, but by the concentration of the
administrative power and responsibility of the municipal authorities. I
shall not attempt to define in detail how far the measure of home rule
should go; but it may be said in general that the functions delegated or
preserved should so far as possible be completely delegated or
preserved. This rule cannot be rigidly applied to such essential
functions of the state governments as the preservation of order and the
system of education. The delegation of certain police powers and a
certain control over local schools is considered at present both
convenient and necessary, although in the course of time such may no
longer be the case; but if these essential functions are delegated, the
state should retain a certain supervision over the manner of their
exercise. On the other hand, the municipality as an economic and
business organism should be left pretty much to its own devices; and it
is not too much to say that the state should not interfere in these
matters at all, except under the rarest and most exceptional conditions.

The reasons for municipal home rule in all economic and business
questions are sufficiently obvious. A state is a political and legal
body; and as a political and legal body it cannot escape its appropriate
political and social responsibilities. But a state has in the great
majority of cases no meaning at all as a center of economic organization
and direction. The business carried on within state limits is either
essentially related by competition to the national economic system,--or
else it is essentially municipal in its scope and meaning. Of course,
such a statement is not strictly true. The states have certain essential
economic duties in respect to the conservation and development of
agricultural resources and methods and to the construction and
maintenance of a comprehensive system of highways. But these legitimate
economic responsibilities are not very numerous or very onerous compared
to those which should be left to the central government on the one hand
or to the municipal governments on the other. A municipality is a living
center of economic activity--a genuine case of essentially local
economic interests. To be sure, the greater part of the manufacturing or
commercial business transacted in a city belongs undubitably to the
national economic system; but there is a minor part which is exclusively
local. Public service corporations which control franchises in ci