City by Smith

Ultimate purpose of the long-lived legislative committee appointed to investigate New York City's affairs (TIME, April 6, 1931 et seq.) was to suggest reforms in the city government. After 14 months of raking out municipal scandals, last week the committee buckled down to constructive work. Alfred Emanuel Smith, who vitally reorganized the State government when he was Governor, was one of the first witnesses invited to make suggestions. Putting on his spectacles, unfolding voluminous charts, Citizen Smith proceeded to deliver a 75-min. lecture on civic reconstruction. When he had finished the committee was silent, Tammany Hall aghast, at a masterly exposition of a sweeping reformation.

Two most sensational general proposals pulled out of the Brown Derby were that the State pay city teachers' salaries and that a sustaining fare be established on the subways. "The only person that rides on the subway for 5-c- is the fellow who don't live in New York City. Everybody else pays more than 5-c-, but because they only drop a nickel in the turnstile they do not realize that the rest is in their rent."

Up to 1898, what is now New York City was two large cities, Brooklyn and New York. Staten Island was a collection of incorporated villages. In the consolidation of Greater New York, five boroughs were formed: Manhattan, The Bronx, Richmond (Staten Island), Brooklyn, Queens. Wasteful duplications of office resulted. New York City now has five "little Mayors" (borough presidents), five district attorneys, five sheriffs, an unwieldy Board of Aldermen (69 members). Its eight-man Board of Estimate can hamstring the Mayor at will. The present board has so notoriously scotched the economy program of Acting Mayor Joseph Vincent McKee and failed to economize by itself, that last week Acting Governor (elect) Herbert H. Lehman had to call a special Legislative session Dec. 9 to consider amending mandatory municipal pay scales for New York City.

The Smith Plan for New York City is as follows: a municipal government headed by the Mayor, a Vice Mayor and a cabinet of ten department chiefs. The Vice Mayor would preside over a city Senate of eleven members: three each from Manhattan and Brooklyn, two each from Queens and The Bronx, one from Richmond. A city Assembly of 23 members would be formed, one member from each State Senatorial district in the city. There would be but one district attorney, one sheriff, no borough presidents. All executive functions of the city would be under the Mayor except the office of Comptroller whose sole function would be to report to the electorate the state of the city's finances.

Two noteworthy departmental elisions were suggested by Citizen Smith. In a Department of Public Safety would be lumped the police and fire departments, the city inspection services. The education department would not only oversee the school system, but all museums, The Bronx Zoo, Grant's Tomb. Under the Smith Plan, the Governor, with the approval of the State Senate, would appoint superior court judges for life, with 70 as the retirement age. The Mayor would appoint magistrates to the lower courts under the same terms.

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