The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-15
4 CITY CONSTITUTION.

SASSuoHo dS COtupdfeu WlJn those which involve the election of State and federal officials can be traced di- rectly to lack of political independ- ence enjoyed by the one hundred and sixty-eight localities which comprise the State of Connecticut. Broadly speaking, the cities of Connecticut in particular have been for so many years governed from Hartford through the General Assembly that that pride which ought to determine civic en- thusiasm has been wanting almost al- together. Through mere force of hab- 1t residents in the city, or more than one-half of the voters, have left 1t to the few to say in what manner the city interests shall be governed In the neighborhood of eight thousand people entitled to vote failed to do so as the recent local election.
 It is incidents like this which have directed the attention of thoughtful students of municipal government to it's weaknesses in organization and encouraged them to seek for remedy as a consequence of which the maxi mum of voters will always be inter- ested in their home affairs There is a city charter revision committee in New York charged with the task of studying the charter of the Empire city from the point of view of it's pos sible improvement, Mayor Mcclellan is member. of the committee though unable U give the details the consid- eration he would like to on account of official matters. He has taken oc- casion, however, to give his views in letter to the chairman which can- not fail to be of interest to dwellers In the cities of Connecticut, especial ly when we bear in mind the effort that was made here this year to re- pair the weaknesses in Connecticut charters. Mayor McClenan's remedy is exactly the remedy the advocates of uniform city charter policy for this State recommended. He would have the new charter for the city of New fork "as concise as possible" He would eliminate the mass of minor provis- Ions, which have been imposed bv the State legislature, thus leaving it to the local authorities themselves to work out the details of municipal government by ordinance or other wise In short, that the new charter should resemble as far as possible a city constitution rather than code of city statutes" He would increase the power of the mayor, consolidate various conflicting departments, re- duce the size of the board of alder men and have the board of estimate and control elected by the people.
 The Journal and Courier confesses to lively interest in this program of progress, because barring details which concern differences in munici- pal organization it is identically the program It advocated "by absent treatment" before the Connecticut uniform city charter commission. It IS nothing more nor less than the principle of Home Rule applied to cities as it is applied to towns. It leaves to the General Assembly the proper task of drawing what is in. reality constitution for the organ- ization of cities. That constitution should deal only with the essentials of such an organization and leave un- touched the consideration of definite local needs which residents of other communities could know of only bv hearsay or by reading the newspapers The limitation of the right of a given locality, for example, to run into debt is properly within the scope of legis- iative consideration, while the desire of a given locality to manage it's police or fire department, or any other of it's administrative boards, as it sees fit is not properly within the scope of leg islative interference. In speaking of the kind of charter he has in mind as an effective instrument of government for the city of New York, Mayor Me- Clellan says with truth which is bounded by no local traditions: "The briefer it's provisions the more effec- tive, in my Judgment, it will prove to be. In fact, the most satisfactory charter from an ideal point of view would be a simple grant from the State to the citizens of the city al- lowing them to govern their munich pality according to rules to be estab- lished by their own legislative bodies"
 Mayor Mcclellan would in other words have done what the advocates of uniform city charter policy for Connecticut would have done, namely, first the elimination of the State legis- lature as a factor in the detailed gov ernment of municipalities, second a