With all these immense executive powers entrusted to the mayor, however, he does not hold the purse-strings.  He is a member of a board of estimate, of which the other four members are the comptroller and auditor, with the county treasurer and supervisor.  This board recommends the amounts to be raised by taxation for the ensuing year.  These estimates are then laid before the council of aldermen, who may cut down single items as they see fit, but have not the power to increase any item.  The mayor must see to it that the administrative work of the year does not use up more money than is thus allowed him.

[Sidenote:  Some of its merits.] This Brooklyn system has great merits.  It ensures unity of administration, it encourages promptness and economy, it locates and defines responsibility, and it is so simple that everybody can understand it.  The people, having but few officers to elect, are more likely to know something about them.  Especially since everybody understands that the success of the government depends upon the character of the mayor, extraordinary pains are taken to secure good mayors; and the increased interest in city politics is shown by the fact that in Brooklyn more people vote for mayor than for governor or for president.  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.

[Footnote 15:  Of course from the point of view of the party politician, it Is quite different.  Each party has its elaborate “machine” for electing state and national officers; and in order to be kept at its maximum of efficiency the machine must be kept at work on all occasions, whether such occasions are properly concerned with differences in party politics or not.  To the party politician it of course makes a great difference whether a city magistrate is a Republican or a Democrat.  To him even the political complexion of his mail-carrier is a matter of importance.  But these illustrations only show that party politics may be carried to extremes that are inconsistent with the best interests of the community.  Once in a while it becomes necessary to teach party organizations to know their place, and to remind them that they are not the lords and masters but the servants and instruments of the people.]