In May, 1912, Wermuth, the son of the blind King of Hanover's right-hand man, and he himself the recently resigned imperial secretary of the treasury, was elected Oberburgomaster of Berlin. Such is the standing of the men named to govern the German cities. It is as though Elihu Root should be elected mayor of New York, with Colonel John Biddle as police commissioner, and Colonel Goethals as commissioner of street-cleaning. May the day come when we can avail ourselves of the services of such men to govern our cities!
The magistracy numbers 34, of whom 18 receive salaries. The town council consists of 144 members, half of whom must be householders. They are elected for six years, and one-third of them retire every two years, but are eligible for re-election. They are elected by the three-class system of voting, which is described in another chapter. This three-class system of voting results in certain inequalities. In Prussia, for example, fifteen per cent. of the voters have two-thirds of the electoral power, and relatively the same may be said of Berlin.
Unlike the municipal elections in American cities, the voters have only a simple ballot to put in the ballot-box. National and state politics play no part, and the voter is not confused by issues that have nothing to do with his city government. The government of their cities is arranged for on the basis that officials will be honest, and work for the city and not for themselves. Our city organizations often give the air of living under laws framed to prevent thievery, bribery, blackmailing, and surreptitious murder. We make our municipal laws as though we were in the stone age.
These German cities are also, unlike American cities, autonomous. They have no state-made charters to interpret and to obey; they are not restricted as to debt or expenditure; and they are not in the grip of corporations that have bought or leased water, gas, electricity, or street-railway franchises, and these, represented by the wealthiest and most intelligent citizens, become, through the financial undertakings and interests of these very same citizens, often the worst enemies of their own city. The German cities are spared also the confusion, which is injected into our politics by a fortunately small class of reformers, with the prudish peculiarities of morbid vestals; men who cannot work with other men, and who bring the virile virtues, the sound charities, and wholesome morality into contempt.