Commission Government in the West

• Date: 01 November 1911
• Author: Ford H. Macgregor
• Published date: 01 November 1911
• DOI: 10.1177/000271621103800305
• Subject Matter: Articles

COMMISSION GOVERNMENT IN THE WEST
BY FORD H. MACGREGOR,
University of Wisconsin.
Progress follows the sun westward. The commission govern-
ment movement has made greater progress in the West, if by
&dquo;West&dquo; be included all states west of the Mississippi, than it has
in all the other and more conservative parts of the United States.
Indeed, commission government originated, has been in operation
longest, and has reached its highest degree of perfection in the
West. Nineteen states in the West now make provision in one way
or another for the organization of city government on the com-
mission plan. That is to say, all states west of the Mississippi with
the exception of Arkansas, Nevada, and Arizona, either make pro-
vision or permit cities to organize their governments on the
commission plan, and at the last session of the Arkansas legislature
a bill was introduced to make such provision, but for some reason it
failed of passage. Seven of these states-Minnesota, Missouri,
Oklahoma, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and California-are
home rule states and permit cities to draft and adopt their own
charters, and in all except Missouri, cities have taken advantage
of this opportunity and have adopted commission charters. Twelve
states-Iowa, Louisiana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kan-
sas, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho, and Utah-
have enacted general commission charter laws, which cities in those
states may adopt by popular vote. Washington has also enacted a
general law for cities of less than 20,000 population, since those cities
do not come under the home rule provision. The eighteenth state-
Idaho-has provided commission government by special charter
and general law. Just one hundred cities west of the Mississippi
river have now adopted and are operating under the commission
plan. As general laws in five states were enacted only during the
legislative sessions of ion, it is probable that this number will be
greatly increased during the coming year.
Thus commission government in the West is fast passing
through the initiatory stage. In the matter of administrative or-

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ganization it has already passed through that stage. There are
just two great problems in municipal government to-day. One is
the problem of devising a system of organization that will permit
public officials to administer public affairs efficiently, and in accord-
ance with popular will, and the other problem is to devise a means
of selecting and choosing the right kind of officials to administer
the .system once devised. Commission government is the BB1 est’s
contribution to the solution of the first problem. It is an attempt
to bring the organization of city government up to date, and to make
it suitable and applicable to the functions which the modern city of
to-day is called upon to perform.
The position of the city, its functions, and the conditions under
which it is administered have changed unrecognizably since the
common council system was imposed. Then the administrative
duties of the city were few. There were no street railways, no
telephones, no telegraphs, no municipal gas or electric light plants,
no great water works and water purification plants, no great sewer
systems and sewage disposal plants, no garbage crematories, no
miles of expensive pavements, and hundreds of acres of parks with
public baths, gymnasiums, etc. There were some wooden pave-
ments and some open sewers. The municipal lighting plant con-
sisted of the lamp-lighter who went about at dusk and lighted the
lamps on the street corners, and every man’s well was a part of
the municipal water supply. The principal functions of the city
then were the protection of life and property, the care of the poor,
and the administration of the public schools.
But all this is changed. To-day, the city is almost wholly a
business corporation, and is little concerned with great political
policies or far-reaching legislation. There is little need for a large
and separate legislative department. Modern cities have to build
streets, roads, and bridges, to operate water works and sewage dis-
posal plants, municipal electric light and gas plants, to run garbage
crematories, to maintain hospitals, schools, fire and police depart-
ments, courts, public markets, and to care for the numerous helpless
and defective members of the community. On all these subjects
there is no doubt whatever as to what the people need, and the
proper supply of their needs is a matter of purely administrative
business. The ideas of governmental organization which prevailed
at the time our American citv government was instituted are no

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longer applicable to the conditions which now prevail in our cities,
or adequate to the functions which they perform. The economic
conditions of to-day demand concentration and centralization.
Capital is everywhere being combined. The management of great
business enterprises is being concentrated in the executive heads
of industrial corporations. Responsibility for the conduct of educa-
tional and charitable institutions is likewise drifting from the board
to the single executive head. In all branches of administrative and
executive activity the tendency is to center power and responsibility
in the hands of a few men. Tendencies so marked in American
business and institutional activity are certain to exert an influence
on the administration of municipal affairs. We cannot hope per-
manently to preserve the illusion that political organization can be
kept free from the influences which are dominant in the other
departments of our national life.
We
have but to recall the number of different types of business
organization through which the industrial and commercial interests
of this country have passed since our prevailing form of city
government was adopted-from the partnership, through the com-
pany and corporation, to the modern trust-to realize how keen
and quick is the business undertaking to adapt its organization to
the conditions under which it must operate, and to realize how slow
and how far behind the times is our antiquated system of municipal
administration. We have but to recall the sad experience of our
municipalities in their dealings with public service corporations to
realize how expensive and inadequate is any form of government
which depends upon a system of checks and balances to secure
economic advantage. The same economic conditions which demand
concentration in business demand concentration in government when
government is mainly concerned with business undertakings.
It is surely safe to say, then, that so long as present day
economic conditions prevail, the commission form of government.
or some form of government which embodies the general principles
of commission government-the concentration of power and the
fixing of official responsibility-must be the dominant type of mu-
nicipal organization in this country. There must be a readjustment
of the machinery of government to fit these economic conditions.
City government must be organized on the same basis and must
utilize the same principles of business management that have been

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adopted and found to be so successful in other business, industrial,
and commercial enterprises, if the same satisfactory results are to
be obtained.
This being the case, the next most important problem facing
our cities becomes the selection of the administrators of this com-
mission system, or the electoral system, and here again we must
turn to the West.
In the commission governed cities of the West
are to be found nearly every device of progressive election machin-
ery-direct primaries, non-partisan nominations and majority elec-
tions, cumulative and preferential voting, the English system of
first and second elections, and the recall. At the present writing
there have been in none of these cities a sufficient number of elec-
tions to arrive at a safe conclusion as to the efhciency of any of
these various devices, there having been in most cases but one or
two elections, but the next few years will be replete with inval-
uable experience and information resulting from their operation in
these western cities. Where municipal officials are elected for four
and five year terms, and an election is had in only the same number
of years, it will naturally take some time to thoroughly try out and
test these new election devices.
But in the meantime a very thor-
ough test will be made of the commission type of organization.
It has already been in operation long enough and has been adopted
extensively enough in several of these western states to have estab-
lished a prima facie case in favor of this form of organization. In
two of these states-Iowa and Kansas-its success and popularity
have warranted the devotion of a separate article in this volume to
the discussion of the operation of commission government in each
of these states.
As these states together with Texas, which is
covered in another article, contain nearly all the cities which
have operated under the commission plan for more than two years,
it is left for this article to deal mainly with the structural organiza-
tion of the various plans that have been adopted in the other states,
and to concern itself with the results of these plans only in so far
as they have been in operation long enough to afford reliable infor-
mation for other cities which wish to follow their example. The
plans will be taken up in order in each state as it appears on the
map.

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Wisconsin
Wisconsin cannot be considered as a western...