cil could
not be reconciled with the new doctrine of checks and balances,
municipal government was reorganized on the plan of distributed powers.
This effort to readjust the political organization of the city and make
it conform to the general scheme of the Federal government is seen in
the municipal charters granted after the adoption of the Constitution.
The tendency toward a bicameral council, the extension of the term for
which members of the council were elected and the veto power of the
mayor may be attributed to the influence of the Constitution rather than
to any intelligent and carefully planned effort to improve the machinery
of municipal government.

As in the case of the state governments, the development of the system
was influenced by the growing belief in democracy. Property
qualifications for the suffrage disappeared, and the mayor became a
directly elected local official. The changes made in municipal
government, however, as a concession to the newer democratic thought,
did not ensure any very large measure of popular control. Municipal
government in its practical working remained essentially undemocratic.

It would be perfectly reasonable to expect that popular government
would reach its highest development in the cities. Here modern democracy
was born; here we find the physical and social conditions which
facilitate interchange of thought and concerted action on the part of
the people. Moreover, the government of the city is more directly and
immediately related to the citizens than is the government of state or
nation. It touches them at more points, makes more demands upon them and
is more vitally related to their everyday life and needs than either
state or national government. For these reasons the most conspicuous
successes of democracy should be the government of present-day cities.
Under a truly democratic system this would doubtless be the case. But in
this country the most glaring abuses and most conspicuous failures of
government occur in the cities. The enemies of popular government have
used this fact for the purpose of discrediting the theory of democracy.
They would have us believe that this is the natural result of a system
which places political authority in the hands of the masses--that it is
the fruit of an extreme democracy. This conclusion rests upon the
assumption that municipal government in this country is democratic--an
assumption which will not bear investigation. American ci