state or nation. A careful analysis of the situation shows clearly that the municipal evils so frequently attributed to an excess of democracy are really due to the system of checks by which all effective power to regulate municipal matters is withheld from the majority. In this country popular control is reduced to a minimum in the cities, while in Great Britain and the countries of western Europe we find in municipal government the nearest approach to democracy. This is the true explanation of the fact that municipal government is our greatest failure and their most conspicuous success.

Under any consistent application of the theory of democracy a city would be entitled to the fullest measure of local self-government. It ought to be given an absolutely free hand to initiate and carry out any policies of purely local concern. This right, however, the American city does not possess. Local self-government is recognized neither in theory nor in practice under our political scheme. The true local unit is the city, and this, according to our legal and constitutional theory, is merely the creature of the state legislature. The latter called it into being, determines what powers it may exercise, and may strip it of them at pleasure. According to the prevailing practice of our state legislatures and the almost uniform decisions of our courts the exercise of local self-government by our cities is

to be regarded as a mere privilege and not a right. The municipal charter was originally a grant of certain privileges of local government in return for money payments or other services rendered to the king. It was a mere concession of privileges based upon expediency, and not a recognition on the part of the Crown of local self-government as an admitted right. As an express and formal statement of the measure of local government which the king would bind himself to respect, it tended to limit his power of interference in matters covered by such charter, since privileges solemnly granted could not with safety be lightly and arbitrarily disregarded. Municipal charters thus have the same origin as the constitution of the state itself, in that they are the outcome of an effort to place a check upon an irresponsible central authority.

The legislature of the American commonwealth in succeeding to the power of the king over municipal charters manifested at first an inclination to concede to the city the right to a measure of local self-government. Thus "the city of New York received from the English kings during the colonial period a charter which, on the Declaration of the Independence of the colony of New York, and the establishment of the new state of New York, was confirmed by the first Constitution of the state. For a considerable period after the adoption of this constitution,

changes in that charter were made upon the initiation of the people of the city, which initiation took place through the medium of charter conventions whose members were elected by the people of the city, and no statute which was passed by the legislature of the state relative to the affairs of the city of New York took effect within the city until it had been approved by the city."

But as Professor Goodnow observes, American cities "have very largely lost their original powers of local self-government."2 The original conception of the city charter as a contract which established certain rights of local self-government which the legislature was bound to respect, merely recognized municipal corporations as entitled to the same exemption from unreasonable legislative interference, as the courts have since the Dartmouth College decision enforced in favor of private corporations. If this view had prevailed cities could not have been deprived arbitrarily of rights once recognized by the legislature, but they could have enforced the recognition of no rights not thus granted. The recognition of this doctrine would have prevented many of the abuses that have characterized the relation between state and municipal government in this country, but it would have guaranteed no rights which the legis

1 Goodnow, Municipal Home Rule, p. 20. 2 Municipal Problems, p. 9.

lature had not seen fit to confer. Any liberal interpretation of the theory of democracy must of necessity go farther than this, and make municipal self-government a fundamental right which the central authority of the state can, not only neither abridge nor destroy, but can not even withhold, since it is a right having its source not in a legislative grant, but in the underlying principles of popular government.

The failure to recognize the right of local selfgovernment as fundamental in any scheme of democracy was unfortunate. Some of the worst evils of municipal government would have been avoided, however, if authority once granted to municipalities had been treated by the courts as a limitation of the power of the legislature to interfere in purely local matters. The refusal of the state government to recognize an appropriate sphere of municipal activity which it would have no right to invade, has been the main cause of corruption and inefficiency in municipal gov

ernment.

The policy of state interference in municipal affairs was the inevitable outgrowth of the doctrine that cities had no powers except such as had been expressly given, or were necessarily implied in their charters. This lack of the power of initiative made it necessary for cities, as they increased in size and complexity, to make constant appeals to the legislature for permission to supply

their wants. Every new problem which the city had to deal with, every new function which it had to perform, was a ground for state interference. This necessity of invoking the aid of the state legislature, constantly felt in every rapidly growing city, tended to develop a feeling of dependence upon legislative intervention as an indispensable factor in the solution of local problems. Thus the refusal of the state government to recognize the right of municipal initiative compelled the cities to welcome state interference as the only means of dealing with the new problems with which they were being continually confronted.

Another reason for the extension of state authority at the expense of the municipality is to be found in the twofold character of city government. Besides being a local government the city is also for certain purposes the administrative agent of the state, and as such is properly subject to state supervision. But, in the absence of any clear distinction between state and local interests, it was an easy matter for protection of the former to serve as a pretext for undue interference with the latter.

The city was thus placed at the mercy of the state government, since the legislature could make the needs of the municipality or the protection of the general interests of the state a pretext for any interference calculated to further the