Then, lest the mayor should become
dangerous, the veto power was at first generally withheld from him,
and his appointments of executive officers needed to be confirmed by
at least one branch of the city council. These executive officers,
moreover, as already observed, were subject to more or less control or
oversight from committees of the city council.
[Sidenote: Scattering and weakening of responsibility.]
Now this system, in depriving the mayor of power, deprived him of
responsibility, and left the responsibility nowhere in particular. In
making appointments the mayor and council would come to some sort of
compromise with each other and exchange favours. Perhaps for private
reasons incompetent or dishonest officers would get appointed, and
if the citizens ventured to complain the mayor would say that he
appointed as good men as the council could be induced to confirm,
and the council would declare their willingness to confirm good
appointments if the mayor could only be persuaded to make them.
[Sidenote: Committees inefficient for executive purposes.]
Then the want of subordination of the different executive departments
made it impossible to secure unity of administration or to carry out
any consistent and generally intelligible policy.
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