Publications of the University of Texas Publications Committee: W. J. BATTLE E. C. BARKER J. C. TOWNES A. CASWELL ELLIS w. s. CARTER R.A.LAW KILLIS CAMPBELL J. A. LOMAX F. W. SIMONDS A. c. JUDSON The University publishes bulletins six times a month. These comprise the official publications of the University, publica­tions on humanistic and scientific subjects, bulletins prepared by the Department of Extension and by the Bureau of Munic­ipal Research and other bulletins of general educational in­terest. With the exception of special numbers, any bulletin will be sent to a citizen of Texas free on request. All communica­tions about University publications should be addressed to the Editor of University Publications, University of Texas, Austin. BJ4-11S-1Sb-731 S BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 1915:No.ll FEBRUARY 20 What Is the City Manager Plan? BY Herman G. James, J. D., Ph. D. Director of the Bureau of Municipal Research and Reference, University of Texas MUNICIPAL RESEARCH SERIES No. 6 Published by the University six times a month and entered as second class matter at the postoffice at Austin, Texas The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free gov­ernment. Sam Houston. Cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy . . . . It is the only dictator that freemen acknowl­edge and the only security that free­men desire. Mirabeau B. Lamar. PREFACE. No subject connected with municipal government is to-day receiving so much attention or arousing so much interest as is the newest development in this country, commonly known as the city manager plan. The number of cities that are adopting the plan is continually increasing, and the demand for informa­tion is growing correspondingly. It is to meet this demand for knowledge concerning the new development, its advantages and disadvantages, particularly as compared with commission government and the advisability of adopting it when charter changes are contemplated, that this bulletin has been prepared. It aims to answer the most important questions that will arise in connection with this plan of city government and to show its relation to what has gone before. It cannot of course in the brief compass desirable for insuring the possibility of its being widely read attempt to touch upon all the questions that might arise. But the list of cities in which the plan has been tried and the select bibliography, both appended hereto, will open up to the persons interested the means of acquiring further information. H.G.J. WHAT IS THE CITY MANAGER PLAN? I. TWO CENTURIES OF MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT. To understand the full significance of the newest development in American municipal government it is necessary to know something of the history of that government in the past and to see in what relation this latest phase of development stands to what has gone before. For this purpose we may conveniently divide American municipal history into three main though quite unequal periods. The first extends from the beginning of Amer­ican cities in Colonial days to the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. The second covers roughly the period of the Nineteenth Century. The third extends from 1900 to the present time, marking the origin and first extension of commission govern­ment and the city manager plan. It is needless to say that these periods are not in all particulars clearly defined or determined as separate entities, and, indeed, from some points of view these time divisions will be found to be largely arbitrary. But with regard to the matter of principal interest here, namely the rela­tion of the city manager plan to what has preceded it, we may accept the division here adopted as a working basis. Colonial Municipal Government. The earliest period of city government showed, as might be expected, a virtual reproduc­tion in the colonies of the framework of government found in the cities of the mother country, England. The larger colonial cities were public corporations with certain implied rights re­sulting from their nature as corporations, but otherwise possess­ing only such rights as were granted by the charter. This charter or instrument of incorporation was granted in the colonies, as in England, by the Executive, that is by the Colonial Governor. It provided a framework of government essentially similar in the score or so of incorporated boroughs or cities existing iu the colonies. The governing body was a council elected hy tJie voters under a suffrage very considerably limited by taxpaying, property or other qualifications. This council was endowed with all the powers of local government that were granted at that time to the cities and there was no independent executive. There was a Mayor, it is true, but, like the English prototype, he was not a separate governmental organ, but merely a member of Bulletin of the University of Texas the council, whether chosen by it or, as was quite frequent, ap­pointed by the Governor. He enjoyed, it is true, some judicial powers, alone or together with the Aldermen, who were also members of the council, just the same as the so-called councillors. There was almost no administration to speak of in those early days, but what there was was conducted, as in England, by committees of the council. The striking thing, therefore, about the colonial system of municipal government was the union of all the powers in a single-chambered body. It may be remarked here that while American municipal development from that time on has been marked with continual change and experimentation in the organization of city government, in England today the framework of city goverment is virtually the same as that in the colonial municipalities described above. The Nineteenth Century. The beginning of the Nineteenth Century saw a development under way in American cities which was soon consummated, and which established the broad under­lying principle that characterized the next hundred years of municipal history in this country. This development was the imitation of and incorporation into city government of the prin­ciple of separate and independent legislative and executive branches of government. This principle had been incorporated into our State and National governments when they were cre­ated as new and independent political entities, largely through the influence of Montesquieu's political philosophy on the Amer­ican statesmen of the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary pe· riod. It was later woven into the framework of municipal government apparently in mere imitation of the Federal plan, not because of dissatisfaction with the results of the existing .form of municipal government. It is necessary to dwell here somewhat at length on this change in the plan of city government in this country, for not only was it determinative of the fundamental character of our municipal framework for the next hundred years, but it also has an inti­mate connection with the most recent changes in that framework known as commission government and the commission manager plan. What now was the argument in favor of the doctrine of creating separate and independent branches of the government as exemplified in our State and National systems 1 It was to What Is the City M(JJnager Plan? provide a system of checks and balances between the depart­ments which would safeguard the citizens against encroachments or usurpation of power by one or the other of the departments of government as against the others. A union of legislative and executive powers was considered productive of tyranny. It was of course perfectly clear even then that the system of checks and balances must result in delay, friction, and diffusion of re­sponsibility, but it was thought that the protection of the indi­vidual and the State against tyranny and oppression were the considerations of prime importance. So we had a bicameral Congress and an independently elected President with the power of recommending legisfation and veto­ing the measures of which he did not approve. In our cities then, in imitation, we came to have a Council, in some cases even a bicameral one, and an independently elected Mayor with a power of recommending and of vetoing legislation. Of course this plan for cities was bound to have the disadvantages men­tioned above in connection with its operation in the Federal and State Governments, and subsequent municipal history has shown that these disadvantages were by no means purely theoretical. But what of the alleged advantages ? Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the liberties of the individual demanded, or at least were well served by, the system of checks and bal­ances in the Federal Government, where no other protection e:x:­isted. What need of such a cumbersome weapon of defense against the municipality, all of whose powers were limited positively by the will of the State Legislature, which was absolutely supreme, and negatively by the State and Federal Constitutions? There are no liberties of the individual which are not adequately pro­ tected in these other ways, and our system of checks and bal­ ances in the city carried with it, therefore, only disadvantages and no advantages. And yet, in spite of that fact, for a hun­ dred years there was no attempt, amid all the experimentation that occured to remedy the evil conditions that gradually grew up in the government of American cities, to discard this un­ justifiable engrafting of a Federal growth on the municipal plant. While the separation of the executive and legislative powers became and remained the keynote of American municipal or­ ganization during this period of the nineteenth century, there 8 Bulletin of the University of Texas were many other developments of minor, though not at all of mean, importance in our municipal history. Most significant perhaps of all was the increase of elective officers as an expres­sion of the wave of democracy that swept over this country in the latter part of the first half of the century. Democracy it was thought meant the general election of officers by the people under an ever widened suffrage, and that the more officers there were elected the more there was of democracy. That this move­ment for electing all possible and impossible officers in the gov­ernment lost sight of the important distinction between repre­sentative officers who determine policies and administrative of­ficers who merely carry out the law as passed, and that it further failed to see that a multitude of elective offices inevitably con­fuses the electorate and tends to defeat their will, did not pre­vent its development during a long period of years. Indeed it may be said that ignorance of these two defects in the system of electing too many officers is still so widespread as to need con­tinual efforts for its elimination. But at least a beginning had been made in refuting that fallacious theory even before the period we are now considering was passed. Equally unfortunate, though perhaps somewhat easier of refu· tation, was another doctrine that grew up about the same time as the one just considered, and that was the one underlying the spoils system. Not only were as many officers as possible to be elected, but those that were not so elected should give up their offices whenever a new party or faction gained control of the government. This, of course, again, confused political with non­political officers and made it impossible to secure in the admin­istrative offices any efficiency resulting from experience, there being at the same time almost no qualification for appointment to office except political allegiance. The first successful attempts to combat this system were made in the domain of the :B.,ederal Government in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, and from there the movement for civil service reform and the merit system spread to the states and cities. Though much re­mains to be done in this direction (in fact, as regards cities it may be said that scarcely a good beginning has even yet been made) , nevertheless a realization of the evil effects of the spoils What Is the City Manager Plan? system may be said to have become somewhat general during the period of municipal development we are now considering. The closing years of this century were marked by a tendency to concentrate administrative powers and responsibility in the hands of the Mayor and to increase his importance, both at the expense of the Council and by making many administrative au­thorities which were formerly elective appointive by him. This was a very beneficial development, but nothing even in the clos­ing years of the period gave any promise of a departure from the century-old shibboleth of separation of powers and checks and balances. The Twentieth Century. The opening of the Twentieth Cen­tury was marked by the birth of the new form of city govern­ment now known far and wide as the commission form of gov­ernment. The circumstances attending the adoption of this plan in the city of its origin, Galveston, Texas, are too well known to require rehearsal here. The old-style city government there had been inefficient for years, though no worse than in hundreds of other cities in the country. The catastrophe that swept the city in the shape of the destructive storm and flood simply created conditions which were absolutely beyond the capacity of the ex­isting government to handle. In the ordinary course of events that city government would have gone on managing the routine business of the city in its accustomed inefficient and extravagant way, and the citizens, with that political fatalism characteristic of city electorates in this country, would have consented to the waste and diversion of their taxes there, as they did then and do today in many and many another city in the United States. But the great storm threatened the absolute destruction of the city in a :financial and legal as well as a physical way unless heroic measures were adopted and adopted at once. The indispensable need was for an executive body with virtually unlimited powers to take charge of the city's affairs until order could be restored. That in such emergency and for such purposes a system of checks and balances in the governing authority was absolutely out of the question was of course self-evident to the men who undertook to bring order out of chaos in Galveston. Similar methods had been found necessary years before to restore order Bullet,in of the University of Texas in Memphis when the yellow fever epidemic had paralyzed the ordinary organs of government there. The lasting service that was rendered in Galveston was the recognition that the princi­ples underlying the government that proved effective in emer­gencies were sound ones for the government in ordinary times as well and that a city could be governed, and well governed, under a system which, marvelous to relate, discarded the sacred prin­ciple of the separation of powers. Here, then, after more than a hundred years, the circle had been completed and the single all-powerful governing body for cities which had to be discarded soon after the establishment of the Federal Government again came into its own. The old charm of checks and balances in government had been broken, and city after city, realizing the new freedom that came with this disillusionment, cast off the fetters of tradition and conservatism. What ls the City Manager Plan? II. COMMISSION GOVERNMENT. The outstanding characteristic of commission government, as first applied in Galveston and later adopted by other cities, the feature which distinguished it absolutely from what had gone before in American municipal government, was then, as has been seen, the substitution of a single body possessing all the local legislative and executive powers, for the dualism of the former plan with its council on the one hand and independent Mayor on the other. But there are other features of commission govern­ment which are of importance, and some of which must be con­sidered before the relation between the commission government and the city manager plan can be understood. So many variations of commission government have arisen and the name has been applied to so many different manifestations .of municipal government in the last few years that it is not pos­sible to make statements concerning this new form which will hold true for all cities that may be classed as commission gov­erned. But certain important features are found in so large a number of these cities that they may properly be spoken of as characteristic of the class as a whole. Considering first those features of commission government which seem to be desirable and valuable for any form of city government, we may begin by mentioning the non-partisan pri­maries and elections found in many of the commission cities. It has long been recognized that a large part of the political corrup­tion found in American cities was due directly or indirectly to the fact that city politics were controlled by state and national machines. This resulted in the subordination of the interests of the city to the welfare of the party organization in state and nation, to the ignoring of local issues as factors in municipal campaigns, and, worst of all, to the exploitation of the city with its large patronage for the benefit of a boss or a ring who rec­ognized no responsibility save to superiors in the larger party organization. It came gradually to be realized, therefore, that to eliminate the domination of local politics by a machine and to encourage independent candidates it would be necessary to diminish as far as possible the advantage enjoyed by a regular Bulletin of the University of Texas party nominee. For this purpose the non-partisan primary and election were believed to be the most effective means. Candidates, therefore, are under this system nominated or elected, as the case may be, on ballots which bear no party designation, and a place on which may be obtained by the mere filing of a petition signed by a small number of electors. A second desirable change introduced with commission gov­ernment and almost invariably found in all commission charters is the substitution of election at large for election by wards. That is, the commissioners are chosen in the city as a whole in­stead of from smaller election districts. The evils of the system of ward election in this country were also by no means unknown when commission government :first began. One of the worst words in our political vocabulary had long since been the desig­nation "ward politician" as embodying all that is small and contemptible and mean in municipal political life. The repre­sentatives from each city ward were primarily engaged, like their prototypes, the Representatives in Congress, in securing for their respective wards a good share of the political pie and pork bar­rel, and the log-rolling tactics of the councilf! in some of our American cities would have put even that past master in the art, the National House of Representatives, to shame had they been compared. In the national legislature congressional districts are inevitable, and we shall have to wait for improvement in the direction of larger-minded representatives on the slow process of public education. But in our cities, with a few exceptions in the case of some of the largest ones, neither necessity nor desirability requires representation by districts. The city is essentially a unit in its needs, and plans for meeting those needs should be the result of considering the interests of the city as a whole, not the resultant of all the ward forces pulling in dif­ferent directions. The location of public buildings, the laying out of parks, the paving of streets and all other activities of the city in the matter of public improvements must be determined on a large basis. The councilman whose re-election depends on his getting a school building or a park or a fountain for his ward is not capable of looking at such questions in a large way. And so we find that one of the most satisfactory accomplishments of What Is the City Manager Plan? commission government has been the elimination of ward politics to a very considerable extent. Third, we find that commission government is credited with the reduction of the size of the council, at least in citie7 of 50,000 inhabitants or more. Our city councils have not only in a num­ber of cases been two-chambered, which in the case of city legis­latures is utterly indefensible, but in most of the larger cities they have been too large in membership. In commission governed cities the representative body is usually composed of five mem­bers, and this small body has been found in practice to be as representative as were the larger councils which they replaced. if not indeed more so. For cities of more than a qrnu'ter of a million population a gradually increasing council might prove desirable, provided it still remain distinctly smaller than any of the councils now usually found in our largest cities. Perhaps fifteen to twenty-five might be regarded as including the upper­most limit, no matter how large the city. Individual responsi­bility of represen.tatives increases inversely with the size of the representative body. The smaller the body the greater individual responsibility. Fourthly, we find an element of popular control present ~n commission charters which was and is almost wholly lacking in charters of the old form. Reference is here had to the modern devices known as the initiative, referendum and recall. The first gives the voters a chance to compel the enactment of legislation they may desire, even against the wish of the council or com ­mission. The second enables the voters to reject undesire mere supervisory heads of departments and providing under them expert heads for the actual administration. But the trouble with this remedy is that in the smaller cities at any rate, say those of 100,000 or less (and these constitute the very great ma­jority of commission cities) there is no need of two distinct head~ for the departments. Commissioners are always given a remunera­tion and in a large and growing number of commission cities are expected to devote their entire time to the work of their depart­ ments, which work consists almost wholly of administrative details. An expert professional head for the department be­ comes an unwarranted expense therefore which smaller cities will not assume. The only remedy would seem to be to make the elected department head an honorary officer and to use the salaries now paid to commissioners toward securing really expert administrators responsible to them. There is another very important aspect in which commission government is defective, and in which also it is inferior even to the better city government of the old mayor and council form, and this defectiveness and inferiority lie also in the organ­ ization of the administration. We have seen that there was a marked tendency at the close of the last century to concentrate in the hands of the mayor all the administrative powers of the city by giving him the right of appointment and removal and making him the responsible executive. This development was entirely in accord with the fundamental principles of public administration which demand administrative concentration and centralization in place of the former customary division of power and diffusion of responsibility between the mayor and a number of elective administrative authorities, or prior to that between the mayor and the council. Commission government, on the other hand, developed the Bulletin of the University of Texas principle that each of the commissioners should be the head of a department of administration and individually responsible for that department. Theoretically it is true the commission as a whole is responsible for the administrative as well as the legislative side, but in popular imagination and in actual prac­tice each commissioner is an independent administrative head and his is the real responsibility for the effectiveness of his department. Manifestly this makes a five-headed executive for the city as a whole and one would expect the inconveniences that inevitably result from a diffusion of executive powers to make themselves felt under such an arrangement. It is a curious fact that while advocates of commission government have stressed the analogy between corporate organization with its board of directors and commission government with its commission of five, they have failed to notice the lack of any officer in the city corresponding to the most important factor in corporate management, the president or manager. In point of practice the results of this administrative diffu­sion in commission cities have not been slow in making them­selves felt. The work of administration in a city is of such a nature that it cannot be absolutely divided into separate depart­ments. No matter what distribution of functions is made there will inevitably be intersecting spheres of activity among all the departments. To avoid friction, working at cross purposes, duplication and waste there must be some means of compelling co-operation in such matters among the departments. Volun­tary co-operation cannot be relied on to solve these difficult problems, for under the scheme of individual responsibility for departments each commissioner is inevitably primarily inter­ested in having his department make a good showing and give satisfaction. His re-election depends not on how helpful he proves to his colleagues in co-operating with them In matters that lie on the border line between their departments, but on the creation of the impression that his department at least is efficiently managed. Perhaps he may even profit personally by hindering the smoothest possible working of the other de­partments, if he can do so in a negative way. It would be easy to find instances in every commission city of delay, duplication and waste due to this lack of centralized administrative power. What Is the City Manager Plan? Mayors in some commission cities are already advocating the concentration of more power in the hands of the mayor in order to overcome this unfortunate condition. It would seem, then, that the prime defects of commission gov­ernment are on the administrative side, namely, ignoring the need of administrative experts and the lack of concentration of administrative power. If these two important defects could be remedied while at the same time the recognized advantages of the commission form were retained we should have a form of government which would be distinctly better than anything we have so far tried in this country. It is time now to take up the consideration of the newest municipal development in this country, the city manager plan, and to see how it is relatr-d to the municipal developments we have considered above. 18 Bulletin of the University of Texas III. THE CITY MANAGER PLAN. 'l'he first instance of the use of the term ''manager'' in con­nection with municipal administration in this country seems to have been in an ordinance of the city council of Staunton, Virginia, early in 1908. That city had been desirous of introduc­ing greater efficiency into its government and was iooking, as were scores of other cities at the time, to commission government as a means of improvement. Owing to constitutional inhibitions, however, it was not possible to adopt the commission form of government in Virginia at that time, and so the city did what Wail considered the next best thing. It provided by ordinance for a general manager in connection with the old mayor and council form of government. As this plan has since been fol­lowed by a number of other cities, usually for the same reason, viz., the inability to adopt commission government, it is well to consider for a moment this original form of the city manager government. The first thing to be noted with regard to the Staunton plan is that it lacks the advantages which we have seen to be con­nected with the commission form. It is, indeed, distinctly inferior to that form in many respects and is not to be recom­mended in preference thereto, though it does emphasize the two features which commission government lacks, namely, the expert element in municipal administration, and the principle of concentration of administrative. powers. But the plan of a general manager for the business side of city government is unquestionably a desirable innovation in city government even under the old mayor and council form. We may say, there­fore, that for cities which are unable to adopt the commission fea­tures which have been discussed above, the Staunton plan is worthy of adoption. But for cities that are free to reorganize their framework of government, the first change should be the incorporation of the desirable features of commission govern­ment. It is evident from what has just been said that a combina­tion of the good features of commission government with the idea of a single administrative chief or manager would be prefer­able to either of the features alone. The first practical attempt What Is the City Manager Pian? to effect such a combination appears to have been made by the Chamber of Commerce of Lockport, New York, in 1911, when it caused to be submitted to the legislature of that State a bill permitting cities of the third class to adopt a form of govern­ment combining with a commission of the usual type a city manager appointed by it to take charge of the administration of the city. This bill, however, was defeated, so the plan could not then and there be put into operation. The first city actually to put the plan of combined commis­sion and city manager features into operation was apparently Sumter, S. C., in 1912. Sumter is for that reason frequently spoken of as the place of origin of the city manager plan, as Galveston is known as the place of origin of the commission plan. But it must be remembered that it was Staunton that first applied the idea of a manager feature for cities and may therefore properly claim to have originated the city manager movement. It is possible to distinguish between the Staunton plan and the Sumter plan by calling the first the general man­ager plan and the second the commission manager plan, which would sufficiently indicate the principal point of difference. As we have already seen that the commission idea with the manager idea is a better combination than the old mayor and council with a manager feature we shall hereafter speak of the com­mission manage1· plan to designate what is generally called the city manager plan, and to exclude from our consideration the Staunton plan and its followers. We have now proceeded far enough to answer the query which is the title of this writing, What is the City Manager Plan? Only now in a changed form in accordance with the ideas developed above, the query will be, What is the Commis­ sion Manager Plan1 The commission manager plan is a form of government which combines the ideas of a small representative body, elected at large on a nonpartisan ballot, possessing all ultimate legal powers of the city, and subject to certain important checks in the hand~ of the electorate, with concentration of administra­ tive power into a single individual chosen by the representative body because of expert professional qualifications. Such a plan it is seen adopts the valuable features of commi:;:sion government Bulletin of the University of Texas and remedies the two fundamental defects of that form. Such in bold outline is the commission manager plan of city gov­ernment. It is not possible here to show how these features should actually be embodied in a city charter.* But it is necessary to point out that in connection with the city manager plan there should be adopted various improved governmental devices which have been too long neglected in all city governments in this country whatever their form, mayor and council, or commis­sion. In fact they become especially important in connection with the commission manager form as it stresses above all else efficiency in administration. The two most important of these all but universally neglected features are the adoption of proper civil service merit rules and regulations for the administrative personnel of the city, and provisions for the proper management of the city's finances. In the commission manager plan the commission chooses and dismisses the manager, and he selects, controls, and removes the rest of the administrative force of the city. To do this effect­ively he must have large powers, but to give him unlimited powers would be to put in his hands without check the enor­mous patronage of the city. The temptation to abuse the power of patronage has been one of the most irresistible of temptations to politicians in this country and the resulting evils have been among the worst of the many that have afflicted our city governments. To guard against the perpetuation and even exaggeration of these evils in the new form of government it is absolutely necessary that civil service merit rules governing the whole matter of appointments and removals and administra­tive control be regulated by law, and administered by an inde­pendent authority. Of equal importance for the attainment of maximum ef­ficiency in the administration of the business affairs of the city are proper provisions for the management of the finances. Accurate, intelligible reports and accounts, and a scientific bud­ *For a brief yet comprehensive presentation of the manner in which the commission manager should be presented in a model charter, see James, Herman G., Applied City Government, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1914. What Is the City Manager Plai/t? get procedure are indispensable to proper management. Thl' charter of a city should require that the manager have proper systems of accounting and reporting installed and en­forced and that the budget making should be scientific and subjected to the light of publicity at every stage. Such pro­visions will make it possible for the manager to insure the greatest efficiency and at the same time safeguard the public interest where it is most vitally affected, namely, in the treat­ment of the city's revenues and expenditures. Of the utmost importance in connection with the application of this plan of government is the character of man who is chosen for the place of city manager. The proper man for so important a place is one who has not merely executive abil­ity of the highest sort and technical training in some profes­sion touching municipal affairs, but a man who has a broad outlook on the larger problem of municipal government as a result of training, experience and reflection, as well. It is true that a majority of the cities which have so far adopted the plan have chosen as manager an engineer. Bnt it is not to be inferred therefore that engineers are peculiarly endowed with the important qualities we have just mentioned. Indeed the training which engineers ordinarily get in American colleges ignores almost completely those very subjects which would give to the prospective city manager a knowledge of and sym­pathy with the large problems of municipal administration. There is merely a financial advantage in having an engineer for city manager in small cities where the manager could at the same time attend in person to the duties of city engineer and so save the salary of a special engineer. But wherever the general supervisory duties of the manager are onerous enough to keep him occupied without assuming immediate charge of any one department, this aJvantage disappears and there is no reason for giving preference in the choice of a manager to engineers merely beeause of their profession. Finally it may be proper to add a word of warning with regard to the city manager plan. The most usual criticism which is made of the plan, namely, that it is undemocratic and productive of one man power is of course utterly without foundation as long as the manager is chosen by, wholly responsi­ 22 Bulletin of the University of Texas ble to and at any time removable by the elective representatives of the people. But there is a danger that overemphasis of the merits of the plan may lead the people to forget that no plan of government is so perfect that it can be left to run itself. Intelligent citizen interest, participation, and supervision are just as important for the commission manager plan as for any other. If the commission elected by the people is continually kept at the highest level of honesty and dedication to the pub­lic welfare the commission manager plan is fraught with the greatest promise for American city government. If, however, indifference take hold of the electorate and an unworthy com­mission be permitted to exercise the powers of government then the commission manager plan will be no better than any other that might be mentioned, in fact it is conceivable that it might even be worse. The true formula therefore is nvt com­mission manager plan minus public interest which is sure to equal inefficiency and corruption, the same as would result with any other form, but commission manager form plus in­telligent citizen participation which will equal the maximum of efficiency attainable in any city government. What Is the City Manager Plan? APPENDIX I. CITIES OPERATING UNDER THE COMMISSION MANAGER PLAN!' Population City. (1910) Abilene, Kan. . . . .. ... .. ....... . .... .. . . ... .. .. . 4,118 Alhambra, Calif. . .................... .. ....... . 5,021 Amarillo, Tex. . .. . . .. . . ... .. ... . .... .. .. ... . . .. . 9,957 Ashtabula, 0. . . ...... . ............. . . . . .... ... . 18,266 Big Rapids, Mich. . . . . . .. ......... . . ..... . .. .. .. . 4,519 Cadillac, Mich. . . . . . ........................... . 8,375 Dayton, 0 . . .. .. ... ...... .. ........ . .... ... .. . . . 116,577 Denton, Tex. . .. .. .. .. . .... . .. . ....... . . . ... .. . 4,732 Hickory, N. C. . .... . ...... ..... . ...... .. ... ... . 3,716 J ackson, Mich. . . ... .. . .. ... . . . .. . ...... ....... . 31,433 LaGrande, Ore. . .. ............................ . 4,843 Lakeland, Fla. . .......... . ..... . ... . . .. ........ . 3,719 Manistee, Mich. . .. ... .... .. . .. . .... .. . . .... .... . 12,381 Montrose, Colo. . ... . .. .. .. .. .. . ... . .... . ....... . 3,254 Morganton, N. C. . .. .... . ... . . .. .. ............ . . 2,712 Morris, Minn. . ... ..... . . .... . .... ... . .... .. ... . 1,685 Niagara Falls, N. Y .. . ... .. . .. ... .. . ....... .... . 30,445 Phoenix, Ariz. . ....... . ..... ... .... . .... ..... . . . 11,134 Sandusky, 0. . ....... ... . . .. . .......... ..... ... . 19,989 Springfield, 0 . ... .... .. . .. . .. .... . . . .. .. ....... . 46,921 Sumter, S. C. . .. .... ... ..... .. . . ... . ......... . . 8,109 Taylor, Tex. . .................................. . 5,314 *List furnished by the National Short Ballot Organization, 383 Fourth Ave., New York City. Bulletin of the University of Texas APPENDIX IL A BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CITY MANAGER PLAN OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. •irticles 1:n Periodicals. BRADFORD, E. S., GILBERTSON, IL S., "Commission Form versus City Manager Plan of Municipal Government." (..-imerican City, ,January. 1914.) Cmr.ns, RICHARD S., ''Theory of the New Controlled-Executive Plan." (National M1tniGipal Review, January, 1913.) EMBHEY, A. 'I'., "How a Little City Is Progressing Unner a City Commissioner" (Fredericksburg, Va.) (American City, July, 1913.) HOWLAND, H. J., ''Ideal Government for the Suburb.'' (Sirb­urban L-ife, February, 1914.) JAMES, HFRMAN G., "City-Manager Plan, the Latest in Ameri­can City Government, The" (American Political Science RM•ic.w, November, 1914.) JAMES, HERMAN G., "Defects in the Dayton Charter." "Na­tional Municipal Review, January, 1914.) JAMES HERMAN G., "New City Government, the City-Manager Plan in Texas, 'l'he" (Texas Municipalities, June, 1914.) MARcossoN, I. F., "Business-Managing a City." (Colliers, ,Jan­uary 3, 1914.) PATTON, JOHN S., "Municipal Business Manager." (National Mimicipa,l Review, January, 1915.) RENWICK, W. W., "Democracy Chooses an Autocrat." (Tech­nical World, March, 1914. ) RIDDLE, K., "Town Manager as City Engineer." (American City, December, 1913.) UPSON, h D., "City-Manager Plan of Government for Dayton, The" (National Municipal Review, October, 1913.) UPSON, L. D., "How Dayton's City-Manager Plan Is Work­ing." (Review of Reviews, June, 1914.) WAITE, HENRY M., ''City-Manager Plan-the Application of Business Methods to Municipal Government.'' (American City, July, 1914.) What Is the City Manager Ylan? WAITE, HENRY M., "Commission-Manager Plan." (National Municipal Review, January, 1915.) "Beaufort Plan of City Management." (Survey, September 12, 1914.) "City Manager Plan." (Outlook, August 23, 1913.) "Coming of the City Manager Plan, The" (National Munici­ pal Review, January, 1914.) "Dayton's Step Forward in City Government." (World's Work, October, 1913.) "Dayton's Unique Charter." (Literary Digest, August 30, 1913.) "Driving Politics Out of Dayton." (Literary Digest, January 24, 1913.) "Practical Short Ballot in Sumter." (Outlook, May 10, 1913.) "Progress of Simpler Municipal Government." (World's Work, June, 1913.) "Progress of the City-Manager Plan." (Review of Reviews, February, 1914.) Pamphlets and Bulletins. City-Manager Plan of Municipal GOV'ernment, The (National Short Ballot Organization, New York, 1914), 25c. Commission Government and the City-Manager Plan. (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia, 1914_.) $1.00. Commission Government With a City Manager. (National Short Ballot Organization, New York, 1914.) Commission Flan and Oornrnission-llfonager Plan of Mt(,nicipal Government, The (National Mnnicipal League, 1914.) Report of the City of Dayton, The (Bureau of Municipal Re­search, Dayton, Ohio, 1914.) HOLSINGER, S. D., ''General Manager Plan of Government of Staunton. Virginia.'' JAMRS, HERMAN G., "Model Ch11rter for 'rexas Cities, A" (Sec­ond edition, Bulletin of the University of 'rexas No. 320, Municipal Research Series No. 2, March 1, 1914.) Books. JAMES, HERMAN G., Applied Ci"ty Governrnent. (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1914:), 75c. PUBLICATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF MUNICIPAL RESEARCH AND REFERENCE. No. TITLE. 1. A Model Charter for Texas Cities, Herman G. James, Feb. 10, 1914 (edition exhausted). 2. A Model Charter for Texas Cities, Herman G. James, March 1, 1914 (second edition). 3. Annoiincement of Conrses in JJ1.nnicipa1l Administration at the University of Texas, Herman G. James, Sept. 5, 1914. 4. Methods of Sewage Disposal for Texas Cities, Robert M. Jameson, Oct. 1, 1914 (edition exhausted). 5. A Model Civil Service Code for Texas Cities, Herman G. James, Dec. 20, 1914. 6. What Is the City Manager Plan? Herman G. James, Feb. 20, 1915. Copies of the above bulletins may be had on application to the Bureau of Municipal Research and Reference, University of Texas.