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 cities do not enter into inter-state commerce at all—­except in those unusual cases (as in New York) where certain parts of the economic municipal body are situated in another state.  They should be subject, consequently, to municipal jurisdiction and only that.  The city alone has anything really important to gain or to lose from their proper or improper treatment; and its legal responsibility should be as complete as its economic localization is real.

There is no need of discussing in any detail the way in which a municipal government which does enjoy the advantage of home rule and an efficient organization can contribute to the work of national economic and social reconstruction.  Public opinion is tending to accept much more advanced ideas in this field of municipal reform than it is in any other part of the political battle-field.  Experiments are already being tried, looking in the direction of an increasingly responsible municipal organization, and an increasing assumption by the city of economic and social functions.  Numerous books are being written on various aspects of the movement, which is showing the utmost vitality and is constantly making progress in the right direction.  In all probability, the American city will become in the near future the most fruitful field for economically and socially constructive experimentation; and the effect of the example set therein will have a beneficially reactive effect upon both state and Federal politics.  The benefits which the city governments can slowly accomplish within their own jurisdiction are considerable.  They do not, indeed, constitute the exclusive “Hope of Democracy,” because the ultimate democratic hope depends on the fulfillment of national responsibilities; and they cannot deal effectively with certain of the fundamental social questions.  But by taking advantage of its economic opportunities, the American city can gradually diminish the economic stress within its own jurisdiction.  It has unique chance of appropriating for the local community those sources of economic value which are created by the community, and it has an equally unique opportunity of spending the money so obtained for the amelioration of the sanitary, if not of the fundamental economic and social, condition of the poorer people.