county officer is the treasurer, who receives and has custody of the state and county taxes, though in a few states having the county system of local government there are special tax collectors, and, as we have seen, in some of them these duties are performed by the sheriff.5 Nearly everywhere the office is filled by popular election, though in a few states treasurers are chosen by the county board or appointed by the governor. On account of the large sums of money often intrusted to their keeping, they are usually placed under heavy bond to insure the state and county against loss in case of defalcation or other misapplication of the funds in their charge. County treasurers frequently deposit the public funds in local banks and retain for themselves the interest which they receive therefrom. Recently the treasurer of Cook county, Illinois, agreed before his election to turn over to the county all interest received by him on county funds deposited in banks, and in 1904 nearly half a million dollars was thus paid into the county treasury by him.
County Auditor.– In a number of states the office of county auditor has been provided. Generally he keeps the accounts of the county, so as to show the receipts and expenditures of the public moneys, and issues warrants upon the treasurer for the payment of bills authorized by the county board. In some states his duties are limited merely to an examination of the accounts of county officers to see that they have been properly kept and that there has been no misapplication of public funds.
Recorder of Deeds.– In all the states there are officials charged with keeping records of certain legal documents such as deeds, mortgages, and leases. They are designated by different names, the most usual being register of deeds or recorder of deeds. They make exact copies of the instruments to be recorded, enter them in large books, and keep indexes by which such instruments can be readily found. In some states these duties are performed by the county clerk. The importance of the office is evident because upon the careful preservation and accuracy of the records must depend in many cases our rights to property.
School Officers.– In the states outside New England there is usually a county superintendent or commissioner of schools and in most of the Southern states a county school board. In a large majority of the states the county superintendent is elected by the people, though in a few he is appointed by the governor, elected by the local school boards, or chosen in other ways. The principal duties of the superintendent of schools are to examine teachers, issue certificates to teach, visit the schools, organize teachers' institutes, give advice on educational matters to teachers and school trustees, make reports to the state superintendent of public education, sometimes decide questions appealed to him from the district trustees, and in general watch over and promote the educational interests of the county. County school boards in the South establish schools as do the town school committees and school district boards in other states.
Other County Officials are the surveyor, who makes surveys of land upon the application of private owners, prepares plats, and keeps records of the same; superintendent or overseers of the poor, who have charge of almshouses, hospitals, and poor farms where they belong to the county; health officers or boards of health, whose duties are indicated by their titles; and occasionally other minor officials with varying titles and duties.6
In most states the general type of local government is that which we have designated as the county-township system. It is a system in which there is a more nearly equal division of local governmental functions between the county and township than is found either in New England or in the Southern states.
The Two Types.– Growing out of the fact that the county-township system has two sources it has developed into two different types: the New York or supervisor type and the Pennsylvania or commissioner type.
A. New York Type.– In New York the town with its annual meeting early made its appearance, though the town meeting there never exhibited the vigor and vitality that it did in New England. Early in the eighteenth century a law was enacted in New York providing that each township in the county should elect an officer called a supervisor, and that the supervisors of the several towns should form a county board and when assembled at the county seat should "supervise and examine the public and necessary charge of each county." In time the management of most of the affairs of the county was devolved upon the board of supervisors, and the system has continued to the present. This board is now composed of not only the supervisors of the townships but also the representatives of the various villages and wards of the cities within the county. The county board thus represents the minor civil divisions of the county rather than the county as a whole. It has charge of various matters that in New England are managed by the towns. The town meeting exists but it is not largely attended, and does not play the important rôle in local government that it does in New England. This system in time spread to those states, like Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, which were largely settled by immigrants from New York.
B. The Pennsylvania Type.– As New York was the parent of the supervisor system, Pennsylvania became the parent of the commissioner system. Instead of a county board composed of representatives from the various townships in the county, provision was made for a board of commissioners elected from the county at large. The Pennsylvania system spread to Ohio and from there to Indiana and later to Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In some states the commissioners are elected by large districts into which the county is divided for that purpose.
Thus, first to New York, and second to Pennsylvania belongs the honor of predetermining the character of local government in the West. The county-township system is the most widely distributed system of local government in the United States, and seems destined to become the prevailing system for the country as a whole.7 The principal difference between the two types consists in the presence of the town meeting in the northern tier of states where the New York type prevails, and its absence in the states where the Pennsylvania type was introduced; in the different manner in which the county boards are constituted; and in the relative importance of the county and township in the local governments of the two groups of states.
Conflict of Different Systems in the West.– An illustration of the attachment of the people of different parts of the country to the local institutions to which they were early accustomed, is found in the conflict which took place in Illinois between the settlers in the northern and southern parts of the state. The southern part of the state was settled largely by people from the South, who brought with them the Southern ideas of local government, and as they constituted the bulk of the population of the state at the time it was admitted to the Union, the system of county government was established by law throughout the state; but the county board was organized on the Pennsylvania plan and not according to the old Southern system. The northern part of the state, on the other hand, was settled mainly by people from New England, who were likewise strongly attached to the local government to which they had been accustomed. They succeeded, therefore, in securing the adoption of a clause in the constitution (1848), allowing the people of each county to adopt the township system whenever the majority of the legal voters of the county voting at any general election should so determine. Under the operation of this "home rule" provision, 85 of the 102 counties of the state have adopted the township system. A somewhat similar conflict occurred in Michigan, where the Pennsylvania commissioner system was first introduced, but with the influx of inhabitants from New York and New England dissatisfaction with that system increased until finally it was displaced by the New York or supervisor type.
References.– Beard, American Government and Politics, ch. xxix. Bryce, The American Commonwealth (abridged edition), chs. xlvii-xlviii. Fairlie, Local Government in Towns, Counties and Villages, chs. iv-v, viii-xi. Fiske, Civil Government in the U. S., chs. ii-iv. Hart, Actual Government, ch. x. Hinsdale, American Government, ch. lv. Wilson, The State (revised edition), secs. 1035-1043. Willoughby, Rights and Duties of Citizenship, pp. 260-265.
Documentary and Illustrative Material.– 1.
Rhode Island is the only state in which there is no such official as the county treasurer, the custody of local funds being intrusted to the town treasurers.
The county court and the justices of the peace are discussed in the chapter on the state judiciary (chapter vi).
Goodnow, "Comparative Administrative Law," Vol. I, p. 178.
