If the council held the key to the city treasury,
the boss reigned, for councilmen from properly gerrymandered
wards could usually be trusted to execute his will.
The third form of government was government by boards. Here it
was attempted to place the administration of various municipal
activities in the hands of independent boards. Thus a board had
charge of the police, another of the fire department, another of
public works, and so on. Often there were a dozen of these boards
and not infrequently over thirty in a single city, as in
Philadelphia. Sometimes these boards were elected by the people;
sometimes they were appointed by the council; sometimes they were
appointed by the mayor; in one or two instances they were
appointed by the Governor. Often their powers were shared with
committees of the council; a committee on police, for instance,
shared with the Board of Police Commissioners the direction of
police affairs. Usually these boards were responsible to no one
but the electorate (and that remotely) and were entirely without
coordination, a mere agglomeration of independent creations
generally with ill-defined powers.
Sometimes the laws provided that not all the members of the
appointive boards should "belong to the same political party" or
"be of the same political opinion in state and national issues."
It was clearly the intention to wipe out the partizan complexion
of such boards. But this device was no stumbling-block to the
boss.
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