Suchergebnisse

AbstractFifty‐five referenda over a five‐year period result in but seven abandonments of manager plan government.

In response to public criticism of the operation of local government in Michigan, particularly in units other than cities and villages, the legislature, by Act 156 of the Public Acts of 1931, authorized the governor to appoint a commission of inquiry into county, township, and school district government. The commission was instructed to give special attention to changes that would reduce the cost of maintenance of such governmental units and increase their efficiency; and authority was given to examine the files and records of any county, township, or school district in the state. The commission's membership consisted of Clarence L. Ayres of Detroit (chairman), C. E. Bement of Lansing, Judge P. C. Gilbert of Traverse City, M. B. McPherson of Lowell, and A. E. Petermann of Calumet. A legislative appropriation of $5,000 was supplemented by financial assistance from the University of Michigan, Michigan State College, the Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research, and the Spelman Fund of New York; and Dr. Lent D. Upson was chosen director of the survey. Committees utilized in the inquiry included those on (1) social and economic trends, (2) organization and cost of county and township government, (3) rural school government, (4) local government in the metropolitan area, (5) school government in the metropolitan area, (6) debt and taxation in local government, and (7) organization and administration of the following services: public welfare, public health, public works, and justice. The report of the commission went to Governor Wilber M. Brucker late in December, 1932, and the expert studies have been transmitted to the legislature during the current session. All will be available in a series to be known as Local Government in Michigan, and will be published as separate documents.

Expansion and Contraction of the Franchise. Between the theory and practice of the American Revolution there was a wide breach. The ruling caste of property owners retained control in spite of the legendary democratization of that era. Jefferson's declaration of the equality of man was not fully applied to suffrage requirements until the time of Andrew Jackson. Since then, suffrage restrictions of property, color, and sex have suffered the fate of houses built upon sand. The floods of democracy have now smitten upon these limitations for more than a century. In the rise of the common man, both the property-owning and taxpaying qualifications for voters disappeared even in the original commonwealths. Once these restrictions which separated the old aristocracy from the new proletariat had been vanquished, the requisites of color and sex were likewise abandoned.With few exceptions, suffrage had been granted to practically all adult male white citizens before the Civil War. Yet counter-attacks were waged by the advocates of a limited electorate. The theory prevails that a steady swing toward universal suffrage characterizes the American franchise. The pendulum has also swung in the opposite direction. Connecticut and Massachusetts, where the reaction against suffrage extension was rapid, were the first states to retrench on the policy of adult male white suffrage. In place of property qualifications, literacy restrictions appeared. The purpose of these restrictions set up by Connecticut in 1855 and Massachusetts in 1857 was to bar the ignorant immigrants from the voting class.

AbstractThe concluding installment of series on reasons for the abandonment of manager charters by seventeen cities.

AbstractThis is the first installment of a study of the reasons for the abandonment of manager charters in seventeen cities. The concluding installment will appear later.

Wings over Europe and the Far East are being spread from what was until last year mere Midwestern field and stream—Willow Run, now the site of the world's largest and most revolutionary bomber plant. Air supremacy for the United Nations may rest upon Henry Ford's adaptation of assembly-line methods from autos to airplanes. B-24 bombers now being flown from the hangars at the bomber plant are casting their shadows over the countryside round about. But months ago, the first shadows of Willow Run lengthened over the neighboring cities and villages. Rural residents are finding themselves in the midst of a metropolitan maëlstrom. Orchards, vineyards, wood-lots, and truck gardens are giving way to highways, trailer camps, and federal housing facilities. Population growth and changing land-use are staring the local urban and rural governments in the face. Immediate need for roads, public health service, zoning, and housing are problems which cut across the paths of national, state, and local authorities.