The commission so elected is the source of all authority in the city, makes all ordinances, appoints all officials, collects taxes, and makes all appropriations.  As set forth by its advocates, the significant features of the plan, in addition to those already mentioned, are: 

Assignment of the important divisions of the city government to individual members of the commission, or their election thereto by the voters, each being directly responsible for the conduct of his particular department; adequate compensation to the commissioners for their time and labor, the city employing all the commissioners at living salaries, thus elevating the dignity of municipal service and making it a public career, and not a mere avocation; regularity, frequency, and publicity of the meetings of the commissioners; all employees above the class of day laborers selected from eligible lists based on examinations, oral and written, carefully devised to develop merit and fitness; recommendations after examination by an independent civil service commission; provision for the retention in office of all employees so appointed during good behavior; the power to initiate legislation reserved to the people, this right being known as the initiative; the power to call for a public vote on any measure adopted by the commission before being given effect as law reserved to the people, this being known as the referendum; the power at any time to make any member of the commission stand for reelection reserved to the people, this being known as the recall; the granting of public franchise always to be submitted to the approval of the electors.

There are two other important features:  the introduction of the principle of the short ballot and the elimination of ward lines.  In the matured judgment of municipal students these are considered, together with the concentration of authority, as the most effective features of the system.[11]

Here is a pretty complete display of all the essential details of the system which the author of this definition intended to mean by the term “commission government for cities.”

Where the term which is to be defined is the name of a general class, whether of persons, things, or events, the definition must show just what persons, things, or events are to be included under the term for the present purpose.  Lincoln gave a famous example of this sort of definition in the opening of his address at Cooper Institute, February 27, 1860.  He took for the text of the first part of his speech a statement of Senator Douglas.

In his speech last autumn at Columbus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas said, “Our fathers, when they framed the government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.”

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse.  I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and an agreed starting point for a discussion between Republicans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Douglas.  It simply leaves the inquiry:  What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?