" Mr. justice Story said, "Whenever these
departments are all vested in one person or body of men, the
government is in fact a despotism, by whatever name it be called,
whether a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy."
d. The procedure of Berlin has in it an element of fairness worthy
of our consideration; those representing large property interests
have a surety of being at least represented. Some such system must
be devised if the holding of properly at all be regarded as moral
and necessary to our civilization. Remember that you are, in a large
sense, but a chartered joint-stock corporation. Can you imagine the
control of any other joint-stock corporation delivered over to those
who have no stock or the least stock in it? Can you imagine the New
York & New Haven Railroad, for example, controlled by the
passengers, to the exclusion of the stock holders? Now this, to a
very great degree, is what has happened in many of our cities. We
have deprived the true stockholders, in some cases, of any
representation whatever. I thus hold that to give property some
voice in the control of a municipal corporation is but sense and
justice.
e. We have tried commissions in Buffalo in branches of our city
government.
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