COMMISSION GOVERNMENT 281 



the method secured neither; effective popular control of public officials 

 became as impracticable as administrative efficiency. 



The municipal needs of the present day are stronger than ever in 

 their demand for a system which will insure administration by experts. 

 The increasing social and economic complexity of modern urban life 

 has entailed burdens and obligations hitherto unknown to local gov- 

 ernment, and if the work of meeting these needs is not carried on with 

 the assistance of permanent experts the cities must fail in their obli- 

 gations. At the same time it is plain that government by experts alone 

 is undesirable and out of harmony with American political ideas. A 

 staff of permanent officials which is out of touch with the electorate 

 tends to develop into a professional bureaucracy, tied up with red tape 

 and unresponsive to the popular will and needs. It is therefore neces- 

 sary that the expert should be under the constant supervision of the 

 layman, who will thus form a connecting link between the professional 

 staff and the people. In this way the permanent official will be brought 

 into contact with the needs of the people, and the people, through their 

 elected supervisors, will possess the means of controlling the permanent 

 official. As President Lowell, of Harvard, put it at a recent meeting 

 of the National Municipal League. 



The current management and, for the most part, the suggestion of improve- 

 ments ought to lie with the expert, but he ought to work under the constant 

 supervision and control of unprofessional men representing the community at 

 large. The expert ought to devote his whole time to the business and receive a 

 salary high enough to pay for the whole time of a man with the capacity required. 

 The person who oversees him ought to be expected to give far less of his time. 

 If he gives much it is because he undertakes to do himself what had better be 

 left to experts. . . . His duty is not to administer, but to supervise and direct 

 the administration. 



It is precisely this adjustment between the professional and lay 

 elements in the government which has been responsible for the marked 

 success of the English borough governments. As in the commission 

 plan the legislative and administrative powers of the English borough 

 are vested in the council, which is the sole governing authority. The 

 actual work of administration is carried on by a permanent staff of ex- 

 perts acting under the supervision and control of standing committees 

 of the council. As the commissioner of police overlooks the police de- 

 partment in the commission-governed city, so the watch committee 

 supervises the police administration of the English borough. In the 

 same manner the library and school boards of American cities have been 

 for several years supervising with distinct success the permanent corps 

 of experts in charge of the public libraries and schools. Thus we are 

 not compelled to subscribe to any new or untried principle in advo- 

 cating municipal administration by a permanent staff of experts work- 

 ing under the direction of elective laymen. 



