COMMISSION GOVERNMENT 275 



THE EEAL PROBLEM OF COMMISSION GOVERNMENT 



By OSWALD RYAN 



DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN HISTORY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



THAT no problem has laid a severer tax on the political genius of 

 our people than the perplexing problem of city government every 

 student of our political experience knows. Ever since James Bryce 

 called attention to "the one conspicuous failure of the American 

 people " — the failure of the city governments — our publicists and states- 

 men have been searching restlessly for the model system of government 

 which was to rescue the cities from inefficiency and misrule. Inciden- 

 tally, a certain class of politicians has exerted itself with equal vigor 

 to render ineffectual the efforts of these workers for a new municipal era. 



To say that the new forms of government which constitute the 

 fruits of this reform quest have been complete successes in practical 

 operation would be as far from the truth as to say that they have been 

 complete failures. Practically all of the new forms of city government 

 launched during the past thirty years wrought some sort of improve- 

 ment in municipal conditions; but, with one exception, it can not be 

 said that any one of them proved so efficient as to give promise of be- 

 coming the prevailing municipal system in the United States. Each 

 new plan was set in motion amid brilliant prophecies for the future 

 city government; but in due time the charm which had brought the 

 initial success wore off and the prophecies went unfulfilled. The tale 

 was " full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." 



A striking exception to the usual reform tradition is apparently 

 revealed in the story of the commission plan of city government. 

 About ten years ago a great tidal wave swept a substantial part of the 

 city of Galveston, Texas, into the Gulf of Mexico, and the necessity 

 arose for supplanting the notoriously inefficient aldermanic govern- 

 ment of that city with a government which should be equal to the task 

 of restoration. A plan was devised by which all municipal powers were 

 intrusted to a single body of five men, each one of whom was given 

 supervision of one of the city's departments, for the proper management 

 of which he was held responsible. The new system, which came to be 

 called the "commission plan," proved unusually efficient and was 

 adopted by several other Texas cities. To-day more than a hundred 

 cities located in all parts of the country are being admirably governed 



