The City Council. The powers and duties of a city council are strictly limited by the city charter. They are further curtailed by the practice in our large cities of creating special administrative departments, which are responsible to the executive and not to the legislative branch of city government. Usually, however, the council has the power to enact ordinances regulating strictly local matters such as the public streets, electric and gas lighting, sanitation,* control of markets, parks and playgrounds, protection against fire, and the granting of franchises. It usually also exercises some control over the appointments made by the mayor. The financial powers of the council are enumerated in the city charter, and strictly controlled by the legislature. The municipal tax rate and the amount of the city debt are usually limited by the state.

The city council is composed of two houses in some cities; the members of the upper house are elected from the city as a whole, and the members of the lower and larger house are elected from districts or wards, into which the city is divided. In most cities, however, the council has only one chamber, and the members are elected all at the same time from districts or wards, and not at large, for a term of one to four years. The presiding officer of the council is in some cities elected by that body, in others elected by the voters.

When a measure has been passed by the council it must go to the mayor for his approval. If he vetoes the measure it must be re-passed by the council, by a two-thirds majority, before it becomes effective as an ordinance.

In a number of cities the voters are enabled by the referendum and the initiative to participate directly in the law-making function of their government.

The Referendum. By exercising the referendum, voters may approve or reject any ordinance passed by the city council. If an ordinance which is enacted by that body meets with popular disapproval, a petition may be presented to the council

* In many cities the health laws, embodied in the Sanitary Code, are enacted by the Department of Health.

before the measure has gone into effect. The petition must carry the names of from ten to fifteen per cent. of the number that voted at a recent election. If the measure is not then repealed by the council, it must be submitted to popular vote at the next election, or at an election held especially for that purpose. The result of the election determines the approval or the repeal of the ordinance.

The Initiative. While the referendum acts as a popular check on unwise legislation by the council, the initiative gives voters the right to make new legislation. In this case the petition signed by the necessary number of voters, and containing the text of the proposed law, is presented to the council. That body may either adopt the measure, or refuse to do so. In the latter case the measure must be submitted to popular vote. The Commission. Many of our cities have abolished the council type of legislative body, and have established in its place a much smaller body, known as the commission, which exercises both legislative and executive powers.

The first city in the United States to be governed by a commission instead of a council was Washington, D. C., though the plan developed for that city cannot be said to have originated the commission plan of city government. An act of Congress, effective since June 11, 1878, directed that Washington should be governed by three commissioners appointed by the President of the United States, with the concurrence of the Senate. Two of the commissioners must be residents of the District of Columbia, and the third an officer of the Engineer Corps of the United States Army. But these commissioners are not legislators; they are executives. Congress legislates for the city.

In 1878, Memphis, Tennessee, was in severe straits both because of an epidemic of yellow fever and because the city had borrowed money up to its debt limit. The state therefore abolished the existing city government, and created in its place a small body of officers whose powers were much the same as those of the commissioners in the cities that now have the commission form of government. But when the city recovered from

its difficulties the old form of government was reinstated. In 1910, however, the commission form of government was voted by the people.

After the destructive storm and flood which overwhelmed Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, leaving the city as demoralized financially as Memphis had been in 1878, the city government was placed in the hands of a commission of five men. It is the Galveston plan of commission government that has spread so rapidly among our cities.

Under this plan, the government of the city is vested in a mayor and four commissioners elected at large. The administrative work of the city is divided into four departments each headed by a commissioner, and the mayor acts in an advisory capacity. The commission is the legislative body of the city, it enacts all ordinances.

One evidence of the success of the commission form of city government is the fact that by 1920 it was established in more than a hundred of the cities in the United States with a population of 30,000 or over. Its great advantage over the mayorcouncil plan is that the reins of city government are placed in the hands of a small group instead of a large body of men. Consequently it is far easier to fix the responsibility in case things go wrong. Large councils are unwieldy; the small commissions can act more quickly and decisively on the complex problems that are constantly coming up in city affairs.

6. OUR FEDERAL LAWS

In peace time the city dweller is seldom reminded of federal laws. Only when he pays his federal income tax, enters a complaint against the post office, votes at a federal election once every two years, buys a package of tobacco with a federal stamp on it, or opens his trunks for the inspection of the customs officials on the dock after he has landed in this country from a foreign trip, does the average citizen come into direct contact with laws made by his federal government.

We have seen that the powers of the federal government are

of two general kinds, foreign and domestic. In the first group come laws relating to the army, the navy, immigration, naturalization, and all trade and diplomatic relations with foreign countries. In the second come the maintenance of order throughout the nation, pure food laws and laws regulating interstate commerce and transportation, standards of weights and measures, currency, federal taxation, patents, and copyrights.

The federal laws, like the state laws, are made by a bi-cameral legislature called the Congress of the United States. The Senate is composed of 96 members, two elected from each state by popular vote, for a six-year term. The House of Representatives is composed of 435 members, elected every two years by popular vote.* All states are equally represented in the Senate, regardless of their population. A state's representation in the House is based on population, and is determined every ten years after the federal census. Each state, no matter how small, has at least one representative in the House. New York has 43 Representatives, Delaware only one; yet Delaware elects two Senators as many as the larger state.

This plan is the result of a compromise between the small and large states when the constitution was drawn up. The small states fought for equal representation in the federal legislature, regardless of population; the large states advocated representation according to population. So in the upper House all states have equal representation, while in the lower House they are represented according to their population.

The Senate is a more permanent body than the House, because the terms of only one-third of the Senators expire at the same time. A new House is elected every two years, though of the former members are re-elected.

many

Congress, as well as the state legislatures, does its work by the committee system, and the course of a measure through the

* Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico each send one delegate to the House of Representatives, and the Philippines send two. But these delegates have no votes in the House.

houses of Congress is similar to the procedure in the state bodies.

The people of the United States do not have the right to vote through the referendum on national laws, nor to make laws through the initiative, as they do in some states and some cities.

As we have noted in previous chapters, the nation and the states frequently co-operate in protecting community health and in promoting community welfare. When epidemics of disease occur, the local, state, and federal authorities all work together to enact legislation that will help fight the disease as well as remove the conditions that made it possible. A great many welfare workers believe that only federal laws can control working conditions and child labor. Some states, however, are still jealous of federal interference in their affairs, and questions of states' rights are still hotly discussed; although the Civil War settled the question of whether the states had a right to secede from the Union. However, the power of the central government is steadily increasing.

7. HOW CITIZENS CAN HELP THE LAW-MAKERS

Your chance to take an active part in legislation will come later, when you have reached voting age. Then you will help elect the representatives who make your laws, and you will also have opportunities to vote directly on legislation through the referendum. You may be elected as a legislator yourself, or as a private citizen you may have the duty of following the measures that come before your representative for action. Your representative has no way of knowing how his constituents feel about a proposed law unless they let him hear from them. He cannot carry out their will when he does not know what it is. All citizens can help very materially in the work of legislation by letting their representatives hear from them, by telegram or by letter, when measures of importance are before him for consideration. All junior citizens, who are still in school, can help by working to prepare themselves for taking an active and an intelligent part in civic affairs.