in public improvements, let valuable
contracts of various kinds and had certain needs, as for water, light,
rapid transit, etc., which could be made the pretext for granting
franchises and other privileges on such terms as would ensure large
profits to the grantees at the expense of the general public. That the
political machine in control of the state government should have yielded
to the temptation to make a selfish use of its powers in this direction,
is only what might have been expected.

"The legislature has often claimed also the right to appoint municipal
officers and to fix and change the details of municipal organization,
has legislated municipal officers out of office, and established new
offices. In certain cases it has even provided that certain specific
city streets shall be paved, has imposed burdens upon cities for the
purpose of constructing sewers or bringing in water; has regulated the
methods of transportation to be adopted within the limits of cities; in
a word, has attended to a great number of matters which are purely local
in character; matters which do not affect the people of the state as a
whole, and in regard to which there is little excuse for special
legislative action."[162]

The extent to which state regulation of local matters has been carried
in New York is indicated by the fact that in the year 1886 "280 of the
681 acts passed by the legislature ... interfered directly with the
affairs of some particular county, city, village, or town, specifically
and expressly named....

"The Philadelphia City Hall Building affords a good example of how far
this lack of local responsibility may sometimes carry the legislature in
the exercise of local powers, and in the imposition of financial burdens
on cities. 'In 1870 the legislature decided that the city should have
new buildings. The act [which was passed to accomplish this result]
selected certain citizens by name, whom it appointed commissioners for
the erection of the buildings. It made this body perpetual by
authorizing it to fill vacancies.... This commission was imposed by the
legislature upon the city, and given absolute control to create debts
for the purpose named, and to require the levy of taxes for their
payment.

"'The public buildings at Broad and Market streets were,' in the words
of Judge Paxson, 'projected upon a scale of magnificence better suited
for the capitol of an empire than the municipal buildings of a
debt-burdened