Search results

In the approaching national election, one of the paramount issues seems to be the problem of adjusting our governmental structure to permit the consideration of economic and social questions by political agencies of appropriate size. The powers of government should be as broad as the problems with which they must deal. But this truth is equally applicable to affairs which, traditionally, have been of municipal concern. The area of the city's influence has been widening and the centrifugal forces have had too great speed and volume to permit solution by the earlier method of enlarging city boundaries to encompass urban areas.

The charter group was again successful in the November elections in Cincinnati and retained the six seats won in the first contest, while the Republican organization lost one seat to an Independent candidate. Seven of the nine councilmen were reёlected to office. The victory of the charter ticket was due in large measure to public approval of the unusual accomplishments of the last two years, and in part to the political sagacity of the leaders throughout the series of campaigns. The election of 1924, which resulted in the adoption of the council-manager form of government with a council chosen by proportional representation, and the election of two years ago which "kept the charter in the hands of its friends," have been described in the pages of this journal. It was appreciated that the real test of the reform movement would come at the election of 1927 when the charter party would be on the defensive. This test has now been met.Cincinnati was fortunate in the character of the men who composed the first council under the new system. They employed a manager with administrative ability, a charm of manner which quickly ingratiated him with the people, and a personality which complemented the personal qualities of the councilmen themselves. These men elected by the people did not refuse leadership, and the mayor especially has become a dominant force in the community. The combination of Mayor Seasongood and Manager Sherrill is an unusual one. The former is a leader of reform; the latter, the man to carry out the policies which the representatives determine upon. Consequently, the manager himself never became a campaign issue. Both groups pledged him support. As the mayor said of him, "He personifies the people's own desire for good government."

AbstractPropfessor Lowrie discusses civic organizations and agencies, their general character, and their relation to governmental work.

Thirteen years ago, the American Political Science Association directed its attention to the changing relation between our national government and the states. One of the speakers discerned in the tendency toward aggrandizement of national power, manifestations of the principle that sovereignity, unprovided for in extant forms, seeks to embody itself in new forms. The signal incompetence of the states in dealing with economic questions, together with their mendicant attitude towards the national government, was seen as the cause of the transfer to national authority of control over currency supply, transportation rates and methods, and the seeming disposition to transfer control over all corporations. Other speakers called attention to the great increase of national power under the commerce clause and under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution; and one, in a most thoughtful paper, openly challenged the federal system as established in this country, asserting that it showed disadvantages of increasing magnitude in comparison with a unitary system, and was out of harmony with the general environment of modern industrialism.

There is no aspect of contemporary politics more significant than the remarkable growth and extension of the movement for direct legislation in America. While various phases of the referendum, such as advisory voting, the adoption of constitutions and their amendments and of local charters and laws have been of common use since the colonial period, the unrestricted use of the initiative and referendum whereby the people are given unlimited control of machinery for the enactment of constitutional and statutory law, is a very recent development. Prior to the last decade it was scarcely looked upon as a permanent feature of our governmental system. It smacked of Populism and found its supporters chiefly among certain faddists who sought by this means to secure, at least in a limited degree, the adoption of their political nostrums.But the problem of the referendum in America is no longer an academic one; for scarcely is there a state in the Union but must seriously consider the incorporation of this principle into its fundamental law. From its beginning in the single state of South Dakota, ten years has seen its spread through ten western commonwealths and the question of its adoption is now pending before the people in as many more states.