While the year 1939 has been not without activity and without events of interest in the field of municipal government, it has added little to the total of constructive achievement for better government. No city of importance has taken action to change its form of government. Agitation for change, however, has been more widespread than in many recent years.
Vigorous agitation in Illinois for enabling legislation which would permit Chicago and other cities to adopt the city manager plan with proportional representation failed of its immediate object when the lower house of the legislature defeated the city manager bill by a vote of 69 to 66. A manager-proportional representation charter for Philadelphia, prepared by an official charter commission and endorsed by practically all the civic reform forces in that city was passed in the Senate of Pennsylvania but defeated in the House. Resentment against the apparently arbitrary action of the legislature in not even permitting the people of Philadelphia to vote on the question of adopting this charter is said to have been evidenced in the extremely narrow majority by which the Republican candidate for mayor was elected in November. The same session of the Pennsylvania legislature refused to authorize a similar charter for Pittsburgh which was strongly advocated by the press and civic bodies there.
A manager-proportional representation charter was defeated in a referendum in Waterbury, Conn., and attempts to set up proportional representation for the election of city councils failed in Schenectady, White Plains and New Rochelle, N. Y.; and a similar proposition with regard to the Board of Education in Minneapolis was defeated by a close vote. Indiana, which, like Illinois, does not permit her cities to adopt the city manager plan, has appointed a commission consisting of two university professors, two business men, two members of the legislature and a public official, to draft and submit to the 1941 session of the legislature a statute for the adoption of the city manager plan on an optional basis by Indiana cities.
Several city elections of some significance occurred in 1939. On April 4, the people of Chicago, in a vote of record proportions, elected Mayor Edward J. Kelly (D.) over Dwight H. Green (R.), former Federal prosecutor, who had vigorously assailed the policies of the Kelly-Nash machine. Mr. Green polled a larger vote than any Republican candidate for mayor of Chicago ever has received. The New York off-year election showed only a slight degree of citizen interest, the total vote being only 79 per cent of that cast in the mayoralty election two years ago. Tammany took advantage of this situation to get control of the city council. Had it not been for the system of proportional representation Tammany would have made a clean sweep of council seats. As it was, however, Tammany obtained only fourteen places in the new council while the opposition has seven. Of this opposition, two are Republicans, two belong to the American Labor Party, two were nominated by the City Fusion Party, and one — Alfred E. Smith, Jr. — is an insurgent Democrat. Five of the successful opposition candidates were endorsed by the Citizens Non-Partisan Committee.
Cincinnati held her ninth proportional representation election, with the result that the new council, like its predecessor, will consist of four Citizen Charter Committee members, four Republicans and one Independent. The Independent is the Reverend Herbert S. Bigelow who fathered the Ohio Old-Age-Pension Plan defeated in the recent election.
Toledo, Ohio, held its third proportional representation election and chose four City Manager League candidates and five miscellaneous independents. The first proportional representation election in Yonkers, N. Y., resulted in the choice of two City Manager League candidates, two organization Democrats, and one Republican.
Perhaps the most significant event in the municipal field this year occurred in Tennessee when twenty-one cities, acting in concert with the Tennessee Valley Authority, purchased their electricity distributing systems from the Tennessee Electric Power Company, issuing a total of $46,148,000 of bonds for the purpose. No such wholesale movement toward municipal ownership and operation of any public utility has ever occurred before in this country.
The most dramatic happenings of the year were the conviction of Tammany Boss Hines in New York by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey and the successful prosecution of Boss Pendergast in Kansas City. This latter event promises to have a decisive effect in promoting good government in Kansas City. For many years, Pendergast remained the absolute dictator of Kansas City politics. The change to the manager form of government did not affect his control in the least. Advocates of the manager plan have had to apologize frequently for the failure of the plan in Kansas City. Now the boss is gone, the power of the machine is broken, and public-spirited men and women in Kansas City are actively taking advantage of this opportunity.
No comments:
Post a Comment