Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/565

Rh sake of greater executive efficiency but also to concentrate and make definite the responsibility of mayoralty action, so each department, for both these reasons, should be presided over by one man. Executive boards should not exist in city government. They would paralyze a charter made by the National Municipal Reform League itself.

Third: The Restriction of the Powers of the Council.

This is of extreme and critical importance. At present in most cities the council is the branch chiefly to the reconstructed. It is the seat of the worst corruption, and the occasion of the worst evils of the situation. It is also the branch which has had the least actual reform, and the least attention from reformers. The charters have generally advanced very greatly and successfully in respect to the executive; but the successful handling of the problems involved in city legislation have not very far progressed. The word I especially wish to speak, as to charter reforms, is that the reform of the city council is more imperative by far than anything else, taking all the cities of the country together—and that the existing evils of city legislation are by far the most crying evils of city government.

I shall only indicate general lines of this reform:—

1. All executive power and authority should be taken away from the councils.

2. The right or power to initiate the grant of franchises should be taken away from the council.

3. No power should reside in the council to increase assessments for taxation or the rate of taxation, nor to authorize or create debt, except within the strict limits laid down by the constitution and general laws of the state.

4. Common-sense rules governing councils to prevent hasty and unconsidered action should be incorporated in the general laws of the state.

5. The number of members of councils should be carefully limited.

6. Members should be elected for two years, one half at a time, on general tickets.