e commissioners are given steady employment at a good
salary. They have an opportunity to make a genuine record for
themselves, as well as to serve the best interests of the city. On
the other hand, the fact that responsibility is definitely centered
on each commissioner will, in itself, prevent men of no ability or
grafting politicians from seeking office. Political parties no
longer have any opportunity of putting men of little ability into
office, but instead, competent men with a genuine interest in the
city affairs and with no party affiliations whatever, so far as
municipal affairs are concerned, will be attracted to the position
of commissioner.

The opposition go further and charge that, even though efficient men
may be elected to office, the commission plan makes impossible the
fixing of responsibility. They failed, however, to point out a
single instance in commission-governed cities to prove their point
and made no attempt to show how responsibility could be better fixed
under the present system. As a matter of fact, Honorable Judges, the
fixing of individual responsibility, under the present system, is
utterly impossible, as we have already shown, while it is the
strongest virtue of the commission plan. In matters of pure
administration it is absolutely impossible for the commissioner to
escape individual responsibility, for he has full charge of the
administration of his own department. In matters of legislation,
where the majority vote of the commission may determine a policy
affecting a certain commissioner, responsibility is not lost but is
fixed upon those few who voted for such policy.

It has been contended that the commission form of government is
unpopular and that this plan has been rejected in both Sioux City
and Davenport. That these cities rejected it is true. But why? Sioux
City turned it down because the constitutionality of the plan had
not, at that time, been determined. Davenport refused to accept it
because the grafting politicians and the political ring so dominated
the city's politics that they were able to defeat the new plan and
retain the old, which was best suited to the furtherance of their
own ends.

The gentlemen of the opposition have argued that the present
inefficiency of city government is due to the interference of the
state le