIGHT, O. G. “County Budgets and their Construction.”
 _Annals of American Academy_, Nov., 1915, pp. 223-234.

 Chicago Bureau of Public Efficiency. “The Budget of Cook County, Ill.”
 Jan., 1911. 54 pp. “The office of Treasurer of Cook County, Ill.”
 1913. 68 pp.

 COOKINGHAM, H. J., JR. “Taxation and County Government in
 New York State.” In _Proceedings of the First Conference for Better
 County Government_.

 COKER, F. W. “Administration of Local Taxation in Ohio.”
 _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 182-198.


_Home Rule_

 _National Municipal Review._ “County Home Rule,” Jan., 1913,
 sup., v. 2: 2-7.

 WORKS, L. R. “County Home Rule in California.” _Annals of
 American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 229-236.


_Prisons_

 “Centralization of the Custody of Prisoners within the City of New
 York.” Report of the Commissioner of Accounts, Transmitted to the
 Mayor, Feb., 28, 1916.

 LEWIS, O. F. “County Prisons.” _Proceedings of the
 Conference for the Study and Reform of County Government_, first
 meeting. The New York Short Ballot Organization, 1914.


_The Recorder_

 “Administration of the Office of Recorder of Cook County, Ill.” Report
 prepared for the judges of the circuit court by the Chicago Bureau of
 Public Efficiency, Sep., 1911. 63 pp.

 “The Recorder’s Office.” Civic League of Cleveland, Mar., 1914. Report
 No. 3, Efficiency Series. 25 pp.


_Reorganization_

 CHILDS, R. S. “The County Manager Plan.” In _Proceedings of
 the first Conference for Better County Government_. 1914. The New
 York Short Ballot Organization.

 ---- “A Theoretically Perfect County.” _Annals of American
 Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 274-278.

 “The Short Ballot County Amendment.” Brief submitted to the
 Constitutional Convention of New York, 1915. The New York Short Ballot
 Organization, 1915. 16 pp.


_The Sheriff_

 CAWCROFT, E. “The Sheriff and a State Constabulary.”
 In _Proceedings of the First Conference for Better County
 Government_.

 Civic League of Cleveland. (Formerly the municipal association.) The
 Sheriff’s office, 1912. 26 pp.


_State Administrative Supervision_

 BRINDLEY, J. E. “State Supervision of County Assessment and
 Taxation.” _Annals of American Academy_, May, 1913, pp. 213-226.


_State Police_

“Why the Farms and Villages of New York State Need Protection.” 1915.
Committee for a state police, 7 East 42nd Street, New York, N. Y.

“Why New York Needs a State Police.” 1915. Committee for a state
police.




  INDEX


  Accounting, (uniform) in Ohio, 122;
    significance of better, 181, 184-185;
    unit cost, 185

  Administration, scientific, 181-192

  Advertising (political), as a source of patronage, 53;
    _see also_ County press

  Agricultural associations, importance in rural life, 203

  Alabama, origin of county system in, 21;
    county officers elective in, 29;
    report of prison inspector quoted, 92;
    lack of accounting law in, 122;
    county local option in, 150

  Alameda County, Cal., work of Tax Association in, 7;
    home rule charter proposed in, 81-149;
    classification as an urban county, 154;
    map of, diagram of proposed federation of, 161-162;
    savings effected through better purchasing methods in, 189;
    recommendations as to purchasing methods in, 190

  Almshouse, description of early, 82, 83;
    insane in, 87, 137-138;
    in Westchester County, 200-201;
    a Texas, 266-273;
    _see_ South

  American Judicature Society, proposals for county judiciary of, 131

  American Revolution, influence of its philosophy on local government
  institutions, 25

  Appointive power, lack of, in county, 30

  Appointive system, workings of, in eastern states, 30

  Appointments, new method employed in Westchester County, N. Y., 201

  Arizona, uniform accounting law in, 122

  Arkansas, lack of accounting law in, 122

  Assessment and taxation, county as a unit of, 125;
    state control over, 126

  Assessors, functions of, in New Jersey, 27;
    elective officers since 1693, 28;
    local selection of, 108-109

  Auditing, significance of better, 181; 187 _et seq._

  Auditor, importance of independence of, 188

  Automobile, effect on rural life and government, 23


  Ballot, insignificance of county officers on, in many cases, 44

  Baltimore, abolition of county government in, 153;
    classification as an urban county, 154

  Board of Chosen Freeholders, powers reduced in Hudson County, N. J.,
  38

  Board of Supervisors, clerks of, in New York, appear before
  constitutional convention, 3;
    function in fiscal administration of, 14;
    duty of, in law enforcement, 132-133;
    how constituted in ideal county, 171;
    text of provisions in Los Angeles County charter concerning,
    220-223;
    _see also_ Governing body

  Boroughs, proposed division of Alameda County, Cal., into, 160

  Boston, city-county consolidation in, 158;
    metropolitan district compared to London, 164

  Boundaries (county), made obsolete by conditions of modern life, 23;
    power to change county, 113;
    necessity for relocation of, 153

  Boyle, Prof. John A., on reporting and accounting laws, 122

  Bramhall, F. D, on obscurity of urban counties, 65

  Bridges, frauds in building of, 77;
    awarding of contracts for, 98-99;
    awarding of contracts for, in Polk County, Iowa, 100;
    _see_ Roads and bridges

  Bronx County, N. Y., formation of, 24

  Budget, importance of adequate county executive in making of, 176;
    nature of, 177;
    significance of better, 181;
    accounting basis for, 185-187

  Buffalo, N. Y., relation to county, 154;
    _see_ Erie County

  Bureau of Inspection, etc., in Ohio, 121

  Bureau of Public Efficiency, (Chicago), on special county legislation,
  116

  Butte County (Cal.), charter of, 149


  California, extent of merit system in counties of, 52;
    county legislation in, 115;
    uniform accounting law in, 122;
    salary of county judges in, 130;
    highway progress and plans in, 142;
    success of municipal home rule in, 146;
    county home rule in, 145-147;
    county libraries in, 199, 207-219;
    _see also_ Alameda County, Los Angeles County, San Francisco County,
    Assessors

  Cartwright, Otho G., quoted, 176

  Charities, State Board of, in New York, 128;
    modern methods in administration of, 136;
    gradual abandonment of county as unit for administration of, 138

  Chicago, candidates for county offices voted for in, 62;
    law enforcement in, 106;
    county government in, 114;
    _see also_ Cook County, Ill.

  Chief medical examiner (in New York City), 134;
    text of law, 257-265

  Children, prohibition against commitment to almshouses, 83;
    injustice done to destitute, under New York poor laws, 85;
    treatment of, in Westchester County, 202

  Cincinnati, Ohio, proposals for city-county consolidation in, 152

  Cities, reconstructive forces in American, 1;
    greater need for government in, 151;
    consolidation with counties, 151-167;
    importance solving the county problem of, 167;
    commission government in, 169

  Citizenship (rural), 194

  Civil Service, slow growth of reform in counties, 52;
    state control over, 126-127;
    in Los Angeles County, Cal., 172-173, 231-239

  Clerk of Court, duties of, 13;
    relation to the bench, 135;
    _see_ County Clerk

  Cleveland, Ohio, county government in, 114;
    proposal for city-county consolidation in, 152;
    relation to county, 154

  Clinton County, N. Y., (County “B”), irregularities in county offices
  of, 72-73

  Colorado, establishment of counties in, 22;
    extent of merit system in, 52;
    uniform accounting law in, 122;
    provisions in constitution of, affecting Denver, 155

  Commission plan of city government, 169

  Commissioner of Charities and Correction, 202

  Commissioners (county) in Pennsylvania, 28

  Commitments to almshouses,--abuses of, in New York, 85, 200

  Comptroller (state), ineffective as check upon county officers without
  adequate examining staff, 36

  Connecticut, origin of county in, 9;
    local system of courts in, 12;
    public prosecutor in, 12;
    influence of Massachusetts precedents in, 19;
    convention in, 38;
    appointive judiciary in, 131

  Consolidation (city and county), under California constitution, 149;
    in general, 151-167

  Constables, law enforcement by, in New York State, 107, 138

  Constabulary, Pennsylvania, 140;
    in Los Angeles County charter, 231

  Constitution (state), provisions concerning counties, 112, 115

  Cook County, Ill., President of Board of Commissioners elected by
  people, 40;
    large fees of treasurer in, 51;
    county commissioners prevent accounting for county treasurer’s fees,
    52;
    duplication of local governments in, 63;
    humanitarian functions of, 80, 81;
    prisoners in county jail of, 80;
    insane cared for by, 81;
    dependent children cared for by, 81;
    appropriations for, in 1913, 81

  Coroner, origin of, 13;
    falsity of theory underlying his election, 32;
    fees of, 50;
    failures in urban counties, 59;
    abolition of, proposed, 133;
    appointive, 172;
    _see_ Massachusetts, New York (city).

  Corruption and form of government,  102

  Council, powers of, in Indiana counties, 37

  Council of appointment in New York State, 28

  County, the, treatment of problem in New York constitutional
  convention, 2, 3;
    popular apathy concerning, 5;
    neglect of, in college courses, and by journalists, 6;
    general statistics concerning, in U. S., 7-8;
    colonial origin of, 9 _et seq._;
    legal relation to state government, 10, 11;
    general manner of its development, 22-23;
    decline of, in England, 23;
    unadapted to urban conditions, 24;
    its failure as a humanitarian agency, 92;
    relation to state government, 113, 127, 128;
    power to erect new, 113;
    limitation on powers of, 113;
    misuse of funds by, 120;
    as unit for tax assessment, 125;
    growing importance of, in certain directions, 143;
    superiority over town as tax assessment and collection unit, 144;
    abolishment of, proposed in New York City, 157;
    the ideal, 168

  ---- chambers of commerce, 203

  ---- clerk, duties of, 13;
    independence of county judge, 130;
    relation to the bench, 135;
    appointment of advocated, 135;
    appointive method of selection of, 171, 172

  ----committee, actual power in selecting county officers, 48;
    basis of party organization, 55

  ---- court, consisted of justices of the peace in Virginia, 17;
    its administrative functions in some states, 17;
    jurisdiction of, 129-132;
    _see also_ County Judge, Cook County

  ---- custodian, office of, created in a New York county, 5

  ---- governments, lack of control over local policies, 15;
    ineffectual in operation owing to lack of unity, 43;
    lack of popular interest in and its effects, 43-44;
    their stereotyped condition in face of new responsibilities, 60;
    at work, 66-79;
    defects in, as affecting highway matters, 95;
    general criticism of, 170

  ---- health officers in North Carolina, 195-196

  ---- hospital in Westchester County (N. Y.), 202

  ---- jail, separate jurisdiction of, in Milwaukee, 62;
    overcrowding of, 91;
    buildings faultily constructed and unsanitary, 91;
    need of publicity concerning, 92;
    in Westchester County (N. Y.), 202;
    insane in, 271-273;
    _see also_ Cook County, Ill.

  ---- judge formerly appointed county officers in Tennessee, 28;
    _see also_ New York (state), County Court

  ---- libraries, 198-199

  ---- lieutenant, militia officer in colonies, 17

  ---- manager, proposed, 175;
    probable influence of, 176-177;
    proposed in Oregon, 178;
    in New York, 178-179;
    in Alameda County, Cal., 180;
    text of proposed law providing for, 251-256

  ---- officers, duties of, in colonial New England, 18;
    effect of obscurity on, 44;
    effect of divided allegiance upon efficiency of, 68;
    in Los Angeles County, 223-225;
    under Los Angeles County charter, 227-229

  ---- physician, in New Jersey functions of, 134;
    in North Carolina, 195

  ---- planning in Westchester County, N. Y., 197-198

  ---- poor farm in Westchester County, N. Y., 201

  ---- prisons, administration of, by counties, 89-92;
    _see also_ County jail

  ---- superintendent of schools appointive, 172

  ---- surveyor as road master, 96

  ---- treasurer, created in Massachusetts, 18;
    _see_ Cook County, Ill.

  Court houses, scandals characteristic of building of, 76;
    in Hudson County, N. J., 74-75

  Courts, differentiation of functions necessary in urban communities,
  59;
    _see also_ County Court, local system of, in colonial Connecticut,
  12

  Cox, Governor James J., efforts to improve tax assessment system in
  Ohio, 111

  Cuyahoga County, O., _see_ Cleveland


  Dakota, alternative plans of county government in territory of, 22

  Darke County, O., management of road affairs by board of
  commissioners, 98

  Dayton, O., city manager plan in, 175

  Defectives, treatment of, in Westchester County, N. Y., 201

  Delaware, lack of accounting law in, 122

  Democracy, spirit of, in early nineteenth century, 25-26

  Denver, selection of sheriff by mayor in, 133;
    classification as an urban county, 154;
    constitutional provisions affecting government of, 155-156;
    commission form of government in, 156;
    power of mayor in, 156;
    unified control in, 174

  Deputy (chief) county officers, importance of, and relation to
  elective superiors, 50

  Direct primary, doubtful value of, in county government, 48

  District attorney (state), origin of, in colonial Connecticut, 12-13;
    popular interest in, 46;
    elected on false issue of law enforcement, 107-108;
    functions of, 134;
    essentially a local officer, 155;
    _see_ New York (state);
    _see also_ Prosecutor

  District attorney (federal), method of selection contrasted with that
  of local prosecutors, 33


  Efficiency, Bureau of (in Los Angeles County), 191

  Elective road officials, 96

  Electric railways, effect on rural life and government, 23

  Engineering services, duplication of in Milwaukee, 62

  England, importance of its precedents in colonies, 17

  Erie County, N. Y., form of county government in, 114

  Essex County, N. J., classification as urban county, 154;
    county park system in, 163;
    office of supervisor in, 173-174

  Examiners (state), character of service rendered to local officials,
  123

  Executive, how absence of, militates against proper law enforcement,
  34-35, 74


  Federation, proposed in Alameda County, Cal., 159-160

  Feeble-minded, removed from county control, 83

  Fees, attraction of, to politician and disposition of, 50-51;
    of coroner, 50;
    theory of system, 51;
    failure of system, 51, 202;
    abolishment of, in Los Angeles County, 173

  Finance, laxity in methods of, 70;
    in bridge construction, 183

  Fire protection, proposed as county function in Alameda County, Cal.,
  160

  Flaherty _v._ Milliken, decision in, involving sheriff’s liability, 53

  Florida, uniform accounting law in, 122

  Freeholders, Board of Chosen, (N. J.), 173


  Georgia, uniform accounting law in, 122

  “Good roads” movement, effect on highway administration, 95, 140

  Governing body, ill-adapted for executive functions, 41;
    insufficient control over elective county officers, 41;
    _see also_ Boards of supervisors, Freeholders, Commissioners

  Governor, formerly appointed county officers in Kentucky, 28;
    ineffective control over county officers, 36;
    suggestion that sheriffs be appointed by, 133;
    county officers appointed by, in Massachusetts, 158


  Hamilton County (O.), _see_ Cincinnati

  Haviland, Dr. C. Floyd, on treatment of insane in Pennsylvania, 88

  Health (public), neglected in rural communities, 60;
    beginnings and basic idea of movement for, 83;
    county as a unit for administration of, 143;
    program of, needed in rural sections, under county control, 195

  Highways, as a unifying factor in modern life, 94;
    amount spent in U. S. in 1913, 94;
    growing state control over, 95;
    diminution of county control over, 140 _et seq._;
    state aid for, 141;
    _see also_ Roads and bridges

  Home office, relations to county of London, 166

  Home rule (county), 145-150;
    text of provisions in California constitution, 207-218;
    proposed constitutional amendment in New York, 247-250

  Hospital service, duplication of agencies for, in Milwaukee 61;
    _see also_ County hospital

  Hudson County, N. J., court house scandal in, 7;
    boulevard commission in, 38;
    separate powers of commission, 38;
    park system, 39;
    building of court house in, 75;
    classification as urban county, 154;
    supervisor in, 173-174

  Humanitarian functions of county, 80-93


  Idaho, establishment of counties in, 22;
    county local option in, 150

  Illinois, Southern and New England influence on county system of, 21;
    county officers under first constitution of, elective, 28;
    system in, 52;
    insane in penal institutions of, 87;
    report of State Charities Commission on county jails, 91-92;
    Sabbath law enforcement in, 106;
    special county legislation in, 116;
    optional county government forms in, 147;
    _see_ Cook County

  Indiana, origin of county in, 20;
    county officers under first constitution elective, 28;
    county government scandal in 1898, 37;
    powers of county commissioners reduced by establishment of council,
    37;
    illegal payments by county officers in, 78;
    law enforcement in, 107;
    uniform reporting in, 122

  Industrial revolution, indirect influence on county government, 23

  Insane, removed from county control, 83;
    care of, by counties, 87-89;
    first hospital for, at Utica, N. Y., 137;
    _see_ Cook County, Ill., New Jersey, Illinois, Louisiana,
    Pennsylvania

  Institutions (state), _see_ Insane, Penitentiaries, Reformatories,
  etc.

  Iowa, county township system in, 20;
    methods employed by supervisors in Woodbury County, 76-77;
    bridge lobby in legislature of, 101;
    state control of highways in, 142;
    _see_ Polk County


  Jail, _see_ County jail

  Jersey City (N. J.), _see_ Hudson County, N. J.

  Judiciary (state), relation of county officers to, 129-132;
    importance of reorganization, 131;
    (federal) cited as instance of appointive method of selection, 131

  “Jungle,” the, 34-42

  Justices of the peace, duties of, in colonial Virginia, 17;
    functions in Virginia, 27;
    power to commit children to almshouses in New York State, 85;
    reorganization of, 131;
    jurisdiction of, 132


  Kansas, county-township system in, 20;
    report of roads and highways committee, 101;
    uniform accounting law in, 122

  Kentucky, influence of Virginia upon county organization of, 20;
    county officers made appointive in eighteenth century, 28;
    reaction against appointive system in, 29;
    lack of accounting law in, 122;
    county local option in, 150

  Kings County, N. Y., former office of supervisor-at-large in, 40

  Koochiching County (Wis.), county health organization in, 196


  Labor, provisions in Los Angeles County charter concerning, 239

  Law enforcement, lax under county officers, 70, 74;
    made a political issue, 107;
    unification of local agencies for, suggested, 133;
    _see_ Nullification

  Leadership, importance of, in county affairs, 176

  Legislation (county), uniformity in, 112

  Legislative representation, often based upon county, 56

  Lewis, O. F., on county jails in New York, 91

  Libraries, _see_ County libraries

  Local government, restricted functions of, in early nineteenth
  century, 27;
    new burdens placed upon, as result of congestion of population, 58

  London, functions of county of, 165;
    County Council an example of county government unification, 164-166

  Long ballot, its effect on organization of county government, 34;
    contributions of county to, 62

  Los Angeles County, Cal., charter of, 61, 149, 172, 219, _et seq._;
    county candidates on ballot of, 62;
    civil service in, 191;
    public defender in, 200

  Louisiana, police jury in, 21;
    insane in parish jails, 87;
    uniform accounting law in, 122;
    county local option in, 150


  Macy, V. Everit, on operation of poor law in New York State, 84-85;
    superintendent of the poor, 200-203

  Madison, James, influence in favor of retaining original county
  system in Virginia, 29

  Mail facilities, effect on rural life and government, 24

  Maine, influence of Massachusetts precedents in, 19;
    lack of accounting law in, 122

  Marshall, John, influence in favor of retaining original Virginia
  county system, 29

  Marshals, U. S., method of selection contrasted with that of sheriff,
  33, 133

  Maryland, county government, 19;
    lack of accounting law in, 122;
    highway progress in, 142;
    county libraries in, 199

  Massachusetts, origin and early history of county in, 9;
    spoils system in, 52;
    county prisons in, 90;
    uniform accounting law in, 122;
    abolition of coroner’s office in, 133;
    leader in establishing state penal institutions, 137;
    reform institutions in, 137;
    state aid in highway construction in, 142;
    metropolitan district of, 154

  Medical examiner, suggested as a substitute for coroner, 60;
    in Massachusetts, 133;
    _see_ also Chief medical examiner

  Medical referee (in New Hampshire), 134

  Michigan, township-supervisor system in, 20;
    uniform accounting law in, 122;
    state penitentiary in, 137;
    county local option in, 150

  Middle West, insane in almshouses, 87-88;
    New England influences in, 104

  Milwaukee, Wis., report of City Club of, regarding city and county
  offices, 61;
    county government in, 114;
    proposals for city-county consolidation in, 152;
    relations to county, 154

  Minnesota, alternative plans of county government in, 22;
    uniform accounting law in, 122;
    county local option in, 150;
    county libraries in, 199

  Mississippi, origin of county system in, 21;
    county officers elective in, 29;
    lack of accounting law in, 122

  Missouri, county-township system in, 20;
    alternative plans of, county organization in, 21;
    county officers elective in, 29;
    poor law and almshouse administration in, 86;
    equalization of taxes in, 110;
    lack of accounting law in, 122;
    county libraries in, 199

  Monroe County, N. Y., absence of road records in, 98

  Montana, establishment of counties in, 22;
    county local option in, 150

  Mosquito Commission, in Hudson County, N. J., 39


  Nassau County, N. Y., work of County Association in, 7;
    recommendations of official commission in, for county home rule, 148

  National Municipal League, its report on city-county consolidation,
  153, 154

  Nebraska, alternative plans of county organization in, 21;
    activity of bridge builders in legislature of, 102;
    county libraries in, 199

  Nevada, uniform accounting law in, 122

  New England, influences operating on local government in, 17;
    formation of first counties in, 18;
    county-town relations in, 143

  New Hampshire, limited powers of commissioners in, 37-38;
    convention, powers and duties of, 38;
    lack of accounting law in, 122;
    appointive judiciary in, 131

  New Jersey, local assessors in, 19;
    office of supervisor in, 39-40;
    law affecting sheriff’s appointments, 52;
    extent of merit system in counties of, 52;
    insane in penal institutions of, 87;
    county legislation in, 115-116;
    state civil service regulation in, 127;
    the surrogate in, 130;
    appointive judiciary in, 131;
    optional county government forms in, 147;
    _see_ Essex County, Hudson County

  New Mexico, establishment of county system in, 22;
    uniform accounting law in, 122

  New York (city), special legislation for counties of, 117;
    abolition of coroners in, 134;
    city-county consolidation proposals in, 152;
    extent of city-county consolidation in, 156-157;
    metropolitan district compared to London, 164

  New York (county), large fees of sheriff in, 51

  New York (state), counties of, discussed in constitutional convention,
  2-3;
    supervisors in towns of, 19;
    elective method applied to sheriffs and county clerks in, 29;
    district attorneys and county judges made elective in, 29;
    extent of merit system in counties of, 52;
    legal relation of sheriff to his deputies in, 52-53;
    requirements as to county advertising, 53;
    almshouses in, 82;
    improvement of condition of poor in, 84;
    New England influences in, 104;
    enforcement of anti-racing laws in, 106;
    under-assessment of taxes by local officers, 109;
    equalization of taxes in, 110;
    county law in, 114;
    uniform reporting law in, 121;
    civil service regulation in, 127;
    State Board of Charities, its jurisdiction, 128;
    comptroller, his powers over county officers in, 128;
    the surrogate in, 130;
    state prisons in, 137;
    first state reformatory in, 137;
    “state” poor in, 138;
    committee on State Police, 139;
    highway control in, 142;
    County Government Association, its recommendations concerning county
    home rule, 148;
    metropolitan district of, 154;
    proposal for county manager in, 178;
    classification of county accounts in, 184;
    public health movement in, 195;
    county libraries in, 199;
    _see also_ Erie County, Kings County, Monroe County, Orange County,
    Nassau County, Prison Assn., Westchester County

  New York _Times_, its proposals for abolishment of counties in New
  York State, 152

  Niagara County, N. Y., district attorney quoted concerning rural post
  office robberies, 138

  Niagara Falls, N. Y., city manager plan in, 175

  North Carolina, influence of Virginia precedents on, 19;
    lack of accounting law in, 123;
    public health movement in, 195;
    county physicians in, 195;
    home-study clubs in, 204-205

  North Dakota, accounting and reporting legislation in, 122

  Northwest, importance of county as unit of government in, 22;
    New England influences in, 104

  Nullification, 104-111


  Ohio, county-township system in, 20;
    county officers in first constitution elective, 28;
    extent of merit system in counties of, 52;
    pioneer in county reporting, 121-122;
    state penitentiary in, 137;
    highway progress in, 142;
    county libraries in, 198-199;
    _see_ Cleveland, Cincinnati, Darke County

  Oklahoma, uniform accounting law in, 122;
    public defender in, 199

  Omaha, long ballot in, owing to elective county officers, 63

  Orange County, N. Y., (County “A”), irregularities of officers of,
  70-71

  Ordinance of 1787, county officers under, appointive, 28

  Oregon, establishment of counties in, 22;
    county local option in, 150;
    proposal for county manager in, 178;
    county libraries in, 199


  Parks, county system in Essex County, N. J., 163

  Party, organization, importance of county as unit of, 55;
    baneful effects upon county administration, 191

  Payments, frequency of illegal, 188

  Pennsylvania, commissioners in, 19;
    party organization in, 55;
    care of dependent children in, 86-87;
    treatment of insane in, 88-89;
    state constabulary in, 140

  Pennybacker, J. E., on highways, 140 _et seq._

  Philadelphia, classification as an urban county, 154

  Personnel, importance and limitations of, as factor in good
  government, 67;
    administrative, 191;
    _see_ Civil service

  Police, proposed as county function in Alameda County, Cal., 160;
    _see_ Constabulary

  Police functions, county officers unable to perform, in complex
  communities, 58

  Political boss, origin of, in county government, 47-48

  Polk County, Iowa, awarding of bridge contracts in, 100

  Poor, care of, entrusted to county governments, 14-15;
    former treatment and present scientific handling of, 82;
    superintendents of, in N. Y. State, powers of, 85;
    overseers of, in N. Y. State, commitments by, 85;
    importance of records concerning, 190;
    administration of laws dealing with, 200;
    _see_ Missouri, N. Y. State, Pennsylvania

  Poverty, prevention of, 201

  Press (county), small circulation, lack of independence, 54;
    need for improving, 194

  Prison Association, in New York State, secretary of, quoted, 91

  Prisoners, classification of, 83, 84;
    jurisdiction of county over, 90;
    classification of, systematically violated, 91;
    transfer of certain classes of, to state institutions advocated,
    136-137

  Probation, importance of records concerning, 190

  Professional politicians, great opportunity of, in obscurity of county
  government, 47

  Prosecutor, appointment of, advocated, 135;
    _see_ District attorney

  Public defender, the, 199-200

  Public Efficiency Society, work of, in Cook County, Ill., 7

  Publicity, importance in county affairs of, 182

  Purchasing, duplication of systems in Milwaukee, 62;
    significance of better methods of, 181;
    agent, 189;
    consolidation of local agencies for, 190, 200, 201


  Qualifications (legal) of county officers, lack of, 50

  Quick, Herbert, on county government in Iowa, 76-77;
    characterization of county government by, 194


  Race track legislation, enforcement of, by local county officers,
  106-107

  Readjustments of county system, 129-144

  Recall, provisions in Los Angeles County charter concerning, 240-244

  Reconstruction, of county government, 168-180;
    formula for, 169

  Recorder, appointive, 172

  Records, usual lack of, in road management by counties, 98;
    in Westchester County almshouse, 200-201

  Reporting, importance of uniform, 121

  Responsibility, lack of in organization of judiciary, 131;
    necessity for fixing in counties, 170-171

  Rhode Island, origin of county in, 9;
    influence of Massachusetts institutions in, 19;
    sheriffs appointed by legislature in, 29;
    lack of accounting law in, 123

  Roads and bridges, 94-103;
    under Los Angeles County charter, 229-231

  Rochester, N. Y., proposals for city-county consolidations in, 152

  Rural politics, influence of county press on, 55

  Rural voter, civic capacity of, 44, 170


  St. Louis County (Mo.), city-county consolidation in, 153

  Salmon, Dr. Thomas W., on county almshouse care of insane, 89

  San Bernardino County, Cal., adoption and amendment of county charter
  in, 30, 31, 149

  San Francisco, classification as an urban county, 154;
    city-county consolidation in, 158-159

  Saxon kingdoms, the original of English counties, 23

  Secor, Alson, on bridge lobby at Des Moines, 101-102

  Sectionalism, stimulated by governmental organization in some states,
  97

  Selectmen, functions in colonial Virginia, 16;
    functions of, in New England, 27

  Sheriff, maladministration of, in a central N. Y. county, 4;
    historical origin of, 11;
    court duties of, 12;
    duties of, in Virginia, 17;
    elective officer in Pennsylvania since 1726, 28;
    in New Jersey after Revolution, 28;
    falsity of theory underlying his election, 32;
    large fees of, in New York County, 51;
    appointing power restricted in New Jersey, 52;
    relation to deputies according to N. Y. courts, 52-53;
    principal police agency in early local governments, 58;
    conflict with other police agencies, 60, 61;
    limitations as jail keeper, 90;
    as enforcer of state laws in N. Y. State, 107;
    imperfectly controlled by county judge, 130;
    functions as court officer discussed, 132;
    suggestion that governor appoint, 133;
    inability of, in dealing with crime, 139;
    encroachment upon functions of, by Department of Correction in N. Y.
    City, 157;
    appointive method of selection of, proposed, 171;
    importance of records of, 190;
    _see_ Rhode Island

  Short ballot, the basic principle of county reconstruction, 169-170;
    meaning of, 181

  Solicitor, _see_ District Attorney

  South, development of county in, 9;
    the insane in county almshouses of, 87

  South Carolina, influence of Virginia precedents on, 19;
    lack of accounting law in, 123;
    appointive judiciary in, 131

  Southwest, importance of county as unit of local government in, 22

  Special legislation, testimony of county officer concerning, in N. Y.
  constitutional convention, 4

  State constitutions, provisions of, concerning counties, 112

  ---- control in taxation, 126

  ---- examiners in Ohio, 121

  ---- government, stiffening hold on highway matters, 95;
    influence in county affairs, 112-119

  ---- legislatures, power over counties, 112

  ---- party organization, built upon county units, 55

  ---- supervision of accounts recommended, 185

  State’s attorney, _see_ District Attorney

  Suffolk County, Mass., _see_ Boston

  Suffolk County, N. Y., work of Taxpayers Assn. in, 7

  Superintendent of the poor, appointive method of selection proposed,
  171

  Supervisor (town), functions of, in N. Y., 27;
    elective officers in N. Y. since 1691, 28;
    in Hudson County, N. J., 40;
    influence in road affairs, 97;
    _see_ Board of supervisors, Essex County and Hudson County, N. J.

  Surrogate, jurisdiction of, in probate matters, 130

  Surveyor, appointive, 172;
    _see_ County surveyor

  System (of government), importance of, as contrasted with personnel,
  66, 74, 78


  Tammany Hall, its influence exercised through control of county
  offices, 55

  Tax administration, inappropriateness of town as unit for, 144;
    dual system of, in California, 160

  ---- collector, appointive, 172

  ---- laws, nullification of, by local officers, 108

  Taylor, Graham, on humanitarian functions of county, 80-81

  Tehama County (Cal.), charter of, 149

  Telephone, effect on rural life and government, 24

  Tennessee, influence of early Virginia precedents on county
  government, 20;
    county officers of, made appointive, 28;
    uniform accounting law in, 122

  Texas, American county system established in, 22;
    lack of accounting law in, 123;
    county local option in, 150

  Town, dominant idea in local government of New England, 17;
    relation of county to, in New England, 143;
    inappropriateness of, for performance of certain functions, 143-144

  Township officers in Los Angeles County charter, 225-227

  Treasurer, elective in Massachusetts, 27;
    appointive, 172;
    _see_ county treasurer

  Tuberculosis, effect upon general public health movement of fight
  against, 195

  Turnpike companies, as road builders and operators, 94


  Uniformity in county legislation, 112 _et seq._

  Urban communities, growth of, 57

  Urban counties, 57-65

  Utah, establishment of counties in, 22;
    lack of accounting law in, 123


  Vermont, lack of accounting law in, 123

  Virginia, origin of counties of, 16;
    constitutional convention, discussion concerning local government
    in, 29;
    reaction against appointive system of, 29;
    lack of accounting law in, 123;
    highway progress in, 142;
    independent cities of, 153


  Westchester County, work of Research Bureau, 7;
    patronage in political advertising, 53-54;
    recommendations of official commission in, for county home rule,
    148;
    auditing practices in, 184;
    discrepancies between estimates, etc., for poor relief in, 184;
    _see_ County planning, V. Everit Macy

  Westchester County Chamber of Commerce, its activities in county
  planning, 197;
    in activities for better county government, 204

  Westchester County Research Bureau, statement concerning budget
  making, 186-187

  Western Reserve, New England influences in, 20, 104

  West Virginia, uniform accounting law in, 122

  Wisconsin, compromise plan of county government, township system in,
  21;
    spoils system in, 52;
    provisions for county graduate nurse in, 196;
    county libraries in, 199

  Wyoming, auditing system in, 122;
    county libraries in, 199




Transcriber’s Notes

In a few cases, obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.

Page 27: “Massachussetts had always had it” changed to “Massachusetts
had always had it”

Page 142: “cases to impofe standards” changed to “cases to impose
standards”

Page 192: “comparative efficiency of employes” changed to “comparative
efficiency of employees”

Page 236: “comparative efficiency of employes” changed to “comparative
efficiency of employees”

Page 238: “No officer or employe of the county,” changed to “No officer
or employee of the county,”

Page 245: “No attorney, agent, stockholder or employe of any firm”
changed to “No attorney, agent, stockholder or employee of any firm”

Page 253: “other powers, duties and responsibilties” changed to “other
powers, duties and responsibilities” In Appendix C, page 248, a
footnote has been created to contain the explanation text.

In the Index, the spelling of Polk County was corrected.