HOME RULE 393 



government for the satisfaction of a local need, it must search the 

 statutes for permission, and if the statutes are silent on the point, it 

 must appeal to the state legislature for the requisite power. Thus, if 

 a city in my own state of Indiana, for example, wishes to furnish ice 

 to its citizens in the heat of summer, establish a pension fund for its 

 teachers or institute a civil service test for its employees, it must make 

 its humiliating appeal to the legislative Caesar at Indianapolis; for 

 these powers are not nominated in the bond. No wonder an exasperated 

 Indiana city official was once led to remark that "the only creatures 

 without rights under our law are outlaws, wild beasts and munici- 

 palities." Yet, that local communities shall have the fullest right of 

 local self-government is a maxim of American institutions. 



Not only must the city in the exercise of its enumerated powers keep 

 strictly within the limits set by the state legislature, it must follow 

 only such administrative methods as the legislature has prescribed. 

 Even in the determination of the fundamental framework of their 

 government the citizens have no legal voice. A certain city may 

 desire the commission plan or the city manager plan; but, of its own 

 action, it can not get what it wants. It must take what it gets from 

 the state house, and in the large number of states of which I am writing 

 it gets an antiquated form of city organization that renders increasingly 

 difficult the municipal problem. And not only the general framework, 

 but the minutest detail of the administrative machinery, is often pre- 

 scribed by legislative act. 



Generally the legislature groups the cities in classes according to 

 their population, and then imposes a detailed plan of administrative 

 organization and powers upon each class. This frequently means that 

 a particular city is saddled with an administrative machinery ill-fitted 

 to its local conditions, or with administrative methods ill-adapted to its 

 local needs. Any one who is familiar with municipal conditions knows 

 that even cities of the same general size often reveal the greatest 

 diversity of conditions and needs, and that what is good for one city is 

 often bad for another. Moreover, to imprison the city in the strait- 

 jacket of uniform legislation checks its inventiveness, for it deprives it 

 of the opportunity of wholesome experiment with municipal methods. 

 It impairs its individuality, for it takes from it the chance to shape its 

 own life and development. It lessens its sense of responsibility, for it 

 relieves it of the responsibility of working out its own civic salvation. 

 Common sense joins with the principle of local self-government in the 

 demand that local institutions be permitted to conform to local conditions. 



To meet the needs of modern social and economic development 

 the American city without right of self-government is compelled by 

 the state constitution to appeal at every turn to the legislature for 

 relief; but that constitution never guarantees that the city's prayer 



VOL. LXXXIV.— 27. 



