Essays from West of 98: The Nobility of Good Government
The City Club of New York was founded in March of 1892 with a mission of “promoting good government of the City of New York, in securing honesty and efficiency in the administration of city affairs and in severing municipal from national politics.” The City Club founded “good government clubs” throughout New York City and was instrumental in electing New York City’s reform mayor William Lafayette Strong in 1894 (incidentally, Strong would appoint to his board of police commissioners a radical, overly exuberant young reformer named Theodore Roosevelt). The City Club’s efforts would prove instrumental in eventually breaking the stranglehold that the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine held on New York politics dating back to the first half of the 19th century.
The City Club was not alone in its quest, but it was the vanguard of what was known as the “good government movement” in American politics. In that era, community, business, and religious leaders of all stripes organized to root out the systemic, bipartisan corruption pervasive in American politics. Detractors derisively called the reformers “Goo Goos” as an insult, but like any passionate idealists, the Goo Goos wore the insults as a bad of honor.
You’ll notice that the City Club’s mission included the goal of “severing municipal from national politics.” In those days of machine politics, political bosses wielded power at every level of government. Bosses used local government to train and elect malleable candidates for office while also enriching the bosses and their supporters with jobs, patronage, and untold political graft. The Goo Goos started with local government for a reason. They knew it was vitally important work on its own right, far too important to be abused and rotted by the malevolence of those with other intentions.
The Goo Goos knew then, as now, that local government affects each citizen’s day-to-day life more than any other level of government. You turn on your faucets and flush your toilets with services provided by local government. You drive on streets maintained by local government. You utilize parks, send your children to schools, and receive emergency protection from local government entities that are operated by members of your community and for which decisions are made by people that your community elected to office.
Despite the frantic efforts of state and national politicians to insert themselves into every facet of life, it is local government that affects life on a daily basis. A person can live their lives in such a way that it is rarely touched by state and federal government. It is much more difficult to live life in a way that is not touched by local government.
This places great responsibility on those who are elected on the local level. If it is difficult to live life in a way that is not touched by local government, then those in local government make decisions that fundamentally impact the lives of their constituents every single day. That impact should not be taken lightly. These decisions are not always sexy. They do not always involve grandiose ideas. Good local government involves a steady, daily advancement of the goal to offer better, more affordable services to your citizens and to be ever-more efficient stewards of the taxes and fees paid by citizens with their hard-earned money.
The Goo Goos knew that good local government mattered. It still matters today. Then as now, it matters distinctly and apart from national politics and partisanship. Good local government won’t get you on cable news. It won’t cause you to trend on social media. It probably won’t impress the national political tastemakers. It will, however, make life tangibly better every day for the citizens who elected you. And that, to me, is the most noble of goals.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.