Fifty years ago such a reduction in the number of
elective officers would have greatly shocked all good Americans. But
In point of fact, while in small townships where everybody knows
everybody popular control is best ensured by electing all public
officers, it is very different in great cities where it is impossible
that the voters in general should know much about the qualifications
of a long list of candidates. In such cases citizens are apt to vote
blindly for names about which they know nothing except that they occur
on a Republican or a Democratic ticket; although, if the object of
a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and efficient
municipal government, to elect a city magistrate because he is a
Republican or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because
he believes in homoeopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums.[15] To
vote for candidates whom one has never heard of is not to insure
popular control, but to endanger it. It is much better to vote for
one man whose reputation we know, and then to hold him strictly
responsible for the appointments he makes. The Brooklyn system seems
to be a step toward lifting city government out of the mire of party
politics.
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