bipartizan board fitted snugly into the dual party regime that
existed in many cities, whereby the county offices were
apportioned to one party, the city offices to the other, and the
spoils to both. It is doubtful if any device was ever more
deceiving and less satisfactory than the bipartizan board.

The reader must not be led to think that any one of these plans
of municipal government prevailed at any one time. They all still
exist, contemporaneously with the newer commission plan and the
city manager plan.

Hand in hand with these experiments in governmental mechanisms
for the growing cities went a rapidly increasing expenditure of
public funds. Streets had to be laid out, paved, and lighted;
sewers extended; firefighting facilities increased; schools
built; parks, boulevards, and playgrounds acquired, and scores of
new activities undertaken by the municipality. All these brought
grist to the politician's mill. So did his control of the police
force and the police courts. And finally, with the city reaching
its eager streets far out into the country, came the necessity
for rapid transportation, which opened up for the municipal
politician a new El Dorado.

Under our laws the right of a public service corporation to
occupy the public streets is based upon a franchise from the
city. Before the days of the referendum the franchise was granted
by the city council, usually as a monopoly, sometimes in
perpetuity; and, until comparatively recent years, the
corporation paid nothing to the city for the rights it acquired.