form. We may preface these by saying that there is nothing inherent
in the commission form or any of its attributes which can insure the
selection of better men for office. The members of the commission
will be about the same kind of men as the ordinary city official.
Minneapolis by an election at large placed in the mayor's chair its
most notorious grafter. This is proved by the personnel of the
commissions where the system is being tried. The investigating
committee appointed by the city of Des Moines, quoting their exact
words, say that in Houston, where the commissioners are required to
stay in the city hall every day, business men do not hold those
positions, although the salaries are higher than the proposed
salaries of the Des Moines commissioners. One commissioner was
formerly a city scavenger, another a blacksmith, justice of the
peace and alderman, a third a railway conductor, fourth a dry-goods
merchant, and the mayor, a retired capitalist. Mr. Pollock of Kansas
City says of the Des Moines commission, "The commission as elected
consists of a former police judge and justice of the peace who is
mayor-commissioner at the salary of $3,500; a coal miner, deputy
sheriff; the former city assessor, whose greatest success has been
in public office; a union painter of undoubted honesty and
integrity, but far from a $3,000 man; an ex-mayor and politician,
who is perhaps the most valuable member of the new form of
government, but whose record does not disclose any great business
capacity aside from that displayed in public office." The Des Moines
committee says of the Galveston commission: "This is a perpetual
body, a potentially perfect machine." There has been no change in
the membership of the Galveston commission since it was organized.
The extensive power of the commissioners have enabled them to
control all political factions and to completely crush the
opposition. The commissioners' faction is in complete control and
even goes so far as to dictate nominations for the legislature and
the national congress. In Des Moines we find evidences of this
machine power in the very first session of the commission. Mr. Hume
was appointed chief of police because he had delivered the labor
vote to Mr. Mathis. The _Daily News_, the only Des Moines paper that
supported the plan, was rewarded b