A long step toward the fulfillment of these principles in actual life has been taken in the county of Los Angeles, Cal., one of those communities in which the doctrine of complexity was once carried to absurd extremes. But the new charter of this county, which was the first to be adopted[21] under the home-rule provisions of the constitution, proceeded in great measure in the light of the theory exemplified by the commission plan in the cities. The supervisors are retained on the elective list as the constitution requires, but the county superintendent of schools, coroner, public administrator, county clerk, treasurer, tax collector, recorder and surveyor, all of whom were formerly elected by the voters, are now appointed by and are responsible to the county governing body, which is the board of supervisors. The sheriff, the auditor, the assessor and the district attorney are still elective. In thus extending the power of the board of supervisors, the charter framers require that, with a few exceptions, the officers shall be chosen from competitive lists on the basis of merit and fitness. The fee system is abolished. The Los Angeles achievement, while it falls far short of the measure of unity which is present in many counties governed by the commissioner system, is important as a recent conscious step toward greater simplicity. And now that we have perfected a mechanism for expressing the general will of the people of the county, it remains to arm the governing body more effectively with the means for translating mere wishes into concrete acts of administration. To put it otherwise, we must mobilize the operating departments under effective leadership. Recall, first, our statement in an earlier chapter that the county in the United States is almost universally devoid of a definite executive head. One exception is the two first-class counties of New Jersey (Hudson and Essex) where until recent years the so-called board of chosen freeholders were elected from districts. Under these circumstances the need was felt for some agency to represent the unity of interest among the several localities, in the government of the county. Accordingly, the office of supervisor was conceived. The incumbent is elected by the people of the county and has powers not unlike those of the mayor in many cities. He is required “to be vigilant and active in causing the laws and ordinances of the county to be executed and enforced.” Subject to the civil service law he has power to suspend and remove but not to appoint subordinates. He may propose legislation and veto resolutions. Fifteen years of experience have not commended this institution to wider adoption. With one or two exceptions the supervisors, like most mayors of cities, have not been men of force or imagination and they have been controlled, apparently, by the same political elements as the board of freeholders upon which they were supposed to have served as a check.