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FOREST TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES 319 
COMPETENT AND RESPONSIBLE LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
ADMINISTRATIVE INEFFICIENCY 
The high cost of local government is not due entirely to an out- 
moded structural set-up and an antiquated distribution of functions. 
It is due also to inefficient administration. Of course the type of 
administration is itself partly a product of the structure and functions 
of a government. A small, weak political unit, with few important 
functions, invites a crude, informal, and generally inefficient type of 
administration. The abolition of townships and a multitude of 
other subordinate units and the strengthening of the county itself 
through consolidation would create a condition more conducive to 
good administration than that which now so often obtains. But the 
county itself has a bad reputation; it is notoriously inefficient. The 
causes thus cannot be attributed solely to political structure. They 
are to be found partly in the American philosophy of local self- 
government. 
Ever since the Jacksonian era of American history it has been 
almost a universal policy in this country to fill local offices through 
popular election. So great has been the faith in the Jacksonian 
theory of democracy that any citizen who could command the votes 
to be elected has been considered competent to serve as assessor, 
treasurer, road superintendent, auditor, or in any other official 
capacity. It must be apparent to any careful observer that, under 
modern conditions, this method of fillmg administrative posts is a 
costly failure. It not only intrusts important technical duties to 
untrained and sometimes grossly incompetent men but makes each 
officer his own master. The result is a complete lack of unity and 
coordination. In the case of the county there has not even been a 
chief executive, such as exists in the mayor of a city or a village 
president. The members of the county board have also been ad- 
ministrators, spending their own appropriations. The same has 
been true in township government. Rural local government in the 
United States, with some notable exceptions, has been and still 
remains both inefficient and irresponsible. 
TYPES AND EVIDENCES OF WASTE 
There is plenty of evidence to support this charge of incompetence 
and irresponsibility. A county treasurer in a Southern State boasted 
that ‘‘he kept his records in his head”’, and the report of a treasurer 
of a road fund was ‘“‘spent it all.” A tax collector reported that dis- 
counts and penalties just about balanced, so he made no record of 
them. A register of deeds paid a courthouse lounger $10 a month 
to inform him about his duties, and another continued to charge $3 for a 
marriage license for 2 years after the law had raised the fee to $5. 
A clerk of the superior court admitted that he knew nothing about 
his duties, but said that he kept his visitors entertained so that his 
deputy could work without interruption. A road supervisor saw no 
need to employ an engineer, declaring that he could lay out a road 
“with his eye.” The naiveté of such officials would be humorous 
were it not for the costliness of their innocence. Counties have had 
to spend thousands of dollars for audits that should not have been 
necessary. Frequently records have been so incomplete that there 
