The running expenses of Galveston under the commission plan have been reduced one-third.  In Houston it costs $12,800 a year less to run the water and light plants than formerly, while by a combination of work in the different departments there is a saving of $9,000 annually.  In Cedar Rapids, since the adoption of the commission plan, there has been a reduction in the paving contracts let of ten and one-fifth per cent, in sewerage contracts, fourteen and two-sevenths per cent, and in water contracts, twenty per cent.  Immediately after the adoption of the commission plan in Des Moines the annual cost of each arc-light was reduced five dollars.  Reports from all the cities using the commission plan show that by the use of business principles the commissioners have economized in the administration of the city’s government.

The commission plan is adapted to the city’s finances because it provides a superior safeguard.  Legislative bodies in our cities have been depended upon to represent the citizens’ best interest.  In practice, as we have pointed out, they have not done so.  Never in the history of our municipal affairs, says Henry D.F.  Baldwin, has a legislative body stood out as the representatives of the people against the administrative department.  Why then continue a representative body which does not in fact represent?  Instead of the withered form of a council or legislative body standing between the citizen and his government the commission plan simply removes this useless obstacle and allows the citizen to participate directly in the government.  This is directly in harmony with the well-established economic principle that the self-interest of the taxpayer will control where responsibility is fixed.

Mr. Charles Briggs, the third speaker on the Negative, said: 

It will be well while the matter is fresh in our minds, Honorable Judges, to make a brief examination of one matter of which the Affirmative are making a feature, that the commission form affords unusual safeguards for the financial and economic interests of the city.  Now, in all fairness to the scheme which is doing quite well in a very few of our smaller cities, the question ought to be raised as to what other form of city government could be devised which would provide greater opportunities for graft and corruption.  A little group of autocrats is the ideal form for which the ardent corruptionists might pray.  They have it in the commission form.  Exemplary men in office or a constant civic interest, may prevent the commissioners from becoming a band of robbers; but are these two preventives likely always to exist?  Human experience says “No.”  The history of New Orleans and Sacramento confirm that decision.  Civic interest is bound to subside; corrupt men are sure to become commissioners.  Then the oligarchy advocated by the Affirmative becomes not a “safeguard” but a band of raiders equipped by the very form of government to loot