RELATIONS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 429 



on prosecuting this ceaseless American industry of making and un- 

 making municipal charters. 



Most municipal reformers in the United States have, however, 

 openly or tacitly agreed to give over for the present all very strenuous 

 attempts to secure their ideals in the matter of charters. They are 

 working, rather, for good practical results under any sort of mechan- 

 ism, however complicated or arbitrary. They recognize the fact, 

 nevertheless, that the innumerable so-called checks and balances 

 and the baffling division and dispersion of authority, far from pre- 

 venting misgovernment, afford the wrong-doers their best oppor- 

 tunities. 



It has thus far proved impossible to persuade the charter-makers 

 that the safest and best plan is to abolish nine tenths of the machinery 

 and provide a simple, direct way by which cities may exercise self- 

 government as respects the range of power granted them by the state. 



The earlier powers to be exercised within municipal limits are 

 those of a negative and purely protective sort. The police authoiity 

 is everywhere recognized as belonging to the higher sovereignty of 

 the state. It has, however, in nearly all countries been found con- 

 venient to turn over to the municipal authorities the organization 

 and control of the police work. An exception has generally been 

 made of the great metropolitan cities, in which the whole state has 

 so much concern, that it makes direct exercise of the police authority, 

 and declines to admit the municipal corporation to any share in the 

 maintenance of public order. In some countries, as in England, 

 police standards and methods are national, while organization and 

 ordinary control are municipal. In such cases there is national 

 inspection, and the higher government pays some part of the cost 

 of maintenance. 



In the United States many of the most serious disturbances of 

 municipal life grow out of the difficulty of defining properly the sphere 

 of the police administration, and the further difficulty of securing 

 permanent and non-partisan direction. It is highly important that 

 a sharp distinction be noted between the evils in American municipal 

 life that associate themselves with the conduct of the police depart- 

 ment and the other very different problems of municipal government 

 that have to do with the raising and expenditure of the corporate 

 revenue, and the management of water-supply, drainage systems, 

 cleansing services, streets, parks, schools, and various other lines 

 of municipal activity. While it is evident that inefficient or 

 corrupt police administration has a tendency to infect and corrupt 

 other departments, it has often been strikingly true that alongside 

 of scandalously bad police administration there has been found 

 fiscal integrity and efficient management of the health services, 

 the schools, and various public works. 



