this difficulty as to the legislative body in cities, it is impossible to say. Sometimes it seems almost as though the attempt would be made to govern cities without any local legislature. But, on the other hand, there are so many matters in regard to which such a body ought to have power, that thus far no one has ventured seriously to take so extreme a view. It may fairly be said to be, therefore, the great unsolved organic problem in connection with municipal government in the United States. That it is so, illustrates with vividness the justice of the American view that it is a dangerous thing, in wholly democratic communities, to make the legislative body supreme over the executive.

Thus far in this chapter, the shortcomings of the American city have been admitted, and the effort has been made to show the peculiar difficulties with which such a city has to deal. It ought to be said that, despite all of these difficulties, the average American city is not going from bad to worse. There is substantial reason for thinking that the general tendency, even in the larger cities, is towards improvement. Life and property are more secure in almost all of them than they used to be. Certainly there has been no decrease of security such as might reasonably have been expected to result from increased size. Less than a score of years ago it was impossible to have a fair election in New York or Brooklyn. To-day, and for the last decade, under the present system of registry laws, every election is held with substantial fairness. The health of our cities does not deteriorate, but on the average improves. So that in the large and fundamental aspect of the question the progress, if slow, is steady in the direction of better things. It is not strange that a people conducting an experiment in city government for which there is absolutely no precedent, under conditions of exceptional difficulty, should have to stumble towards correct and successful methods through experiences which may be both costly and distressing. There is no other road towards improvement in the coming time. But it is probable that in another decade Americans will look back on some of the scandals of the present epoch in city government, with as much surprise as they now regard

the effort to control fires by the volunteer fire department, which was insisted upon, even in the city of New York, until within twenty years. As American cities grow in stability, and provide themselves with the necessary working plant, they approximate more and more in physical conditions to those which prevail in most European cities. As they do so, it is reasonable to expect that their pavements will improve and the cleansing of their streets will be more satisfactory. American cities, as a rule, have a more abundant supply of water than European cities, and they are much more enterprising in furnishing themselves with what in Europe might be called the luxuries of city life, but which, in America, are so common as almost to be regarded as necessities. Especially is this true of every convenience involving the use of electricity. There are more telephone wires, for example, in New York and Brooklyn than in the whole of the United Kingdom. The problem of placing these wires underground therefore, to take in passing an illustration, of another kind, of the difficulties of city government in America, is vastly greater than in any city abroad, because the multiplication of the wires is so constant and at so rapid a rate that as fast as some are placed beneath the surface, those which have been strung while this process has been going on seem as numerous as be(fore the underground movement began.

It may justly be said, therefore, that the American city, if open to serious blame, is also deserving of much praise. Everyone understands that universal suffrage has its drawbacks, and in cities these defects become especially evident. It would be uncandid to deny that many of the problems of American cities spring from this factor, especially because the voting population is continually swollen by foreign immigrants whom time alone can educate into an intelligent harmony with the American system. But because there is scum upon the surface of a boiling liquid, it does not follow that the material, nor the process to which it is subjected, is itself bad. Universal suffrage, as it exists in the United States, is not only a great element of safety in the present day and generation, but is perhaps the mightiest educational force to

which the masses of men ever have been exposed. In a country where wealth has no hereditary sense of obligation to its neighbours, it is hard to conceive what would be the condition of society if universal suffrage did not compel every one having property to consider, to some extent at least, the well-being of the whole community.

It is probable that no other system of government would have been able to cope any more successfully, on the whole, with the actual conditions that American cities have been compelled to face. It may be claimed for American institutions even in cities, that they lend themselves with wonderfully little friction to growth and development and to the peaceful assimilation of new and strange populations. Whatever defects have marked the progress of such cities, no one acquainted with their history will deny that since their problem assumed its present aspect, progress has been made, and substantial progress, from decade to decade. The problem will never be anything but a most difficult one, but with all its difficulties there is every reason to be hopeful.

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APPENDIX

NOTE TO CHAPTER III

ON CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS

IN America it is always by a convention (i.e. a representative body called together for some occasional or temporary purpose) that a constitution is framed. It was thus that the first constitutions for the thirteen revolting colonies were drawn up and enacted in 1776 and the years following; and as early as 1780 the same plan had suggested itself as the right one for framing a constitution for the whole United States. Recognized in the Federal Constitution (Art. v.) and in the successive Constitutions of the several States as the proper method to be employed when a new constitution is to be prepared, or an existing constitution revised throughout, it has now become a regular and familiar part of the machinery of American government, almost a necessary part, because all American legislatures are limited by s fundamental law, and therefore when a fundamental law is to be repealed or largely recast, it is desirable to provide for the purpose a body distinct from the ordinary legislature. Where it is sought only to change the existing fundamental law in a few specified points, the function of proposing these changes to the people for their acceptance may safely be left, and generally is left, to the legislature. Originally a convention was conceived of as a sovereign body, wherein the full powers of the people were vested by popular election. It is now, however, merely an advisory body, which prepares a draft of a new constitution and submits it to the people for their acceptance or rejection. And it is not deemed to be sovereign in the sense of possessing the plenary authority of the people, for its powers may be, indeed now invariably are, limited by the statute under which the people elect it.

'It is found in a private letter of Alexander Hamilton (then only twenty-three years of age) of that year.

The State Conventions which carried, or rather affected to carry. the seceding Slave States out of the Union, acted as sovereign bodies. Their proceedings, however, though clothed with legal forms, were practically revolutionary.

Questions relating to the powers of a Constitutional Convention have several times come before the courts, so that there exists a small body of law as well as a large body of custom and practice regarding the rights and powers of such assemblies. Into this law and practice I do not propose to enter. But it is worth while to indicate certain advantages which have been found to attach to the method of entrusting the preparation of a fundamental instrument of government to a body of men specially chosen for the purpose instead of to the ordinary legislature. The topic suggests interesting comparisons with the experience of France and other European countries in which constitutions have been drafted and enacted by the legislative, which has been sometimes also practically the executive, authority. Nor is it wholly without bearing on problems which have recently arisen in England, where Parliament has found itself, and may find itself again, invited to enact what would be in substance a new constitution for a part of the United Kingdom.

An American Constitutional Convention, being chosen for the sole purpose of drafting a constitution, and having nothing to do with the ordinary administration of government, no influence or patronage, no power to raise or appropriate revenue, no opportunity of doing jobs for individuals or corporations, is not necessarily elected on party lines or in obedience to party considerations. Such considerations do affect the election, but they are not always dominant, and may sometimes be of little moment. Hence men who have no claims on a party, or will not pledge themselves to a party, may be and often are elected; while men who seek to enter a legislature for the sake of party advancement or the promotion of some gainful object do not generally care to serve in a convention.

When the convention meets, it is not, like a legislature, a body strictly organized by party. A sense of individual independence and freedom may prevail unknown in legislatures. Proposals have therefore a chance of being considered on their merits. A scheme does not necessarily command the support of one set of men nor encounter the hostility of another set because it proceeds from a leader or a group belonging to a particular party. And as the ordinary party questions do not come up for decision while its deliberations are going on, men are not thrown back on their usual party affiliations, nor are their passions roused by exciting political issues.

Having no work but constitution-making to consider, a convention is free to bend its whole mind to that work. Debate has less tendency

See the learned and judicious treatise of Judge Jameson on Constitutional Conventions.

'It will be shown in the account of the legislatures and political parties of the States (in Vol. II. post, that the questions of practical importance to the States with which a State Convention would deal are very often not in issue between the two State parties, seeing that the latter are formed on national lines.