separate body to represent the various localities.  The city has a large population living in a restricted territory; in the state it is scattered.  The city is unified by means of its rapid communication and transportation facilities, and its interests are common.  These, Honorable Judges, are some general reasons why there is no necessity for trying to maintain a separate legislative body at the expense of efficiency in administration and the fixing of individual responsibility.

But let us now examine as to wherein this principle of separation fails to meet modern municipal conditions.  In the first place we find that this system has failed to produce efficiency, because, in actual practice, it has been impossible to keep the legislative and administrative branches within their proper spheres of action.  To be sure, such difficulty does not exist in state and national governments where the work is naturally divided.  But in city government, where the work is of a peculiar kind, where it is unified in character and is largely administrative and of a business nature, it has been found impossible to maintain a separation.  It is not at all surprising to find that in some cities, the mayor is the dominating factor in both legislation and administration.  He is the presiding officer of the council with the deciding vote, and, in addition, is clothed with the veto power.  On the other hand, there are scores of instances where the council assumes administrative functions.  It names all appointments to office, and it creates and controls all the departments of city government.  Under such circumstances the administrative department is subordinate to the council, because its officers can be both appointed and removed by that body and because it can carry on no work without the council’s authority.  Thus there is an inevitable tendency to concentrate the powers in one of the two branches, yet, at the same time, diffusing responsibility between them.  Such a condition only goes to show that city government is gradually but surely working its way toward concentration in one body.  But the trouble lies in the fact that the present system makes possible concentration of power, without a corresponding concentration of responsibility.  From such a condition have grown two grave and inherent evils.  First, it has entirely eliminated the system of checks and balances, which is a fundamental doctrine of the division of power.  Secondly, it has utterly destroyed all effective responsibility.  It is apparent at once, that when one branch of the government dominates, the checks and balances between the departments are immediately lost, and facts bear out what theory shows to be logically true.  The system of checks and balances failed absolutely in New York, where the mayor is supreme, and where the city has been plundered of sums estimated at 7 per cent of the total valuation of real estate.  It has failed in St. Louis, where the council dominated, and where “Boss Butler” paid