118 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 



Suppose the finance committee, the grading committee, 

 the sewer committee and the street committee of the 

 city council were each to act independently of the other, 

 and not attempt to work in harmony with each other 

 or with the council as a whole, what sort of a city govern- 

 ment would we have? Suppose a great manufacturing 

 business were run on a similar plan, what would be the 

 result? It would certainly end in disaster. I would 

 abolish every board and commission connected with 

 municipal government in Iowa. There is no excuse for 

 its existence. They make the administration of munici- 

 pal government expensive and cumbersome. They are 

 the boon of the politician and the place-hunter. They 

 were contrived for the purpose of limiting the powers of 

 both the executive and the council, and the result is a 

 "jump from the frying pan into the fire." 



The law should be so amended as to require the 

 mayor as the responsible head of the executive depart- 

 ment of the city government to appoint a superintendent 

 of waterworks and a superintendent of parks, and I am 

 sure that we would then have a more efficient adminis- 

 tration of these departments. Occasionally a bad ap- 

 pointment will be made, but the result certainly cannot 

 be worse than to have these departments administered 

 independent of, and wholly out of harmony with, the 

 remainder of the administration. 



V. 



Finally I would recommend a change which may be 

 difficult of accomplishment, on account of the necessity 

 of amending the state constitution, and yet I deem it 

 one of prime importance. I refer to a change in the con- 

 stitutional five per cent, limitation on the debt incurring 

 capacity of Iowa cities. Iowa is no' longer a frontier 

 state. Her cities are prosperous and growing, and will 

 continue to grow. The public utilities owned by the 

 cities must therefore continue to enjoy ever-increasing 

 earning capacity, and in many, if not in most, of the 

 cities continuing profits on municipal plants are assured. 

 While there is abundant reason for curbing extrava- 



