of powers" theory works unmitigated
mischief. The only way to get good service is to give somebody power to
render it, facing the fact that power which will enable a man to do
a job well will also necessarily enable him to do it ill if he is the
wrong kind of man. What is normally needed is the concentration in the
hands of one man, or of a very small body of men, of ample power to
enable him or them to do the work that is necessary; and then the
devising of means to hold these men fully responsible for the exercise
of that power by the people. This of course means that, if the people
are willing to see power misused, it will be misused. But it also means
that if, as we hold, the people are fit for self-government--if, in
other words, our talk and our institutions are not shams--we will get
good government. I do not contend that my theory will automatically
bring good government. I do contend that it will enable us to get as
good government as we deserve, and that the other way will not.

The then government of the Police Department was so devised as to render
it most difficult to accomplish anything good, while the field for
intrigue and conspiracy was limitless. There were four Commissioners,
two supposed to belong to one party and two to the other, although, as
a matter of fact, they never divided on party lines. There was a Chief,
appointed by the Commissioners, but whom they could not remove without a
regular trial subject to review by the courts of law. This Chief and
any one Commissioner had power to hold up most of the acts of the other
three Commissioners. It was made easy for the four Commissioners to come
to a deadlock among themselves; and if this danger was avoided, it was
easy for one Commissioner, by intriguing with the Chief, to bring the
other three to a standstill. The Commissioners were appointed by the
Mayor, but he could not remove them without the assent of the Governor,
who was usually politically opposed to him. In the same way the
Commissioners could appoint the patrolmen, but they could not remove
them, save after a trial which went up for review to the courts.

As was inevitable under our system of law procedure, this meant that the
action of the court was apt to be determined by legal technicalities.
It was possible to dismiss a man from the service for quite insufficient
reasons, and to provide against the reversal of the sentence, if the
technicalities of procedure were observed. But the wo