we must concentrate municipal authority; we must co-ordinate departments, eliminate useless boards and committees and fix absolutely and completely individual responsibility.  This, we propose to do by establishing a commission form of government, where all governmental authority is vested in one small body of men, who individually act as the heads of administrative departments, but who collectively pass the needed legislation.  Thus, instead of a council with restricted powers and divided authority, we have a few men assuming positions of genuine responsibility, as regards both the originating and enforcing of laws.  My colleagues will show that such a concentration of powers in one small body is necessary and desirable, both from the legislative and administrative point of view.

Such a concentration is desirable, since it is accompanied by a corresponding concentration of personal responsibility.  This is secured in the commission system.  Responsibility in administration is secured, because each commissioner is at the head of a department, for the efficient and honest conduct of which he alone is held personally responsible.  Responsibility in legislation is secured, because, first, the body of legislators is comparatively small.  Second, the very fact that each commissioner possesses information essential to intelligent action, places upon the commission itself absolute responsibility.  Such a system makes it impossible to shift responsibility from one branch to the other, and guarantees to us better and more efficient administration of our municipal affairs for it eliminates all useless boards and committees and fixes absolutely and completely individual responsibility.

Mr. Earl Stewart, the first speaker on the Negative, said: 

    We wish it understood at the outset that no one deplores the useless
    boards and complicated machinery in many of our American cities more
    than do the Negative.

Before going a step farther let us get right as to what we mean by a commission form.  The gentlemen state that they are standing for a concentration of all power in one small body.  Honorable Judges, they are standing for something different.  It is possible to concentrate all authority in one body and yet have the different functions performed by separately constituted bodies.  For example, the cabinet system of Germany, where all governing power is vested in the legislative body which in turn delegates all administrative functions to the cabinet.  Thus the legislative body is directly responsible, having ultimate authority, yet the actual exercise of power is done by distinct bodies.  Now how is it with the commission?  There, not only does one body have ultimate authority, but it actually conducts administration as well as legislation.  Quoting from Sec. 7 of the Des Moines charter, which is typical of every commission form charter in this regard, it says:  “All