iments proved so popular that in 1908-9 not
less than one hundred and thirty-eight cities, including most of the
large ones, proposed to make important changes in their charters,
adopting the most prominent features of the new plan, or adapting the
new to the old system.

Commission government has been defined as "that form of city
government in which a small board, elected at large, exercises
substantially the entire municipal authority, each member being
assigned as head of a rather definite division of the administrative
work; the commission being subject to one or more means of direct
popular control, such as publicity of proceedings, recall, referendum,
initiative, and a non-partisan ballot." Commission government is less
cumbersome and less partisan than the old system and tends to be more
efficient, but the public needs to remember that it is the men in
office and not the form of government that make the control of
municipal affairs a success or failure. In a few cases only
disappointment has resulted from the changes made, and commission
government is still in its experimental stage.

277. =The City Manager.=--A modification of the commission plan was
tried in several cities of the South and Middle West in 1913-14. This
has been called the city-manager plan. It is founded on the belief
that the city needs business administration, and that a board of
directors is not so efficient as a single manager employed by the
commission, who shall have charge of all departments, appoint
department heads as his subordinates, and thus unify the whole
administration of municipal affairs. The manager is responsible to the
commission, and through it to the people, and may be removed by the
commission, or even by popular recall. Such a plan as this is, of
course, liable to abuse, unless the commissioners are high-minded,
conscientious men, and it has not been tried long enough to prove its
worth. The best element in the whole history of recent municipal
changes is the earnest effort of the people to find a form of
administrative control that will work well, and this gives ground for
belief that the experiments will continue until the American city will
cease to be notorious for misgovernment and become, instead, a model
for the whole nation.

READING REFERENCES

_Commission Government and the City Manager Plan_ (American
Academy), pages 3-11, 103-109, 171-179, 183-201.

GOODNOW: _City Government in the United S