USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 56
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The Mayor is elected for a term of four years; until 1849 the office was held for only one year, although many men were incumbents for five, six, even nine or ten years, when they depended upon appoint- ment by the Provincial or State authorities. But while thus extend- ing the term (it had been made three years in 1894) a restriction was laid upon re-election. That is, he can not succeed himself imniedi- ately. " He shall be ineligible for the next term after the termination of his office." If subsequently he should be wanted again by the peo- ple he could be a candidate once more. The salary of the Mayor is fixed at a generous figure, quite compatible with the dignity of the office, and the magnitude and wealth of the corporation at whose head he stands. The crucial feature of the Mayor's position is, of course, the power of appointment and of removal. There is where respon- sibility traces itself back to him in a direct line when things go wrong. The power of removal is by no means so comprehensive as that of appointment. The charter delineates it as follows: " At any time within six months after the commencement of his term of office the Mayor, elected for a full term, may, whenever in his judgment the public interests shall so require, remove from office any public officer holding office by appointment from the Mayor, except members of the Board of Education and School Boards, and except also judicial offi- cers, for whose removal other provision is made by the constitution.
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Aftertheexpiration of said period of six months any such public officer may be removed by the Mayor for canse upon charges preferred and after opportunity to be heard, subject, however, before such removal shall takeeffect, to the approval of the Governor expressed in writing." This after six months the Mayor is helpless if he has good reason to fear his aims are not being served as he wishes, even if no actual charges of malfeasance can be brought. The restriction may be a safe one, however, under certain circumstances, which evidently the Commission had in view.
A vast army of officials was provided by the division of the adminis- trative functions of the city government into thirteen departments by the new charter, expressed as follows: " There shall be the following administrative departments in said city :
I. Department of Finance.
HI. Law department.
111. Police department.
IV. Represented in the Board of Publie Improvements:
1. Department of Water Supply.
2. Department of Highways.
3. Department of Street Cleaning.
4. Department of Sewers.
5. Department of Public Buildings, Lighting, and Sup- plies.
6. Department of Bridges.
V. Department of Parks.
VI. Department of Buildings.
VII. Department of Public Charities.
VIII. Department of Correction.
IX. Fire department.
X. Department of Docks and Ferries.
XI. Department of Taxes and Assessments
XII. Department of Education.
XIII. Department of Health."
The heads of these departments and commissioners, if a board rather than a single man directs their affairs, all fall to the appoint- ment of the Mayor. His patronage is, therefore, very extensive. The Comptroller, who heads the Department of Finance, is elected by the people and has a salary of ten thousand dollars; but the Chamber- lain, or Treasurer, of the city, is appointed by the Mayor, and has a salary of twelve thousand dollars. The head of the Department of Law is the Corporation Counsel, and is appointed by the Mayor, his salary being equal to that of the man who makes him, or fifteen thousand dollars. In the Police Department he appoints four Com- missioners; in that of Parks, three Commissioners, and six Art Com- missioners, without salary. Then there are one Fire Commissioner, one Commissioner of Jurors for Manhattan and the Bronx; two Com-
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missioners of Accounts; an indeterminate number of sealers of weights and measures, and inspectors of the same. In the Board of Public Improvements the Mayor appoints the President, and one Commissioner over each of the six departments. He appoints seven justices, one for each of as many judicial districts, and three Civil- service Commissioners. The Department of Taxes he provides with the President of the Board and four Commissioners. For the Board of City Magistrates in the First District (Manhattan and Bronx) he ap- points twelve magistrates, and for that of the Second District also twelve; seven for Brooklyn, three for Queens, and two for Richmond. There are five Justices of the Court of Special Sessions appointed by the Mayor in the first division, and five in the second; three Commis-
COPPER TYPE CO
STREET CLEANING-REMOVING SNOW FROM A DOWN-TOWN STREET.
sioners of Charities and one of Corrections. In the Bureau of Mu- nicipal Statisties he appoints six Commissioners and one Chief of Bureau. In the Department of Education no salaries are attached to the appointments of the Mayor, but they constitute a small army in the way of numbers: 21 members of the School Board of Manhattan and the Bronx; 45 of that of Brooklyn; 9 of Richmond; 9 of Queens. In the Department of Buildings he has three Commissioners to ap- point, while three Health Commissioners and three Commissioners of Docks finish the list of high-salaried officials who come to these places at his mere beek. We must add to the number of his direct appoint- ments, however, 38 Marshals for Manhattan and Bronx; 15 Marshals for Brooklyn; 6 for Queens, and 4 for Richmond. The whole number of the personnel of city government owing their places immediately to
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the Mayor's will and favor is 242, not counting sealers and inspectors. Of these one receives a salary of $15,000; one receives a salary of $12,000; two receive salaries of $8,000; ten receive salaries of $7,500; two derive $7,000 per annum from the city treasury; thirty-nine ob- tain $6,000 a year; seventeen receive $5,000; two, $3,500; and one $2,500. In this catalogue the 63 Marshals and the indeterminate number of sealers and inspectors of weights and measures have no place. But even without these the figure disbursed by the city for the payment of the creatures of the Mayor (we mean it in no bad sense) is $480,500 a year; a heavy responsibility for a single man to bear. Such a patronage is apt to excite the greed of the unworthy. and to make it difficult for the best of men to separate merit and fit- ness from the mere sordid desire to get at the great sums that are paid for the work done for the city.
One would think that the Mayor would heartily welcome the re- strictions upon appointments, and the guidance as to fitness and merit therefor furnished by the Civil-service Commission. But, alas! the persons he has to put into place are too big for the laws applying to the civil service. Yet these afford a safeguard for lower ranks, which multiply, much beyond the nearly three hundred appointees of the Mayor, the number of those serving the city and drawing its pay. Therefore the charter emphasizes the existence of the commission, placing the sections relating thereto naturally enough under the chapter devoted to the Mayor. It reads: " The Mayor shall appoint three or more suitable persons as commissioners to prescribe and amend, subject to his approval, and to enforce regulations for appoint- ments to, and promotions in, the civil service thereof, and for classi- fications and examinations therein, and for the registration and se- lection of laborers for employment therein, in pursuance of the con- stitution of this State. Said commissioners shall receive no compen- sation." The latter provision seems appropriate, so as to place their work above even the suspicion of other than perfectly disinterested motives. The regulations they are to make are to provide, among other things: (1) for the classification of the offices, places, and employ- ments in the civil service of the said city; (2) for examinations, wher- ever practicable, to ascertain the fitness of applicants for appoint- ment to said civil service, the examinations to be public; (3) for the filling of vacancies from among those graded highest, sailors and soldiers honorably discharged having the preference; (4) for a period of probation before an appointment or employment is made perma- nent, and (5) for promotions in office on the basis of ascertained merit and seniority in service, and upon such examinations as may be for the good of the public service. Finally a section is devoted to care- fully defining the authority and duty of the commission, which can not be without interest to any citizen of the great municipality: " The persons so appointed or employed shall be known as Municipal Civil-
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service Commissioners, and within the amount appropriated therefor they shall have authority to employ a secretary, examiners, and such other subordinates as may be necessary. It shall be the duty of such persons to make reports from time to time to the State Civil-serv- ice Commission, whenever said commission may request, of the manner in which the civil-service law, and the rules and regulations thereunder, have been and are administered, and the results of their administration in such city. and of such other matters as said com- mission may require, and annually, on or before the tenth day of Jauu- ary in each year, to make such a report to said commissioner, and it shall be the duty of said State Commission in its annual report to set out either these reports, or a sufficient abstract or summary thereof, to give full and clear information as to their contents.
" It shall be the duty of all persons in the official service of the city to conform to and comply with said rules and regu- lations, and any modifications thereof made pursuant to the authority of this section or said rules and regulations, and to aid and facilitate in all reasonable and proper ways the enforcement of said rules and regulations, and any modi- fications thereof, and the holding of all examinations which may be required under the authority of this section or said rules and regula- tions. Until the appointment of a Municipal Civil-service Commission under this act in said city the Municipal Civil-service Commissioners now in existence in any part of the territory of said city shall continue iu office, and the civil-service rules now in force therein shall continue to be in force until the adoption of new rules hereunder. The au- thority by this section conferred shall not be so exercised as to take from any policeman or fireman any right or benefit now conferred by law or by this act, or existing under any lawful regulation of the de- partment in which he serves. Proper provisions shall be made in the annual budget for all the expenses of the Municipal Civil-service Com- missioners."
Another interesting feature of the city's administration not sched- uled under any of the departments, but placed, as it were, under the wing of the Mayor and treated of under this chapter, is the Bureau of Municipal Statistics. In the language of the charter: " There shall be a Bureau of Municipal Statistics of the City of New York for the purpose of collecting, keeping, and publishing, as hereinafter or otherwise provided by law, such statistical data relating to the city, as shall be deemed of utility or interest to the city government or its citi- zens." This bureau is to consist of a Chief, appointed for four years, at a salary of $3,500 per annum; and of a Commission of not less than three and not more than six members: they shall serve for the term of six years after the first members have divided themselves by lot into three classes to serve two and four and six years respectively, and they receive no compensation. Their expenses, exclusive of the Chief's
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salary and those of his assistants, must not ordinarily exceed in any one year the sum of ten thousand dollars.
In a review of the Departments, that of Finance comes in first of all for a share of our consideration, and it deservedly stands first on the list of the departments enumerated by the charter, as we have seen. In round numbers there are some seventy-five millions of dol- lars to be handled, managed, collected, disbursed, in connection with the administration of the enlarged municipality. The head of this department is called the Comptroller, and he is elected by the people, so as to be perfectly independent of the Mayor, subject neither to his appointment nor removal. Payments by or on behalf of the corpora- tion must be made on vouchers filed in the department, by means of warrants drawn on the Chamberlain by the Comptroller, and counter- signed by the Mayor. The Comptroller settles and adjusts all claims in favor of or against the corporation, and all accounts in which the corporation is concerned as debtor or creditor. The Comptroller is obliged to furnish to each head of department, weekly, a statement of the unexpended balances of the appropriations for his department. The assent of the Comptroller is necessary to all agreements entered intobyany city officer or department for the acquisition by purchase of any real estate or easement therein. The salary of this officer is fixed at $10,000 per annum, and he appoints a Deputy-Comptroller. The Finance Department is divided into five bureaus: (1) A bureau for the collection of revenue accruing from rents and interests on bonds and mortgages, from the use or sale of property belonging to or managed by the city, and the management of markets; the chief officer is called Collector of City Revenue and Superintendent of Markets; (2) a burean for the collection of taxes, headed by the Receiver of Taxes, at a salary of $5,000 per annum; (3) one for the collection of assessments and ar- rears, with a Collector, at $4,000 a year: (4) an Auditing Bureau, with officers called Auditors of Accounts; (5) a bureau for the reception and safe keeping of all moneys paid into the treasury of the city, and for the payment of money on warrants drawn by the Comptroller and countersigned by the Mayor, the chief officer of which shall be called the Chamberlain.
This brings us, then, to the consideration of a very important office and officer. Perhaps a more intelligible title would be treasurer. Though almost stowed away in a corner, so to speak, at the end of the fifth bureau enumerated by the charter, over all of which bureaus and the whole Finance Department towers the Comptroller, separately elected by the people on the same ticket with the Mayor; while the Chamberlain is an appointee of the latter. Yet this functionary re- ceives a higher salary than his chief, or $12,000 per annum. This is doubtless due to the fact that he actually handles the funds. He is also placed under a bond of $300,000, with not less than four suf- ficient sureties. As we read the detail of his duties we are con-
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firmed in the conviction that the Chamberlain is a treasurer. He is to render a report statedly to the Municipal Assembly. He deposits all moneys coming into his hands on account of the city, in banks and trust companies properly designated. This is done by a majority vote at a meeting of the Mayor, Comptroller, and Chamberlain, and by writ- ten notice to the Comptroller, as to what institutions have been se- lected; no bank or trust company being selected whose officers shall not agree to pay into the city treasury interest on the daily balances. The Chamberlain draws the money from these banks by checks sub- joined and attached to warrants. He must exhibit his bank book to the Comptroller on the first Tuesday of each month. His accounts are annually closed on the last day of November, to be examined during the month of December.
A very important bureau of the municipal government is the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. It is composed of five of the highest functionaries in the city's service: the Mayor, the Comptroller, the Cor- poration Counsel, the President of the Council, and the President of the Board of Taxes and Assessments. The first meeting of the year is called by the Mayor, and subsequent ones as the Board shall direct; and at the meetings the Mayor presides, and one of the members acts as secretary. We must be particular how we recount the details of proceedings so vital to the conduct of the city's government, and there- fore so elaborately provided for by the directions of the charter; hence. in its own language, we continue: " The said Board shall annually, between the first day of October and the first day of November, meet. and by the affirmative vote of all the members make a budget of the amounts estimated to be required to pay the expenses of conducting the public business of the City of New York as constituted by this act, for the then next ensuing year. Such budget shall be prepared in such detail as to the aggregate sum and the items thereof allowed to each department, bureau, office, board, or commission, as the said Board of Estimate and Apportionment shall deem advisable. In order to enable said Board to make such budget, the heads of depart- ments, bureaus, offices, boards, and commissions shall, at least thirty days before the said budget is hereby required to be made, send to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment an estimate in writing, herein called a departmental estimate, of the amount of expenditure, specify- ing in detail the objects thereof, required in their respective depart- ments, bureaus, offices, boards, and commissions, including a state- ment of each of the salaries of their officers, clerks, employees, and sub- ordinates. Duplicates of these departmental estimates and statements shall be sent at the same time to the Municipal Assembly. Before finally determining upon the budget the Board of Estimate and Ap- portionment shall fix such sufficient time or times as may be necessary to allow the taxpayers of said city to be heard in regard thereto, and the said board shall attend at the time or times so appointed for such
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hearing. After such budget is made by the Board of Estimate and Ap- portionment it shall be signed by all the members thereof, and sub- mitted by said Board within ten days to the Municipal Assembly, whereupon a special joint meeting of the two houses constituting the Municipal Assembly shall be called to consider such budget, and the same shall simultaneously be published in the City Record. The President of the Council shall preside at such joint meeting, and it shall be the duty of said two houses to consider and investigate care- fully the said budget; but such consideration and investigation shall not continue beyond fifteen days. The Municipal Assembly, by a ma- jority vote by all the members elected thereto, may reduce the said several amounts fixed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, except such amounts as are now or may hereafter be fixed by law, and except such amounts as may be inserted by the said Board of Estimate and Apportionment for the payment of State taxes and payment of in- terest and principal of the city debt, but the Municipal Assembly may not increase such amounts nor insert any new items. Such action of the Municipal Assembly on reducing any item or amount fixed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment shall be subject to the veto power of the Mayor as elsewhere provided in this act, and unless such veto is overridden by a five-sixths vote of the Municipal Assembly the item or amount as fixed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment shall stand as part of the budget. After the final estimate is made in accordance herewith. it shall be signed by the President of the Council and the members of the Board of Estimate and Apportion- ment, and when so signed the said several sums shall be and become appropriated to the several purposes and departments therein named. The same estimate shall be filed in the office of the Comptroller and published in the City Record and corporation newspapers."
The next Department is that of Law. That the salary of its chief. the Corporation Counsel, is made equal to that of the Mayor himself. indicates the importance and value of such a functionary to the con- duct of the city government and the interests of its citizens. He is to exercise the part of the attorney and counsel not only to the Mayor. but likewise to the Municipal Assembly, and to each and every of- ficer, board, and department of the city, and also to the city as a corporation when made a party to a suit as such. He has the power to appoint such number of assistants as he shall deem necessary, who each shall exercise to the full the duties of corporation counsel in the special cases delegated to him by his chief. There may also be estab- lished branch offices; in the Borough of Brooklyn such a branch must be appointed, and at option in all or either of the other boroughs.
The third division of city administration is the Police Department. By provision of the charter it is not single-headed. but rather of hydra order in that way. " The head of the Police Department shall be called the Police Board." That Board consists of four persons.
NEW YORK
STEAM PILOT BOAT NEW YORK.
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known as Police Commissioners, two of whom must belong to the Democratic Party and two to the Republican Party. Here have we, then, the bi-partisan police board. This is quite at variance with the " Brooklyn idea," in which city this as well as the other depart- ments was administered by a single commissioner. Its very terms of composition, too, wipe out the expectation that " polities" can be kept ont of a department where it will do the most harm, and which ought to be conducted, from chief to lowest patrolman, with the most absolute impartiality and indifference as to political sentiments or affiliations. A recent writer puts the case strongly against the bi-par- tisan board. He says: " The bi-partisan police board was not in- vented for the public benefit. Every experienced police official knew that it was totally opposed to public interests. More than four years ago an honest and able man who knew what he was talking about pointed out that a so-called bi-partisan board was powerful for evil and helpless as a child for good. It could not enforce discipline, which is absolutely essential to the efficiency and integrity of the force. . When the period arrives,' he said. . that nations shall have four Executives, States four Governors, cities four Mayors, two of whom shall be elected or appointed because they disagree with the other two; when banks shall have four Presidents instead of one, elected because they disagree; trust companies four Presidents; four Super- intendents of Police, four Police Captains for each precinet, two ap- pointed because they disagree with the others, and good results flow from the divided responsibility, why then, and not until then, can it be nrged with any force that there should be four Police Commission- ers. It has been shown over and again since this was said that a bi-partisan police board can not serve the public." On the other hand, Mr. William C. De Witt, himself a Brooklyn man, has some words in defense of a board so constituted, although only in the case of a " Czar-Mayor," and a short term. " Under such a Mayor," he said, " it is better that the Police Department should be bi-partisan, since a body of policemen growing in a few years from eight to fifteen thousand in number might, through malign influences npon those who are dependent upon the license and indulgence of the municipality. through the fears of the timid, whom they might menace, and by vir- tue of their organized and far-reaching power, exercise a control over our elections as fatal to our rights and liberties as a standing army in time of peace is to the freedom and prosperity of a republic. A bi- partisan board, amenable at all times to the Mayor's power to remove. is far better than a partisan police with a bold and ambitions Fouche at their head." The chief apprehension felt by people in regard to the political affiliations so distinctly accentnated in the very make-np of the Board, is the fact that it is made to act also in a capacity which puts it into influential and governing connection with elections, in that " it shall also have cognizance and control of the burean of elec-
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tions." The charter says of this bureau : " There shall be in the Police Department created by this chapter a bureau to be known and desig- nated as the General Bureau of Elections of the City of New York, which shall be located at Police Headquarters in the Borough of Man- hattan. Branches of said General Bureau shall be established as follows: One in the Borough of The Bronx, one in the Borough of Brooklyn, one in the Borough of Richmond, and one in the Borough of Queens. Said Police Board shall have cognizance and control of said General Bureau of Elections, and of the branches thereof, and of the officers, employees, affairs, and administration of said Gen- eral Bureau and its branches. The affairs of said General Bureau of Elections and of said branches thereof, under and subject to such rules, regulations, and orders as may, from time to time, be made by said Police Board, not inconsistent with the provisions of the election law or of this chapter, shall be managed, con- ducted, and carried on by a person chosen and appointed by said Police Board who shall be known as the Superintendent of Elections of the City of New York; and such other officers, clerks, assistants, and employees as may be selected or appointed as hereinafter provided." Now, Mr. De Witt, one of the Charter Commissioners, in the lecture aforesaid, meets the objection to the bi-partisan nature of the board on this very ground by explaining from the position of an expert, and one who, by his connection with the charter, had an inside knowledge of the purposes which might not always be expressible in words. He says: " Nor is there anything in the suggestion that the charter gives the police any real control over the machinery of our elections. While the heads of the Bureau of Elections are selected by the bi- partisan Board of Police, and their offices are seated in that depart- ment, their relation to the elections is purely clerical and perfunctory. All the real election officers-the registers, who make up the list; the inspectors, who superintend the casting of the ballots in the boxes, and the canvassers who count the votes-are appointed by the regular committees of the political parties respectively. The returns are made to several departments and there is not the slightest chance under the charter for the police to interfere with the votes or the count." This may be a very roseate view of the situation, but we are bound to hope the best of what is now established, and prepare for im- provement if evidence of its actual working convinces us that the scheme operates worse than we hoped and as badly as we feared.
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