government ordinarily has a rather high degree of permanence, but this is not true of the details of governmental organization now found in state constitutions; moreover, the bicameral system, in the past one of the most permanent features of governmental organization, may be replaced within a few years. Any amending clause which makes more difficult the alteration of provisions at the time regarded as permanent may effectively bar future progress.

The framers of a constitution could, however, attach to specific constitutional provisions a statement that such provisions should be more easily amendable than other provisions. So, if it were desired to put a certain matter into the constitution and to safeguard it for a limited time only, the Virginia and Oklahoma plan could be adopted so as to permit alteration by simple legislative act after a term of years. Were this plan not thought desirable, the constitution may permit the alteration of detailed provisions by a two-thirds legislative vote, subject to a popular vote upon petition therefor. Provisions of primarily local importance may well be made alterable by legislative action, coupled with a popular vote of the community affected. Such plans would relieve the ballot of many questions of slight importance now submitted to the voters of the states, because such a vote is necessary in all cases to amend the constitution. In states having the initiative and referendum, many matters of ordinary legislation submitted are more important than proposed constitutional amendments, and the unimportant amendments would be sufficiently controlled if the people in each case had power by petition to compel submission.

The plan just suggested would of course tend to weaken the distinction between the state constitution and state statutes, but it would put back into the hands of the legislature, in first instance at least, some of the power which the expansion of the constitutional function has taken from the legislature, while at the same time it would leave an effective popular control. The easier amending process as to a mass of constitutional details, which can to some extent in advance be labeled as relatively less important, may lead to greater respect for constitutional provisions of a more important and more permanent character.

Yet such a result is doubtful, and it would be highly unwise for constitution makers of one period to tie up, as permanent and fundamental, principles and institutions which under new conditions may most need to be changed.

As a matter of fact, the result here suggested may be accomplished by (1) putting fundamental provisions alone in the state constitution and by (2) establishing a referendum on laws. The legislature would under such an arrangement be freed from present restraints, but the people would possess all powers which they now exercise with respect to constitutional legislation. However, the states which have adopted enlarged constitutions appear to be fairly well satisfied with them, and there seems little possibility now of a return to the state constitution which should be fundamental law and that only.

Yet, even with the tendencies such as they now are, the state constitution still has a function distinct from that of statute. The constitution can never contain the great mass of the general legislation of the state, and should deal with matters legislative in character only when, and in so far as, such matters are relatively more important. State constitutions contain and will continue to contain much of purely legislative detail, but such detail should, and is likely to, remain incidental to the main function of the constitution as an instrument organizing a state government and determining its powers. And even with the larger function of state constitutions, the constitution itself need not be materially lengthened. It has already been suggested that many provisions in state constitutions have been inserted to meet conditions which no longer exist. Such provisions tend to persist, and the constitution lengthens by a process of cumulation. If constitution makers will winnow out provisions no longer desirable, they need not lengthen the constitution, even though at the same time they place in it many new provisions not properly fundamental in character.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

W. F. DODD.

METROPOLITAN FREE CITIES

A THOROUGHGOING MUNICIPAL HOME RULE POLICY

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O a large degree the history of the relations of states to metropolitan cities in this country is "a history of repeated injuries." It would be a history of "repeated usurpations" as well, were the constitutional rights of the states to commit such aggressions not so well established. seizure by the state of municipal police, fire, health and even park departments; the creation of special state commissions to carry out large-scale local projects; the franchise grabs put through state legislatures; the legitimatizing of scandalously exorbitant or unjust claims upon city treasuries; and the culminating infamies of the Pittsburgh "ripper" of 1901 are cases in point.

Meanwhile municipal government in our metropolitan centers has become so much more important in every material way than is state government that there is a certain air of unreality, of the ludicrous even, in the continued subjection of the former to the latter. Compare for example the expenditures of large cities with the expenditures of the states in which they are located. From 1903 to 1913, the budget allowances of New York city were over four times as great as those of New York state. Chicago's government in the years 1911 and 1912 was 84.4 per cent more costly than the government of Illinois. In the amount of total expense incurred, Philadelphia has begun to run ahead of Pennsylvania. The great states of Europe do not exhibit this reversal of the rôles of the whole and the part. That England should dominate London, that France should dominate Paris, that Prussia should dominate Berlin, is not inherently unreasonable. In each of these cases the state is large enough, populous enough, financially powerful enough to seem a worthy political superior even to such world cities. Viewed from the same angle, the control of New York city by New York state, of Chicago by Illinois, of Philadelphia by Pennsylvania

is a gross absurdity, explainable only on the ground that we have followed tradition blindly.

The numerous abuses which have been inflicted by state governments upon our large cities are in no sense accidental; they are the result of certain permanent and fundamental incompatibilities between the two. At bottom it is the age-long conflict between urban and rural. Active malevolence need not be assumed on one side or the other; as a matter of fact such malevolence scarcely exists. Nor is the word "rural" as used in these pages intended to convey reproach. Rural legislators are, no doubt, fairly well equipped for dealing with the problems of country life. It is when they attempt to deal with the problems of great urban centers that conflict is bound to arise.

This fundamental opposition is inherent in the nature of the two authorities. In most of our commonwealths today the government, and particularly its legislative branch, is in effect a grand convocation of county notables. Now most of our counties are predominantly rural in character. Under the prevailing district plan of representation, the influence of smaller cities is usually swallowed up by the party organization of the counties in which they are located. Taken separately, the delegations of the large cities are mere fractions of the legislature. Geographically and in other interests they are too far apart to represent their collective interest effectively. In the quality of their political ideals as well as in their outward aspects, therefore, our state capitols are little more than glorified county court houses.

Unfortunately county politics, which are thus reflected so largely in state affairs, are the most sluggish, the most backward, the most corrupt, and the least informed by public opinion of any in this country. The evil primacy assigned to cities in this connection is misleading. Occasionally an Adams County in Ohio or a Delaware County in Pennsylvania springs into a deservedly shameful notoriety which illustrates this contention; but for the most part the corruption and inefficiency of our counties is so deeply rooted, so commonplace, so petty as to the amounts involved and so sordidly dull that it simply is not news. Contrast the rapid universal circulation and immense

influence of a metropolitan press with the slow, scant circulation and almost negligible influence of the ordinary country newspaper. The result is that in cities governmental abuses are instantly made known and promptly attacked, whereas in counties of the ordinary rural type they receive small publicity and unless utterly heinous are soon forgotten.

Differences between state and municipal ideals may be illustrated in profuse detail. For example, county offices, and to a considerable extent state offices as well, are seldom highly specialized in character. Hence the ingrained tendency to regard them as spoils or to apply to them the principle of rotation. In metropolitan cities and in the federal government, on the other hand, the technical nature of many official services has forced a demand for the merit system. The national government was free to progress as it desired in this field and the advance which it has made is highly creditable. Cities, however, have been hampered because of the necessity of going to the legislature to ask for a reform which in the light of the experience of many of the rural members must have seemed unnecessary or absurd.

Again in rural primaries and elections such offences as false registration, impersonation, and colonization are virtually impossible, owing to the mutual acquaintance of the voters. Large cities which desire legislation against these evils have to ask it from representatives the majority of whom have difficulty in understanding the nature and extent of the abuses involved.

In our greater cities land values have grown with extreme rapidity to enormous figures. Any rational scheme of municipal finance would long since have laid them under contribution, as German cities have done so effectively with their unearnedincrement taxes. But American cities are not free. In state legislatures they have to face a dominant farmer interest stolidly opposed to anything and everything that looks like an additional burden upon land.

Metropolitan cities have acquired debts on a much larger scale than have the states. But while the debts of these cities are larger, their assets are also more extensive than the assets of the states. Great as is this difference between the two