We have been at some pains to put the county into right relationships. Ideally, it is to be a supervised local division of the state administration (such supervision to insure strict accountability but to be unobstructive); it is to be relieved by the state of not a few incompatible, back-breaking burdens; it is to have (with some necessary limitations) a free hand in making over its internal organization for whatever obligations of public service may be laid upon it in the future. In some respects its greatest service is to consist in receding entirely from public service, while in other respects its importance should be greatly enhanced.

Practically, these external adjusting movements will proceed concurrently, with varying speed, according as the need for the one or the other may exist or be recognized. Their full fruition will still leave the county, within its restricted sphere, with a very distinct and honorable body of functions to perform. And for this, the county, now so largely an unfit instrument of a self-governing, self-respecting community, must be made over from within.

The basic formula of reconstruction is not far to seek. In every state the forward looking part of the citizenry which interests itself in better government for long toyed with the theory of “checks and balances,” which might be denominated for popular purposes as “safety via complication.” Past generations put a premium on ingenious political devices. Just as to some people medicine which is not bitter is not efficacious, so to the old school of political reformers, government was dangerous if it could be seen through and understood. But ingenuity and complexity in city government “came high.” The cost of them was “conspicuous failure.” In the end the people rebelled and the end of the old way of thinking about government was in sight. Witness: the movements of those cities which since 1901 have so cheerfully though so thoughtfully “scrapped” the historic dogma by the act of adopting the “commission” plan. Ingenious, complicated, inefficient, corrupt, city governments have given way literally by the hundreds to a new system, the corner-stone principle of which is simplicity: one set of officials to elect and watch; one place to go to get things done; one source to which to direct criticism when things go wrong.

In a word, the Short Ballot, in its fullest implication. It is not simply that there should be few officers to elect. County candidates are not especially obscure to rural voters and the ballots in the country districts are not often absurdly long. The farmer probably makes a better job of it when it comes to making up his ticket than any other class of citizen. It is also necessary that “those officers should be elective which are important enough to attract and deserve examination,” that is, officers who stand at the sources of public policy—not sheriffs or coroners or county clerks; not officers who simply follow out a statutory routine, but those who are supposed to lay out programs of county action.

And then, the Short Ballot connotes unification of powers. For what does it avail to watch, to criticize a single set of officers if all the while the really important work of the county is performed and the really important damage is committed by the officials who are obscure and therefore unwatched?

County government, as it stands, is the very personification of non-conformity to these approved principles of political organization. Starting, therefore, at the base of an ideal structure, let us proceed to the task of reconstruction.

Under ideal home-rule conditions the county will have been brought face to face with the obligation to stand on its own feet. It will look about for appropriate means to redeem that obligation. The electorate will be made responsible for its collective conduct by virtue of accurate representation in the county’s council. Responsibility will first be secured in the very make-up of the governing body, which is the source of power in any popular government. No stereotyped uniform plan of organization will do; no slavish copying of the “New England” type, or the “southern” type: counties differ too widely for that. But natural and legitimate cleavages of public opinion will be recognized and represented. Minor geographical divisions which have a distinct identity may be given a separate voice in the county board, but if the county is a geographical and social unit, the form of the governing body will reflect the fact. And if the county is co-extensive with a city, that circumstance will be given due weight.

But the county board will be something more than an epitomized electorate. It will be clothed, as such bodies rarely are, with the power not only to discover what the people want, but to translate their wishes into deeds of administration. Instead of working as now through alien instruments in the person of independent officials, it will control the operating mechanism of the county, which will be of its own selection. Shall we take away from the people the power to choose the sheriffs, the county clerk, the surveyor, the superintendent of the poor? Yes, take away the selection, but reinforce their control. Abandon the separation of powers? Yes, do away with the three-ring (or perhaps twelve- or twenty-ring) circus, and get down to the serious business of government. For business never was successfully organized except on the principle that the head controls the tail and all that intervenes. In terms of law, the county board, subject of course to state legislative and administrative supervision, will exercise all the powers of the corporation, including those of appointment, of revenue raising and of appropriation.

A long step toward the fulfillment of these principles in actual life has been taken in the county of Los Angeles, Cal., one of those communities in which the doctrine of complexity was once carried to absurd extremes. But the new charter of this county, which was the first to be adopted[21] under the home-rule provisions of the constitution, proceeded in great measure in the light of the theory exemplified by the commission plan in the cities. The supervisors are retained on the elective list as the constitution requires, but the county superintendent of schools, coroner, public administrator, county clerk, treasurer, tax collector, recorder and surveyor, all of whom were formerly elected by the voters, are now appointed by and are responsible to the county governing body, which is the board of supervisors. The sheriff, the auditor, the assessor and the district attorney are still elective. In thus extending the power of the board of supervisors, the charter framers require that, with a few exceptions, the officers shall be chosen from competitive lists on the basis of merit and fitness. The fee system is abolished. The Los Angeles achievement, while it falls far short of the measure of unity which is present in many counties governed by the commissioner system, is important as a recent conscious step toward greater simplicity.

And now that we have perfected a mechanism for expressing the general will of the people of the county, it remains to arm the governing body more effectively with the means for translating mere wishes into concrete acts of administration. To put it otherwise, we must mobilize the operating departments under effective leadership.

Recall, first, our statement in an earlier chapter that the county in the United States is almost universally devoid of a definite executive head. One exception is the two first-class counties of New Jersey (Hudson and Essex) where until recent years the so-called board of chosen freeholders were elected from districts. Under these circumstances the need was felt for some agency to represent the unity of interest among the several localities, in the government of the county. Accordingly, the office of supervisor was conceived. The incumbent is elected by the people of the county and has powers not unlike those of the mayor in many cities. He is required “to be vigilant and active in causing the laws and ordinances of the county to be executed and enforced.” Subject to the civil service law he has power to suspend and remove but not to appoint subordinates. He may propose legislation and veto resolutions.

Fifteen years of experience have not commended this institution to wider adoption. With one or two exceptions the supervisors, like most mayors of cities, have not been men of force or imagination and they have been controlled, apparently, by the same political elements as the board of freeholders upon which they were supposed to have served as a check.

As these pages are being written, a single county in the West, almost unconsciously it would seem and under influences that upon the surface seem reactionary, has taken one of the longest progressive steps toward administrative unity ever taken by an American county. The county in mind is Denver, Colorado. Ever since the constitution was amended in 1902 the city and county have been geographically identical. Article XX, Section 2, stipulates that “the officers of the city and county of Denver shall be such as by appointment or election may be provided for by the charter.” On May 9, 1916, Denver abandoned the commission plan of government and vested the appointment of city and county officials in the mayor.

The New Jersey and Denver experiments point in the general direction of administrative unity; they do not come within hailing distance of the expectations which seem to be justified by recent developments in American cities. For after all, the practical problem is the same in every civil division: to dispose effectively and economically of the visible supply of work to be accomplished or service to be rendered. And this, some of the more aggressive of our cities, such as Dayton and Springfield, 0., Niagara Falls, N. Y., and some forty others have essayed to do through a form of organization which is unity and simplicity reduced to its lowest terms: the plan of the typical business corporation. A board of directors to represent the people; a city manager to appoint and direct the heads of departments—that is all there is to it. And it works!

In similar fashion the people of our counties will surely consent to a reorganization of their public affairs. The members of the county boards will not follow the example of some of our present county commissioners and personally descend to the management of the details of administration. They will learn the art of delegating authority without losing control. And just as the people will have simplified their problem of citizenship by concentrating their attention on the governing group, so the representative body will focus administrative responsibility in a chief subordinate. To be specific, the county of the future will employ a manager chosen appropriately with sole reference to his fitness to manage public affairs and without regard to residence, religion or views on the Mexican situation, who will pick up the authority of the county where the board of directors leaves it off.

With the installation of the manager with adequate powers, the county will have supplied the largest single essential in any collective effort: leadership. Without that directing, driving force it is hardly strange that counties, up to the present, have headed for nowhere in particular.

And leadership in county affairs signifies specifically what?

To begin with, it will now be possible to build up the correct sort of subsidiary organization. For instance, with such leadership it should not have been necessary, for the lack of a proper executive responsibility, for Hudson County in New Jersey to impose upon the local judges the odd function of selecting a mosquito commission, and to dispose the rest of the appointing power as the fancy of the moment might dictate.

A county manager who has the power to appoint and discharge will of course be in a position to issue orders with a reasonable assurance that they will be obeyed without a writ of mandamus or some other form of judicial intervention. Public business will be speeded up accordingly.

And then, the presence of a responsible executive will supply an indispensable condition of a scientific budget. The finance committee of the governing board is no proper substitute, for, as Mr. Cartwright[22] says: “Such a committee cannot have either the understanding of the full meaning of the budget, or the personal interest in properly performing the work of preparation that an executive head should have who is personally responsible in very large degree for the success or failure of the entire county administration. The man who is officially responsible ought personally to lay the plans, summoning to his aid such advisers as he deems best suited to give him counsel.” The budget is the financial plan or program in a given year. It must see the needs of the county in their unity. It is the proper occupation of a single directing mind which is continuously and intimately in touch through his subordinates, with every need of the county. Not that the county manager will have the “power of the purse” and dictate the financial policy of the county. On the contrary, he will simply formulate the financial program for his employers to accept or reject, in whole or in part as they see fit.

The county manager will also act as a balance against any undue pressure from any geographical division in the county or any division of the public service. He will discover possible new services or better methods of performing old services. In short, he will be the specially accredited agent of the county board in carrying out its policies and the initiating force of public opinion. Through the governing board and the county manager there will be a clear and direct succession of authority from the people to the scullion at the almshouse and the assistant turnkey at the county jail.

A proposal that practically squares with this formula was put forth some years ago by a group of Oregon citizens under the leadership of W. S. U’Ren, in a proposed amendment to the state constitution. Under the projected scheme the county business would be in the hands of a board of three directors to be elected by the voters of the county for terms of six years. This board would have power to “make all expedient rules and regulations for the successful, efficient and economic management of all county business and property.” It would be necessary, however, to employ a business manager who would be the “chief executive of the county”; the choice of this officer not to be limited to the state of Oregon; his salary to be determined by the board. With him would rest the appointment of the subordinate county officers. The board of directors would be empowered to audit bills, either directly or through an auditor.

A more complete and detailed plan of county government, following the same general principles, was embodied in a bill introduced in the New York legislature in 1916.[23] It provided that any county, except those comprising New York City, might adopt the statute by petition and referendum. The county would therefore be governed by a board of five county supervisors who would act through a manager, whose duties would be:

(a) To attend all meetings of the board of supervisors;

(b) To see that the resolutions and other orders of the board of supervisors and the laws of the state required to be enforced by such board, are faithfully carried out by the county, including all officers chosen by the electors;

(c) To recommend to the board of supervisors such measures as he may deem necessary or expedient for the proper administration of the affairs of the county and its several offices;

(d) To appoint all county officers whose selection by the electors is not required by the constitution, except county supervisors and the county auditor or comptroller, for such terms of office as are provided by law.

Subject to resolutions of the board of supervisors, he shall:

(e) Purchase all supplies and materials required by every county officer, including the superintendent of the poor;

(f) Execute contracts on behalf of the board of supervisors when the consideration therein shall not exceed five hundred dollars;

(g) Obtain from the several county officers reports of their various activities in such form and at such times as the board of supervisors may require;

(h) Obtain from the several county officers itemized estimates of the probable expense of conducting their offices for the ensuing year, and transmit the same to the board of supervisors with his approval or disapproval of each and all items therein, in the form of a tentative budget.

(i) Perform such other duties as the board of supervisors may require.

In the exercise of these duties the county manager would have power to examine witnesses, take testimony under oath and make examination of the affairs of any office.

Inasmuch as the constitution of New York State requires the election by the people of the sheriff, district attorney, county clerk and register, the method of choosing these officers could not be affected by statute.

The Alameda County plan referred to in the preceding chapter provides for a city-and-county manager who would have charge not only of county administration but of the execution of the policies of the several constituent boroughs.

Such are a few definite proposals for fundamental political reconstruction of the county. Recalling, again, the low estate of our city governments, a decade since, the hope for an early and thoroughgoing betterment of the county system, in the department of fundamental structure, would seem to be not altogether vain.

[21] November, 1912.

[22] Otho G. Cartwright, Director of Westchester County Research Bureau.

[23] For text see Appendix, pp. 251-256.