436 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 



A little examination will easily show that, in spite of the fine 

 phrases of the founders, the government became an entity by itself 

 away from the daily life of the people; not meant to be set off against 

 them with power to oppress, as in the case of the traditional Euro- 

 pean governments, but simply because its machinery was so largely 

 copied from the historic governments which did distrust the people, 

 that it failed to provide the vehicle for a vital and genuinely organ- 

 ized expression of the popular will. The founders carefully defined 

 what was germane to government and that which was quite outside 

 its realm; whereas the very crux of local self-government, as has 

 been well said, is involved in the " right locally to determine the 

 scope of the local government," in response to the local needs as 

 they arise. 



They were anxious to keep the strings in the hands of the good 

 and professedly public-spirited, because, having staked so much 

 upon the people, whom they really knew so little, they became eager 

 that they should appear well, and should not be given enough power 

 to enable them to betray their weaknesses; as a kind lady may 

 permit herself to give a tramp five cents, believing that, although 

 he may spend it for drink, he cannot get very drunk upon so small 

 a sum. 



All might have gone well upon this doctrinaire plan, as it still 

 does in many country places, if there had not been a phenomenally 

 rapid growth in cities upon an entirely changed basis. Multitudes 

 of men were suddenly brought together in response to the nineteenth- 

 century concentration of industry and commerce a purely im- 

 personal tie; whereas the eighteenth-century city attracted the 

 country people in response to the more normal and slowly formed 

 ties of domestic service, family affection, and apprenticeship. Added 

 to this unprecedented growth from industrial causes, we have in 

 American cities multitudes of immigrants coming in successive 

 migrations, often breaking social ties which are as old as the human 

 family, and renouncing customs which may be traced to the habits 

 of primitive man. Both the country-bred and immigrant city- 

 dwellers would be ready to adapt themselves to a new and vigorous 

 civic life founded upon a synthesis of their social needs, but the 

 framers of our carefully prepared city charters did not provide for 

 this expanding demand at the points of congestion. They did not 

 foresee that after the universal franchise has once been granted, social 

 needs and ideals are bound to enter in as legitimate objects of political 

 action; while, on the other hand, the only people in a democracy 

 who can legitimately become the objects of repressive government 

 are those who are too underdeveloped to use the franchise, or those 

 who have forfeited their right to full citizenship. We have, there- 

 fore, a municipal administration in America which is largely reduced 



