y having three of its staff
appointed to responsible positions. Mr. Lyman was appointed
secretary to Commissioner Hammery, Neil Jones secretary to Mayor
Mathis. Another man was appointed to an important technical
position. A brakeman was appointed street commissioner because he
delivered the vote of the Federation of Labor.

These are but a few of the instances where this great centralization
of power has shown itself in practice to be a system permitting of
unrestricted machine power and political grafting. New Orleans tried
the system and abandoned it over 20 years ago because of this very
reason. The inhabitants were afraid of this tremendous
centralization of power.

The friends of the commission idea claim for it the advantage of
centered responsibility; but practice has proved that this form of
city government is actually formulated to defeat responsibility. By
the construction of this governing body each commissioner is held
responsible for his respective department. But regulation for each
department is made not by the commission as a whole but by the whole
commission. This results in a confusion of powers. Thus in the city
of Des Moines, Mr. Hume, the personal enemy of Commissioner Hammery
was made chief of police by three other members of the commission
for political reasons.

Who is responsible for the mistakes of Mr. Hume? The people say
Hammery. But Hammery says: "I had nothing to do with his
appointment." It has actually happened time and again at the
commission table in Des Moines that regulations for the financial
department were made by the police commission, the street
commissioner and the commissioner of parks and public buildings;
that the police commissioner would have the deciding vote on some
important school legislation; or the commissioner of education
control the appointment of policemen. This defect has given rise to
log-rolling. Bridges have been built as a personal favor to one
commissioner whose vote is needed to construct a new schoolhouse.
Large paving and building contracts are let simply because the
police commissioner wanted to oust some unfaithful political
dependent. In this way each commissioner gains great favor with the
voters and at the same time can escape personal responsibility for
technical mistakes by shouldering the blame ont