ADDRESS

W. W. BENNETT, MAYOR OF ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS

President of the League.

In a call issued by the Mayors of New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland and Dayton, for a conference of American Mayors in November at Philadelphia, they say:

"Hundreds of millions of dollars are paid annually by the residents of American cities for the services furnished by municipal utilities. The policies to be followed by cities in their relation to these utilities more deeply concern the best interests of urban citizens than do the policies as to any other one group of municipal problems."

There is no city in Illinois, or in any other state, but has the same problems, though perhaps not so complex, as do the great centers of population. If these men of our great cities have thought it wise to hold a National Conference, it seems to me that we are but doing the simplest, nearest task at hand, when we meet here in this hospitable center for the dissemination of learning, to counsel with each other, and to learn from men who have made a specialty of their lines of endeavor.

For years we have, as a people, been attempting by the enactment of law to cure our ills, though at times it seems a vain attempt to better our conditions. We have gone from the aldermanic system of representation, to the commission form of government, and tomorrow on our program we will hear discussed the latest panacea for political and corporate ills-the city manager plan.

Personally, I do not care a great deal what becomes of the initiative and referendum, the recall of judges and judicial decisions, the commission form of government, or the city manager plan, if the people who are here trying

to work out the problems of a democracy, would only take an interest in the labor which should be performed by all. The product of the crudest tools, if zealously used, may be of more service than that of the costliest piece of machinery indifferently handled. It takes more than simply the enactment of a new law to advance us on the road to civic betterment. Men of ability must be willing to sacrifice something of their time and talents in a government such as is ours. If they do not, they are not entitled to their day in court, asking to be heard in criticism of existing conditions.

We waded through on September 9, in a desultory sort of way, with a State-wide primary. The ballot was too long. As offered to us in Winnebago county, no one but a professional politician could vote it intelligently. Politics cannot be made a business by the great mass of the people. What I believe the people really desire is to be well acquainted with a few men, to know what they stand for, and to be given the opportunity to hold those men accountable for duty well performed when they have been voted into office. A stupid, derelict or vicious servant of the people should no more expect to continue in the employment of the people, than though he should have been working for a private corporations and his work found to be unsatisfactory to those who paid him his wages.

In my judgment, running hand in hand with all the ills that the long ballot possesses, is that other ballot, with its complexities and intricacies, the heterogeneous offerings of laws initiated and laws referred by and to the people for their solution. It seems to me to be absolute folly to expect the voters to pass upon measures, if they are unable or indifferent about passing upon the merits of men. The people are seeking to get acquainted with great matters of public policy and administration and administrative officers pledged to the enactment of these policies. The voting public, I believe, is seeking to travel light—they wish to carry no excess baggage. It does not matter to them who is auditor, clerk of the appellate court, or treasurer of the state of Illinois; but they would like to feel well ac

quainted with the men at the top of their ticket in the state, congressional and senatorial districts, county and city, and to be given a chance to take the jobs away, if the man on the job is a poor servant. They are not going to be interested in the momentous question of whether we may fish in the Illinois river for carp with hook or with seine, but those great questions of policy as to the attitude of the state and city in what concerns their welfare and the welfare of their families, and law enforcement, they are interested in, and will eventually demand to be heard in tones so loud that even the deafest may hear.

This convention will not have accomplished some of the things that are possible, if we do not carry our activities outside and beyond this hall. It has been well said by Mayor Johnson of Paxton in a recent letter:

"I feel that if I should conscientiously recommend that our city should become a member of this association and pay in dues toward it, that we ought to have and maintain some agency at Springfield, especially during the legislative time, that would look after municipal legislation. It is useless to say to you, with your experience, that every legislature seems to have encroached more or less on the cities' privileges, and that will continue as long as we are not organized and do not look after our own interests."

BY

RUSSELL MCCULLOCH STORY

University of Illinois

The movement for Home Rule in American cities is one of the important developments in the municipal history of this country. To fully appreciate its significance, however, it is necessary to have a clear apprehension of the legal position of the American city under other than Home Rule conditions.

American cities possess a two-fold political character.1 Primarily, they would appear to be organizations for the satisfaction of local needs; secondarily, they would appear to act as the agents of the respective states in which they lie and exercise powers which affect the inhabitants of the whole state. But in the development of the law respecting public corporations the above has been reversed and the courts have adhered to the principle that the city corporate is entitled to no protection against the state; that primarily and secondarily it is but an agent of the state and subject to the supervision and control which the latter may see fit to impose upon it. The state in practice becomes the state legislature. The city, in fact, therefore has no rights, privileges, immunities, powers, duties and obligations, it may undertake no work, it may own no property, it may plan no future, except as it receives authority from the state to act as its agent along these lines, the state legislature retaining the power at any time to alter, amend, undo, or do over again those things which the city as the agent of the state has already attempted, and to do those things for the city which it has not been author1Goodnow, Municipal Home Rule, p. 18.

ized to do for itself. Moreover, if the city presumes to do any act or make any contract, no matter how insignificant, that has not been expressly authorized such acts and such contracts are void.2

Such in general was the legal position of the city in the United States until recent years, and it still represents the legal position of the city in many, if not the majority, of the states of the Union. This condition, however, is not uniformly true today. The rapid growth of our cities in number and size, (they now contain approximately fifty per cent of the population in continental United States), the increasing importance of their problems, the failure of general laws to meet and satisfy the varieties of local conditions, the failure of the states to demonstrate their ability to interfere wisely in municipal affairs, and the increasing demand of the cities for a larger measure of freedom, all these combined have been gradually breaking the grip in which the states have so mercilessly held American cities. As we survey the field at the present time the legal position of cities may be defined in one of three different ways:

(1) The cities of some states are strictly state agents and are absolutely devoid of the power of self-government except as it has been expressly conferred by a state legislature on which there operate no constitutional limitations in favor of the cities. Such a state is Massachusetts, in which it has well been said that the legal status of a city is the same as that of an infant, or an idiot, or a lunatic.

(2) The cities of some states are protected from wanton abuse of the power of the legislature by the constitutional provision that the assemblies may not pass any local or special laws respecting municipalities where general laws can be made applicable. This protection is of a purely negative character as far as municipal freedom and power are concerned.

(3) The cities of some states are by constitutional provisions guaranteed some degree of freedom in the exer

2Munro, The Government of American Cities, p. 53. Cf. also Berlin v. Gorham, cited in Macy, Cases on Municipal Corporations, p. 18.