322 MISC. PUBLICATION 218, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
times during the 8-year period, each of the 14 township boards was 
changed four times, and about 70 local commissions were created to 
build particular roads. All the bonds were issued by legislative fiat 
without a vote of the people, most of the roads were dirt roads, and 
many of them had washed away for lack of attention before the bonds 
began to mature. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that both the 
location of the roads and the personnel of the multifarious commis- 
sions were largely dictated by political considerations. 
AIDS TO BETTER ADMINISTRATION 
It would be unfair to imply that all county and township govern- 
ments are inefficient or that no headway is being made to correct the 
shortcomings just described. Certain aids to better administration 
have been developed. One of the most promising is the elimination 
of purely executive offices from the ballot. 
The application of the short-ballot principle to county government 
would mean that there would be no officers chosen by popular election 
except the county board, and that this body would be relieved of all 
administrative duties. These two facts in themsleves would tend to 
improve the quality of the board. The board would either appoint 
a county manager who, in turn, would appoint all the subordinate 
administrative officers, or, if the volume of work did not seem to justify 
a manager, the board itself would appoint the administrators. In 
either case there would be far better coordination of effort and more 
fixed responsibility than when each department is headed by an elec- 
tive officer who is the political peer of the board itself. The success 
of the managerial plan in city government would seem to justify the 
adoption of the plan in county government as far as the situations 
are parallel. Several counties in North Carolina and Virginia are 
evolving a chief administrative office the duties of which approximate 
those of a manager. Only one county-manager office has yet ap- 
peared, however, which fully qualifies for that designation. This isin 
Arlington County, Va., which is a suburban area tributary to Washing- 
ton, D. C. Probably less headway has been made in getting the 
short-ballot principle applied than has been made in other respects. 
The American people cling with unreasoning tenacity to the idea that 
short terms and rotation in office are the essence of democracy. 
In recent years a great deal of legislation has been enacted to curb 
the financial excesses which have been described. At first the legisla- 
tion took the form of tax or debt limitations expressed as percentages 
of assessed value. But it is now recognized that sound financing is 
not so likely to be realized through statutory or constitutional limita- 
tions as through adherence to a “budget, competent accounting, safe 
depositories, and adequate State supervision. Some 20 States have 
statutory provisions for county budgets, but in a considerable number 
of these the requirements are too indefinite to insure a thoroughgoing 
instrument. If adhered to rigidly, a budget constitutes not only an 
effective instrument of fiscal control but a useful instrument of public 
education and control. 
Budget laws invariably provide for hearings, at which citizens may 
scrutinize the proposed budget and express “themselves in respect to 
particular items, but few people attend these hearings. Sometimes 
the officials do not desire public deliberations and give only the mini- 
mum amount of publicity to the hearings. Most. governing bodies, 
