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Show 8lngle copies, 10 cents. Payment should be made by Cheek, Money Order or Registered Letter, pay able to The Citizen. Addrees all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919. at the Postofflce at Salt Lehr of March 3, 1879. City, Utah, under the Act 8alt Lake City, Utah. Ness Bldg. Phone Wasatch 5409. Published Every Saturday BY GOODWIN8 WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO., INC. F. P. GALLAGHER, Editor. JAMES P. CASEY.Busines Manager 8UB8CRIPTION PRICE: In United 8tates, Canada and Mexico $2.50 per year, the Including postage six for months. $1.50 Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the. Postal Union, $4.50 per year. 311-12-- 13 TIME TO RESTORE PARTY RESPONSIBILITY We believe we express the opinion of most Salt Lake citizens who have studied the question when we say that the present commission form of government is unsatisfactory and that a substitute must be found. Perhaps a few interested Democrats will defend the commission now in office because a majority of the commissioners happen to be Democrats, but the bulk of the people, we feel sure, are demanding a return to responsible city government. Even those Democrats who will defend, or at least apalogize for the present form of government, are not willing that their party should accept responsibility for what has been done under that government. In the last campaign the Democrats sought to escape responsibility on the taxation issue by blaming all advances on the city government and then solemnly proclaiming the commission Had the Democratic machine politicians been more astute they could have shifted the responsibility with ease, for it is true that, under ordinary circumstances, the present government could have posed as But, emboldened by their success in the last few years, the Democrats openly boasted that they controlled the city government and the city government did what it could to confirm the claim by putting only Democrats on guard. bomb the When the Bock scandal suddenly burst like a poison-ga- s Democrats ran to cover, declaring that the mayor had been elected as a Nor would they accept blame for the commissioners who built their front and back porches and sidewalks of city cement with city workmen or painted their houses at the expense of the city. All this was gloriously Nor does it benefit the public to fix personal responsibility. If a commissioner is incompetent it does not improve the government to cry out that he is responsible. It adds neither to his ability nor honesty. He still has only the brains that God gave him with such impairments as he has been able to provide himself during a career of industrious blundering. The high hopes entertained when we adopted the commission form of government have been shattered. We took city government out of partisan politics and left it nowhere. The people lost interest .in their government because they could not fix accountability for anything. Their complaints blew down the winds like straw. If a water commissioner arrogated to himself czarlike powers he made himself offensive: if a street commissioner moved from one blunder to another he stirred latter complaint, but when an election and. there-foicame the offender and the blunderer might be hold-ovenot accountable at that election to the voters. The public could not hold a party responsible, for the system had eliminated party politics or, at any rate, the form of it and it non-partisa- n. non-partisa- n. non-partisa- n. non-partisa- n. rs e, could not hold the individual responsible because he was not up for re-electi- on. Moreover, the commission form of government became a sort of family affair. The commissioner kept the family secrets. It was understood that each should keep quiet about the others delinquencies. In fact, each commissioner extolled all the other commissioners and, in turn, was extolled by them. This served as propaganda for the next campaign. A young auditor benefited so much by this form of propaganda that he was elected mayor by a big majority, although he happened to be $12,000 short. True, the public did not know of his embezzlements. The secret society methods of the commission government made it possible for him to escape detection for years. Those who knew and those who suspected his dishonesty maintained silence. If a commissioner of streets demanded $250,000 a year for his department, the commissioner of another department would not accept less. He felt that he had as much right as the other fellow to squander the peoples money on an unnecessarily large payroll; that he had just as much right as the other fellow to use the citys money to build up a personal political machine. It is time to return to a safe and sane system. If party government is the only system that has been found good for the nation there is strong reason to believe that it ought to be good for cities. Highbrows and theorists have argued otherwise, and they have been vociferous in their claims, but the cold steel of experience has done to death the children of their imaginations. Let us have party responsibility again. If those in power fail we can hold the party responsible and parties will vie with one another to provide satisfactory administration. The legislature should turn its attention to this matter. It should provide for cities of the first' class a form of control that will permit the voters to approve or disapprove at the polls of the administration in power. It has been suggested that some features of the commission government might be retained. A mayor could be elected at large and a commissioner chosen from each of the five precincts. Ordinances and resolutions would pass by a majority vote of the commissioners, but would not become law unless signed by the mayor. Thus the mayor would have great power and commensurate responsibility. If he should see fit to veto a measure it CQuld be passed over his veto by a vote of four out of five. Whether the chief of police, the auditor, the treasurer and the imcity attorney should be appointive or elective is, of course, an portant question. If these officers are made appointive the power |