Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/96

 80 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

tions by provisions requiring that the vote on financial and fran- chise questions shall not be delayed beyond a certain period.

It is a mistake to suppose that this decline in the power of the council involves a loss of popular control. In every city in which the mayor has been given independent powers of appointment and has been made the real head of the administrative organization of the city, the sensitiveness of the government to public opinion has been considerably increased. When rightly viewed, the change involves possibilities of popular control which we have hardly begun to realize. Almost every city in the country offers a number of instances in which the mayor, when supported by popular opinion, has been able to withstand the combined influ- ence of the council and any machine organization that attempted to direct his action. The lessons of this experience have left their impress upon the political thinking of the American people and explain the tendency to look to the executive rather than to the legislative authority for the solution of every difficulty. Popular control over the city government will become more effective as public opinion becomes more thoroughly organized. At present we must depend upon a great number of voluntary organizations representing different elements in the community, but which can- not, from the nature of the case, represent the opinion of the com- munity as a whole.

The danger involved in this tendency toward the concentration of executive power is that the council will be shorn, not only of its administrative, but of its legislative powers, as well. The desire for greater administrative efficiency may lead us to a type of government in which the determination of executive policy will be left exclusively to the mayor and his heads of departments. This form of organization is certain to give us better government than our present large and unwieldy council. The accumulated experience of American cities has shown that, unless the council is reduced to a single chamber with a small membership, responsi- bility cannot be enforced. The choice that presents itself is clear and simple. We must either make the council a small body of nine or eleven members, elected by the people, having complete power over the finances of the city, or we shall inevitably drift