amendment to the organic laws necessarily carried with it all powers essential to make its provisions effective, and any part of the Constitution in force, so far as in conflict or inconsistent therewith, was by its adoption necessarily repealed.1

All of these amendments, so far as they refer to the same subject-matter, should be read together, and be so interpreted as to carry out the purpose of the people in adopting them, regardless of the technical construction of some of the language used. By the amendment of 1902 the initiative and referendum powers were created and defined, and made applicable to general legislation. By the amendment known as Section la, these powers were further enlarged and extended to the legal voters of every municipality and district as to all local, special, and municipal legislation, and by the amendment of Section 2, Article XI, the legislature was prohibited from creating corporations by special law, and from enacting, amending, or repealing any charter or act of incorporation then in existence. The power, therefore, to enact or amend municipal charters no longer resides in the legislature, but is to be exercised only by the people. And unless the power to amend acts incorporating municipalities, other than cities and towns, is thus reserved to or vested in the people, they can not be changed, amended, or modified until the adoption of some constitutional amendment covering the subject. The court should not reach such a conclusion unless it is compelled to do so by the language of the several amendments, nor can the court believe that such was the intention of the people in adopting these amendments, although a strict construction of the language used in one or more of them might lead to that result. The manifest purpose, so far as it concerns the question under consideration of the court, was to take from the legislature and vest in the people the power to amend municipal charters and acts gov1 State v. Langworthy, 55 Or. 303.

erning and defining the powers and duties of all municipal corporations. 1

By the adoption of the initiative and referendum into the Constitution, the legislative department of the State is divided into two separate and distinct law making bodies. There remains, however, as formerly, but one legislative department of the State. It operates, it is true, differently than before-one method by the enactment of laws directly, through the source of all legislative power, the people; and the other, as formerly, by their representatives—but the change thus wrought neither gives to nor takes from the legislative assembly the power to enact or repeal any law, except in such manner and to such extent as may therein be expressly stated. Nor does the court understand that it was ever intended that it should be so. The powers thus reserved to the people merely took from the legislature the exclusive right to enact laws, at the same time leaving it a co-ordinate legislative body with them. This dual system of making and unmaking laws has become the settled policy of the State, and so recognized by decisions on the subject.

True, the language used in the amendments considered would appear to give to incorporated cities the exclusive control and management of their own affairs, even to the extent, if desired, of legislating within their borders without limit, to the exclusion of the State. But, as stated, these provisions must be construed in connection with others of the fundamental laws, which can but lead to the conclusion above announced; and whatever may be the literal import of the amendments, it can not be held that the State has surrendered its sovereignty to the municipalities to the extent that it must be deemed to have perpetually lost control over them. This no State can do. The logical sequence of a judicial interpretation to such effect would amount to a recognition of a State's independent right of dissolution. It

1 Farrell v. Port of Portland, 52 Or. 582.

would but lead to sovereigntial suicide. It would result in the creation of States within the State, and eventually in the surrender of all State sovereignty-all of which is expressly inhibited by Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States. Power to enact local legislation may be delegated, but this of necessity, whether stated or not, is always limited to matters consonant with, and germane to, the general purpose and object of the municipalities to which such prerogatives may be granted. Municipalities are but mere departments or agencies of the State, charged with the performance of duties for and on its behalf, and subject always to its control. The State, therefore, regardless of any declaration in its Constitution to the contrary, may at any time revise, amend, or even repeal any or all of the charters within it, subject, of course, to vested rights and limitations otherwise provided by the fundamental laws. This, under the Constitution as it now stands, may be done by the legislature through general laws only, and the same authority may be invoked by the people through the initiative by either general or special enactments; only the legislature being inhibited from adopting the latter method.1

The people of the State of Oregon, by constitutional amendment, have seen fit to confer upon municipal corporations the right to enact their charters; the only limitation on that right being that such charters shall not conflict with the Constitution or the criminal laws of the State. Therefore, within the limits of the municipality, and for those purposes which are purely municipal, a city may include in its charter by amendment any provision or right that the legislature might have granted before the Constitution was so amended.2

These constitutional provisions (Section 2, Article XI, and Section 1a, Article IV, Constitution) confer ample and exclusive

1 Straw v. Harris, 54 Or. 424.

2 Kiernan v. Portland, 57 Or. 454.

power upon the people of every municipal corporation to regulate their own affairs respecting municipal legislation and procedure. The legislative assembly can not pass laws to repeal or amend municipal charters, even by implication, respecting such matters. On these subjects the city charter under consideration is complete within itself, and subject only to the Constitution and the criminal laws of the State. The charter does not provide for the appeal of any cause like the one under consideration beyond the circuit court, and hence the appeal should be dismissed.

In reaching this conclusion, the court is not unmindful of the doctrine in Straw v. Harris, 54 Or. 424, which holds in effect, that the State may not surrender its sovereignty to municipalities to the extent that it must be deemed to have perpetually lost control of them; but no question of State supremacy over its subordinate municipalities is involved in the case under consideration. The matters in dispute relate purely to the city's internal affairs over which it has supreme control by virtue of the constitutional amendments above quoted.1

Constitutionality.—The initiative and referendum amendment was regularly adopted and it is not in conflict with Section 4, Article IV of the Constitution of the United States guaranteeing to every State a republican form of government.2 Whether the adoption of provisions of the initiative and referendum in the Constitution of a State, such as those adopted in Oregon in 1902, so alters the form of government of the State as to make it no longer republican within the meaning of Section 4, Article IV of the Constitution of the United States is a purely political

1 City of Portland v. Nottingham, 58 Or. 1.

2 Kadderly v. Portland, 44 Or. 118.

Oregon v. Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co., 53 Or. 162.
Kiernan v. Portland, 57 Or. 454.

question over which the Supreme Court of the United States has no jurisdiction. It is for Congress to determine.1

Veto Power of Governor.-The veto power of the Governor is not abridged in any way, except as to such laws as the legislature may refer to the people. The provision of the amendment that "the veto power of the Governor shall not extend to measures referred to the people" must necessarily be confined to the measures which the legislature may refer, and can not apply to acts upon which the referendum may be invoked by petition.2 The amendment of Section 1, Article IV of the Constitution does not direct that a proposed law, when enacted by the people, pursuant to an exercise of the initiative power reserved, shall, before it becomes operative, be presented to the Governor; and hence the chief executive of the State of Oregon is powerless either to approve or repudiate a measure passed in the manner indicated.3

Emergency. The Constitution of Oregon, Article IV, Section 28,4 giving the legislative assembly power to put any law into force upon approval by declaring an emergency, has been modified by the initiative and referendum amendment, so as to exclude from the power to declare an emergency all laws except those necessary for the immediate preservation of the public

1 Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118. The same ruling was made in the U. S. Sup. Ct. in reference to Sec. 1a, Art. IV, Const. Or., and the amendment to Sec. 2, Art. XI, Const. Or., in Kiernan v. Portland, 223 U. S. 151.

2 Kadderly v. Portland, 44 Or. 118.

3 State v. Kline, 50 Or. 426.

Oregon v. Pacific States Tel. & Tel. Co., 53 Or. 162. In this case the court said: "What is said on the subject in Kadderly v. Portland (supra), was in answer to the point that the initiative and referendum deprived the Governor of a veto power over acts of the legislature and had no reference to measures proposed by the initiative."

4 Sec. 28, Art. IV, Const. of Oregon, is as follows: "No act shall take effect until ninety days from the end of the session at which the same shall have been passed, except in case of emergency; which emergency shall be declared in the preamble or in the body of the law."