A DESPOTIC MAYOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 74, 30 March 1910, Page 11

A DESPOTIC MAYOR.

LABOUR RULES SAN FRANCISCO. The new Mayor of San Francisco, P. H. M'Carthy, leader of the Union Party, is making a clean sweep in every department of the city government . substituting in all appointive positions members of his own party for the dismissed officials. Although he has been in power less than one month, Mayor has proved himself aij uncom. promising dictator (writes a San Francisco correspondent). The Government of San Francisco is an unqualified autocracy. Every branch — the Legisla' tive, the Health, the Police, the Educational, the Fire Department, the Board of Works, the Civil Service Commission — takes oiders from the Mayor. AH the appointees have announced that it will be their chief object to carry out the policies of Mayor M'Carthy. Such a complete centialication of all power has never before been known in San Francisco, and perhaps never in an American city in ordinal y times. The Mayor openly justifies his appointment of political ,frieiids and associates. He says he is entitled to surround himself with men in sympathy with his policy and purposes. He made his campaign on a denunciation of the then existing administration. Having been elected by a large majority, he says tho voters have directed him to turn out all officials upon whom he can place his hands. The San Francisco Call thus expresses the situation : — "Mayor M'Carthy ha» made himself absolute ruler of Sau Francisco, and lie has vowed that be will be a benevolent despot. A despotism may bo tho best form of government, or it may be the woist. For the present it is only necessary to realise that the Government of San Francisco is an absolute despotibm, for whose conduct one man, and one man alone, is responsible." The Mayor has been somewhat spectacular in turning out the members of the commissions left by the prior administration. He started with the Police Commission. First he requested the resignation of all its members. The commissioners asked time to consider. The day following the Mayor's request wns a regular meeting day. As the commissioners approached the place of assembly they were met at the doorway by a policeman and handed their written dismissals. The room was barred to them by tho policeman, who up to that moment had himself been subject to their orders. The dismissal was as contemptuous as it was Cromwellinn. A new set of commissioners, with the Mayor's appointments in their pockets, immediately took office. These men had the instructions of the Mayor to dismiss the chief of police, Jesse B. Cook, and place in his stead John B. Martin, a returned member of the force, who had aided M'Carthy in his election. Cook, who is universally recognised to have been the most efficienf chief of police for many years, resigned rather than be dismissed, and returned to his old position of sergeant. Martin was elected. The members of the Board of Education were also asked to resign, but instead of doing so they obtained from the courts an injunction restraining the Mayor from summarily removing them. To prevent similar measures on the part of the Fire, Health, Park, and Civil Service Commissions, Mayor M'Carthy took the unusual course "of dismissing them at 2 a.m. on last Monday, immediately appointing their .successors. P. H. M'Carthy, who is a carpenter by trade, is the most foicefnl Mayor San Francisco has had for many years. He is domineering and ruthless in his methods His administration is being watched with a great deal of interest all over America us that of the only Union Labour Mayor in office. As for San Franciscians, they will not mind his despotism, nor his rewarding of his political ffiends, if only he gives the iity an honest administration.