Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/398

394 shall be answered, or that it shall even be considered on its merits. Who can deny that politics-ridden legislatures have often refused to hear the appeal of the city for no other than a purely partisan reason? Who will deny that, just as burdensome laws have often been imposed upon the city for partisan purpose, so needed legislation has often been denied the city for partisan advantage? The legislative history of every state abounds with testimony to show that legislative dominion over municipal affairs has been as discreditable to the state as it has been unhealthy for the city.

Not only does the partisan character of the state legislature disqualify it for the function of guiding the administrative development of the cities, but the individual legislators have neither the time nor the knowledge of local conditions nor the proper sense of responsibility to the urban constituency necessary to a constructive treatment of the municipal problem. Members of the legislature are largely from the rural districts and can not in reason be expected to understand the perplexing problems of municipal government. Yet, to these men, untrained in the intricacies of municipal administration, unfamiliar with actual city conditions and busy with many problems of state policy, has been intrusted the tremendous task of controlling the city's administrative development. It is no reflection upon the ability or intelligence of our legislators to say that they are ill-fitted for this task of absentee law-making.

Aside from making impossible an effective solution of the municipal problem, this legislative dominion over the city impairs the efficiency of the legislative members in the other work which they have to do. In Indiana, for example, the legislative desks for years have groaned under the burden of bills having for their object to grant to cities relief from the restrictive provisions of our state constitution and laws. During the past few sessions a perfect flood of measures dealing with matters of a purely local nature engrossed legislative time and energy that should have been put upon important matters of general state policy. We have rid ourselves by a federal constitutional change of one great obstacle to legislative efficiency—the indirect election of United States Senators; it now remains to rid ourselves by state constitutional change of another great obstacle—the legislative regulation of municipal affairs. This can be done by writing into the state constitution provisions for municipal home rule. Already several states have adopted this needed reform.

What does "municipal home rule" mean? It means, in the first place, a reversal of the existing legal presumption against the powers of the city. Instead of possessing only such powers as are granted to it by the state legislature, the city, under the "home rule" system, is invested by the constitution with all powers of local government