if he tried to apply business methods, to be fair to every man and choose only the best. His eye could not see far enough; he would have to trust to records, and to recommendations of superior officers. It is clear at once that this would not do. A man's immediate superiors in the police force might not be sufficiently disinterested. They might allow considerations of private rather than of public service to affect their estimates of a man's fitness for higher office. But there is no other way by which the commander of a large body of men can reach the rank and file, to find out comprehensively, giving the most far-off man an equal chance with the nearest, which ones among them most deserve to go higher. Manifestly, then, something is wrong with the police system. It is far from enough to appoint the right man police commissioner-it is necessary in addition to see to it that he does not have to work against impossible conditions. The fault is not merely with the method of promotion. It is more radical. For I have tried to show that even a comparatively ideal plan, directed by a capable man, would not work under present conditions. In other words, before we can hope to improve much our ways of promoting policemen, we shall have to do some work on the foundations of the police system, so that we can build on something that will hold. It would not be proper to go into this in detail, as one would like to, in a paper on promotion. I cannot resist the temptation, however, to discuss for a moment two points where the police system of New York should be changed. These are probably also fairly illustrative of the situation in other cities. The police are charged with the duty of enforcing the laws regulating the excise, gambling, and prostitution. These prohibited, or regulated, vices are the great sources Enforcement of of police corruption, and it is only in part the policeman's fault. A literal enforcement of these laws is impossible; it is not expected by a large majority of citizens; and not desired by probably at least a majority. How then can you expect your policeman to do what you admit is impossible, and what he knows is not really meant, The question to be considered here is merely how this affects the police. The answer is that the connection must be broken. This can be done in two Laws ways: by making laws based on reason, and backed by the community, or by relieving the police of the duty of enforcing the present unreasonable laws. The latter expedient would be confessedly a makeshift, as whatever force should be entrusted with the duty of enforcing such laws would become corrupt, the guilt lying infinitely more with the laws than with the officers of the law. However, such a shift would rescue the police force from this debauching work, and it is to the police that we must look for the protection of life and property, the maintenance of law and order. The other point in which change is needed is in the matter of the police commissioner's tenure of office. In New York he is a mere bird of passage, usually flying so fast that the men under him hardly have time to determine his species. This is fundamental. The policeman feels that he must hedge all the time; he doesn't know how soon he may be called on to enforce a totally different policy. If he becomes known as having been particularly faithful to duty under one commissioner, he is apt to fall under great suspicion when commissioners change. He doesn't know where he stands. If the New York police force could be convinced that they would be judged by one standard for a period of 10 years, and that that standard assured police preferment to those who should do the best police work, the efficiency of the force would rise 100 per cent. in 24 hours. The men would feel that at last they had a chance, that they could go ahead and do straight police duty, without having to kowtow to anyone, and without having to take orders from anyone except their official head. But as long as the force is ruled by transient commissioners, a policeman will of necessity feel that his wisest course is to humor them so far as is necessary to avoid trouble, but to do nothing that shall make himself persona non grata with Tammany Hall, the power that makes and unmakes commis sioners. My contention is, then, that to be fair to the policemen and to get the best police service, the aim should be to institute a method of promotion whereby the most deserving men shall be selected. The present method stops short of this, since it cannot do much more than guarantee no favoritism. The mere changing of method, however, can hardly be very effective till the police organization itself is taken out of politics, is placed on a basis where its official head is its actual head and where it is freed from the duty of enforcing corrupting laws. Taking Municipal Contracts Out of Politics. RICHARD HENRY DANA, BOSTON, Chairman Executive Committee National Civil Service Reform League. Municipal Municipal administration has now become "a complicated series of technical services," requiring men of high character, thorough training, and expert in administration. Complications of A city requires the services of civil, hydraulic and sanitary engineers, of lawyers, physicians, bacteriologists, chemists, landscape and building architects, scientific almoners, educators, expert accountants and financiers. Moreover, municipal service is, of itself, a specialized branch of these professions. There are special text-books prepared and special courses of study given for municipal work in the great technical institutions of the world. But, in addition to special training for municipal work, the greatest efficiency can only be secured in that service by long-continued practise in municipal undertakings. As the author of "A Modern Symposium " has put it, Governments in every civilized country are now moving towards the ideal of an expert administration controlled by an alert and intelligent public opinion." How far is this ideal being carried out in our American cities? The question is as easily answered in general as it is asked, and the answer is, We fail. The next question to ask ourselves is why we fail. The Bureau of Municipal Research in New York City and the Finance Commission in Boston have recently thrown much light on the administration of those cities, and that light has disclosed in general a low rate of efficiency and a high rate of expense; and, in particular, the heads of administrative departments, for the most part, to be untrained, inexperienced and incompetent, frequently changed, in many cases dishonest and in others at least giving in to, if not personally profiting by, dishonest practises. The Boston Finance Commission reported that the few capable and honest heads of departments, they regretted to say, had failed to disclose, had apparently been unable to prevent, and, in several cases, had actually furthered dishonest practises which had come to their knowledge but from which they got no profit, except their continuance in office. With it all we see most conspicuously the mingling of politics with what ought to be the expert administration of details. Now, how is it in the cities of Europe and Great Britain? There we find high grade, especially trained experts, carrying on Foreign the detailed administration, with continuity of service and policy, and no mingling of politics with this expert branch. There we find a clear separation between the political executive and the expert administration; and it is also worthy of remark that this is almost the only important feature in common, as the kinds of municipal government differ in those countries. For example, in Great Britain, for the most part, the political executive work is carried on by committees of the municipal councils, which are also legislative and appropriative bodies, the mayors being mere presiding officers, and a pretty broad electorate. In France, the mayor, called in Paris the prefect of the Seine, is the chief political executive. Except in Paris, the mayors are elected. The city councils, also elected, are the legislative and appropriating bodies in all the European cities. For Paris and three of its suburbs, the prefect is appointed by the national minister of the interior, partly on the theory that the national government appropriates large sums of money for the capital city, just as Congress does for Washington. In Germany, the city councils select a mayor who is not a political executive but rather an expert in municipal administration, sometimes chosen for a long term of ten or twelve years or so, and sometimes practically for life, frequently having served successfully for years as mayor of a smaller city, and then called by promotion to administer the larger one. The elective franchise in Germany is far more restricted and property holding given a larger influence than in the cities of either Great Britain or France. The one common feature of all, differing as they do in other respects, is the employment of high grade, expert administrators, their permanent tenure of office, and the separation of |