Maurice Clifford sees fascist blueprints in the advent of the ‘city-manager’ system of local government and the limiting of elective powers.

‘Fascist Germs in Local Government’ by Maurice Clifford from Class Struggle (C.L.S.). Vol. 4 No. 11. November, 1934.

Up to the end of the 19th century the only type of city government that had been widely developed in the United States was the decentralized Mayor-Council form of government which was based on the federal analogy of checks and balances by which the legislative and administrative functions were separated and allotted to the Council and Mayor respectively. But with the beginning of the 20th century the form of city government began to experience deep- rooted changes which have centralized and consolidated its powers. And in the period before us we can see the form of local government more and more turning in its new direction. This turn is due to efforts further to blend government with industrial and financial management in a new synthesis of power. As such it is the product of imperialist capitalism which has organized its most highly perfected state form in the countries abroad where today it raises it vastus face of FASCISM. In the field of municipal government this concentration of powers has up to now found its most apt expression in the Council-Manager of the City-Manager plan.

About the turn of the century the “strong Mayor” type of city government was proposed. By giving the Mayor greater administrative power the concept of a “general manager” in public administration came into being. However, the City-Manager plan was rather a development of the Commission plan of local government. The Commission plan entirely disregarded the idea of a chief administrator, made possible the elimination of the checks and balances and introduced direct methods of popular control—the initiative, referendum and recall. A small Commission (from three to nine) constituted as a group the city Council. The Commissioners served in a dual capacity; collectively they were the legislative body and individually they served as administrative heads of the city departments. This simplified the government but, at the same time, it failed to bring about adequate co-ordination of activity, and administrative weakness which grew out of the diffusion of responsibility among the Commissioners. This weakness the City-Manger plan sought to overcome by further centralizing all administrative power. The appointive executive provided by the latter plan was its one unique feature. The plan retained three integral principles of the Commission plan, first, the small Council in which was vested every power of the city, legislative and executive, that is to say, the Unification of Powers. Secondly, the Councilmen were the only elected officer in the city government, that is, the Short Ballot. Thirdly, they were selected on a non-partisan basis. The Council was required to appoint a chief executive office called a City-Manager. He was chose on the basis of training, ability and experience regardless of the local political line-up and frequently from distant cities. He was supposed to be an expert, put in full charge and he was responsible to the Council.

The checks and balances system was good enough for the quiet 19th century days-the cades of the peaceful development of competitive capitalism- when the United States was building its productive forces and the home market was still expanding. The Mayor was considered primarily as a grand ward politician, that is, as a dispenser of patronage, rather than as an administrator; and with the operation of the “spoils” system, the cities treasuries were plundered regularly. Though the men who were engaged in carrying on the industrial and commercial interests of the community grumbled at bad municipal government and heavy taxes they found it more profitable to pay the cost and attend unremittingly to their own private business. With the birth of the new century United States industry reorganized itself for competition in the world markets, and by the end of the first decade trustified industry based on finance capital had definitely established itself as the dominant force in political life. It is then we find the men of big business more and more taking a leading role in municipal reform. It was they who were the prime moving forces for the Commission form of government as well as being the sires of the City-Manager plan.

As the urban population grew by leaps and bounds municipal activity kept pace. The governments of the growing cities took over one by one services usually performed by individuals or left unperformed when the cities were smaller. Detroit, for example, added 81 new activities between 1910 and 1920 and 55 others in the next decade compared to a total of 147 acquired during the 86 years prior to 1910. In this way came about the consolidation of powers in municipal government.

The 20th century business men who had already reorganized industry drew an obvious analogy between its corporate form and government. They made it manifest that the management of a city is in reality a business undertaking of tremendous complexity. Many were the reasons with which big business men supported the new form of city government. They sought to increase the efficiency of government and to reduce cost. They wanted complete freedom of executive action from the influence of ward politicians who might be swayed by popular pressure. Besides, with a centralized government they could handle union and labor troubles more effectively. But, principally, their hope was to gain control of the municipal government through their own men to enforce these measures. They proposed the concentration of executive power in one responsible officer. In a business corporation the stockholders choose a Board of Directors which in turn selects the President or Manager. The company executive picks most or all of his operating staff, being responsible to the directors merely for getting results. Why not apply this to the form of city government? The voters are the “shareholders” who elect their “Board of Directors”, the Council or Commission. Under this pressure the system of checks and balances gave way to one of centralized power and action. Thus it is that the City-Manager plan is pushed forward in the era of imperialism when rationalization becomes the mode everywhere and the government is modeled after the trusts.

The rise of the City-Manager plan is the manifestation in municipal government of the increasing recognition of the technological revolution in industry. It replaces the amateur by the technician. The technician, trained by industry, now organizes and runs the city, setting up the basis of experience and providing the tradition which will support the aims of the Technocrats. The plan is the most advanced point in the movement toward government by experts. The Commission plan centralized the powers of the city government but it did not guarantee experts to administer the various departments. The City-Manager plan strengthened the Commission plan at its weakest point by insuring a high grade of professional skill at the head of the cities administrative service. Of 629 City-Managers 52% have been chosen from responsible business or industrial positions and 43% more were selected from other government posts. These figures apply to the principal life work of these men and the percentages are precisely reversed for their immediate positions, 42% coming directly from business or industry and 52% from prior government posts.

The City-Manager appoints competent department heads, also experts, chosen on the basis of training and experience, without regard to “politics.” The Manager appoints all other city officials and employees (subject to the civil service regulations) and he may suspend or dismiss them for proper cause. He assigns to each his particular work. With his “cabinet” of trained experts, engineers and technicians he gathers around himself his own “brain trust.” He meets with the Council, advising and steering legislative matters, although he does not vote on them. He is the autocrat of the city administration. Note how well this lines up with the “strong man” movement in government.

Concurrently with the growth of the Commission plan and the City-Manager plan the “strong Mayor” proposal, too, gained ground. A similar centralization of powers took place in the office of Mayor, who was made responsible as the chief administrative officer of the city. The recent proposals of Samuel Seabury and Al Smith for a new charter for the City of New York follow this concept. They would abolish the Board of Aldermen, centralizing all power in the Board of Estimate (Council) and giving it far wider powers than it now has. The Mayor, supreme in the Board of Estimates, would dominate the city government.

Despite the continuance of the old decentralized bodies, that is, the Boards of Aldermen and Estimate, Mayor LaGuardia has already concentrated the power in the executive division of New York City’s government. This may be seen in his “emergency bill”, passed by the state legislature, which gives to the LaGuardia controlled Board of Estimate power to consolidate, merge and abolish city and county departments, abolish useless offices, cut salaries, except those of teachers, policemen and firemen, and to furlough (without pay) even these employees for one month in a year. These powers are carried out in his administration of the parks, hospitals, markets, etc. To head the various departments LaGuardia also has chosen his experts, his “brain trust,.” in several instances calling them to New York from other cities. Meetings of the Board of Estate start promptly, the proceedings go forward briskly and in a businesslike manner. The Mayor keeps “business” hours in his office, an unheard of practice in previous administrations. In becoming an exponent of action, in his desire to get things done through administrative control, LaGuardia, too, becomes and example of Mussolinism in local government.

Besides its development in large industrial and manufacturing cities the City-Manager plan has been introduced also into the residential community, often the suburb of an industrial region. Here the working class is small, the petty-bourgeoisie predominate, yet the small property holder, store and business proprietor and professionals are a minority to a newer element of the population. This element is made up of people (foremen, office staff, professional men, salesmen, etc.) Whose jobs have been given them by big business. Besides, there are those who are entirely dependent upon their investment in trustified industry. They are the dividend check cashers and coupon clippers, in short, rentiers. It is because they are so intimately connected with trustified industry that they have rationalized their city governments.

The City-Manager followed the example set by the trusts in his drive for efficient and cheap government. From them he copied the mechanization, electrification, motorization, incineration and standardization which were introduced into the municipal departments to release employees for other duties or to dispense with them altogether. Redundant posts were abolished, duties combined, the wages and salaries bill reduced. This rationalization of the government, accompanying the concentration and consolidation of its powers, led to the government becoming “trustified.” It is now “organized capitalism” in miniature. It is virtually corporative government, the corporate city-state.

When government breaks down under crucial tests the centralization of powers comes into being. It is significant that natural catastrophes had a great deal to do with centralized forms of city government. The decentralized government of the City of Galveston faced a desperate situation following the destruction of a large part of the city by the tidal wave of 1900. Much of the public property—streets, schools, light and water plants—was destroyed or badly damaged. The destruction of private property was such that the ability of the population to aid was diminished. Many of the wealthy class deserted the city. The old government failed in the crisis. It was then that the Texas legislature acceded to the request for a Commission to govern the city. A few years later Houston adopted the Commission plan with the addition of the initiative, referendum, recall and non-partisan ballot and initiated the rapid spread of Commission government until the peak was reached in 1917 with about 500 Commission governed cities.

Likewise the 1913 flood in Dayton, Ohio brought into bold relief the inefficiency of the decentralized administration which broke down at an equally critical moment. In Dayton the City- Manager Charter was adopted and was followed almost immediately in this move by Springfield, Ohio. The spread to a whole host of other cities was rapid. April 1934 saw 448 communities in the United States under this form of government. Included were 20% of all the cities of between 25 and 50 thousand population, more than 25% of those between 50 and 100 thousand and nearly one-fifth of those having more than 100 thousand inhabitants.

While the Council-Manager plan is largely confined in operation to cities, in theory the principle applies for counties and even for states. In 1919 Kansas had a “State Manager” with administrative control of all state institutions. The numerous county “Managers” and the steady growth of enabling legislation are cumulative evidence of the adaptability of the Manager plan to county administration.

The years 1917-1918 were a period of even more crucial testing and the simplicity of centralized control allowed economy and efficiency where they were most needed. The great army training camps which the federal government established during the world war were given all the facilities of modern cities and were put under the guidance of practical managers known as “Officers in Charge of Utilities” who, in many cases, were members of the City-Managers’ Association. Here the federal government used the Manager plan where it wanted efficiency and speed. City-Manager cities undertook various phases of war work in a very determined manner, handling the fuel question, the housing problem and furnishing water, electricity and other services in the nearby cantonments. The imperialist war brought out the value of an administrator with centralized authority and the City-Manager plan was promoted as a war measure. In the first half of 1918 more cities put the Manager plan into effect than any whole year previously. Because the centralization of powers was found to be a requisite in meeting the emergences created by natural disasters and war, we may look for an accelerated movement in this direction as the cities are faced with grave social emergency arising from their inadequate handling of the problems of relief for the unemployed.

In all phases of the movement to centralize the powers of the city governments we see a very fertile field for the growth of fascist forms in the government itself. Just notice how much like the fascist doctrine of the Corporative State is the operation of the City-Manager plan which gives to the whole mechanism of city government that single controlling, composite mind which fascism finds necessary for its success. We must not minimize the threat of danger which lies in this path because remnants of democracy still surround it. He chief administrator of the cities in the fascist countries is appointed, not elected, and where the appointment is made by the Council it must be confirmed by the central government or is made by it in the first instance as is the German Burgomaster and the Italian Fodesta. Should fascism come it will dispense with democratic forms as Hitler did in Germany. Already in America we have precedents for such action. In Alaska the governments of many communities are carried on by U.S. officers whose duties correspond very closely to those of a City-Manager. And when the Commission plan was adopted by Galveston three of its five Commissioners were appointed by the Governor. In Washington, D.C., which has been under Commission government since 1878, the three Commissioners are appointed by the President and the Senate. While this grew out of the relation of the national government to this particular city, it is a precedent which can be extended to other cities. Here we have the germ of fascism arising from above through the beginnings of the fascisation of the apparatus of the government, which we may call the “cold” growth of fascism. And when we consider the hundreds of cities now government by Commissions, “strong Mayors,” or City-Managers we must declare them to be a huge predisposition for the inroads of fascism.

In this connection it is very significant to note than in the Commission or City-Manager forms of government there are usually no “party” candidates as such. Party lines are destroyed as much as possible and the theory is openly carried out; the city must be run as a good business is run. There must be no class struggle in municipal elections. The destruction of political parties in municipal elections which control so much of the people’s lives leads to the general attitude that parliamentarism, political parties and oppositions are harmful to the community and to society, itself a tenet of fascism. Then non-partisan provisions of these plans ostensibly aimed at the separation of local affairs from national politics. Actually they counterposed class-collaboration to the class struggle by rendering ineffective on a city scale the political organization of the working class.

Moreover, these plans were introduced by Liberals as an extension of democracy, making it practical and workable. They hailed them as laying bare the process of government so that the busy, ordinary voter could exercise his full share of control. If the move to centralize the city government was attended by such democratic flourishes, referendum and recall this was only a seeming liberalization. To say that non-partisan elections on the Short Ballot gave the voter more direct control over the officers to be elected is to be specious. Whereas the decentralized Councils of the Mayor-Council governed cities were elected by wards, both the Commission and the City-Manager plans usually elect their governing bodies from the city at large. Whereas, before, the Ward Councilman was responsible to the desires of his neighborhood constituents and far closer to the people, the Councilman-at-large is much more removed from control in fact. This is part of the tendency to remove control from the many to the few. The smaller the controlling board the easier can it be “reached” by big business. It is easier by far for the trust-trained and dominated Councilman to become the controlling influence in a small centralized body than could be possible in the larger, localized Board of Aldermen, for example. The more direct control which is exercised over the Council or Commission is in the hands of the industrial and financial interests. Only they find in this simplification of democracy any extension of control.

In its attack on racketeering and graft the City-Manager plan is very close to fascism which also attacks gangsterism and parliamentary graft and turns against the parliament as well. Do not forget Mussolini’s relentless drive against the Mafia and L’affaire Stavisky which, in France, has been a focus of fascist activity. And fascism’s accomplishments in road-building, draining the Pontine Marshes and routing Italian trains on schedule are up to the par of the City- Manager’s drive for competency, efficiency and cheap government.

As we unravel the many loose threads in this skein we find them inextricably joined in a Gordian knot. Liberalism, the City-Manager plan, fascism are all linked to imperialist capitalism and to each other by myriad chains. We have seen how war-like, imperialist capitalism has discarded the pacific form of the checks and balances system of government in general and created in its stead the highly concentrated, unified, trustified, efficient and, in turn, war-like form of the City-Manager plan. And how like fascism this plan is in all its facets! The concentration of powers which was good to meet the emergencies of war time is equally needed by the bourgeoisie in the class struggle to combat strikes and all forms of rising working class movement. The non- partisan provisions of the City-Manager plan prepare the basis for the fascists’ only party (bourgeoisie controlled) which can brook no opposition. The same Liberals who campaigned so spiritedly for the Unification of Powers and the Short Ballot as an extension of popular control, “making America’s democracy democ!” will be found mastered and entrenched in the arising fascist movement.

The Communist League of Struggle was formed in March, 1931 by C.P. veterans Albert Weisbord, Vera Buch, Sam Fisher and co-thinkers after briefly being members of the Communist League of America led by James P. Cannon. In addition to leaflets and pamphlets, the C.L.S. had a mostly monthly magazine, Class Struggle, and issued a shipyard workers shop paper,The Red Dreadnaught. Always a small organization, the C.L.S. did not grow in the 1930s and disbanded in 1937.

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