tive operation those forces which have been the chief
factor in corrupting both state and municipal government.

As soon as it came to be generally recognized that state control of
local affairs not only did not prevent, but was, in fact, the chief
source of the misrule of American cities, an effort was made to provide
a remedy by the adoption of constitutional provisions regulating the
power of the legislature to interfere in municipal affairs. These
limitations relate to those matters wherein the evils of state
interference have been most pronounced. Thus in some states the
legislature is not allowed to grant the use of streets to railways or
other private companies without the consent of the municipal
authorities; to create special commissions and bestow upon them
municipal functions; or to incorporate cities or regulate them by
special laws.

It was not the purpose of these constitutional provisions to grant to
municipalities any immunity from state control, but merely to forbid
certain modes of exercising legislative supervision which, as experience
had shown, were liable to serious abuses. The prohibition of special
legislation, generally incorporated in recent state constitutions, has,
however, largely failed to accomplish its purpose, owing to the fact
that the courts have permitted the legislature to establish so many
classes of cities that it has been able to pass special acts under the
guise of general laws.

The state of Ohio furnishes a good example of the practical
nullification of a constitutional provision by the legislature through
the abuse of its power of classification. The constitution of 1851
prohibited the legislature from passing any special act conferring
corporate powers and provided for the organization of cities by general
laws. The legislature, however, adopted a method of classifying cities
which defeated the object of this provision. In 1901 each of the eleven
principal cities in the state was in a separate class. Consequently all
laws enacted for each of these classes were in reality special acts, and
as such were clearly an evasion of the constitutional prohibition of
special legislation. Nevertheless, this method of classification had
been repeatedly upheld by the courts. Its advantages to the party in
control of the state government were obvious, since it gave the
legislature a free hand in interfering in local affairs for partisan
ends. It permitted the state machine to make conces