telephone offices, etc., is limited to fifty-seven hours a week and ten and one-half hours in any one day. Except in canneries, children under sixteen must not work between six o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning.1

The 1915 Legislature took an advanced step in social legislation by enacting a mothers' pension law applicable to counties having juvenile courts. The county court is authorized to appropriate not more than $4,000 annually out of which allowances may be made by order of the juvenile court to "women whose husbands are dead, or are so disabled, mentally or physically, as to be unable to aid in the support of the family, when such women are poor and are mothers of children under the age of sixteen years." The amount must not exceed ten dollars per month for the first child and five dollars for each other child.

An act of 1913 provided for the appointment by the Governor of a Workmen's Compensation Commission, to investigate the subject and report to the next session of the general assembly. The bill submitted by the commission applied to "hazardous" occupations grouped under forty-three heads and including practically all industrial employments. The amount of compensation, generally speaking, was to be sixty per cent. of the employe's wages during disability, in no case to exceed 400 weeks. A minimum of five and a maximum of ten dollars per week was prescribed. In case of death certain benefits to widow and children were provided for. A State Board of Adjusters was to be created to adminster the law. The compulsory liability of employers under the law was to be made exclusive of all other liabilities for injuries of employes.

8"Any kind of an establishment wherein labor is employed or machinery used." Does not apply to "domestic service and agricultural pursuits."

Acts of 1913, 1st extra session, ch. 12; Acts of 1915, ch. 144. 1Acts of 1913, ch. 47; Acts of 1915, ch. 172.

2Acts of 1915, ch. 32.

Acts of 1913, ch. 43 (regular session).

Report of the Workmen's Compensation Commission to the Fifty-ninth General Assembly of Tennessee. (Obtainable from Mr. J. H. Turner, secretary, Nashville). The public hearings of the commission have been published in a substantial volume.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOME RULE FOR CITIES.1

The

Home Rule.

THE people of the states, in making their constitutions, have 261. enumerated certain rather inclusive rights which they declare Problem of to belong inherently to individual citizens and in which individual citizens are guaranteed against the possible encroachments of the government. May not the people of the entire state say with equal reason and propriety that certain powers belong to particular groups of individuals inhabiting perhaps specific subdivisions of the state-and that consequently the legislature may not interfere with them in the use of these powers? This is the problem which the proposition to grant "home rule" to localities, especially cities, presents. In the study of local government in contradistinction to the government of the states, it is the problem of foremost importance.

The function of a municipal government is two-fold. It acts as the agent of the state and as a local governmental unit. From the legal point of view the problem of home rule resolves itself into a question of drawing the line between these sets of functions. When a classification is made of purely local functions they may be legally determined-by constitution, legislature or courts to be of a local nature and exercisable independently of state control.

262. Local Self

The doctrine of local self-government has always been one of the most cherished of Anglo-Saxon political tenets; but as the Government. simple governmental needs of a sparse and scattered people have developed into the complex requirements of a populous and highly organized society, it has become more and more difficult to determine with precision just which governmental functions are of sufficient importance to the entire state to render their

On this subject generally, see McBain, H. L.. The Law and Practice of Municipal Home Rule; Goodnow, Frank J., Municipal Home Rule; Munro, W. B., Principles and Methods of Municipal Administration; Government of American Cities.

2See Eaton, Amasa. M.. The Right of Local Self-Government, 13 Harvard Law Review, 441 (1900); McBain, H. L., The Doctrine of an Inherent Right of Local Self-Government, begun in XVI Columbia Law Review, p. 190 (1916). See People v. Hurlburt, 24 Mich., 44; State v. Smith, 44 O. St., 348.

exercise by state authorities expedient notwithstanding their intimate relation to the varying individual desires of the state's subdivisions, and which functions, though of interest to all, may yet be expediently left to the local governing bodies. Obviously, if the majority is to rule, the smaller community must not interfere with the larger, the part must yield to the desires of the whole. But this fact furnishes no argument in favor of arbitrary action by the state in dealing with its parts; it certainly does not justify state action in matters that do not directly concern the state if such action runs counter to the will of the locality. A concrete example is found in the usual custom of allowing the counties to assess the property of the state from which it must derive its principal tax revenue, and, on the other hand, allowing the legislature to dictate to the localities particular kinds of taxation for local purposes. In the opinion of many students just the reverse should obtain: where the state and its subdivisions derive revenue from the same class of property, the state should assess it, lest, by leaving it to separate counties, there result a lack of uniformity: on the other hand, the state should not force upon localities the general property or other particular taxes, but should leave them free to exempt personal property and buildings, perhaps, and, within very general limitations, to choose their own means of raising their revenues. The division of functions that is best for one period may conceivably be unfitted for a later period: there is likely to be frequent need of readjustment.

The point of contact at which this division of functions is likely to be most keenly contested is between the state and its larger cities. The counties may justly feel at times that the state allows them too little freedom of action, but after all they are merely arms of the state formed to assist in the administration of its comparatively simple functions, whilst the chartered cities are associations of individuals organized to exercise particular functions in addition to those which the state is accustomed to make use of. Of more importance is the fact that the wants of the people of cities and, consequently, their governments are more complex and more highly developed than those of counties and present more problems of purely local interest

3See Ingersoll on Public Corporations, ch. II, and cases there cited.

California, indeed, permits counties both to have charters and to frame them locally, but the question of home rule is chiefly concerned with the relations between the legislature and the chartered cities of the state.

Development

tive Control.

During the colonial period the few municipal charters that 263. existed were conferred by the governors as representatives of of Legislathe king or proprietors and the legislature did not assume seriously to interfere in municipal matters. But when the state legislatures, the all-powerful governmental agents of the states, began to grant the charters, cities became entirely subservient to the legislative will.

The nineteenth century, after 1820, saw, along with the vast growth of cities, an enormous expansion of special legislation dealing with particular cities. Increasing popular distrust of legislatures resulted in increasing constitutional limitations. upon their control of cities, but these have for the most part had little effect. Meanwhile legislative incompetence showed itself nowhere more blatantly than in the laws passed for the regulation of individual cities. As Professor Munro says," the state gave and the state took away; but seldom did the citizens regard its handiwork as a blessing.

Evils of

Legislation.

The reasons why special legislation for cities is an evil are 264. not far to seek. In the first place, no legislature has at its dis- Special posal time to consider the various proposals for charter changes that rapidly growing cities, constantly desiring power to do particular things not included in their general grants of power from the state, will bring before it at each session, clamoring for attention, lest their progress shall be hindered. The result is that local bills are put through the legislative mill by a system of log-rolling agreements amongst the delegations from the several cities, which delegations, though not necessarily representing the cities but only districts contained by them or in which they are situated, become thus the real charter-makers, or chartermongers, upon which cities must depend. The members of these local delegations, whatever their qualifications, are certainly not elected with this end in view.

4XI. 7%. infra, ch. 21.

For example, the North Carolina constitution of 1776 made no mention of the relation of municipalities to the legislature. Only one charter-that of Bath -had been granted in North Carolina during the colonial period.

Government of American Cities, 69.

265. Incorporation by General Law;

In the second place, even if the legislature had sufficient leisure to consider the affairs of cities, its members, usually in large part from rural districts, are ill-acquainted with the conditions of city life and, what is worse, often predisposed to think that cities should be ruled precisely according to rural standards. "So long as the State Legislature can control the powers of the cities through special enactment, there is," as the late Professor Karns, with unsuspected magnitude of truth, remarked," "a possibility that the will of the people may be defeated." The upshot of the whole practice is that the legislature impedes the development of the cities and the cities impede the work of the legislature.

It is not surprising therefore that constitutions of the present disclose a variety of efforts to protect the cities and the legislatures from each other. First among them is the prohibition Classification. of special or local legislation for the incorporation of cities, found in about one-third of the constitutions, most of which cautiously include within the prohibition the amendment of city charters. Some additional states seem to accomplish the same end by a general clause forbidding special or local laws or by requiring that legislation for the incorporation of cities shall be by general laws. No fewer than fifteen states,1 indeed, contain the latter provision, some of them, however, merely in addition to the prohibition of special laws. The end sought by these provisions has not been attained; means of evasion have as a rule been discovered by the legislature and its control over the cities continued. A favorite method of evasion has been developed from the obvious necessity of classifying the cities of the state in order that general laws may contain different provisions suited to the needs of cities of different sizes, situations and economic interests-a necessity recognized, indeed, in a num

"Government of Tennessee (1896), p. 102.

Ala., IV, 104; Ariz., IV, 19. 17; Ill., IV, 22 (except, under specified conditions, Chicago-IV, 34); Ia.. III, 30; Minn., IV, 33; Mo., IV, 53; Neb., III, 15; N. M.. IV. 24; N. D., II, 69; Okla., V, 46: Pa., III, 7: S. C., III, 34; S. D., III, 23; Tex., III, 56; W. Va., VI, 39 (applies only to cities of less than 2,000 inhabitants); Wis.. IV. 31: Wyo., III, 27. See, also, Va.. IV. VIII, 116, 117. Utah, VI, 26, 12, forbids amendment by private or special legislation.

e. g., Ark., V, 25.

1Ariz., XIII, 1; Ark., XII, 3; Cal., XI, 6; Colo., XIV, 13; Ida., XII, 1; Kan., XII. 5; Ky., 156, 166; Mich., VIII, 20; Mo., IX, 7; Nev., VIII, 8; 0., XIII, 6; XVIII, 2; Okla., XVIII, 1, Sched. 10; Utah, XI, 5; Va., VIII, 116, 117; Wash., XI, 10; see, also, Miss., IV, 88; S. C., VI, 1; Wyo., XIII, 1.