The people of New Jersey were thoroughly consistent in 1900 when their legislature broke with precedent and undertook to supply their counties of the first class with some sort of a head by creating the office of county supervisor. The governing boards of these counties were at that time composed of representatives from various municipalities. So it was decided, in order to give the whole people a voice in the government, to have the new officer elected at large. The legislature had no notion of giving anyone any new power. They proposed to further subdivide existing power. True, the law under which this new office was created, designates the supervisor as the chief executive. But, as has so often been the case in city charters, this designation proved to be only a fiction. The law gave the supervisor the right to remove subordinates, but no instrumentality with which to investigate the conduct of hundreds of county officers and employees and thus to make his authority effective. Moreover, he was crippled by the fact that the board of freeholders might reverse his decisions and reinstate the officers or employees suspended. But what is of more importance, the supervisor was given no power of original appointment. Similarly, Cook County, Ill., acquired a president of the board of county commissioners, who is elected by the people. Kings County, N. Y., before consolidation with New York City, had a supervisor-at-large. But neither of these dignitaries has or had any powers of appointment comparable to, let us say, those of the mayor of Cleveland or of New York. In the general run of counties, the executive is not a single officer but the governing board itself. Where the “town plan” is in vogue, as in certain Illinois counties, and throughout New York State, this body may be very large and unwieldy and is wholly incapable of supervising administrative detail, except through small committees, with the added division of responsibility which that implies.