and thus secure a proper co-ordination that has failed for a century.  Automatic mechanism in government can never take the place of simplicity and responsibility.  Such schemes are futile.  The men who can make mechanisms can break them.  What we must have is a government that compels efficiency and honesty, not one which attempts to produce such results through theoretical contrivances.

Finally, the gentlemen claim that the commission form has failed in New Orleans and Sacramento.  Will the gentlemen give their authority for the statement that these cities had a commission government?  Every authority upon the subject which the affirmative has found points to the conclusion, that the form of government employed by these cities was not a commission form.

Mr. Starzinger closed for the Negative and said: 

The Affirmative have mentioned our authority.  What we have said in regard to Sacramento, Cal., is based upon excerpts from an article by the Hon. Clinton White, published in the Cedar Rapids Evening Times.  Most of our facts concerning the southern cities which adopted the new plan are taken from the reports of the Des Moines investigation committee, headed by the Hon. W.N.  Jordan.  We would be glad to submit these pamphlets to the gentlemen for examination.  The mere fact that Des Moines adopted the commission form does not disprove the integrity of the authorities.

It is claimed that our stand is indefinite.  True, we have not offered a panacea for all municipal ills.  But we have advocated numerous reforms and have pointed out countless instances of municipal success under various forms, yet all based upon the same fundamental principle, that there be separately constituted departments of government.  One of the fatal objections to the gentlemen’s proposition is that they are attempting to blanket the whole country with one arbitrary form, regardless of differing conditions.  They have completely ignored our cases of successful city government.  We demand that they explain them.

The gentlemen have said that state interference has been precipitated by the decay of the city council.  Yet they advocate its complete destruction.  Nothing could be more incorrect than to say that special legislation was brought on as a result of an inherent weakness in council government.  Under the early council system, there was practically no state interference.  About the middle of the last century, the board system was introduced and the councils were shorn of their dignity and much of their legislative power.  Right there state dominion in local affairs began.  These are the unbiased facts as given by Professor Goodnow in his book on city government.

In conclusion, Honorable Judges, the solution of the American city problem will be best promoted by a program of reform which strikes at the real causes of the evils, instead of the