had come over the spirit of the people, and this change had been reflected in the laws. The greatest difficulty had been found in the city's want of autonomy; the cities of Ohio not only lacked the power to own and operate public utilities, but they even had few rights in contracting with the private companies. The street car companies had always been more ably and assiduously represented in the state legislature than had the people themselves; the people had not had the strength to wrest these powers from the legislature, and indeed, in their patience and toryism, they had not made many efforts to do so. Thus our campaign led us out into the state, and the end, toward which we had to struggle, was the free city; the last of our demands was home rule. In the relations between public utility corporations and the municipality, our cities were a whole generation behind the cities of Great Britain, Germany, France and Belgium. Indeed, in relation to all social functions we were not much further advanced than was Rome in the second century.
As to the medieval cities of Italy, the free cities of Germany and the cities of Great Britain, struggling all of them against some overlord, some king, noble or bishop, so at last there came to our cities a realization of the vassalage they were under. Their destinies were in the hands of the country politicians in the state legislature who had no sympathy with city problems, because they had no understanding of them. Oftenest indeed they had a contempt for them, they all held to the Puritan ideal. But a demand for freedom went up from Cleveland, from
