Chapter I: Preface

The American people have never ceased, nor do they give any signs of ceasing, in their effort to master the mechanics of political democracy. Curiously, however, they have quite neglected one of the most promising of all the approaches to this study--the government of counties. It is in the belief that a discussion of this subject would tend to throw a great new light upon the “democratic experiment” that the author has prepared this volume.

This is not a hand-book or a treatise on counties. Such a work cannot be successfully carried through without a much wider and more thorough research into the subject than has as yet been attempted. The author hopes that this present work will do something to suggest and stimulate such research. In the meantime the outlines of a very real and very important “county problem” are visible and they mark the scope of this volume.

The reader will doubtless note the complete absence of any discussion of the county in its relation to the educational system. The explanation of this omission lies in the great difficulty of distinguishing anything like a universal interest of the county in this branch of public administration, apart from those of the state government and of the smaller divisions, except in the levying of taxes and the distribution of tax money.

To Mr. Richard S. Childs, Secretary of The Short Ballot Organization, the author is indebted for the suggestion that the book should be written, and for criticisms of the manuscript. Assistance of the most helpful sort during the manuscript stage was also rendered by Mr. Herbert R. Sands, of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, and by Mr. Otho G. Cartwright, of the Westchester County Research Bureau.

Inasmuch also as it has not seemed advisable to encumber the text with an excessive number of footnotes, the author wishes to acknowledge particularly his debt to Prof. John A. Fairlie’s volume, _The Government of Counties, Towns, and Villages_, which was the source of much of the historical material, and to Mr. Earl W. Crecraft, whose studies of Hudson County, N. J., have been drawn upon at considerable length.

H. S. GILBERTSON.

NEW YORK,
January 15, 1917.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I.--A POLITICAL BY-WAY 1

II.--JUST WHAT IS A COUNTY 9

III.--A CREATURE OF TRADITION 16

IV.--FALLING AFOUL OF “DEMOCRACY” 25

V.--THE JUNGLE 34

VI.--A BASE OF POLITICAL SUPPLIES 43

VII.--URBAN COUNTIES 57

VIII.--COUNTY GOVERNMENTS AT WORK 66

IX.--THE HUMANITARIAN SIDE 80

X.--ROADS AND BRIDGES 94

XI.--NULLIFICATION 104

XII.--STATE MEDDLING 112

XIII.--STATE GUIDANCE 120

XIV.--READJUSTMENTS 129

XV.--COUNTY HOME RULE 145

XVI.--CONSOLIDATION 151

XVII.--RECONSTRUCTION 168

XVIII.--SCIENTIFIC ADMINISTRATION 181

XIX.--THE COUNTY OF THE FUTURE 193

APPENDIX A--CONSTITUTIONAL COUNTY HOME
RULE IN CALIFORNIA 207

APPENDIX B--THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY
CHARTER 219

APPENDIX C--PROPOSED COUNTY HOME RULE
AMENDMENT IN NEW YORK 247

APPENDIX D--PROPOSED COUNTY MANAGER
LAW IN NEW YORK 251

APPENDIX E--THE CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER
IN NEW YORK CITY 257

APPENDIX F--A COUNTY ALMSHOUSE IN TEXAS 266

BIBLIOGRAPHY 275

INDEX 285

THE COUNTY