It shall be my purpose to show that it is superior from the standpoint of administration.  We believe this because the commission lends itself to the application of business methods.  The plan provides for a comparatively small body of men who meet in daily session and who give their whole time to the work of governing the city.  At present, too often the real business of the officials is anything else.  They give their spare time to the city and we have seen the results.  Honorable judges, we claim that there is a special virtue in the very smallness of the number inasmuch as they are properly paid, devote all their time to their work, and are made in fact governors of the city.  They have a great deal of work to do and they do it, while under our present systems the councilmen have comparatively little to do and they fail to do that little efficiently.

The reason why this small body can administer with dispatch and efficiency is seen at a glance.  Each commissioner is the head of a department for which he is personally responsible.  He is not hindered as is the executive at present by an inefficient and meddling council which has more power, often, than the executive himself.  He knows the laws for he has helped to make them.  It is his business to see that they are executed, and if they are not, he cannot escape blame.  He cannot plead ignorance, lack of responsibility, or lack of power as do present administrative officers.

Moreover, this body is admirably constituted for effective carrying out of city business.  It is larger than the single headed executive and possesses, therefore, a division of work which makes the administration far more effective.  At the same time it is smaller than the old council and for that reason is more efficient in enacting the city’s peculiar kind of legislation.  In actual practice, and that seems to be the real test of city government, both administration and legislation are accomplished with accuracy and dispatch.  For instance, every spring for the last decade carloads of “dagoes” with their dirt and disease have come to Cedar Rapids.  Every year protests have gone up to both mayor and council, but without result.  Cedar Rapids has adopted a commission form of government.  Last spring when the “dagoes” came the same complaints went up as usual, that because of their insanitary methods these people carried with them filth and disease.  But the petitioners did not go to the city council which met once in two weeks, nor were they referred to a committee which met less often.  They went directly to the commissioners who had charge of the city health and in less than twenty-four hours the “dagoes” had been notified to either clean up or leave, and they left the city.  But, say the opponents of this plan, this could have been done under the old system.  To be sure, but the burning fact remains that in spite of the protests of the people, it was not done.