legislative, executive, and judicial functions of the city shall be placed in the hands of the commissioners who shall exercise those functions.”  The Affirmative, then, are standing for fusion of functions, and not concentration of powers.

The Negative do not defend the evils of present city organization.  The Negative believe that far-reaching reforms must be instituted before we shall enjoy municipal success.  The issue then is, does the commission form, or do the reforms proposed by the Negative, offer the more satisfactory solution of our municipal problems?

    The Negative propose, first, that the form of organization shall
    embody a proper correlation or departments.

In the early council system the functions of the legislative and executive departments so overlapped that there was continual conflict of authority.  Under the board system the two departments were almost disconnected, so that the legislative department could not hold the executive accountable to the will of the people.  In many forms today, as the gentlemen have depicted, the relations between the departments are such that responsibility cannot be fixed.

But, Honorable Judges, these instances of failure do not show that it is impossible to preserve a proper division of functions, for every conspicuous example of municipal success in the world is based upon the proper correlation between the legislative and administrative departments.  Municipal success in Europe is an established fact.  There we find the cabinet form.  A similar form is in vogue in Toronto, Canada, which Mayor Coatswain says is most gratifying to the public.  Says Rear Admiral Chadwick:  “The city of Newport, Rhode Island, has now a form of government that awakens the interest of the citizens, keeps that interest awake, and conducts its affairs in obedience to the wishes of the majority.”  Charleston, S. C., Elmira, New York, Los Angeles, Cal., are but a few of the typical American cities which have successfully adopted the ordinary mayor and council form.  Says Mayor Rhett, of Charleston:  “I am the executive of a city that has been under a mayor and council for over one hundred years.  It is quite as capable of prompt action on any matter as any business corporation.”  The National Municipal League, composed of such men as Albert Shaw, of New York City, and Professor Rowe of the University of Pennsylvania, appointed a committee to formulate a definite program of reform.  This committee did not even consider the abandoning of distinct legislative and administrative bodies, but, after three years of unremitting effort, presented a working system, embodying, in the words of the committee itself, the “essential principle of all successful government,” namely, the proper correlation between the legislative and administrative departments.  That program has left marked traces in the constitution of Virginia, Alabama, Colorado, New York, Wisconsin, Michigan,