State authority with power to investigate the work of local authorities, and to compel the latter to enforce the law when they have been proved delinquent.

Some steps have been taken to diminish the influence of national and State politics in local elections by arranging the municipal elections at different times from the general elections. The Massachusetts cities have their elections in December, a month. or more after the general elections; New York has its municipai election in the odd years when there are no congressional or presidential elections, but as there are annual elections for the State legislature there is not yet a complete separation here. A few cities hold municipal elections in the spring, as is the general rule for elections in rural towns; but although the general principle of separate elections is making headway, its adoption in any large number of cities will take no little time.

CONCLUSION

We have noted the growth of urban population and the development of municipal government in the United States from the petty colonial borough to the vast metropolitan municipality of to-day. We have seen the evolution from the simple and unorganized council government to the complicated administrative machinery of municipal departments. In the process, the central direction of municipal affairs has passed from the council, and in most American cities authority is distributed and dissipated on no fixed principle between council, mayor, and State legislature, while the influence of national and State political contests in municipal elections, and the operation of the spoils system in municipal officeholding have served to deteriorate still further municipal administration. In recent years, however, we see certain tendencies toward a more

scientific distribution of authority, toward the separation of municipal from national and State elections, and toward a more permanent and efficient subordinate service; and while these tendencies have not as yet become widespread, yet it is along the lines already indicated that further advances of a permanent nature may be most rationally anticipated.

THE MUNICIPAL PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES

HORACE E. DEMING

Municipal government in the United States is, on the whole, less satisfactory than our State or national governments. It has been confidently claimed by many that the conspicuous failure of democracy as a form of government under the exacting conditions of our modern industrial civilization is demonstrated by the American city. In several States there have been elaborate investigations and reports by specially appointed State commissions upon the subject of municipal government, and the evils have been pictured again and again. Literally thousands upon thousands of statutes and not a few constitutional amendments have been enacted in the search for remedies. Still the evil remains with us.

Is, then, the search for a remedy hopeless? Does the democratic-republican form of government make impossible the honest, efficient, economical, progressive conduct of municipal affairs? In Great Britain and on the continent of Europe under the widely varying governmental systems of England, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Belgium, the cities are the most conspicuous examples of efficiency, economy, and progress in the field of government. In each of those countries, also, the city, as a scheme of government for the determination of matters of local policy and the administration of local concerns, is far more democratic, not only in its conception, but in actual practice, than the general government itself. The failure of municipal government in our own coun

try, therefore, can hardly be attributed to the democratic character of our institutions. To what, then, is this failure due? In our judgment the principal causes are not difficult of statement, and in saying this we recognize that these causes are themselves the result of or complicated with yet other causes. There is no short or easy road to the goal of efficient, economical, progressive municipal government. There is no one specific for the municipal evils from which we suffer.

A necessary condition precedent either to an intelligent comprehension of the municipal problem or to well-directed effort toward its solution is a correct conception, first, of the nature of municipal government; and, secondly, of the proper relation of the municipal ity to the general government of the State.

Municipal government considered in reference to the physical

2

area embraced within its corporate limits and to the dwellers within functions.

those limits has two chief functions: (1) The determination of the local public policy; (2) the administration of the local policy, i. e., the carrying into practical effect of the local policy that has been decided upon.

Municipal government considered in reference to the general government of the State, unless charged by the State government with the administration of general laws, has, properly speaking, nothing to do with the State government save as the source from which its own corporate life and powers are derived; and the State is under no compulsion to delegate to the municipal corporation the administration within its corporate limits of the general State laws, i. e., the carrying into practical effect within its corporatel limits, of the State policy that has been decided upon. The State may and often does appoint its own agents directly for such purpose, e. g., the State Banking, Insurance or Excise Departments

of Munic You.

City agent of State

may administer the State laws on those subjects within the munici-
pal limits without resort to any municipal official; on the other
hand, the State may find it convenient to delegate to the municipal-
ity the authority and duty of enforcing within it the State policy,
e. g., as to the care of the insane, of the poor, the preservation of
the peace. The point to be noted is, that whenever the municipal-
ity is charged with such a duty it is acting as a subordinate admin-
istrative agent of the State, and has properly no more lot or share
in determining the policy of the law it is administering within its
corporate limits than if directly appointed State officials were ad-
ministering the same law within those limits. I.

The only fundamentally necessary connection, then, between the
municipality and the State government is as the source from which
the municipal corporation, as every other corporation, derives its
corporate powers. It needs no assistance from the State to exercise
its corporate powers. Its necessary connection with the State be-
gins and ends with the grant of power to act, just as an insurance
corporation once granted the power to engage in the insurance
business has no need of further resort to the State to conduct its
business. Where, however, the municipality is made a subordi-
nate administrative agent of the State it is necessarily and properly
under the constant supervision and subject to the constant control
of the State.

We are now prepared for the statement of two of the principal causes of the failure thus far in the United States to secure efficient, economical, progressive municipal government, viz.:

The municipality is not granted sufficient power to determine for itself all matters of local public policy and to settle for itself the details of its scheme of internal local administration;

The municipality as a subordinate administrative agent of the

1. State agent of National For. in Stateragent Same malmer - vide elections, enffrage. quarantine, war, banking te. vide

Interstate commer

"States divité", local notioned & of the citizen.

vide "Mormoniern.

stative