MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. In March 1897, as a tribute to the growing public interest in the city problems,
1. Origin of Municipal It is not possible to draw an exact line between rural and urban conditions, and it is a fact that municipal government in its more complex and commanding forms is the result of a gradual de velopment from the simple military government of the army post or the simple rural government of the agricultural town. When a community has reached the stage where it is willing to organize a municipal government it is ready to take a long step away from the Anglo-Saxon individualism so well expressed by the old saying that "the "Englishman's house is his castle." It is, of course, true that political gov ernment in any of its forms means a curtail ment of individualism. But the phenomena of city government marks a distinct advanced stage in this process. Let the man who believes that he has an inalienable right to "do that which seemeth good in his own eyes" and to ado as he pleases with his own," beware of the city! The utmost development of social con trol to be found in the latest city planning scheme is inherent in the first formal recogni tion of the fact that the conditions of urban life make necessary a special form of govern ment. People cannot live close together with out submitting their individual whims and fancies to community control. In this fact the city has its origin.
2. Relation of Municipal Corporations to State and National Government.— It is the
theory of American law that sovereignty, as manifested through the colonial and subse quently through the State governments, pre cedes both in time and authority the powers which are manifested in the operation of municipalities. In other words, the city, al though it is a normal development of the eco nomic and social needs of the people, acquires no governmental powers except as they are granted by the sovereign state. Thus the direct control of the States over the municipal cor porations within their borders is theoretically complete, even to the point that municipal gov ernments might be abolished altogether and their functions discontinued or transferred to central authorities of the State. This theoreti cally helpless position of the cities has subjected them to many abuses, particularly at the hands of the State legislatures, with the result that one of the most potent reform movements con nected with city government has been the move ment for municipal home rule. The purpose of the home rule movement is not to create intfreria in imperiis or to remove the cities from the jurisdiction of the States in their sov ereign capacity. It is rather to give the cities in each Commonwealth a constitutional status and to this extent to curtail the general gov ernmental powers conferred upon the legisla ture. Municipal home rule in various forms has already been embodied in the constitTtos of the following States: Missouri, 1875; Cali fornia, 1879; Washington, 1889; New York, 1894; Minnesota, 1896; Colorado, 1902; Oregon, 1906; Oklahoma, 1907; Michigan, 1908; Ari zona, 1912; Ohio, 1912; Nebraska, 1912; Texas, 1912. The chief purposes of municipal home rule are to enable cities (1) to frame their own charters and thus choose their own forms of government; (2) to prevent legislative inter ference with municipal affairs by means of local and special legislation; (3) to exercise police control over their inhabitants in accord ance with the dictates of local public senti ment; and (4) to determine what co-operative functions shall be undertaken by the com munity. It is noteworthy that of the large cities of the country, Saint Louis, Cleveland, San Francisco, Kansas City (Mo.), Seattle, Portland (Ore.), Denver, Saint Paul and Toledo, are living under charters framed and adopted by their own people, subject in some cases to subsequent ratification by the legisla ture. Detroit, Cincinnati and Minneapolis are only deterred from having home rule charters by their inability thus far to devise any that are satisfactory to themselves. Many of the States not enumerated above have provisions in their constitutions forbidding the legislature to pass local or special acts amending city char ters or interfering in the internal affairs of cities.