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the city then, $276,000,000; is now $1,400,000,000. At that time the State was distinctly agricultural. Since then it has become conspicuously a manufacturing and commercial community; several of our cities leading in enterprise of that character, and Chicago having become the second city of America. It could not be expected that a constitutional convention, convened to frame an instrument for the Illinois of that day, could foresee and make adequate provision for the totally different Illinois of today, including a mighty citythe center of intricate and diversified activities and occupations, the source of unmeasured political energy, as well as weakness and danger, confronting new necessities with which small communities are unacquainted.

Corporate interests and property have vastly increased. The sensitiveness of this class of interest is such that the submission of the constitution to a general revision is viewed with alarm by it. Singularly enough, on the other hand, the fear of the domination of the convention by those interests is such in other quarters as to occasion reluctance to submit rights now guaranteed to the uncertain issue of revision, lest those other interests and individual rights be overshadowed or overreached. This mutual jealousy, which has undoubtedly operated to put off a convention, will, when one actually convenes, be likely to operate upon it with wholesome effect, since each is more likely to be, satisfied with undisturbed guarantees.

Some proposed changes of general application are, for example, the provision proposed at the last convention, that "all private corporations shall accept rights and franchises conferred upon them subject to subsequent legislative control;" but the courts, receding from the extreme of the doctrine of legislative contract to which the Dartmouth College decision was supposed to have gone, are construing this clause into existence. The decision just handed down seems to contain the recognition of a more conservative doctrine,

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consistent with the appropriate and continuing authority of legislative action and the relation of corporate franchises to the public interest, and the due subordination of the creature of legislation.

Minority representation in the legislature is found to operate directly to the contrary of what was expected of it. It was supposed that each party would nominate the three candidates in each instance, and that this action would enable the party in the minority to cumulate their votes to one, supposedly the best of the three, and thereby secure not only a representation by the party in the minority, but a selection of the fittest of the three candidates. The practical use made of this clause is simply political bargaining, by which a clever politician, able to procure a small number of the worst element in both parties to plump their votes and elect him, is able to sequester and retain, term after term, a seat in the Assembly. Political manipulators sometimes enter into such agreements beforehand, as will divide the number of representatives in proportion to the vote of the parties in the district, and opposing candidates are not even put up. Without minority representation, each party would be likely to name three representatives, and independent voters, who desire in these domestic concerns to secure sound men for offices, would be able to exercise some choice, and policy would require both parties to put up good men. But these general provisions are unimportant by comparison with the urgent needs of action in behalf of this city.

To Chicago, constitutional amendment is a necessity. But in view of apprehensions that exist, of radical inconsiderate action, it is only likely to be obtained if, and when, the city shall discountenance any general disturbance of our fundamental charter and crystallize into concrete, intelligent form the extent of her own necessity, and demonstrate that it is consistent with the interests of the State outside. The unfortunate provision of Section 2, Article XIV, that "the

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General Assembly shall have no power to propose amendments to more than one article of the constitution at the same session, nor to the same article oftener than once in four years," has obstructed and defeated almost every effort to put the complex municipalities within the city into any reasonable order or adjustment.

Twenty municipal bodies exist wholly or in part within the limits of the municipality-the city, county, sanitary district, board of education, public Library board, five park districts and seven townships. Each has its own tax levy; each is independent, though in some instances, as in the case of the park boards and the townships, their action in the levying and collection of taxes are, by the provisions of the constitution, so connected that legislation alone is powerless to separate them, or do away with either. Each has its officers, duplicating work and multiplying expenses. All these parts of the city's governmental machinery ought to be united. It would be precisely as appropriate for the Governor to appoint the members of our board of education, our police superintendents, or library board, as to appoint our park commissioners and justices of the peace. The drainage canal, furnishing and protecting the city's water supply, and guarding its health by proper sewage facilities, ought clearly to be under its direct control. This unnecessarily cumbersome, and, in many respects, inefficient governmental machinery is a colossal waste when economy is essential.

The city is almost paralyzed by the impossible situation in which it is placed by reason of the five per cent limitation upon its indebtedness, under Section 12 of Article IX of the constitution. In view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Chicago vs. Fishburn (189 Ill., 367), which construes the limitation to be five per cent upon the assessed valuationa limit which the city has already largely exceeded--not possessing power to borrow money to pay its obligations, which it could probably do at a rate as low as three per cent

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or even less, judgments exist against the city, aggregating $3,500,000, a large portion of which ran for years at six per cent, and are still bearing five. Without relief these judg ments must continue to run at this double rate of interest, diminishing the power of the city to free itself from these and other burdens, or to meet its running expenses; and because the city is poorly policed and defects exist everywhere for want of funds with which to maintain repairs, and lack of funds to adequately defend suits, judgments against the city are vastly increased in number and amount.

The special assessment system to which it is driven by this situation is one which no intelligent community can tol-· erate. Something like a million of dollars, a sacred trust fund belonging to the citizens of Chicago, is sequestered, misappropriated and utterly lost, and in such confusion that one of the most intelligent and upright comptrollers finds himself bewildered and helpless to extricate the department, or assist the outraged citizen. The principle of the system is wrong.

The practical operation of the present justice court system in the city has been a lamentable failure of justice, and an acknowledged systematic deprivation of the protection of the law to the unfortunate portion of the community, the class above all others requiring such protection. It ought to be thoroughly overhauled and abolished.

Township organization is precisely adapted to that portion of our State outside of large cities. It enables those several neighborhoods who best know their own needs, to build bridges and roads, and conduct their schools in the manner best adapted, and where intimate personal knowledge of the results accomplished enables them without delay to justify or change the course pursued; but it is as inappropriate and out of place in a great city as all the complex street improvements would be in a country lane. Yet township organization seems fastened to us, and is also entangled with

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revenue provisions as to our park systems. These frailties of the instrument were less apparent at the date of its adoption with a city of only 300,000. The city is simply stumbling along in the Chinese shoes in which its infant feet were buckled thirty years ago. It has been demonstrated that it is impracticable to apply to the great cities these general laws, applicable to villages, country towns and agricultural communities. For many years ingenious subterfuges have had to be resorted to in enactments by the legislature for the purpose of escaping by indirection the operation of this section, prohibiting special legislation in instances where legislation was necessary in the city which would not do at all, and would have no application eisewhere. In many instances these enactments have been found plain violations of that clause, and so declared by the courts, causing embarrassing complications, portions of enactments being in some instances held valid, and the remainder void, as in People vs. Knopf, (183 Ill., 410), where the five per cent limitation embodied in the revenue law was held void and the remainder valid.

The repeated applications of the city to the legislature for amendment have been quite uniformly granted; but it has often happened that other sections of the State have desired some constitutional amendment, at a session of the legislature at which one was desired by the city. One or the other must yield, as one proposition to amend at a session exhausts legislative authority to propose amendment. If an amendment shall, under the construction of the courts, be held adequate, the clause preventing amendment to an article oftener than once in four years extends and accentuates the hardship.

This limitation upon the power to ameud the constitution was unfortunate. It was not justified by experience or precedent. It was an unwarranted assumption of superior wisdom. Experience has shown that a conservative check is desirable, but it has demonstrated that the disadvantages of