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 CHAPTER I A POLITICAL BY-WAY To close up the underground passages to political power, to open up government and let in the daylight of popular opinion and criticism, to simplify organization, to make procedure more direct, to fix unmistakably the responsibilities of every factor in the State; that has been the strategy of the reconstructive democratic movement in America in the last fifteen years. Four hundred American cities, without regret and with little ceremony, have cast aside the tradition that complexity is the price of liberty. They have started afresh upon the principle that government is public business to be administered as simply, as directly, as openly and as cheaply as the law will allow. Inasmuch as their former governments were not adapted to that ideal, they have hastened to make them over. Contrary to prediction, the palladium of liberty has not fallen. Business goes on as usual, public business in a way that is amazingly satisfactory, as compared with the “good old” days. Where will the movement stop? Have all the secret passages been closed? Have all the dark alleys of local politics been lighted? Or does work for explorers lie ahead?