power, that if the municipalities of the state refused or failed to appoint a police or provide for a police, that the duty of the state would nevertheless be quite as important and quite as cogent to protect the lives and property of the people of the state, and that hence the act of the General Assembly in creating a board with purely administrative powers over the police, was not the conferring of corporate power upon a municipality, and hence classification of cities, and section I, article 13, were not involved. I say while I attempted to sustain that law upon that general proposition, I did not then, and I never have, in the course of my practice, and I never will, advocate the crazy classification in court or elsewhere that has been resorted to in Ohio in the past. (Applause.)

I do not think there is anything left to discuss in those two propositions. The Supreme Court has defined in the recent' opinion in the salary law and other cases what is a law of a general nature, and has given us the best practical definition probably that we have ever had from that court. They have at least announced that hereafter the conferring of corporate power under section 1, article 13, of the Constitution, by a special act under the guise of classification, upon a system of classification that necessarily excludes from it a portion of the municipalities of the state, and necessarily limits the number of those that can come within the class, can no longer be permitted. I do not think it is wise or useful now, in view of those decisions, to discuss what is meant by these two sections of the Constitution. I think it is much more useful, now, for the bar to devote its time and attention to what kind of a municipal code we shall have, in view of the fact that the Supreme Court has now established a rule for us, so far as two sections of the Constitution are concerned. (Renewed applause.)

There is another section of the Constitution that I regret, in the recent opinion in the Toledo case, the court left

undecided. The question was argued in the case. It might possibly, and I think properly, have been decided in that case. It has been claimed by a great many lawyers in the state, and I know by some of the judges, that section 6, article 13, of the Constitution, by its own vigor, has classified the municipalities of the state into cities and villages, and that the doctrine that the enumeration in the Constitution of those two classes, by the rule of exclusion of all others, requires that in the organization of municipalities of Ohio the classification already made by the Constitution itself must be adhered to. The court has not passed upon that question, but expressly, in the syllabus of the case as well as in the opinion, leaves that still an open question. That is to be regretted for the reason that in the coming action of the General Assembly the power, the legislative power of the state is still left in doubt as to whether any classification based upon population or upon other differences, can be sustained under the present Constitution. For myself I want to say that, after having ascended the hill for fifty years with that question in doubt, and with the fact that it is very easy, in my opinion, in any law that is passed, to make the classification that is made in the Constitution, it would be the greatest folly in the world, and the greatest danger to attempt now to pass a municipal code upon another or a different basis of classification. (Renewed applause.) In other words, it would be folly, in my opinion, now that we have met or must meet the emergency, to leave that question still to be decided adversely, if the opinion of the majority of the court should hold the extreme doctrine that the classification is thus made by the vigor of the Constitution. And hence I hope that in any attempt to classify the municipalities of Ohio the rule will be adopted that the classification is already made, at least for the purpose of saving whatever legislation we have from another defeat by the Supreme Court.

The question that I undertook to argue in the Police Board case is one that I find now has created a great deal of diversity of opinion among the people of the state. I do not ask any one to adopt my view about it, the view that I reached in that case, unless it appeals to his judgment. But I am as thoroughly convinced as I can be that the duty of the State of Ohio to protect its people, to enforce its law and to preserve the lives and happiness and property of the people, is a duty that the State of Ohio cannot shift upon any municipality; that it is a state duty and if a municipality refuses and declines to perform it, it would nevertheless be just as incumbent upon the state to do it as it is upon the sovereign power to protect its people in any other respect. And, therefore, whatever may be the opinion of others, I believe that the police power of Ohio should be taken out of the dirty mire of municipal politics and placed beyond the power of municipal elections. (More applause.) I do not care whether it is done by the state through the appointment of the Governor. I do not care whether the power is vested in the Governor or how it is exercised; only I believe that the public health, the prosperity and rights and the liberty and the property and the persons of the citizens should be guarded by the state through its own agencies, without delegating that power, at least to the extent of shirking it, by the state itself. I believe that in the municipal code, whenever it is adopted, the power of the police department and the power of the health department should be independent of local and municipal elections. I do not care if you place the power in the municipality. I am willing to have it placed there. I am willing that it shall contain the doctrine of home rule that is so often talked about to the extent that the municipality shall control it provided it shall not be made the subject of barter and sale in the ordinary municipal elections, and in ordinary municipal politics. I

know that in the city in which I live, it is said, truly or untruly, I am not expressing any opinion now, that we have an open city; that the laws are not enforced; that the laws on the statute books are not enforced against gambling, and other forbidden practices. Why? Because under some notion that the people have the right to decide those questions for themselves we have men in office there who say openly that they do not intend to enforce the laws except those laws which they think ought to be enforced. I do not want to vest in the mayor of the city, I do not want to vest in the police board of the city, created by the ordinary machinery of politics, the power to say that the laws of Ohio shall not be enforced. I want that duty to rest where it belongs, upon the great State of Ohio. There is not five per cent. of the work done by the metropolitan police of the cities of Cincinnati and Cleveland or Toledo or Columbus that has any relation to the municipal matters, that has any connection. with municipal ordinances. It is to enforce the laws of the state and the rights of the people, and I have just as much right to the protection of the State of Ohio when I go to Cincinnati as Mr. Warrington has when he comes to Toledo. And hence I want to put myself on record, not in favor of any plan, not in favor necessarily of any appointment by any state officer, but that the police and health boards of the State of Ohio shall be created either in the municipality, or by virtue of the laws of the state, under some system that will disconnect them from the municipal politics.

Now what more is there to say? Section 1, article 13, of the Constitution has recently been construed, construed so that there is no longer any doubt about it. Construed properly so far as that question is concerned, to the end and the extermination of the power exercised by the General Assembly to deal with every municipality as a separate and distinct corporation. When I was your president seven or

eight years ago I delivered an address on that same subject in which I outlined this decision and pointed out the fact that the municipal debt of Ohio had reached the enormous sum of one hundred millions of dollars, that it was increasing in a ratio that was alarming; that we were pledging the future of our children and mortgaging the future of our cities, all done under a classification that authorized the municipalities of Ohio of a certain grade or class, a certain limitation of population, or having a navigable stream, or some other absurdity, to issue bonds and incur debt. Those laws were in violation of the Constitution of the state. I do not believe that the decisions of the Supreme Court of the past have all been wrong, I say that many of them have been misconstrued, that many of them have been given an effect much greater than was intended by them until, as I said before, municipal classification ran mad in the State of Ohio. we have a definition of that, and we have a definition of section 26, article 2, that I think makes it quite unnecessary for us to devote very much time to the discussion of what is meant by these two sections. Let us devote our time now to getting a municipal code, first that will adopt the classification which the Constitution makes; secondly, that will meet by its flexible nature with such conditions and grants of home rule as may enable the cities themselves to divide themselves under general laws, and above all, shall have no politics in it. (More applause.) If we devote ourselves now to the consideration of those questions I think the questions which were submitted by the Committee on Law Reform, before the recent decision, will take care of themselves. (Great applause.)

Now

THE PRESIDENT: The question is now open for discussion, and the members will bear in mind that the constitution limits the speeches to ten minutes, and the chair will be compelled to enforce that rule.