116 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 



councilmen. I have no hesitancy in saying that council- 

 men should all be elected at large. The ward system 

 with its single representative should be abolished. The 

 ward was contrived for the benefit of the politician and 

 the ward heeler, and not for the benefit of good govern- 

 ment. In Iowa there is no uniform rule as to the num- 

 ber of councilmen, excepting that the statute requires 

 that one be elected for each ward, and that two be 

 elected at large. In the larger Iowa cities the number 

 varies from seven to eleven. In Memphis and San Fran- 

 cisco all the members of the legislative body, corre- 

 sponding to our council, are elected on a general ticket. 



The committee on law reform of the Iowa State Bar 

 Association recently made the following recommenda- 

 tion: 



"That the municipal government of Iowa cities 

 should be vested in a council of three aldermen, whose 

 term of office should be three years, after the first coun- 

 cil, the members of which should serve respectively one, 

 two and three years, to be determined by lot; thereafter 

 one alderman to be elected annually; such alderman to 

 be elected in all cases by a vote of the whole city, and 

 vacancies to be filled by special elections, such councils 

 to be vested with all the present powers of city councils 

 and to elect one of their members as mayor to exercise 

 all the duties of mayor, as defined by law; such alder- 

 men to be paid from two thousand to five thousand 

 dollars per year, depending upon the class of the city, 

 with additional compensation to the mayor; all to be 

 fixed by law ; the said aldermen and mayor to be required 

 to devote their entire time to the discharge of their 

 duties. That the statutes of Iowa should be amended 

 accordingly." 



The election of councilmen on a general ticket would 

 give us, as a rule, men who would act for the interests 

 of the city as a whole, and I know that there would be 

 much less log-rolling — a practice which costs cities 

 thousands of dollars every year. With a council so cho- 

 sen I am sure that it would be composed of better men — 

 men who would attempt to give, and succeed in giving, 

 the city a much more businesslike and economical 



