THE RELATION OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT TO AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC IDEALS
L. S. ROWE Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
John Stuart Mill opens his discussion of Representative Gov- ernment with the remark that government
by some minds is conceived as strictly a practical. art, giving rise to no ques- tions but those of means and an end. Forms of government are assimilated to any other expedients for the attainment of human objects. They are regarded as wholly an affair of invention and contrivance. Being made by man, it is assumed that man has the choice either to make them or not, and how or on what pattern they shall be made. Government, according to this conception, is a problem to be worked like any other questions of business.
Mill here expresses a view which still dominates modern political thought, in spite of the fact that the philosophy of which it is the expression has long been outgrown in the study of institutions other than political. It is a curious fact that, while the doctrine of evolution, with its leading principle of the adaptation of form to function, has profoundly influenced our reasoning on all matters pertaining to social relations, it has failed to overcome the influ- ence of tradition upon our political thinking. We still deal with political phenomena as if governmental organization could be made, unmade, and remade without reference either to industrial conditions or to the special problems with which government has to deal. The principal effect and the immediate danger of this attitude toward questions of civil government are that our reason- ing on political affairs is usually "in harmony with what we want, rather than with the conditions and problems which gov- ernment has to face." The history of city government in the United States presents a peculiar interest to the student of politics, because it illustrates so clearly these general principles.
The formative period in the development of our American cities was dominated by an essentially negative view of govern-
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