The Battle for Municipal Freedom 
 
 An Address by 
 
 J. Hampden Dougherty of New York City 
 At the Home Rule Conference 
 
 Utica, New York, Sept. 21, 1912 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 The Municipal Government Association 
 
 38 Park Row 
 
 1913 
 
 
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 The Battle for Municipal Freedom. 
 
 The object of the Municipal Government Asso¬ 
 ciation is unmistakable. It is to unite the cities 
 of New York State in the battle for municipal free¬ 
 dom. Its immediate purpose is to crystallize home 
 rule sentiment and procure from party conventions 
 some explicit pledge that this cause shall be ad¬ 
 vanced by specific measures, whatever party may 
 be promoted to power in the State government. 
 The Association has obtained from the State Con¬ 
 vention of one party a declaration that municipalities 
 should be given power to adopt and amend their char¬ 
 ters under a wise general law, free from legislative in¬ 
 terference. The soundness of this proposition is chal¬ 
 lenged by those who declare that a municipality being 
 the creature of the state is absolutely at the mercy of 
 the state legislature to which it owes its life, and 
 which may abolish or change its charter at will. 
 To delve into the origin of this notion would seem 
 unnecessary. The charters granted by the King of 
 England to his American colonists were, to use the 
 language of the Crown lawyers, mere certificates 
 of incorporation changeable at the will, even the 
 whim, of royalty. The doctrine was never willingly 
 accepted by the colonies and with the Revolution 
 it ceased to have any political significance. A phase 
 of it survived and entered into American public cor¬ 
 poration law; but it has never been thoroughly 
 rooted there, it has always been questioned, and its 
 limitations tacitly admitted. According to some of 
 the older lawyers the established rule was that a 
 charter granted to a municipal corporation must 
 be construed so strictly that nothing may pass by 
 bare inference and that every substantial power 
 must be found in the express terms of the grant. 
 
In the battle for municipal freedom we are con¬ 
 fronted at the outset with this proposition, as an 
 obstacle to city emancipation. According to this 
 concept cities have no right whatever to any free¬ 
 dom ; they are mere legislative creatures, legisla¬ 
 tive serfs, whose government may be altered accord¬ 
 ing to legislative caprice. To combat this notion, to 
 expose its fallacy, may properly occupy a few min¬ 
 utes of our time. If it is a fetich, the fetich should 
 be destroyed. 
 
 This is an age of iconoclasm. The tremendous 
 impetus given to thought by the scientific, indus¬ 
 trial and social evolution of the last sixty or seventy 
 years has affected also our political and economic 
 ideas. Long accepted creeds are now questioned. 
 No doctrine based merely on tradition, however 
 long accepted or highly praised, is now safe from 
 mordant analysis. In the general intellectual up¬ 
 rising, old theories of political economy and as¬ 
 sumed axioms of jurisprudence must expect rough 
 handling. The false and the mistaken will dis¬ 
 appear, the sound will survive and will emerge the 
 stronger from the ordeal. 
 
 A Prevalent Theory. 
 
 The notion that a city charter is a purely legisla¬ 
 tive creation alterable at the pleasure of the legis¬ 
 lature has indeed been altogether too prevalent, but it 
 has been resisted by some of the ablest judges and 
 students of self-government. In two cases of first 
 importance the .Supreme Court of Michigan has 
 shown that back of the written constitution of that 
 state (and the same is true in all the states) lay a 
 scheme of local self-government which was presup¬ 
 posed by the constitution and could not be abro¬ 
 gated by the legislature. In the earlier case the 
 Court held an act of the state legislature appoint¬ 
 ing a permanent board of water commissioners of 
 
the City of Detroit unconstitutional as in conflict 
 with the principle of local self-government. In the 
 later case the Court declared unconstitutional a 
 statute under which the Michigan legislature had 
 assumed without the consent of the people of the 
 city of Detroit to authorize the construction of a 
 new park for the city. 
 
 According to the opinions of the judges incor¬ 
 porated cities and boroughs had always, both in 
 England and in America, been self-governing com¬ 
 munities ; the creation of a municipal corporation 
 was nothing more nor less than “investing in the 
 people of the place the local government thereof 
 and the legislature had no power to take from the 
 people of the locality the management of their local 
 concerns. The question, said Judge Cooley in his 
 opinion in the earlier case, was “nothing short of 
 this: Whether local self-government in this state is 
 or is not a mere privilege, conceded by the legisla¬ 
 ture in its discretion, and which may be withdrawn 
 at any time at pleasure.” After quoting from De 
 Tocqueville* regarding our system of local govern¬ 
 ment he argued that the historical fact in this coun¬ 
 try was that local governments universally were 
 either simultaneous with or preceded the more cen¬ 
 tral authority. The right of local self-government 
 was part of our Anglican liberty gained step by step 
 and would never be surrendered. 
 
 Judge Cooley’s Opinions. 
 
 In the second case where the state legislature had 
 mandatorily created a public park for the city of 
 Detroit, the Supreme Court through Judge Cooley 
 reaffirmed the doctrines of the Hurlbut case. It 
 
 ♦“Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free 
 nations. Municipal institutions are to liberty what primary 
 schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach; 
 they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may 
 establish a free government, but without the spirit of municipal 
 institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.” 
 
 3 
 
denied the power of the legislature to compel a 
 municipal body to contract debts for local purposes 
 against its will. The Court conceded that in all 
 matters of general concern there was no local right 
 to act independently of the state; the local authori¬ 
 ties, for example, could not be permitted to deter¬ 
 mine for themselves whether they would contribute 
 through taxation to the support of the state govern¬ 
 ment or when required assist in suppressing 
 insurrection or in enforcing the police laws. 
 But in respect of distinctively local matters the city 
 authorities were supreme. It is not from the stand¬ 
 point of state interest but from that of local interest 
 that the necessity of incorporating cities and villages 
 most distinctly appears. The powers and capacities 
 of a city were therefore largely private in contra¬ 
 distinction to those which were public which it en¬ 
 joyed as a branch of the state. The views of Judge 
 Cooley and his associates were not revolutionary; 
 they were in accord with the theory and practice 
 that prevailed almost universally until the middle 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The political fetich that a city charter should be 
 absolutely under legislative domination is a com¬ 
 paratively modern notion. As has been well said: 
 “The charters of the English cities were as various 
 as their sites, but they all involved local self-govern¬ 
 ment and wide suffrage in the selection of govern¬ 
 ment.” The idea of legislative domination had little 
 footing in Europe, and it is opposed both to theory 
 and practice in the earlier days of our American 
 cities. Chancellor Kent, whose ability to speak upon 
 this subject is unquestionable, declared that broad 
 and latitudinary powers had been conferred by King 
 George II upon the City of New York, through the 
 Montgomerie charter, that these were given to be 
 exercised with sound discretion and with a liberal 
 spirit commensurate with the growing wants and 
 
 4 
 
prosperity of a great commercial metropolis, and he 
 added “the courts construe powers liberally for this 
 purpose.” Here is the antithesis of the idea that 
 the grant of power should be stingily and grudgingly 
 interpreted. 
 
 New York Charter of 1830. 
 
 In the New York City charter of 1830 there was 
 no enumeration of powers whatever. The charter 
 was a genuine city constitution drawn by residents 
 of the city elected as delegates to the city conven¬ 
 tion of 1829. It was ratified at a city convention by 
 the qualified voters of the city. Chancellor Kent 
 was retained by the city fathers to explain the 
 charter. In his notes upon it he asserted that the 
 charter powers were ample for all city purposes: 
 “A common council can always resort to the never 
 failing powers under the charter, which gives broad 
 and large authority commensurate to every case.” 
 The amended New York City charter of 1849 con¬ 
 tained no detailed enumeration of legislative powers. 
 It did not go into effect until it had been submitted 
 to the voters of the city for their approval. The 
 Tweed charter of 1870 was the first to limit the 
 city legislature. One section contained a long list 
 of powers which the city legislature might exercise. 
 Nevertheless this section of enumerated powers 
 closed with the language that in addition the 
 council should have power to carry into ef¬ 
 fect and enforce “any of the powers, privi¬ 
 leges and rights at any time granted and be¬ 
 stowed upon or possessed by the said corporation.” 
 
 The Charter of 1872. 
 
 *~The charter drawn for the City of New York by 
 the Committee of Seventy, in 1872, contained a 
 comprehensive grant of legislative authority. It 
 was approved by the Senate and the Assembly. 
 
 5 
 

 Governor Hoffman’s veto of it has often been mis¬ 
 interpreted. He had no antipathy to a broad grant 
 of power to the city government; his veto was 
 rested upon the ground that the charter provisions 
 for minority representation were unconstitutional. 
 Hoffman had long been a believer in the emancipa¬ 
 tion of cities from legislative interference. In the 
 history of the state he stands as one of the leading 
 protagonists of municipal home rule. He had been 
 mayor of the City of New York in the days when 
 the annual city budget, now carefully discussed be¬ 
 fore, and approved by, the city’s Board of Estimate 
 and Apportionment, was carried up to Albany, 
 where every item however petty was considered by 
 the legislature and changed. He had seen the gov¬ 
 ernment of the City of New York wrested from its 
 people and usurped by the legislature in 1857. In 
 his messages to the legislature while Governor he 
 repeatedly urged that the cities of the state be un¬ 
 shackled, that they be permitted to frame their own 
 form of government, and in the justly famous mes¬ 
 sage which as Governor he sent to the legislature in 
 1872, advocating the creation of a constitutional 
 commission to report to the legislature a revised 
 constitution of the State, he dwelt eloquently and 
 emphatically upon the grave importance of a re¬ 
 turn to earlier municipal freedom. 
 
 George Opdyke’s Views. 
 
 One of the foremost members of the Constitu¬ 
 tional Commission of 1872 was George Opdyke, a 
 man of broad and liberal ideas, who had been mayor 
 of the City of New York in the early sixties. His 
 experience in municipal government in that city 
 in the course of which he found the city 
 tied hand and foot by the legislature, made him an 
 earnest champion of the doctrine of municipal free¬ 
 dom. In the Constitutional Commission of 1872 
 
 6 
 
Opd^ke was chairman of its Committee on Cities 
 and City Government. Some of his opinions may 
 have seemed to savor of aristocracy. He was an 
 advocate of restricted suffrage and this advocacy 
 affected unfavorably the reception accorded to his 
 other views of city government, which were un¬ 
 doubtedly sound. He drew and submitted to the 
 Constitutional Commission of 1872 a new Article 
 to the State Constitution which was called the 
 Municipal Article, the chief and salient provision of 
 which was as follows: 
 
 “The government of every city shall have 
 within its own boundary, exclusive legislative 
 power in all matters relating to taxation and 
 expenditure for local purposes, the care, regu¬ 
 lation and improvement of its streets, avenues, 
 public grounds, and public buildings, of its 
 supply and distribution of water, of its alms¬ 
 houses and its other charitable and benevolent 
 institutions, and may exercise such further pow¬ 
 ers as shall be conferred by law.” 
 
 His Municipal Article provided also that at its 
 first session after the ratification of the article by 
 the people the legislature should enact a general 
 law for the government of cities in harmony there¬ 
 with. Opdyke’s Municipal Article was unanimously 
 approved by his associates in the Constitutional 
 Commission, and reported by that body to the state 
 legislature. But the legislature refused to permit 
 the people to vote upon it, although it accepted a 
 large measure of the Commission’s report and au¬ 
 thorized the submission to the people in the fall 
 election of 1874 of a long series of amendments to 
 the constitution, all of which were ratified at the 
 polls. The arguments of Opdyke and his associ¬ 
 ates in the Commission were never met upon the 
 floor of the legislature; in fact, there was no debate 
 in the legislature upon the question of submission, 
 
 7 
 
for the article never advanced beyond the Commit¬ 
 tee rooms. 
 
 Gov. Tilden’s Message. 
 
 The battle for municipal freedom did not, how¬ 
 ever, end there. Samuel J. Tilden, because of his 
 successful assault upon the Twed ring, was elected 
 Governor in the fall of 1874. So profoundly was he 
 impressed with the importance of the liberation of 
 cities from legislative control that shortly after he 
 took office, in a special message to the legislature, 
 he urged the appointment of a commission of not 
 more than twelve persons “to devise a plan for the 
 government of cities and to report the same to the 
 next legislature.” This necessarily meant a general 
 plan. Governor Tilden’s views were frankly stated 
 in his message. The commission was to indicate 
 “the true sphere of independent city authority.” In 
 the Governor’s judgment this sphere in the most 
 completely developed municipality 
 
 “embraced the care of police, health, schools, 
 street cleaning, preventing of fire, supplying 
 water and gas, and similar matters most con¬ 
 veniently attended to in partnership by per¬ 
 sons living together in a dense community, and 
 the expenditure and taxation necessary for 
 those objects.” 
 
 In fact, the whole domain of municipal matters 
 was to be under the control of the city with the 
 single exception of “rights of persons, property, and 
 the judicial systems instituted for their preserva¬ 
 tion.” These were within the province of general 
 legislation or the general government. They were 
 vast domains which the functions of municipal cor¬ 
 porations and municipal officers do not touch. Til¬ 
 den, like Opdyke and Hoffman, ardently believed 
 in genuine municipal home rule. He was not a vic¬ 
 tim of the fetich that the city was the mere crea¬ 
 ture of the State and that a city charter might be 
 
 8 
 
altered to suit the purposes of politicians as the 
 legislature might will. The legislature appointed 
 a small commission of eminent citizens, selecting 
 the members, as the Governor had suggested, 
 equally from the two leading political parties. At 
 the head of the commission was William M. 
 Evarts, of national fame. One of its members, Ed¬ 
 ward Cooper, brought to his work experience as 
 mayor of the City of New York. All their asso¬ 
 ciates were students of municipal government and 
 recognized authorities as publicists and editors. 
 
 The Evarts Commission. 
 
 This commission, like the Constitutional Conven¬ 
 tion of 1872, was, it is true, affected by the vagary 
 which impaired the value of the constitutional arti¬ 
 cle prepared by Mr. Opdyke. It believed that there 
 should be a board of audit in every city chosen by 
 taxpayers only; in other words, that all questions 
 of taxation and expenditure in the city should be 
 under the control of a body chosen exclusively by 
 taxpayers. But its conception of the province of 
 city government, of the right of the city to free¬ 
 dom from legislative dictation in respect to all 
 local affairs was eminently sound. The municipal 
 article which it proposed to incorporate in the 
 state constitution, in no uncertain terms, declared 
 its faith as follows: 
 
 “The legislature shall itself have no power to 
 pass any law for the opening, making, paving, 
 lighting, or otherwise improving or maintain¬ 
 ing streets, avenues, parks, or places, docks or 
 wharves, or for any other local work or im¬ 
 provement in or for a city, but all authority 
 necessary for such purposes shall be by law con¬ 
 ferred on the city government.” 
 
 This report, largely prepared by Mr. Evarts, is a 
 statesmanlike document of the first rank. Accord¬ 
 ing to Mr. Bryce, it may be said to have become 
 
 9 
 
classical. Resort has been made to it by students 
 of municipal government from time to time all over 
 the country. It is a treasure house of information. 
 But its notion of emancipating the cities of the 
 State from legislative control aroused the sharpest 
 antagonism in the legislature. It was carried in 
 one session of the legislature but it was smothered 
 in committee in the next succeeding legislature, 
 the politicians in that body taking care that no such 
 provision should be submitted to the people. 
 
 Evils of Special Charters. 
 
 Although for more than forty years (for we may 
 go back to the Constitutional Convention of 1867), 
 the foremost students of municipal government 
 have been advocating municipal home rule, the 
 legislature has seen to it that the people should 
 never have an opportunity to vote upon the ques¬ 
 tion whether they favored it or not. The incon¬ 
 gruities and absurdities of special charters for cit¬ 
 ies were very clearly pointed out as far back as 
 1846 by Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, in the 
 State Constitutional Convention that year, in a 
 minority report from the Committee on Cities. He 
 strongly urged a constitutional amendment pro¬ 
 viding that 
 
 “no charter or special act for the incorporation 
 of any city or village should be granted; that 
 general and uniform laws should be passed for 
 the incorporation of cities, and like laws for 
 the incorporation of villages, subject to such 
 alterations as the legislature should from time 
 to time deem proper to make.” 
 
 Had Murphy’s views then met general accept¬ 
 ance, what progress in city government might have 
 been made in the meantime! 
 
 Partial Emancipation. 
 
 A partial degree of emancipation was secured in 
 the constitution framed by the Convention of 1894, 
 
 io 
 
but it is only partial. As is well known, that con¬ 
 vention was under Republican control. Under the 
 constitution of the State in force in 1886 the people 
 should have been permitted to vote that year upon 
 the question whether a convention should be called 
 to revise and amend the State’s organic law. That 
 vote was delayed for years because of differences 
 as to apportionment and the election of delegates 
 between the Governor and the legislature, the Gov¬ 
 ernor being a Democrat, the legislature Republi¬ 
 can. The Constitutional Convention which met in 
 1894 was under Republican domination; many 
 of its members were afraid to trust the people fully, 
 the agitation in the Convention for municipal au¬ 
 tonomy was voted down; the Convention contented 
 itself with adopting the system of city classification 
 which gave cities through their mayors or their 
 city legislatures some degree of surveillance over 
 legislation intended to affect the city. 
 
 A Fallacious Notion. 
 
 The fallacious notion that the people of the State 
 were to be asked to abandon all authority over the 
 cities of the State infected even some of the lead¬ 
 ers in the Convention. They could not seem to 
 understand that in regard to its local powers the 
 city should be set entirely free from legislative con¬ 
 trol, subject only to the constitution and the general 
 laws of the State. Their attitude was diametrically 
 opposite to that of the Tilden Commission whose 
 policy was to give cities practically unlimited 
 sovereignty in purely local matters. What a gain 
 to the State legislature would be the removal of 
 the incubus of special city legislation! It would 
 be relieved from the tedious consideration, of in¬ 
 numerable details regarding city government. It 
 would be able to devote undivided attention to mat- 
 
 ii 
 
ters affecting the policy of the entire State. In¬ 
 stead of being politicans, log-rollers, and agents of 
 special interests, legislators might rise to the dig¬ 
 nity of statesmen with broad vision. One has but 
 to glance at the session laws from year to year to 
 perceive the waste of legislative time over the petty 
 minutiae of city government. Special charters for 
 cities represent a vast amount of misdirected legis¬ 
 lative energy. The report of the Tilden Commis¬ 
 sion declared that the State legislature had not the 
 requisite time to direct the local affairs of munici¬ 
 palities, nor had it the requisite knowledge of de¬ 
 tails. If this was true in 1877 how much clearer in 
 1912, with the increase in the number of cities and 
 the growing complexity of their affairs, that the 
 legislature is undertaking a task transcending 
 human power. Let the legislature relinquish its 
 Sisypheian labor and give it over to the cities them¬ 
 selves. They will be able to do it well, for it is their 
 proper work. 
 
 It is not enough to classify the cities of the State 
 or to provide that special laws affecting them should 
 before going into operation be subject to the ap¬ 
 proval of the local authorities—the mayor in cities 
 of the first class and the mayor and common coun¬ 
 cil in smaller cities. Undeniably this constitutional 
 amendment has its advantages. It has aroused 
 a degree of watchfulness of local bills on the part 
 of city officials and public-spirited bodies and has 
 led to the defeat of many vicious measures. But 
 it is easy for the legislature to override the dis¬ 
 approval of a bill by the city authorities, as it takes 
 only a majority vote to pass such a bill upon its 
 return to the legislature. The amendment is be¬ 
 sides merely negative in character. It does not in¬ 
 sure a city control over its own affairs. It gives no 
 city a chance to initiate constructive legislation. 
 The only genuine remedy lies in giving each city 
 
 12 
 
complete authority over its local affairs through its 
 own local legislature or governing body. A city 
 must have autonomy if it is ever to become an in¬ 
 telligently governed community. 
 
 In Other States. 
 
 In other states of the Union great advances have 
 been made in the matter of city government. Amer¬ 
 ican legislatures generally are beginning to appre¬ 
 ciate the dual character of a city government and 
 to differentiate the sphere of local action in which 
 the city should be free from all legislative inter¬ 
 ference and the domain in which it is merely an agent 
 of the State. The right of cities to self-government 
 —a right acknowledged in Great Britain and upon 
 the Continent of Europe, a right which may in a 
 sense be said to be as old as civilization itself, a 
 right upon which the ancient cities of Greece in¬ 
 sisted—is now recognized in numerous State con¬ 
 stitutions.* Instead of being in the van, New 
 York is now in the rear of municipal progress. The 
 roll of States in which cities are given constitu¬ 
 tional protection of their own affairs, constitutional 
 immunity from the assaults of legislatures of shift¬ 
 ing political faith, is large and constantly increas¬ 
 ing. In many States the legislature is forbidden to 
 pass any special act creating or altering a munici¬ 
 pal corporation, and with this is usually found posi¬ 
 tive mandate to provide by general law for munici¬ 
 pal incorporation. Such provisions are found in the 
 constitutions of Arkansas, California, Illinois, In¬ 
 diana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, 
 South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Minnesota, 
 Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North 
 
 ♦The self-government which Rome granted to the cities of 
 Italy made them bear her supremacy without complaint. In 
 fact, her generous treatment of the cities of southern Italy saved 
 her from dismemberment during the Hannibalic wars, for these 
 cities refused to unite their fortunes with those of the Cartha- 
 jinian invaders. 
 
 13 
 
Dakota, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia. The 
 results are visible in the cities themselves. Some 
 of the finest examples of municipal administration 
 to be seen upon this continent are our western cit¬ 
 ies. In the government of its territories the United 
 States has followed the same rule. The “Harrison 
 Act” forbids the incorporation of municipalities by 
 special legislation. 
 
 A Distinct Gain. 
 
 Distinct gain has indeed been made in the last 
 forty years, even in this State. At times it seems, 
 however, as though we had gone backward. The 
 budgets of the City of New York are no longer 
 carried to Albany, but the legislature still keeps 
 constantly tinkering with the charter of the first 
 city of the nation. The present Greater New York 
 was organized in 1897 under a charter granting a 
 slight measure of municipal independence. That 
 charter was revised in 1901 along similar lines. 
 But between 1897 and the revision of 1901 the legis¬ 
 lature passed 58 separate acts amending the char¬ 
 ter of 1897; between the revision of 1901 and the 
 fall of 1907 the legislature amended 267 sections 
 of the charter of 1901 and added 46 new sections. 
 Between 1897 and 1907 it passed 650 separate and 
 special acts each directly affecting the property, 
 government or rights of the city. Nor has the legis¬ 
 lature been less active since 1907 in changing the 
 New York City charter. In 1908 it passed 71 
 amendments; in 1909, 25 amendments; in 1910, 28; 
 in 1911, 34; and in 1912, 49. It also, in each of 
 those years, passed a number of special statutes di¬ 
 rectly affecting the city’s government. In 1908 
 there were 25 such enactments; in 1909, 29; in 
 1910, 59; in 1911, the year of the famous Levy Elec¬ 
 tion Law, 32; in 1912, 23. The habit of appealing 
 to Albany for legislation, either amending the city 
 
 14 
 
charter or in the form of special acts affecting the 
 city’s purse or government, has been a growing 
 evil from 1857 onward. Prior to 1857 it was a 
 cardinal principle that the city was master of 
 its own government with the right to originate its 
 form of charter and have that charter submitted 
 to vote of the people of the city. As Mr. James 
 Bryce has forcibly observed: 
 
 “Since that date the largest city of the Amer¬ 
 ican continent has lain at the mercy of the 
 state legislature; and the legislature has not 
 scrupled to remodel and disarrange the govern¬ 
 mental institutions of the city. Its charter has 
 been subjected to a continual ‘tinkering’ that 
 has made the law uncertain and a comprehen¬ 
 sion of its administration extremely difficult.” 
 
 Evils of Charter Tinkering. 
 
 This is true not only as to New York City, but 
 also as to every city of the State. This evil habit 
 of constantly altering or revising city charters per¬ 
 vades the entire State. Mr. Seth Low expressed 
 the idea felicitously in declaring that “the habit of 
 interference in the details of city action had become 
 to the legislature almost a second nature.” Every 
 year there is some degree of paternal legislation 
 over the various cities of the State and legislative 
 committees often enter upon the discussion of min¬ 
 ute details of government and administration that 
 should be entrusted entirely to the local authorities 
 —all to the detriment of general legislation. 
 
 The advocates of home rule do not demand that 
 the city be altogether divorced from the State gov¬ 
 ernment. They do not desire a secession of the city 
 from the State. They recognize with Governor Til- 
 den and Judge Cooley that there is a domain of 
 general legislation which the city charter should 
 not touch. They admit that in a sense the city re¬ 
 ceives its powers as a grant from the State, and 
 
 15 
 
that it has no absolute right to change the struc¬ 
 ture of its government; but they maintain that all 
 powers which are distinctly municipal should be 
 under the control of the city itself and be free from 
 all legislative interference. 
 
 The Boss and the Machine. 
 
 In the last few decades there has developed a new 
 force in our political life which is unrecognized in 
 the constitution of the State. It is sometimes 
 spoken of as “the boss,” sometimes styled “the 
 machine” or “the ring;” but whatever its name it 
 is a power that works in secret in conjunction with 
 interests inimical to the welfare of the State and 
 the city. It operates at one time through one of 
 the two political parties, at others through the 
 other, and often with the aid of both. No small 
 amount of legislation during the last twenty years 
 has been placed upon the statute book at the behest 
 of this power. This legislation has promoted the 
 expansion of great private interests; has assisted in 
 the creation of vast personal fortunes; has, in the 
 interest of a few, manipulated franchises to which 
 the people through their industries and activities 
 have imparted the value. Public business has be¬ 
 come so vast, varied, and profitable, that the con¬ 
 trol of it is the important thing sought by the boss 
 or the machine, for through its control patronage 
 is dispensed, contracts are secured and political in¬ 
 fluence and power maintained. The necessity to 
 secure this control establishes an alliance between 
 men nominally of opposite politics which goes 
 deeper than political faith. 
 
 Government both of the city and the State has 
 become a source of profit, and the larger the 
 city, the more extensive its public opera¬ 
 tions, the more enormous the profit. The 
 constant problem of the interests behind the boss 
 
 16 
 
is how to maintain and enlarge their control over 
 the business which the modern city and the modern 
 State inevitably conduct. The line of cleavage is 
 between the taxpayers who foot the bills and the 
 interests of all sorts banded together to exploit the 
 city for their own enrichment. The battle for mu¬ 
 nicipal freedom is not only a struggle for relief from 
 needless and irritating legislative interference with 
 city government in endless details, but for relief 
 from “boss” control, from “machine” dictation; for 
 control of their own affairs by the people of the lo¬ 
 cality as against control purely in the interest of 
 the great corporations which batten upon public 
 franchises; for the right to have city contracts and 
 business executed and administered economically 
 and efficiently. The issue is whether the cities of 
 the State shall do their own local work in their own 
 way under their own supervision, or be constantly 
 in danger of having the largest and most profitable 
 undertakings at any time taken by the legislature 
 out of their hands, or have work forced upon them 
 needlessly because politicians and contractors want 
 a job, or, in order to accomplish the simplest ends 
 of business, government be compelled to seek legis¬ 
 lation or submit to utter paralysis of proper city 
 business. 
 
 Recent Attempts at Revision. 
 
 There could not be a better illustration of the 
 danger to a city in the control of its charter by the 
 State legislature than the attempt of the legisla¬ 
 ture of 1911 to revise the charter of the City of 
 New York. Were the history of this iniquitous 
 series of legislative measures fully understood, the 
 people of the City of New York and I believe the 
 people of the State would almost universally de¬ 
 mand a home rule constitutional provision. That 
 persons responsible for these legislative assaults 
 
 l 7 • 
 
upon the chief city of the State should have had the 
 audacity to take the money of the State while per¬ 
 forming what in reality was a private service, shows 
 to what an extent the conception of public duty has 
 been degraded by ‘‘machine” and “party” rule in 
 matters properly unrelated to party altogether. 
 
 An unsuccessful effort was made during Gover¬ 
 nor Hughes’ administration to obtain a new char¬ 
 ter for the City of New York. The underlying 
 theory of the Hughes commission was sound, what¬ 
 ever errors it may have committed in formulation. 
 It truthfully declared that “the most radical cause 
 of our municipal failures is the instability of our 
 city governments and the absence of any guaranty 
 of a continuous policy.” This instability will per¬ 
 sist so long as legislation may be imposed upon the 
 city from without. The practice of constant legis¬ 
 lative interference tends to undermine the sense of 
 political duty in the matter of local self-government 
 and renders us more timorous in undertaking the 
 necessary work, and less fitted to do it well. 
 
 The Gaynor Charter. 
 
 The efforts of the Hughes commission to frame 
 a charter were continued by the legislature in 1910. 
 When the Gaynor administration came into power 
 in the City of New York the legislature at first 
 seemed willing to give it an opportunity to draft a 
 charter. The Mayor appears to have consulted 
 with his department chiefs, with the result that 
 through the staff in the office of his Corporation 
 Counsel a charter called the “Gaynor charter” was 
 drafted. In reality it was the first of a series of 
 Gaynor charters. This extraordinary jumble of 
 scientific and unscientific provisions, like Nebu¬ 
 chadnezzar’s statue, part of gold, part of iron, part 
 of clay, chiefly the last, was presented to the legis¬ 
 lature in March, 1911. At once it encountered a 
 
 18 
 
storm of public opposition. It was crude, amor¬ 
 phous, ill-phrased, and above all, regressive in char¬ 
 acter. It was manifestly a political charter. The ef¬ 
 fort to pass it was abandoned. But that was not the 
 end for, unfortunately, a committee of the legislature 
 took in hand the preparation of a new measure which 
 at first it was purposed to pass through both houses 
 without sufficient opportunity for public criticism or 
 public discussion. The plan miscarried, for the Gov¬ 
 ernor refused to be a party to it. The charter bill 
 became public. Like the man in the scriptures who 
 was ultimately possessed by devils, the last state of 
 that charter legislation was worse than the first. To 
 those of us who had entered with zeal and earnestness 
 into the work of framing a worthy new charter, it 
 seemed, before the end came, as though our flank had 
 been turned, so that our efforts, instead of being de¬ 
 voted to improvement of the existing charter, were 
 directed to preserve what was good in it and to prevent 
 the passage of anything worse. The hope of a better 
 charter had disappeared in the fight to retain as good 
 a one as we had. 
 
 Climax of Legislative Interference. 
 
 This, then, is the climax at which government of 
 a city by the legislature has arrived. Against such 
 despotism we protest. Against it we maintain the 
 right of the city to be free to make its own constitu¬ 
 tion, to decide upon its own frame-work of govern¬ 
 ment, through delegates from its own residents in open 
 convention or by petition initiated by a sufficient 
 number of citizens. 
 
 A Free City. 
 
 It is the purest sophistry to argue that there can 
 be no free city within the limits of a state. We 
 do not contend that any city should be free and 
 
 19 
 
independent of obligations to the state, or beyond 
 control by the constitution and the general laws. 
 That was the dream of Fernando Wood, while 
 Mayor of New York City in 1861, when out of def¬ 
 erence to pro-slavery sentiment, he would have 
 had the city secede from the rest of the state. The 
 opposite pole to this creed is that of the legislative 
 boss, which is that cities should be kept in subjec¬ 
 tion to the corrupting influence of state partisan 
 politics. The true mean is the doctrine we advo¬ 
 cate—a doctrine that has had the hearty approval 
 of some of the greatest names in the State’s political 
 history—that the government of the municipality 
 should be sovereign in respect of matters pertaining 
 to the powers and duties of its officials, their terms 
 of office and compensation, the issue of its bonds 
 and other obligations, the incurring of city debt, 
 the subject of local taxation, the acquisition and 
 management of city properties, including public 
 utilities. It is a chimera to assume that any one 
 purposes to give the city “unrestricted and uncon¬ 
 trolled power.” We would set up between the city 
 and the State the same analogy as exists between 
 the State and the Nation. No State in the Union, 
 however much it may boast of sovereignty, is sov¬ 
 ereign. In some things the United States is sov¬ 
 ereign over it. But each travels its respective orbit 
 without interference with the other. If the legisla¬ 
 ture is to be supreme over the city in respect of all its 
 affairs, then the constitution must be changed, for 
 the legislature is not properly supreme over the city 
 in all things. In so far as the city is a political 
 or governmental subdivision of the State, an agency 
 of the State to do its work, the legislature is su¬ 
 preme over it, but in so far as it is an aggregation of 
 people choosing to carry on collectively certain lo¬ 
 cal business of a general nature, “matters,” as Gov¬ 
 ernor Tilden once said, “most conveniently attended 
 
 20 
 
to in partnership by persons living together in a 
 dense community/’ for obvious reasons it should 
 have unqualified control of this business. In ex¬ 
 clusively local concerns we would make the city 
 sovereign, although still part of the State and sub¬ 
 ject to its superior law. This is the immemorial 
 home rule principle, the imperishable neighborhood 
 and city instinct, that has persisted against all 
 State centralization and will persist until its ac¬ 
 ceptance has taken the form of a constitutional 
 guaranty. The doctrine is rooted in the traditions 
 and affections of every locality. It is acknowledged 
 in many State constitutions. Put it up to every 
 State convention that will assemble in this State 
 this fall. The people of New York City will not 
 readily forget the odious charter legislation at¬ 
 tempted in 1911. The party that will not inscribe 
 home rule for cities in its platform is doomed to 
 defeat and ultimate oblivion. 
 
 Separate City and State Elections. 
 
 The greatest single achievement for city emanci¬ 
 pation in the Constitutional Convention of 1894 
 was the separation of municipal from State and 
 national elections by confining the municipal elec¬ 
 tions within the odd numbered years and the State 
 and national elections to the even numbered years. 
 It has had a truly astonishing influence in encourag¬ 
 ing independent voting in municipal elections. So 
 common has it become for opponents in State and 
 national politics to combine in municipal elections, 
 that the practice has given birth, or at least a new 
 meaning, to the word “Fusion.” In local elections 
 we vote to-day with a freedom from party affilia¬ 
 tions that would have seemed well nigh impossible 
 twenty years ago. But there is another forward 
 step to be taken, and it should be taken at once, 
 whether the ballot in other respects is simplified or 
 
 21 
 
not. It is the duty of this organization to advo¬ 
 cate such changes in the Election Law as shall in¬ 
 sure the election of municipal officers without the 
 use of national party names or emblems and allow 
 the free and unhampered nomination of independent 
 candidates by a reasonably sufficient percentage of 
 municipal voters. 
 
 To give full effect to the principle underlying the 
 constitutional amendment separating state from 
 local elections, the law should forbid the use of 
 national party names or emblems upon ballots used 
 in local elections. This I believe could constitu¬ 
 tionally be done. The purpose of the constitutional 
 amendment of 1894 was to enable the people to vote 
 in local matters irrespective of national party affilia¬ 
 tions—to weaken party hold where party ties should 
 not prevail. This end will never be fully achieved 
 until national party names and emblems are ban¬ 
 ished altogether from local ballots. Logically they 
 have no place there. People should vote with re¬ 
 gard only to the local issue, without thought of na¬ 
 tional parties; why then obtrude the national party 
 name or emblem upon their attention? 
 
 Independent Nominations. 
 
 Lree and untrammeled nomination of independent 
 candidates is also necessary for the promotion of 
 the cause of local self-government. The ballot is 
 the weapon whereby the people of a community 
 preserve their freedom. That freedom is menaced 
 by those who would make government an agency 
 for their own enrichment and by the bosses whom 
 they use for the accomplishment of their ends. The 
 ballot is our only effective protest against perver¬ 
 sion of government. But it is a broken weapon, a 
 swordless sheath, without the power to nominate 
 as well as to vote. Whether suffrage be a right or 
 a privilege it is a mockery to extend to the voter 
 
 22 
 
a cnoice between candidates neither of whom is his 
 own selection. He is not a free man whose ballot 
 permits him only to choose A or B to rule over 
 him; he must have the right also to nominate his 
 rulers. How astute in this political philosophy re¬ 
 cent legislatures have been may be seen in those 
 amendments to the Election Law which strike at 
 freedom of nomination, for these political philoso¬ 
 phers recognize, and truly recognize, that by im¬ 
 pediments in the way of free nomination they keep 
 nominations in the control of national political par¬ 
 ties, and thus control city government. To insure 
 sound city government or city self-government it 
 will be necessary to secure for the city voter free¬ 
 dom in respect of nominations. The struggle should 
 be to get rid of the partisan ballot and to substitute 
 the Australian ballot in its stead. When this has 
 been accomplished city independence will become 
 assured. The Levy Election Law of 1911 has im¬ 
 posed many restrictions upon signers of independent 
 petitions which are not applicable to party nomina¬ 
 tors—the manifest purpose being to render inde¬ 
 pendent political activity extremely difficult. Only 
 those who have given study to the subject are con¬ 
 scious of the extent of the encroachment upon free¬ 
 dom in nominations which the legislature of this 
 State has been making of late years. The number 
 of signers required for an independent nomination 
 has been steadily made larger and larger, out of 
 all proportion to the growth of population.' 
 
 The Law of 1890. 
 
 When the system of independent nominations was 
 created in 1890 the law provided that for the nomin¬ 
 ation by petition of state officers or of officers to be 
 voted for by all the voters of the state, a nomin¬ 
 ating petition properly signed by 1,000 voters should 
 be sufficient. It provided that independent nomina- 
 
 23 
 
tions for public officers other than municipal 
 in districts less than the entire State but greater 
 than a town or a ward in a city, includ¬ 
 ing counties (except New York and Kings) 
 should require 250 signatures; in the counties of 
 New York and Kings, 300 signers. To nominate an 
 assemblyman independently required 100 signa¬ 
 tures. By the law of 1892 these numbers in all 
 instances were greatly increased. Nominations for 
 State officers required 3000 signatures; for public 
 officers in districts less than the State 500 signa¬ 
 tures, in New York and Kings Counties 600 signa¬ 
 tures; for assemblyman, 250 signatures. In 1896 
 the number of signatures necessary to nominate 
 State officers was made 6000; public officers in dis¬ 
 tricts less than the entire State but greater than 
 assembly districts 1,000. In 1911 this number was 
 raised to 1500, which is far more than the number 
 of voters needed to elect a ticket in some counties 
 of the State. In order to nominate independently 
 for assemblyman the law of 1911 renders the sig¬ 
 nature of 800 voters necessary. The political cor¬ 
 ruptionist is ever afraid of public opinion. He pre¬ 
 fers not to arouse it and always seeks to prevent its 
 having free expression. Hence his unalterable and 
 steadfast purpose to hamper the independent voter. 
 
 Demand for New Law. 
 
 The National Progressive Party very properly 
 denounces the Levy Election Law as a bi-partisan 
 conspiracy and pledges its repeal and the enact¬ 
 ment of a fair and understandable statute. An 
 equally unqualified pledge should be demanded 
 from the other political parties.* A proper law 
 would, among other things, discard the flat rate and 
 substitute a percentage basis as the fairest method 
 of regulating the number of signers of independent 
 
 ♦This has since been procured. 
 
 24 
 
certificates, thereby making the number required 
 depend upon the population, or the voting popula¬ 
 tion, of the several counties and sub-divisions of the 
 State. The constitutionality of some of these re¬ 
 strictions is now before the courts of this State 
 which have shown a commendable disposition to 
 protect the independent voter from the attempts of 
 partisan legislators to disfranchise him—for handi¬ 
 caps in the matter of nominations constitute par¬ 
 tial disfranchisement. The changes made in the 
 Election Law by the amendments of 1911 had their 
 sole inspiration in the desire to discourage inde¬ 
 pendent activities. The sponsors of this legisla¬ 
 tion have frankly admitted that, inasmuch as the 
 legislature had enacted provisions for the hold¬ 
 ing of direct primaries by parties, it was justified in 
 making independent nominations more difficult. 
 The partisan politician makes it a cardinal principle 
 of his creed that no one should have the right to 
 nominate or even to vote outside of a party organi¬ 
 zation. But until the people of a locality can es¬ 
 cape from the intolerable tyranny of party govern¬ 
 ment, and nominate and vote freely, in local affairs, 
 without thought of national party, local government 
 will never attain full success. 
 
 Guarantee of Improvement. 
 
 What guarantee, it may be asked, can be given 
 that city government will be improved under home 
 rule charters? The impropriety of constant legis¬ 
 lative alteration of city government, it may be con¬ 
 ceded, is proved. The legislature is unfitted for the 
 task of local legislation and is diverted from its 
 proper work of legislating for the entire State. The 
 answer is that it is to the interest of the people of 
 a locality to obtain good government and what they 
 wish they will obtain if the power is placed in their 
 hands. The history of all improvements in muni- 
 
 25 
 
cipal administration shows that they have sprung 
 from the civic pride and intelligence of the people 
 concerned. Every movement inaugurated in this 
 State for city freedom has had its genesis in a city. 
 Every wholesome legislative provision regarding 
 cities that has been placed upon the statute books 
 has been initiated in the cities themselves, and, 
 with the aid of their best citizenship, carried 
 through the legislature. Who, indeed, could be so 
 genuinely interested in the best kind of local self- 
 government as the people of the community affected 
 by that government; who so willing as they to 
 sacrifice time,- thought and money in efforts to se¬ 
 cure improvements in it? Public-spirited citizens 
 contribute their time and thought without remun¬ 
 eration of any kind. As Lord Morley reminds us, 
 Edmund Burke worked without pay in the public 
 interest with such untiring energy that his aston¬ 
 ished cousin William wrote, “Ned is full of real 
 business, intent upon doing solid good to his coun¬ 
 try as much as if he was to receive twenty per 
 cent, from the Empire.” City life develops many 
 men of the Burke type. Under home rule this sort 
 of citizenship will multiply. 
 
 A Home Rule Programme. 
 
 The time is indeed auspicious for the promotion 
 of the causes inscribed upon your banner. Those 
 objects are: 
 
 1. —Home rule for the cities, counties and villages 
 of this State by the grant of adequate powers of self- 
 government. 
 
 2. —The passage of legislation which shall allow 
 the free choice of municipal and local candidates in 
 municipal and local elections unconfused by the 
 presence of party names or emblems upon the bal¬ 
 lot. 
 
 26 
 
3. —The enactment of a general municipal cor¬ 
 porations act enabling the voters of a city to adopt 
 a commission form of government or any other sim¬ 
 plified form not inconsistent with the constitution 
 or general laws of the State. 
 
 4. —Constitutional amendments, if necessary, to 
 guarantee home rule in the municipal sub-divisions 
 of the State. 
 
 Already one of the State parties, the newest in 
 the field, has pledged its devotion to these princi¬ 
 ples. Its platform declares that 
 
 “Municipalities should be given power to 
 adopt and amend their charters in matters per¬ 
 taining to their powers and the duties, terms 
 of office and compensation of officials; incur¬ 
 ring of obligations; methods and subjects of 
 local taxation; and the acquisition and man¬ 
 agement of municipal properties, including 
 public utilities. We are opposed to special 
 legislation dealing with such subjects.’' 
 
 Observe that this plank almost precisely accords 
 with the views of Henry C. Murphy as expressed 
 in the State Constitutional Convention of 1846, of 
 George Opdyke in the Constitutional Commission 
 of 1872, and of Evarts, Carter, Godkin and their 
 associates in the Tilden Commission of 1875. When 
 out of regard for public sentiment parties are forced 
 to make such a creed part of their platform, there 
 is sound reason for hope of the early embodiment 
 of the principle in the laws and constitution of the 
 State. The National Progressive platform declares 
 also that it should be made possible for any city 
 to adopt the commission form of government. 
 
 The other parties of the State must be asked to 
 take equally advanced ground. As I said a while 
 ago, the party that refuses to pledge itself to home 
 
 27 
 
rule for cities is doomed to defeat and ultimate 
 oblivion. 
 
 An Inspiring Cause. 
 
 You are not fighting for mere abstractions or 
 empty formulas. You are fighting for an inspiring 
 cause—that of the home and the family—the cause 
 of the child, the citizen who is to be. A large pro¬ 
 portion of the population must live in cities. The 
 atmosphere of the city is becoming the atmosphere 
 of an ever increasing number of our people. The 
 “more and fuller” life which is the dream of mod¬ 
 ern democracy includes in its comprehensive as¬ 
 pirations successful treatment of the housing, the 
 fire, the water, the sanitary, the transportation prob¬ 
 lem, better education, ample school accommoda¬ 
 tions, recreation centers, parks, courts in which real 
 justice is administered to the poor, streets and ave¬ 
 nues fitted for the varied business of a city, and a 
 comprehensive city plan with opportunities for ex¬ 
 pansion and beautification. The test of a civiliza¬ 
 tion may be said to lie in its ability to solve the 
 intricate problems of urban life. The relations of 
 the city to the future of democracy are momentous 
 indeed. The city is the matrix, the mould, out of 
 which will come, perhaps, the greater number of 
 American citizens of the future. It may make of 
 them grotesque specimens of humanity, may de¬ 
 grade them by vicious and unsanitary surroundings 
 to an almost sub-human type, or may elevate them, 
 and beget a true and noble citizenship. There is 
 no worthier or more inspiring cause than that in 
 which you are engaged. 
 
 oft 
 
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