Abstract
The growing distrust of judges, legal scholars, and politicians in municipal electorates would provoke reaction. The idea of home rule for cities—that a city’s residents, as opposed to the state, had the right to define the structure and powers of municipal government—was a central plank in the platforms of the People’s Party in the 1890s. Yet progressives shortly afterward would link home rule with another notion: that cities needed apolitical, professional management of public services. A case study of one gadfly’s rebuffed effort toward accountability from a New Jersey political machine points to the frustration that many felt with the subordination of city government to state legislatures, and suggests why they turned from electoral efforts to propose structural reform, in particular the city manager system.
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Notes
- 1.
People ex rel. The Board of Park Commissioners v. Mayor of Detroit, 28 Mich. 228 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1873) at 239; Detroit Citizens Street Railway v. Detroit Railway, 171 U.S. 48 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1898) at 51, Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power Co. v. Grand Rapids Edison Electric Light and Fuel Gas Co, 33 Fed Rep. 659 (U.S. District Court, western District of Michigan, 1888, Justice Jackson, at circuit).
- 2.
“Promptness is Solons’ Promise,” The True Northerner (Paw Paw) Jan. 13, 1905, p. 6; Untitled editorial notes, Belding Banner, Feb. 2, 1905, p. 4; “The Democratic State Convention” Belding Banner, Aug. 9, 1906, p. 2; “William Lee Jenks, A Candidate for Delegate to Constitutional Convention,” The Yale Expositor, Aug. 9, 1907, p. 4; “Odell Chapman Files His Petition” Owosso Times, July 12, 1907, p. 5; John A. Fairlie “The Michigan Constitutional Convention,” Michigan Law Review, Vol. VI, No. 7 (May 1908) p. 5.
- 3.
Report of the Committee on Submission and Address to the People (Lansing: State of Michigan, 1908) p. 42; Article 8, section 21, Michigan Constitution of 1908, accessed at http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/historical/miconstitution1908.htm. The powers of elected supervisors of counties and townships, which were not incorporated but instead purely creations of the state, were to be determined by the legislature. Article 8, section 17.
- 4.
Journal of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1875 (Columbia, MO: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1920) Vol. 1, p. 206; Roscoe E. Harper, “Local and Special Legislation under the Constitution of 1875,” University of Missouri Law Bulletin Vol. 19 (June 1920), p. 19; Missouri Republican, April 5, 1876, cited in Thomas S. Barclay, The St. Louis Home Rule Charter of 1876, (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1962) p. 4; Nathaniel B. Sylvester, History of Rennslaer County, New York (Philadelphia: Everts & Peck, 1880) pp. 152–153; “On Self Ruled Cities?” New York Evening World, Aug. 14, 1894, p. 1.
- 5.
The People of the State of California v. Mike Lynch and certain real estate 51 Cal. 15 (California Supreme Court, 1875); Article 6, California Constitution of 1879; Article 6, California Constitution of 1896; Kenneth Vanlandingham, “Municipal Home Rule in the United States,” William and Mary Law Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Winter, 1978) p. 285, citing People v. Henshaw 76 Cal. 435 (California Supreme Court, 1888) and Staube v. Election Commissioners 61 Cal. 313 (California Supreme Court, 1882). He takes a different view about the Missouri Supreme Court’s interpretation of that state’s constitutional provision for home rule, but Henry K. Schmandt, in “Municipal Home Rule in Missouri,” Washington University Law Quarterly, No. 4 (1953), p. 386, comments that the Missouri experience shows that the “basic aims of home rule have seldom been looked up by the courts with any degree of enthusiasm or even favor.” For Minnesota, see “An Unwarranted Attack,” St. Paul Globe, Oct. 24, 1896, p. 4; 1895 Laws of Minnesota, Chapter 4; “Corporate Oppressors” Minneapolis Journal Aug. 27, 1902, p. 1.
- 6.
“Businessmen Lead,” Wichita Daily Eagle Nov. 17, 1897, p. 1. The Resubmission League was not successful, however. There is a particularly vivid description of Johnson’s campaigning and emphasis on home rule in “Tom L. Johnson’s Circus Campaign” St. Louis Sunday Republic, Sept. 29, 1902, p. 46.
- 7.
“Allied Third Party Movement launched at Kansas City,” Butte (Montana) InterMountain, June 20, 1901, p. 1; “The Democratic Platform” The Hocking Sentinel, (Logan, Ohio) July 18, 1901, p. 1; “Bourne Writes to Sellwood Club Defending the Initiative,” East Oregonian (Pendleton, Ore.) July 8, 1909, p. 6.
- 8.
Alden Freeman, A Year in Politics (East Orange, N.J.: self-published, 1906), p. 7.
- 9.
Ibid., pp. 3, 19, 23, 26, 78; Lincoln Steffens to Freeman, Jan. 29, 1906, Ibid., p. Viii. “Alden Freeman,” American Biography, A New Cyclopedia, ed. William R. Cutter, (New York: American Historical Society, 1918), Vol. 4, p. 47.
- 10.
Alden Freeman, “A Warning to the Voters of East Orange,” New York Tribune, Nov. 2, 1903, reprinted in Freeman, A Year in Politics, p. 29.
- 11.
Ibid.; “The Secret Influence Revealed at Citizens Union Banquet After Two Years of Mystery,” Newark (N.J.) Evening News, March 5, 1905, p. 1.
- 12.
American Biography: A New Cyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 48; Freeman, a Year in Politics, p. 15; “Offered Colby Governorship,” New York Sun, Nov. 6, 1906, p. 4.
- 13.
New Jersey Legislative Manual (Trenton, NJ: Thomas F. Fitzgerald, 1908), pp. 280–281.
- 14.
“Clerk Riker Must Show Cause,” New York Sun, Oct. 13, 1907, p. 13; In re Freeman, at 332.
- 15.
The political advertisements “Forty Years an Office Seeker” and “Tell the Truth … J.J. Williams for Mayor of Memphis,” The (Memphis, Tenn.) News-Scimitar, Oct. 15, 1919, p. 11 and Oct. 21, 1919, p. 8, show Wellford and Williams still attacking one another, sixteen years after their clash over the streets. The Citizens Union credo is found in Freeman, A Year in Politics, p. 56, and his comments on Long and appointed commissions at Ibid., p. 74.
- 16.
“Municipal Government,” New York Tribune, Jan. 15, 1900, p. 5.
- 17.
A Municipal Program, A Report of a Committee of the National Municipal League (New York: Macmillan & Co, 1900), pp. 159–160; for a discussion of the reform see Frank J. Goodnow, “The Place of the Council and Mayor in the Organization of Municipal Government—The Necessity of Distinguishing Legislation from Administration,” Ibid. pp. 74–87 and John A. Fairlie, “Municipal Development in the United States,” Ibid., p. 28; for the mayoral and bicameral model see Nathan Matthews, The City Government of Boston (Boston: City of Boston, 1895), p. 164.
- 18.
Woodrow Wilson “The Study of Administration,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2 (June 1887) pp. 197–222; Horace M. Deming, “The Municipal Problem in the United States,” in A Municipal Program, p. 46; Fairlie, “Municipal Development,” pp. 27–28, 36; Goodnow, “The Place of the Council and Mayor,” p. 75; Delos F. Wilcox, “An Examination of the Proposed Municipal Program,” p. 225.
- 19.
Records of the Common Council, 1904–1911, Staunton, Va., pp. 125–128, 156, 229, 245, 348; Records of the Board of Aldermen, 1906–1911, Staunton, Va., pp. 150–151; “The New City Fathers,” Staunton Spectator and Vindicator, June 22, 1906, p. 3; John Crosby, “Staunton’s General Manager, Virginia City Run as a Business Proposition,” Municipal Journal and Engineer, Dec. 29, 1909 pp. 954–956; Henry Oyen, “A City with a General Manager,” The World’s Work, Vol. 27 (1911), p. 227; Mary Swan Carroll, “History of the Staunton City Manager Government,” MS, Staunton Public Library, p. 31; Robert C. Hiden “Running a Town as a Business,” Harper’s Weekly, May 21, 1910, p. 14.
- 20.
Robert Hiden “Running a Town as a Business,” Harper’s Weekly, May 21, 1910, pp. 13–14; Henry Oyen, “A City with a General Manager,” The World’s Work, Vol. 27 (1911), pp. 220–228; Ernest F Bradford, Commission Government in American Cities (New York: Macmillan, 1911) pp. 119–126; “Unique Official is Driven away by Jobless” Washington Herald April 21, 1911; “Unique Official is Driven away by Jobless” Washington Herald, April 21 1911; “A Municipal Business Manager,” Arizona Republic, May 21, 1911, p. 2; “General Manager in Staunton Gives Good City Government” Washington Times, May 14, 1909, p. 1; “A City with A General Manager” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Dec. 14, 1912, p. 26; “Town Needs a Manager,” The French Broad Hustler (Hendersonville, N.C), Feb. 17, 1910, p. 1; “City with a General Manager,” Aberdeen (Washington) Herald, Jan. 24, 1910, p. 4; “City General Manager,” The Ocala (Fla.) Evening Star, Jan. 6, 1911, p. 2; “It is But A Step,” The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, Utah), Dec. 29, 1911, p. 4; “Endorse Commission Plan” Fort Mill (S.C.) Times, Feb. 1, 1912, p. 1; “A City Manager by a Civil Engineer,” The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu, T.H.) Feb. 9, 1912, p. 4; “Hancock Department” The Calumet (Mich.) News, May 10, 1912, p. 3; “A City Wants a General Manager,” The Watchman and Southron (Sumter S.C.), Nov. 6, 1912, p. 6; “A City with A General Manager” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Dec. 14, 1912, p. 26; “The City Business Manager,” The Caldwell (Idaho) Tribune, Dec. 20, 1912, p. 4; “Talk of Town Development,” The Fairmount West Virginian, Feb. 19, 1913, p. 2; “The City Manager,” El Paso Herald, June 14, 1913, p. 6; L.M. Hewit, “What’s the Matter with the Water?” Bryan Daily Eagle and Pilot, July 24, 1913, p. 1; “The State’s Needs” Western Kansas World (WaKenny, Kans.) Jan. 20, 1917, p. 2; William A. Grubert, The Origins of the City Manager Plan in Staunton, Virginia (Staunton, Va.: City of Staunton, 1954) p. 5, 24 (Grubert was a long-serving mayor of Staunton); Leonard D. White, The City Manager (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1927) p. 92.
- 21.
Chester Rightor, City Manager in Dayton (New York: Macmillan, 1919) p. 2, citing a March, 1896 address by Patterson at the city’s centennial celebration.
- 22.
“Home Rule Initiative a Vicious Measure” Leavenworth (Wash.) Echo, May 26, 1916, p. 1; “Home Rule for Cities Refused,” Ward County Independent (Minot, N.D.), Jan. 23, 1919, p. 9.
References
Detroit Citizens Street Railway v. Detroit Railway, 171 U.S. 48 (U.S. Supreme Court, 1898).
Grand Rapids Electric Light and Power Co. v. Grand Rapids Edison Electric Light and Fuel Gas Co, 33 Fed Rep. 659 (U.S. District Court, western District of Michigan, 1888).
People ex rel. The Board of Park Commissioners v. Mayor of Detroit, 28 Mich. 228 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1873).
The People of the State of California v. Mike Lynch and certain real estate, 51 Cal. 15 (California Supreme Court, 1875).
A Municipal Program. A Report of a Committee of the National Municipal League. New York: Macmillan, 1900.
Journal of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1875 (Columbia, MO: State Historical Society of Missouri, 1920).
New Jersey Legislative Manual (Trenton, NJ: Thomas F. Fitzgerald, 1908).
Records of the Common Council, 1904–1911, Staunton, VA.
Records of the Board of Aldermen, 1906–1911, Staunton, VA.
Report of the Committee on Submission and Address to the People (Lansing: State of Michigan, 1908).
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Ress, D. (2018). The Home Rule Idea. In: Municipal Accountability in the American Age of Reform. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68258-7_5
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