Neither are the administrative and legislative responsibilities of the states redeemed with any more success.  The tax systems of the several states are in a chaotic condition.  Their basis consists of the old property tax, which under its application to modern conditions has become both unjust and unproductive, but which the state legislatures seem to be wholly incapable of either abandoning or properly transforming.  In the matter of education the states have been, except in the South, liberal; but they have not been as intelligent and well-informed as they have been well-intentioned.  The educational system of the country is not only chaotic, but it is very imperfectly adapted to the needs of an industrial and agricultural democracy.  Finally, if the legislatures of the several states have ever done anything to increase respect for the wisdom and conservatism of American representative government, it is certainly hard to discover indications thereof.  The financial and economic legislation of the states has usually shown incompetence and frequently dishonesty.  They have sometimes been ready to repudiate their debts.  In their relations to the corporations they have occupied the positions alternately of blackmailers and creatures.  They have been as ready to confiscate private property as they have to confer on it excessive privileges.  If the word “law” means something less majestic and authoritative to Americans than it should, the mass of trivial, contradictory, unwise, ephemeral, and corrupt legislation passed by the state legislatures is largely responsible.

No doubt a certain part of this failure of the state governments is irremediable as long as existing standards of public and private morality prevail; but most assuredly a certain part is the direct result of unwise organization.  American state governments have been corrupt and inefficient largely because they have been organized for the benefit of corrupt and inefficient men; and as long as they continue to be organized on such a basis, no permanent or substantial improvement can be expected.  Moreover, any reorganization in order to be effective must not deal merely with details and expedients.  It must be as radical as are the existing disorganization and abuses.  It must be founded on a different relation between the executive and legislative branches and a wholly different conception of the function of a state legislative body.

The demand for some such reorganization has already become popular, particularly in the West.  A generation or more ago the makers of new state constitutions, being confronted by palpable proofs of the inefficiency and corruption of the state governments, sought to provide a remedy chiefly by limiting the power of the legislature.  All sorts of important details, which would have formerly been left to legislative action, were incorporated in the fundamental law; and in the same spirit severe restrictions were imposed on legislative procedure, designed to prevent the