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Studies in Public Choice

David J. Hebert
Diana W. Thomas Editors

Emergence,
Entanglement,
and Political
Economy
Studies in Public Choice

Volume 38

Series Editor
Randall G. Holcombe, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Founding Editor
Gordon Tullock, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6550
David J. Hebert • Diana W. Thomas
Editors

Emergence, Entanglement,
and Political Economy
Editors
David J. Hebert Diana W. Thomas
Aquinas College Creighton University
Grand Rapids, MI, USA Omaha, NE, USA

ISSN 0924-4700
Studies in Public Choice
ISBN 978-3-030-56087-4    ISBN 978-3-030-56088-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56088-1

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents

Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1
David J. Hebert and Diana W. Thomas

Emergence and Entanglement in a Theory of Political Economy ��������������    7
Richard E. Wagner

Swimming in a Tuxedo: A Systems Theory Approach
to Understanding Politics��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   27
David J. Hebert

Complex and Entangled Public Policy: Here Be Dragons ��������������������������   41
Abigail Devereaux

Taxonomy of Entrepreneurship – A Means-­Oriented Approach����������������   63
Marta Podemska-Mikluch

From Taciturn to Talkative Political Economy����������������������������������������������   73
Adam Martin

Entanglement and Perverse Spontaneous Orders����������������������������������������   87
Meg Patrick Tuszynski

The Tax Code as an Emergent Phenomenon ������������������������������������������������ 103
Jeremy Horpedahl

Political Property Rights and Entangled Political Economy ���������������������� 111
Alexander William Salter

The Fiscal Squeeze: Budgets Between Fiscal Illusion,
Fiscal Commons, and the Tyranny of Experts���������������������������������������������� 125
Diana W. Thomas and Michael D. Thomas

Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 139

v
Contributors

Abigail Devereaux Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA

David J. Hebert Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Jeremy Horpedahl University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA
Adam Martin Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
Marta Podemska-Mikluch Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN, USA
Alexander William Salter Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
Diana W. Thomas Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
Michael D. Thomas Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
Meg Patrick Tuszynski Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA
Richard E. Wagner George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

vii
Introduction

David J. Hebert and Diana W. Thomas

Abstract This chapter is the editors’ introduction to Emergence, Entanglement,

and Political Economy and includes some overarching themes connecting the chap-
ters of this volume.

Keywords Political economy · Spontaneous order, Public choice

In our day to day lives, we transition more or less fluently between many different
institutional settings. Just considering the editors of this book, who are, to be fair,
both academic economists and therefore lead much less interesting lives than most,
we can come up with at least ten different communities and groups we are part of:
we are teachers, researchers, and colleagues, on a university campus, we are mem-
bers of a family in which we are each both parents and spouses, we are both mem-
bers of church communities, we accompany our children to sports team activities
outside of the home, we are shoppers at grocery stores and in malls, we are drivers
on the road during morning and evening commute times, we are friends to people in
the different communities we are part of, we are neighbors to the people who live
near us, and we are siblings and children of families we came from. If you find
yourself reading this book, you may be much like us in the sense that you are a
member or participant in many different groups or institutional environments. Much
like us, you will probably agree that despite the fact that you wear many hats your
behavior and actions vary little, irrespective of the institutional setting you find
yourself in. You have the same set of goals and aspirations irrespective of whether
you are at work, at church, or at home. This basic insight that human behavior is
relatively unchanged across different institutional environments is usually credited
to James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (1964) and known as behavioral symmetry.

D. J. Hebert (*)
Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
e-mail: david.hebert@aquinas.edu
D. W. Thomas
Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
e-mail: dianathomas@creighton.edu

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

D. J. Hebert, D. W. Thomas (eds.), Emergence, Entanglement, and Political Economy,
Studies in Public Choice 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56088-1_1
2 D. J. Hebert and D. W. Thomas

Writing after the rise of welfare economics in the discipline, Buchanan and
Tullock (1964) made the simple observation that in modeling politicians as benevo-
lent welfare maximizers who could overcome the problems created by rationally
self-interested actors in the context of market institutions, economists were commit-
ting what has come to be known as the Nirvana fallacy, i.e. the fallacy of comparing
actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. Born was public choice, or the
study of non-market decision making, as it was initially known by its earliest
proponents.
Public choice introduced a level of realism into the analysis of politics that has
offered much profound and insightful scholarship. Economists arguably understand
the political context of market decision making better today than they did before
Buchanan and Tullock put pen to paper. And yet, as we and the other contributors to
this volume will argue, to stop at behavioral symmetry would be missing the forest
for the trees. While Public Choice scholars improved on the analytical accuracy of
political economy models by demanding behavioral symmetry, they continued to
treat politics and markets as fundamentally different realms of human action albeit
populated by behaviourally similar actors.
Rather than assuming such stringent institutional boundaries, the contributors to
this volume treat markets and politics (and for all intents and purposes all other
human choice arenas) as fundamentally entangled. To offer a tangible example, one
of your editors, Thomas, decided to switch to a local privately-owned pharmacy,
which happens to be owned by a family in the parish she attends, after several
unpleasant interactions with the staff of one of the big name retail pharmacy chains
in her neighborhood. Our preferences and choices in one institutional setting, are
contingent on and fundamentally interdependent with our choices and experiences
in other areas of our lives.
Because human action in different institutional settings is so entangled and inter-
dependent, analytically accurate models of human behavior have to focus on the
emergent nature of the patterns we observe in political economy.
The title of this volume indicates two of the main ideas that are more fully uti-
lized by the authors than are used by more traditional scholars. “Emergence” pushes
back on the notion that outcomes observed within the political sphere are the designs
of one centralized mind. Rather than view political outcomes as somehow inten-
tional, the authors here recognize that these outcomes emerge from a competitive
process that includes several different people operating within a specific framework
of rules. For example, as explored by Jeremy Horpedahl, the tax code is not an
object of choice for any particular legislator but is instead an amalgamation of dif-
ferent and often disparate interests over time.
“Entanglement” recognizes an old tenet of non-market decision making (the
original name of Public Choice): behavioral symmetry. To summarize the insights
contained here, any decision that results from a political entity must be the product
of individual decision makers operating within some framework of formal and
informal rules. To treat these decisions as if they were the product of one single
mind, or even simply the additive result of several decisions, is to fundamentally
misunderstand and mischaracterize the topic or issue being studied in two ways:
Introduction 3

First, it mischaracterizes the topic in that it presumes some sort of rationality or

intentionality of a group when, as several scholars have pointed out, is neither ratio-
nality nor intentionality can be simply assumed at the group level. Group prefer-
ences need not follow any sort of rational calculus; intransitivity of preferences
abounds, for example. Taking this insight further, this mischaracterization of group
action as rational and intentional lends itself to viewing statecraft as an engineering
or technical exercise, to borrow Buchanan (1964)’s colorful illustration of how tech-
nical and economic efficiency, as they are traditionally defined, are really one and
the same.
Second, it ignores the problems of a lack of residual claimancy. In private affairs,
the importance of property rights is readily apparent and well-understood. Even in
group settings in the private realm, the issue of residual claimancy is resolved
through various mechanisms, e.g. shareholders and limited liability arrangements.
In public affairs, however, such residual claimancy is utterly lacking. Thus, it is not
any one person or group’s fault when, e.g. budgets fail to balance, projects fail to be
completed on time, or even, as Wagner and Eusepi (2017) elucidate, issues sur-
rounding public debt arise.
Instead, there is no antimony between activities classified as “public” and “pri-
vate” as there is in the Samuelsonian tradition. Instead, all activity is understandable
through the lens of economics, with differences lying in the available strategies,
incentives, and feedback mechanisms. In other words, a person who wishes to
accomplish a given task has before them the option of doing so through the private
sphere or through the public sphere and, assuming individual rationality, will select
the least-cost option.
Further, to treat public and private as if they were separable is understood to be a
fiction within this framework. Instead, the actions of people in the public sphere
depend on the actions of people in the private sphere and vice versa. It is not as if
the public sphere simply appends changes onto the private sphere as is traditionally
argued though often not explicitly.
Richard Wagner provides the first essay in this volume, discussing entangled
political economy as opposed to viewing politics and economy as separable entities.
In doing so, he provides a brief outline of the two theories and also brings into play
the concept of political profit and the primacy of examining the institutional features
of public law.
The chapters by David Hebert and Abigail Deveraux present two new, but inter-
related ways of viewing the political process. The chapter by Hebert brings system
theory into view, arguing that using systems theory and a parts-to-whole framework
provides a more cogent explanation of political outcomes observed today Deveraux
brings to bear developments in complexity theory, agent based modeling, and artifi-
cial intelligence. She then applies Hayekian insights in discussing relevant issues in
public choice and scholarship in political economy.
Two of the chapters discuss the language and analytical focus of entangled politi-
cal economy: Marta Podemska-Mikluch discusses entrepreneurship from a means-­
oriented perspective as opposed to the ends-oriented one that dominates the literature
today. In doing so, her chapter argues that rather than looking at the efficiency of an
4 D. J. Hebert and D. W. Thomas

outcome of entrepreneurial activity, we should instead investigate the exchange pat-

terns that emerge and whether they were voluntary or coerced. Adam Martin’s chap-
ter provides a brilliant explanation of how talk matters in political economy, not
only in the sense that it conveys information between people but also communicates
and constructs judgements about performance, values, and ultimately behavior.
The chapters by Tuszynski and Horpedahl discuss at length how the theory of
emergent orders fits within the subject of political economy and helps explain the
conditions under which a spontaneous order might result in a final outcome that
leaves virtually all participants less than satisfied. Tuszynski applies her insights
case of the public aid system in the United States, which is an important topic in
today’s world. Horpedahl focuses on tax codes and their complexity and discusses
the challenges with aligning tax reforms with ideas understood and largely agreed
upon by public finance scholars.
Alex Salter’s chapter provides a survey and extension of the property rights lit-
erature by discussing political property rights as decision-making power. In doing
so, his chapter highlights how market participants can, through lobbying efforts,
effectively secure property rights to the market itself and how political enterprises
assert their own property right to the market by acting as a form of gatekeeper into
the specific industry that did the lobbying.
The chapter by Diana and Michael Thomas offers the evolution of state budgets
and revenue systems over time as an example of an emergent political outcome that
is undesirable from the perspective of the individuals comprising the whole and yet
the result of individual action at the local, state, and federal government level over
time. They argue that federal fiscal and tax institutions are set up to produce increas-
ing levels of debt over time and a trend of shifting responsibility from the local
through the state to the federal government.
This volume emerged out of discussions among several scholars at various con-
ference sessions all working within the Austrian and Public Choice traditions on
issues related to political economy. The successes that the scholars included here
have had lies in their application of spontaneous order theorizing (Hayek) to con-
temporary issues in political economy. We wish to thank participants at the 2018
Southern Economic Conference and Society for the Development of Austrian
Economics meetings and the 2019 Public Choice Society Meetings for their contri-
butions to the volume as well as their feedback on earlier drafts of the chapters.
None of this would be possible without the vigorous and spirited debate that confer-
ences allow. The idea behind this volume is to showcase the next generation of
scholars within this unique combination of traditions. In order for there to be a “next
generation,” there must be a “current generation.” While there are several scholars
that work in a similar tradition, to our mind, the current generation is best exempli-
fied by the scholarship of Richard Wagner. That being said, this volume is not a
festschrift to Wagner, but rather each chapter serves as an extension and application
of the approach that he has been championing for years. Each of the authors in this
volume have, at one time or another, worked closely with Wagner during their grad-
uate studies and beyond. In fact, several have even co-authored with him.
Introduction 5

The chapters in this collection very nicely reflect the ways in which the scholars
of the next generation in the growing entangled political economy tradition are pro-
ducing new insights and applications. They do this by acknowledging the contribu-
tions of the current and past generations and mixing them with the related
contributions from other traditions and apply them to contemporary issues in politi-
cal economy. This volume spans an impressive range of topics and ways of applying
and integrating these insights and lays out new directions for the future of the field.
We are proud to have helped assemble these chapters together and bring them to
publication.
Emergence and Entanglement in a Theory
of Political Economy

Richard E. Wagner

Abstract Political economy is a field of study where theorists typically treat poli-
ties and markets as separate orders of activity within society. Moreover, the standard
mode of analysis treats those entities as existing in states of equilibrium. In contrast,
this essay treats polities and markets as entangled and, moreover, as entities that
have ecological and emergent character. Among other things, this shift in analytical
focus means that turbulence of variable intensity is a key feature to be incorporated
into a theory of political economy. It also means that human population systems are
open and not closed, which further means that the future is generated through com-
plex interaction inside a societal arena that entails both trade and conflict.

Keywords Entangled political economy · Emergence vs. axiomatics · Action level

vs. systems level · Non-logical action · Indeterminism and creativity

JEL Codes D72 · D78 · E62 · H61 · P16

Political economy is a field of study where theorists typically treat polities and mar-
kets as separate orders of activity within society. Within this common scheme of
thought, moreover, human action follows a temporal sequence, with economic
action preceding political action. Where some theorists treat political action as cor-
recting market failures, other theorists treat political action as creating market fail-
ures. Where orthodox welfare economics treats the political level as a locus of
planning that Power inserts into society, public choice theorizing mostly claims that
those planners are more self-interested than benevolent but maintains the distinction
between levels of action and societal consequences. In contrast, this paper disputes
the coherence of imposing different levels of action on our schemes of thought.
Consequently, the compound noun “political economy” no longer refers to some
relationship between two distinct levels of human activity within society, but rather

R. E. Wagner (*)
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
e-mail: rwagner@gmu.edu

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 7

D. J. Hebert, D. W. Thomas (eds.), Emergence, Entanglement, and Political Economy,
Studies in Public Choice 38, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56088-1_2
8 R. E. Wagner

refers to different carriers of action inside society. In this respect, I present an alter-
native societal topography where all action apprehended within a theory of political
economy occurs on the same level.
Any scheme of thought emphasizes some phenomena and suppresses others.
This situation holds for political economy just as strongly as it holds for other fields
of study. In contrast to conventional thinking, I explain that the systems level cannot
be entered directly, but can be entered only at the action level. The systems level is
just a collection of statistics, projections, and reflections of beliefs, hopes, and ide-
ologies. It is not, however, a place where action occurs. The systems level is a con-
struction of the imagination, and the observations that pertain to that construction
are generated through interaction among the individual entities that populate and
comprise the system. In any case, we should keep in mind that in the social sciences
we create what we observe. No one has ever truly observed the entities we denote as
polity or economy in their entireties, as against observing parts and pieces of those
entities. Our observations necessarily constructed through acts of theorization,
regarding which choices exist.
While numerous choices are possible in this respect, these can reasonably be
reduced to two categories depending on how the theoretical foregrounds and back-
grounds are populated. Most political economy places in the analytical foreground
systemic structure using presumptions of equilibrium and methods of comparative
statics applied to holistic entities. It is not that those theorists necessarily believe
this is the way the world looks, but rather think it is a useful way of looking at it all
the same. We all necessarily employ concepts of equilibrium, regularity, and pattern
in our thinking to navigate our way in the world. There is, however, an open ques-
tion regarding the relation between foreground and background with respect to our
theoretical constructions. This essay reverses foreground and background from con-
ventional analytical portraits. Brought into the analytical foreground are individual
action inside the holistic entities that populate most thinking on political economy.
This alternative foreground emphasizes the continual emergence of new material
into political economy, and with that emergence set in motion by individual action
inside the entities that are normally taken as the units of observation. For any theo-
retical schema, it is always good to remember that old aphorism: the proof of any
pudding lies always in the eating.

1 A Societal Topography: Action Level and Systems Level

The most common view of political economy, which Persson and Tabellini (2000)
and Drazen (2002) illustrate, treats the compound noun “political economy” as con-
structed by addition over distinct arenas of activity: PE = P + E. Figure 1 describes
this conceptual framework. Society is conceptualized as holding two distinct enti-
ties: an economy and a polity. An economy is further regarded as an equilibrated set
of interactions and relationships, much as portrayed by claims on behalf of general
equilibrium theory of the dynamic and stochastic variety. That economy is reduced
Emergence and Entanglement in a Theory of Political Economy 9

Fig. 1 Additive political

economy: PE = P + E EL ER

to a point-mass entity by the widely used presuppositions of a general equilibrium

that is dynamic and stochastic (DSGE), though Fig. 1 expands that point to the cir-
cle denoted by E to make it visible.
Lying south of E is the political entity P. Within democratic polities, that entity
contains a variety of positions, offices, and powers that candidates compete to pos-
sess for some interval of time until the next election. Those candidates and parties
compete for the support of voters by offering programs they hope will resonate
more strongly with voters than the programs opposing candidates offer. To be sure,
there are differences among models in how the relationship between candidates and
voters is conceptualized. Some models treat votes as having hard-wired preferences,
with candidates seeking to locate in the center of the distribution of preferences.
Other models treat voter preferences as having significant elements of openness,
with candidates seeking to articulate images that resonate particularly strongly
with voters.
For some analytical purposes, different approaches to conceptualizing the rela-
tionship between candidate positions and voter desires is analytically significant.
For purposes of this paper, however, this difference is inconsequential. What is con-
sequential is the separation between polity and economy in political economy.
Figure 1 shows political economy as similar to playing pool. An economy E is like
an object ball, and competing candidates are offering to shift that ball to different
locations on the table, as denoted by EL and ER. Without doubt, this theoretical
vision offers us some traction in apprehending the world of experience. Candidates
do compete to win elections, and they make speeches regarding their plans and
aspirations in their efforts to win the election.
In this paper I do not challenge this portrait. To the contrary, I accept it, only I
relegate it to the analytical background, bringing forward in the process what is set
aside in the portrait that Fig. 1 offers. I do this because what is set aside in such
constructions as Fig. 1 is of great human significance, so should not be dropped
from view simply because it has no place within the DSGE set of analytical
10 R. E. Wagner

conventions. To bring that material into analytical view requires use of some frame-
work grounded on emergence, evolution, and entanglement, all of which are ignored
by the DSGE framework.
Figure 2 offers a visual distinction between the systems level and the action level
and does so within the context of standard macro theory, and with Wagner (2012)
developing a similar figure. The systems level is portrayed in terms of aggregate
supply and demand to keep contact with macro theory. It is important to note, how-
ever, that action does not occur at the systems level. Action can occur only at the
action level, regardless of whether that action is undertaken by market or by politi-
cal entities. All action and changes in actions are initiated by entities on the action
level. The societal impact of those actions depends on their effects on other entities
on the action level, as illustrated by the various patterns of connection among those
entities.
Figure 2 differs from Fig. 1 in at least two notable respects. For one thing, neither
polity nor economy is reduced to some point-mass entity. To the contrary, both pol-
ity and economy are treated as ordered sets of relationships and interactions among

AS
Macro level

Statistics,
projections,
ideologies
AD2
AD1
Q

Actions

Micro level

Fig. 2 Emergence of aggregate variables within an ecology of plans

Emergence and Entanglement in a Theory of Political Economy 11

various entities. Figure 1 shows polity as inserting planning into a market economy,
changing the market’s configuration in the process. Figure 2, by contrast, shows
political action as a vector of activities and not as some such scalar force as a billiard
ball. Just as an economy is an order and not an organization, so is a polity an order
and not an organization. The lower part of Fig. 2 describes an order of organiza-
tions, some political and some economic, with the outcome of that system depend-
ing on patterns of interaction among the entities within the system.
The second notable feature of Fig. 2 is the entanglement between political and
economic entities. Political entities do not act independently of market entities, in
contrast to what Fig. 1 portrays. Figure 2 illustrates a situation where political enti-
ties require cooperation from some market-based entities just as market entities
require support from some political entities. The inputs that enter a firm’s produc-
tion function are not fully it’s choice to make because in many ways it will need to
assemble politically-supplied inputs. Similarly, supporters of the political enter-
prises depicted in Fig. 2 will require support from some of the market-based enter-
prises in Fig. 2.
To speak of cooperation between political enterprises and market enterprises is
not to assert that cooperation is mutually beneficial. In this regard, Marta Podemska-­
Mikluch and Richard Wagner (2013) distinguish between dyadic and triadic
exchange. Market exchanges are dyadic, no matter how numerous the participants.
The essence of dyadic exchange is its voluntariness because market institutions and
practices operate through agreement. In contrast, democratic polities feature triadic
exchanges to reflect the democratic principle of majority rule. The basic mode of
majority rule is two people forming an agreement and to include a third party in that
agreement to bear costs that the other two are unwilling to bear. With triadic
exchanges, market entities are on both sides of a politically-sponsored transaction:
there are allies of the political sponsor who gain from the deal and there are oppo-
nents who lose, and with those losses being the means by which the majority gains.

2 Entanglement in a Theory of Political Economy

Figure 3 formalizes the vision of political economy that corresponds to the bi-level
societal topography that Fig. 2 illustrates and does so in a manner consistent with
principles of emergence and entanglement. To be sure, Fig. 3 is nominally more
concerned with analytical structure that with evolution and emergence. On the sur-
face, Fig. 3 is a standard representation of the production frontier for a society.
Output is distributed between political output and market output. These outputs are
described by the scalar measures G and M, though we should recognize that our
objects of interest, G and M, are both vectors of activities. Within the DSGE frame-
work, the vector of market activities can be reduced to a scalar measure, M; the
presumption that all observations pertain to states of equilibrium mean that market
prices can reduce the entire array of market outputs to such a scalar measure as
privately-generated GDP. To be sure, this reduction of a vector of activities to a
Emergence and Entanglement in a Theory of Political Economy 23

representation was that a parliament so selected could approximate a miniaturiza-

tion of the Swedish society. To the extent this miniaturization was achieved, consen-
sus within parliament would translate into consensus within Sweden.
With a parliament selected by proportional representation and faced with a
highly qualified voting rule, the challenge becomes one of passing business through
that parliament. Wicksell thought that Sweden could be reflected in miniature
through a relative handful of political parties. Each party could sponsor legislation
but would have to achieve concurrence from most if not all of the other parties to be
successful. To operate in this fashion, it would be necessary for any proposed legis-
lation to be accompanied by a proposal to cover the cost. In this way, the Swedish
budgetary process would entail tax earmarking on a gigantic scale, with each pro-
posal to spend money accompanied by a proposal to cover the cost. The motiva-
tional force behind this budgetary process was to render Swedish budgeting
congruent with a substantive consent of the governed, in contrast to the purely for-
mal notion that whatever government does reflects consent of the government
because that is the way democratic governments inexorably operate.
Even more, Sweden had an executive in the form of a monarch. With parliament
operating by a principle of near-unanimity, the monarch could fulfill the entrepre-
neurial position of recommending programs for parliamentary consideration, recog-
nizing that such programs would be adopted only if they received nearly unanimous
support from the members of parliament. This Wicksellian constitutional program
reflects one particular approach to developing an institutional arrangement of public
law that would complement the market-sustaining arrangement of private law.
The Italian theorist of public finance, Antonio De Viti de Marco (1888, 1936)
thought along similar lines as Wicksell, only without entering into the institutional
details that attracted Wicksell’s attention. De Viti distinguished between two forms
of democracy, which he denoted as cooperative and monopolistic. Cooperative
democracy reflected the same consensual principle that animated Wicksell’s ideal
institutional framework. Monopolistic democracy illustrated the operation of demo-
cratic processes in the presence of high costs of exiting from political relationships.
It is worth noting that de Viti spent 20 years as a member of the Italian parliament,
elected from his home district near Lecce. In a collection of essays, de Viti de Marco
(1930) chronicled 20 years of political struggle against the forces and processes of
monopolistic democracy, indicating that de Viti though that the monopolistic model
occupied the foreground of Italian political economy. Regardless of such matters,
Wicksell, de Viti, and Buchanan all recognized that the challenge facing a genuinely
democratic theory of public finance and political economy was institutional and
constitutional in nature. In this recognition, these theorists tackled the “who guards
the guardians” question from antiquity, only they approached it from the substantive
direction of realistic institutional and constitutional provisions.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 weight; 1880-1884, at 40 per cent.; before 1880, at 20 per
cent."

By this mode of reckoning, the table of battleships is

converted to the following exhibit of estimated "naval
strength":

Count adjusted fighting

weight
Great Britain. 70 604,141
France. 35 220,635
Russia. 24 221,988
Germany. 25 152,929
Italy. 19 112,899
United States. 16 176,708
Japan. 7 88,088

This method of depreciating the tonnage on the basis of the

age of a ship causes the respective proportions of Great
Britain, France and Italy, in battle-ships, to become smaller,
while the respective proportions of Russia, Germany, United
States and Japan become larger. The United States lose but 4
per cent. of the nominal value of their battle-ships; Japan, 5
per cent.; Russia, 16; Germany, 20; Great Britain, 26; France,
35; Italy, 42.

Applying the same arithmetic to the returns of armored and

protected cruisers, the writer shows that Japan suffers a loss
of 10 per cent. of their nominal fighting weight, France 14,
United States 14, Italy 18, Great Britain 21, Russia 23,
Germany 24.

Reducing in like manner all the remaining returns, he arrives

at the following summary of "the seven navies arranged in the
order of their strength"—taking the navy of Japan as the unit:
 Degree of strength.
Great Britain, 6.38
France, 2.57
Russia, 1.88
United States, 1.65
Germany, 1.34
Italy, 1.03
Japan, 1.00.

Stated in "tons of fighting weight," his comparison stands:

Great Britain, 1,347,000

France, 543,000
Russia, 397,000
United States, 349,000
Germany, 282,000
Italy, 218,000
Japan, 211,000.

Turning next to the consideration of armaments, the writer has

compiled the following table, which shows "for each class of
gun separately, and for all classes of guns combined, the
number of these guns that are possessed by the seven naval
powers":

POWER Breech Quick Muzzle

Torpedo All Classes
Loading Firing Loading
Tubes of Guns
Guns Guns Guns

Great Britain. 912 7,454 340

1,534 10,240
France. 471 3,653 -
928 5,052
Russia. 393 2,589 -
625 3,607
Germany. 258 1,995 -
611 2,864
Italy. 140 1,791 4
573 2,508
United States. 303 1,791 -
230 2,324
Japan. 110 1,168 -
314 1,592
----------
All the Powers
combined. 2,587 20,441 344
4,815 28,187

In this comparison the United States drops from the fourth

rank to the sixth. For a comparison of the naval expenditure
of the Powers,

See (in this volume)

WAR BUDGETS.

NEBUCHADREZZAR, Exploration of the ruins of the palace of.

See (in this volume)

ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: BABYLONIA; GERMAN
EXPLORATION.

NEELY EXTRADITION CASE, The.

See (in this volume)

CUBA: A. D. 1900-1901.

{319}
NEGRITOS.

See (in this volume)

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: THE NATIVE INHABITANTS.

NEGRO, Disfranchisement of the.

See (in this volume)

MARYLAND, MISSISSIPPI, NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1900;
SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1896;
LOUISIANA: A. D. 1898; and
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1901 (JANUARY).

NEGROS, The island of:

American occupation.

See (in this volume)

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899 (JANUARY-NOVEMBER).

Acceptance of American sovereignty.

Establishment of provisional government.

See (in this volume)

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899 (MARCH-JULY).

NEMI, Lake: Sunken Roman vessels found in.

See (in this volume)

ARCHÆOLOGICAL RESEARCH: ITALY.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1894.

War in Lombok.

See (in this volume)

DUTCH EAST INDIES: A. D. 1894.
 -------NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): Start------

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1896.

Electoral Reform Act.

A notable extension of the franchise was accomplished by an

Act passed this year by the States General, to have effect in
the elections of 1897. It made voters of all Dutch citizens
not under 25 years of age who present "certain outward and
positive signs of capacity and well-being. The chief sign is
the fact of payment of one or more direct State taxes (for the
land tax an amount of 1 florin is sufficient). Besides these,
the Reform Act admits as electors all those who can prove that
they are householders, and have paid rent of houses or
lodgings during a fixed term, or that they are owners or
tenants of boats of not less than 24 tons capacity, or that
they have been during a fixed term in employment with an
annual wage or salary of at least £22 18s. 4d., or possess a
certificate of State interest of at least 100 florins, or a
State savings bank deposit of at least 50 florins, or the
legal qualifications for any profession or employment."

Statesman's Year-Book,
1899, page 807.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1897.

First election under the new Franchise Law.

The first election in Holland under the new franchise law,

held June 15-25, 1897, returned to the Chamber 47 Liberals, 22
Catholics, 22 Protestant anti-Revolutionists, 4 Radicals, and one
deputy who is styled an Historic Christian.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland):A. D. 1898.

Enthronement of Queen Wilhelmina.

Queen Wilhelmina, who succeeded to the crown on the death of

 her father, William III., in 1890, reached the age of 18 on
the 31st of August, 1898, and received the reins of government
from her mother, Queen Emma, who had acted as Regent until
that time. The young Queen was enthroned September 6 in the
New Church at Amsterdam, where she delivered, with a
simplicity and fervor which impressed those present, her
address to the States-General and took her oath of allegiance
to the Constitution. "I am happy and thankful," the Queen
said, "to rule over the people of the Netherlands, who,
although small in numbers, are great in virtue and strong by
nature and character. I esteem it a great privilege that it is
my life's task and duty to dedicate all my powers to the
prosperity and interests of my dear fatherland; and I adopt
the words of my beloved father,—'Yes, Orange can never do
enough for the Netherlands.'" After the Queen and the
Queen-Mother, the most striking figures at the ceremony were
the Princes from the Dutch Indies.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1898 (June).

The Sugar Conference at Brussels.

See (in this volume)

SUGAR BOUNTIES.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1899 (April).

Invitation to the Peace Conference to be held at The Hague.

See (in this volume)

PEACE CONFERENCE.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1899 (May-July).

Representation in the Peace Conference at The Hague.

See,(in this volume)

PEACE CONFERENCE.

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): A. D. 1899 (May-

August).
Advice to President Kruger of the South African Republic.

See (in this volume)

SOUTH AFRICA (THE TRANSVAAL): A. D. 1899 (MAY-AuGUST).

NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland):A. D. 1901.

Marriage of Queen Wilhelmina.

Queen Wilhelmina was married, on the 7th of February, to Duke

Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who received the title of
Prince of the Netherlands by proclamation on the same day.
Both civil and religious ceremonies of marriage were
performed.

--------NETHERLANDS, The Kingdom of the (Holland): End------

NEW BRUNSWICK.

See (in this volume)

CANADA.

NEWEL, Stanford:
American Commissioner to the Peace Conference at The Hague.

See (in this volume)

PEACE CONFERENCE.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1895.
Union with Canada refused.

Terms proposed for the union of Newfoundland with the Dominion

of Canada were rejected, and negotiations abandoned.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1897.
Conference of colonial premiers with the
British Colonial Secretary.
 See (in this volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1897 (JUNE-JULY).

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1897-1900.
The Reid contract.
The question in politics.

In the fall of 1897 a line of narrow-gauge railway, with

branches over six hundred miles in total length, was completed
and opened to traffic. The main line of rail extends from the
capital, St. Johns, to Port aux Basques, at the southwestern
extremity of the island, and is expected to produce an
important development of resources from the forests and mines,
as well as from agricultural lands. The railway was
constructed by a contractor, Mr. Reid, who agreed to operate
it for seven years at his own expense, receiving therefor a
land grant of 5000 acres per mile. In 1898 a new contract was
made with Mr. Reid, which placed most of the resources of the
island under his control. For an additional land-grant of 2500
acres per mile of road he undertook to operate the road for
fifty years. By a present cash payment of $1,000,000 to the
colony treasury, he purchased the reversion of its right to
the possession of the road at the end of that period. At the
same time he secured the right to purchase from the government
its telegraph lines and the dry-dock at St. Johns, for half a
million of dollars, and was given a monopoly for 30 years of
the coast mail steam service, with an annual subsidy of
$150,000, he undertaking to maintain in it eight steamers,
well equipped. This remarkable contract was bitterly denounced
by a large party in the island, and the Imperial government was
strongly petitioned to nullify the whole transaction: but the
British Colonial Secretary, Mr. Chamberlain, while he
characterized the contract as representing "the most
unparalleled abrogation of its functions by a responsible
government," decided that he could not properly interfere.
{320}
 The "Reid Deal," as it was known, then became a burning issue
in Newfoundland politics, and the Ministry responsible for it,
led by Sir James Winter, was ousted from the government in
February, 1900. Mr. Reid was then arranging to transfer his
Newfoundland contract and franchises to a company, which
required the sanction of the colonial government. The new
(Liberal) Ministry, of which Mr. Robert Bond was Premier,
refused consent to the transfer unless Mr. Reid would amend
his bargain with the colony in several very important
particulars. He offered some concessions, but not to the
extent demanded; and so the question between him and the Bond
Ministry went into the canvass of 1900, for the election of a
new Assembly, and the Conservatives, heavily backed by Mr.
Reid, were defeated overwhelmingly, winning but 4 seats out of
36 in the Lower House of the Legislature. On this result of
the elections the "London Times" of November 26, 1900,
comments as follows: "The course which the victorious Bond
Ministry will now take must be awaited with interest. … A
policy of compromise would certainly appear to be the wisest
and the safest for all parties. Mr. Reid, it seems to be
acknowledged, has carried out his part of the bargain of 1898
fully and even generously, and the colony, it is stated, has
profited largely in consequence. In the absence of actual
fraud or corruption it would be difficult in these
circumstances to justify the rescission or even the material
modification of the agreement, on the faith of which he has
spent his money, without his assent. A repeal of the Act of
1898 against his will would savour of repudiation. It would
assuredly damage the credit of the colony very seriously."

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1899-1901.
The French Shore Question.
The Modus Vivendi.

"At the period of the negotiation of the Treaty of Utrecht, in

1713, by which the rights of the French fishermen were regulated
[see, in volume 4, NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713], thousands of
French fishing vessels availed themselves of the inshore
fisheries about the island; and that they might be not
altogether without facilities for the drying and curing of
their fish, they were granted under the Treaty the 'right to
use a strip of the coast seven hundred miles long and half a
mile wide.' Accompanying the Treaty, but, be it noted, not a
part of it, was a declaration of King George, that British
subjects on the island were not to interfere with these French
coast rights by erecting permanent structures upon it,
calculated to obstruct the operations of the French fishermen.
This Royal declaration was harmless and unimportant when the
population of the island was very small, and the French
fishermen resorted to the inshore fisheries of Newfoundland.
But to-day, a different condition exists. The French fishermen
no longer use the inshore fisheries of the island, but
prosecute, instead, their fishing operations on the Grand
Banks, several hundred miles distant, drying their product
either at the French islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which
are more adjacent to the Banks, or transporting the fish
direct to France. … The need for which the French shore right
was granted has practically ceased to exist; and inasmuch as
the prohibition to the people of the island from erecting
permanent structures on the island was merely a mandate
emanating from the King, and not an integral part of the
Treaty itself; and because the reason for the observance of
the mandate has thus ceased to exist, it is imperative that,
in the interests of the prosperity of the island, this Royal
concession should be revoked. … But what, it may be asked, on
a perusal of the whole case, has caused the Newfoundland
question to suddenly become paramount? Why is its urgency
greater in 1899 than it was in 1889? Is there not some
concentrated force, some propelling power, at work behind the
scenes? There is—and that power is a millionaire. The name of
this millionaire is Robert Gillespie Reid, who, having
voluntarily assumed, by means of the measure known as the Reid
contract, the responsibility of developing the island's
resources, finds himself, at the outset, confronted by a
situation which precludes all present enterprise. This
gentleman has acquired, in fee simple, some three or four
million acres of land in Newfoundland; and where the islanders
were content to wait patiently for justice, he, as a
business-man, eager to exploit his mines and timber, can
hardly be expected to pin his faith to assurances so frail,
and of fulfilment so remote."

B. Wilson,
Newfoundland's Opportunity
(Fortnightly Review, February, 1899).

A royal commission which lately investigated the situation of

affairs on the Treaty Coast of Newfoundland found that the
coast "is 800 miles in extent, with a permanent population of
13,300, all but 76 of whom are native-born, while the total of
French frequenting the territory during the fishing season
does not exceed 600 men. The French, last year, according to
the official reports furnished to the Admiralty, occupied only
eight cod and nine lobster stations, with a personnel as
above, while their catch of cod was but 18,000 qtls., worth
about 36,000 dollars, and their pack of lobsters about 7,000
cases, of about equal value. And is it not monstrous that, in
order to satisfy vexatious French claims and perpetuate
obsolete treaty claims, the people of the Treaty Coast should
he coerced and victimised, and the development of the whole
colony retarded, as has been the case? The Commissioners
found that, despite the liberal bounties given by France for
fishing on the Treaty Coast, the allowance of 50 francs per
head by the St. Pierre municipality for the same purpose, and
the special appropriation the past two seasons in the French
colonial grant 'for extending operations on the Newfoundland
coast, 4,000 francs,' the number of men frequenting there and
the number of stations operated are steadily declining every
year, and in ten years' time it is doubtful if there would be
a Frenchman on the coast. Still, so powerful is the French
fetish that the shore is tabooed as far as industrial
 development is concerned, and the hinterland likewise. No
grant of land can be given there except with the stipulation
that it is subject to French rights. No permanent building can
be erected within half a mile of high-water mark, because the
French claim the strand for drying their fish. No wharves can
be built by which to load minerals, because they will
interfere with the French fishery. (Only last year they
stopped the erection of one which was twenty-two miles from
their nearest station, and Mr. Reid, the railway contractor,
when he wanted to build a wharf at Bay St. George to land
construction materials, had to seize the opportunity of the
French warship in the Bay leaving to coal and renew stores,
and put an army of men to work, who built it in seventeen
days, so that it was completed when the Frenchmen returned.)
{321}
No mineral developments are permitted because they may hamper
the French. Competition on near-by fishing grounds is
prohibited for the same reason. Illicit (?) lobster packers
are hunted like malefactors for disregarding a 'modus vivendi'
as unjust as it is ridiculous. Bait-selling is only possible
by permission of the French and on their terms. The railway
was deflected 120 miles out of its proper course because of
French objection to a terminus on the shore. In fact, fishing
is only pursued with the greatest difficulty, while the land
is closed to agricultural settlement and mining enterprise.
And that, too, in the face of the fact that the French 'army
of occupation' consists of about one vessel, one station, and
about sixty fishermen on every 100 miles of coast, whose
annual catch is worth about 10,000 dollars."

P. T. McGrath, France in Newfoundland

(Nineteenth Century, January, 1899).

In 1890, a temporary agreement ("modus vivendi") concerning

the lobster packing and other questions, was arranged between
the British and French governments, which has been extended
from time to time, very much to the dissatisfaction of the
Province. The last extension expired at the end of the year
1900, and the Newfoundlanders showed a strong disposition to
resist any renewal of it. A letter from St. Johns, in
December, 1900, stated the feeling of the colony as follows:
"Last year the term of the 'modus vivendi' was allowed to run
out, and a deadlock, such as now seems inevitable, would
doubtless have been created; but when the end of December came
the reverses in South Africa appealed to our patriotism as the
oldest British colony, and the Legislature unanimously passed
at one sitting a Bill renewing the arrangement for another
year. The colony was unable to afford any more substantial aid
at the time, as her naval reserve had not then been
inaugurated, but this course on her part testified to her
sympathy with the Imperial mother, and her readiness to
relieve her from other difficulties. This year Newfoundland is
taking the bit between her teeth, and the result must be a
complication which, however unwelcome to the Imperial Cabinet,
cannot but have been regarded as inevitable sooner or later.
If our case is as strong as we are led to believe that the
Royal Commission represents it to be, there is certainly good
ground for our insisting upon remedial measures. It must not
be forgotten that the French now keep up less than 15 cod and
lobster stations altogether on the treaty coast, and that
about 550 men is the number they had there last season. As
against this the resident population is nearly 14,000, and the
objections which they urged against the 'modus vivendi' in its
early days apply with equal strength now. These people are
shamefully treated, the colony as a whole is humiliated, and
the recognition of such conditions by England without making
an attempt to get rid of them is a cause of reproach which she
should remove without delay."

Much newspaper discussion of the subject has been going on in

both England and France, with an apparent showing of readiness
on the part of the latter country to bargain with the British
for cessions in West Africa or elsewhere. How much of a price
Great Britain is willing to pay for release from the treaty of
 Utrecht is a question the answer to which cannot be forever
postponed.

Despite its reluctance, the Newfoundland Legislature was

prevailed upon, in February, 1901, to pass an Act renewing the
"modus vivendi" for another year. Several members who
supported the measure declared that they did so for the last
time, and only because of an unwillingness to embarrass the
British government during the continuance of the South African
war.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1901.
Change of Government.

Early in the year, Sir Henry McCallum was transferred from the
governorship of Newfoundland to that of Natal, and Sir
Cavendish Boyle was appointed to succeed him.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1897.

Constitutional Amendments.

On the 28th of September, several proposals of constitutional

amendment were voted on in New Jersey. One prohibitory of
gambling was adopted by a small majority. Another, that would
give the suffrage in school elections to women, was rejected
by about 10,000 majority.

NEW SOUTH WALES.

See (in this volume)

AUSTRALIA; and CONSTITUTION OF AUSTRALIA.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1894-1895.

The Lexow Investigation of Tammany government.
Election of Mayor Strong.

"On the second Sunday in February 1892 the minister of a

 wealthy Presbyterian church, Dr. Charles Parkhurst, startled
his congregation by preaching an outspoken political sermon,
in which he attacked the Tammany administration in most
unmeasured language. 'The mayor and those associated with him
are polluted harpies [he declared]. Under the pretence of
governing this city they are feeding day and night on its
quivering vitals. They are a lying, perjured, rum-soaked, and
libidinous lot. … Every effort to make men respectable,
honest, temperate, and sexually clean is a direct blow between
the eyes of the mayor and his whole gang of lecherous
subordinates, in the sense that while we fight iniquity they
shield and patronise it; while we try to convert criminals
they manufacture them, and they have a hundred dollars
invested in the manufacturing business to every one invested
in converting machinery. … Police and criminals all stand in
with each other. It is simply one solid gang of criminals, one
half in office and the other half out.' This sermon was the
starting point of the new anti-Tammany movement. Dr. Parkhurst
was called before the grand jury to prove his words, but he
was obliged to admit that all he knew was the repeated
accusations that appeared in almost every local newspaper.
Thereupon the grand jury publicly rebuked him, and sent a
formal presentment to the Recorder declaring their
'disapproval and condemnation' of the sermon. Everyone at once
concluded that no more would be heard of Parkhurst in
politics, but they did not know the man. The clergyman called
a couple of detectives to his aid, and personally visited the
lowest resorts, to obtain the necessary evidences of
corruption. A month later he preached a second political
sermon, and this time he took into the pulpit with him a
bundle of affidavits. He repeated and emphasised his former
accusations, and again he was summoned before the grand jury.
This time the result was different. 'The police are either
incompetent or corrupt,' the jury declared, and citizens
generally agreed. …

{322}
"In 1894, the State Senate … appointed a committee, this time
under Senator Lexow, to inquire into New York municipal
affairs. Soon after the committee was appointed Mr. Croker
found it convenient to hastily resign the leadership of
Tammany and go to Europe. The worst accusations of the
bitterest enemies of Crokerism were almost all more than
substantiated by the evidence given before the committee. It
was found that the police were utterly corrupt, that they
extorted blackmail from gambling house keepers, women of ill
fame, saloon keepers, and others, and in return gave them
their protection. Even thieves, in some instances, were found
to be regularly paying their police dues in return for
immunity from arrest. One police justice had to admit that he
received a hundred dollars from a keeper of a disorderly
house. Everywhere that the Lexow Committee probed, or that
other competent critics examined, the same thing was found.
For several years New York had been living under a system of
universal blackmail. Saloon keepers had to pay Tammany to be
allowed to evade the Sunday closing law, merchants to be
granted the simplest conveniences for getting their goods into
their premises. But in the case of Mr. Croker no dishonesty
could be proved. It was known that he had in a few years risen
from a poor man to a millionaire, but in no instance could it be
shown that he had acquired this wealth by corruption. His
friends said he had made his money by horse-racing and real
estate speculation, but unfortunately Mr. Croker did not go
before the witness stand to finally clear up the matter. While
the committee was sitting he remained in Europe.

"The usual storm of indignation followed the 'Lexow' exposure,

and most reputable citizens united once more to overthrow
Tammany. Colonel Strong, a well-known banker, was chosen
reform candidate for mayor, and secured a majority of fifty
thousand. In 1895 he began his administration, and initiated a
vigorous reform movement. The police force was entirely
reorganised; municipal offices were given for merit rather
 than political reward; the streets, for the first time in the
memory of the oldest inhabitant, were really kept clean, and
the whole local government was taken out of politics. Mayor
Strong's time of office has not been without its faults, but
among those faults dishonesty has not been one. Rather the
mistake has been to enforce all laws too rigidly, and make too
few allowances for the weaknesses of human nature in a
cosmopolitan resort. Police President Roosevelt's strict
enforcement of the Sunday closing and social purity laws was
only his duty, but yet it cost the reformers many votes.
Although the report of the 'Lexow' Committee did Tammany much
temporary harm, it recovered quickly. After the mayoral defeat
of 1894 it pulled its forces together again, and rallied
around it all the ambitions men who were disappointed in Mayor
Strong's bestowal of his patronage. In the autumn of 1895 it was
able to score a minor victory at the polls, and it carefully
nursed its strength for the election of November 1897. Mr.
Croker, notwithstanding his repeated declarations that he was
'out of politics,' came back to New York, and at once took
over command of his party."

F. A. McKenzie,
Tammany
(Nineteenth Century, December, 1897).

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1895.

Consolidation of the Astor, Lenox and Tilden foundations
to form the New York Public Library.

See (in this volume)

LIBRARY, NEW YORK PUBLIC.

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1896-1897.

Consolidation of New York, Brooklyn, and neighboring towns,
in the Greater New York.

"The project of uniting the cities of New York, Brooklyn, and

the cities, towns and villages contiguous to the same, into
one great municipality, although long mooted before 1890,
first took definite form in that year, by the passage on May
8th, by the Legislature, of Laws 1890, Chapter 11, entitled
'An Act to create a commission to inquire into the expediency
of consolidating the various municipalities in the State of
New York, occupying the several islands in the harbor of New
York.' …

Pursuant to the provisions of this act, a commission

consisting of the following members was appointed, viz.:
Andrew H. Green, Frederick W. Devoe, John L. Hamilton, J.
Seaver Page of New York; J. S. T. Stranahan, Edward F. Linton,
William D. Veeder of Brooklyn; John H. Brinkerhoff of Queen's
county; George G. Greenfield of Richmond county; Charles P.
McClelland of Westchester county; and Campbell W. Adams, State
Engineer and Surveyor, ex officio, and Albert E. Henschel
acting as secretary. In 1893, the commission presented to the
Legislature a bill providing for the submission of the
question of consolidation to a vote of the residents of the
various municipalities proposed to be united into one city.
The following year the Legislature provided for the referendum
suggested by the commission. … The following vote was cast
upon the question of consolidation in the ensuing election on
November 6, 1894:

for consolidation; against;

New York, 96,938; 59,959;
Kings, 64,744; 64,467;
Queens, 7,712; 4,741;
Richmond, 5,531; 1,505;
Mount Vernon, 873; 1,603;
Eastchester, 374; 260;
Westchester, 620; 621;
Pelham, 261; 153.
 At the opening of the Legislature in 1895, the Commission of
Municipal Consolidation Inquiry presented a report with a
proposed bill declaring the entire district before mentioned
(with the exception of the city of Mount Vernon) consolidated
with the city of New York. The bill, however, failed of
passage because of the addition of an amendment of referendum
in the last hours of the session of 1895, too late for further
action. The Legislature, as a result no doubt of this vote on
consolidation, did annex to New York city the towns of
Westchester, Eastchester, Pelham and other parts of
Westchester county.

"Early in January, 1896, the Legislature appointed a joint

sub-committee of the Cities Committees of both Houses to
inquire into the subject of the proposed consolidation and
report March 1, 1806. The committee made a report and
submitted a bill favoring consolidation. The bill as reported
was passed by the Legislature and was submitted to the Mayors
of the cities of New York and Brooklyn, and to the Mayor and
Common Council of Long Island City pursuant to the provisions
of the Constitution.
{323}
The bill was returned to the Legislature without the
acceptance of the cities of New York and Brooklyn. The
Legislature repassed the bill over the vetoes of the Mayors of
New York and Brooklyn, and it became a law May 11, 1896, with
the approval of the Governor. This act (L. 1896, ch. 488) is
entitled, 'An Act consolidating the local governments of the
territory within the city and county of New York, the counties
of Kings and Richmond and Long Island City and the towns of
Newtown, Flushing and Jamaica and part of the town of
Hempstead, in the county of Queens, and providing for the
preparation of bills for enactment into laws for the
government thereof.' … Pursuant to the act of consolidation,
the Governor (Levi P. Morton) appointed on June 9, 1896, the
following members of the commission to draft the proposed
charter, viz.: Seth Low, Benjamin F. Tracy, John F. Dillon,
Ashbel P. Fitch, Stewart L. Woodford, Silas B. Dutcher,
William. C. De Witt, George M. Pinney, Jr., Harrison S. Moore.
Mr. Fitch having resigned from the commission, the Governor
appointed Thomas F. Gilroy in his place. By virtue of the act,
the following gentlemen were members of the commission: Andrew
H. Green, president of the commission appointed by L. 1890,
ch. 311; Campbell W. Adams, State Engineer; Theodore E.
Hancock, Attorney-General; William L. Strong, Mayor of New
York; Frederick W. Wurster, Mayor of Brooklyn; and Patrick
Jerome Gleason, Mayor of Long Island City. The commission
organized on June 25, 1896, appointed Benjamin F. Tracy as
president and George M. Pinney, Jr., as secretary, and named
William C. De Witt, John F. Dillon, Thomas F. Gilroy, Seth
Low, Andrew H. Green, Benjamin F. Tracy, and George M. Pinney,
Jr., as a committee on draft of proposed charter."

M. Ash,
The Greater New York Charter,
introduction.

The committee submitted a draft charter to the commission on

the 24th of December, with a report in which a fundamental
feature of its plan is thus set forth: "It is clear that the
work of administering all of the Departments over so large a
space of territory, situated on three islands and partly on
the main land, must be subdivided in order to be successfully
done. The draft, therefore, proposes to divide the city into
the five Boroughs which nature and history have already
formed; that is to say:

(1.) Manhattan, which consists of the island of Manhattan and

the outlying islands naturally related to it.

(2.) The Bronx; that is to say, all that part of the present
City of New York lying north of the Harlem, a territory which
comprises two-thirds of the area of the present City of New
York.