The gigantic national machine that was erected during Grant's administration would have been ineffectual without local sources of power. These sources of power were found in the cities, now thriving on the new-born commerce and industry, increasing marvelously in numbers and in size, and offering to the political manipulator opportunities that have rarely been paralleled. * * Between 1860 and 1890 the number of cities of 8000 or more inhabitants increased from 141 to 448, standing at 226 in 1870. In 1865 less than 20% of our people lived in the cities; in 1890, over 30%; in 1900, 40%; in 1910, 46.3%. By 1890 there were six cities with more than half a million inhabitants, fifteen with more than 200,000, and twenty- eight with more than 100,000. In 1910 there were twenty- eight cities with a population over 200,000, fifty cities over 100,000, and ninety-eight over 50,000. It was no uncommon occurrence for a city to double its population in a decade. In ten years Birmingham gained 245%, Los Angeles, 211%, Seattle, 194%, Spokane, 183%, Dallas, 116%, Schenectady, 129%. The governmental framework of the American city is based on the English system as exemplified in the towns of Colonial America. Their charters were received from the Crown and their business was conducted by a mayor and a council composed of aldermen and councilmen. The mayor was usually appointed; the council elected by a property-holding electorate. In New England the glorified town meeting was an important agency of local government. After the Revolution, mayors as well as councilmen were elected, and the charters of the towns were granted by the legislature, not by the executive, of the State. In colonial days charters had been granted by the King. They had fixed for the city certain immunities and well-defined spheres of autonomy. But when the legislatures were given the power to grant charters, they reduced the charter to the level of a statutory enactment, which could be amended or repealed by any successive legislature, thereby opening up a convenient field for political maneuvering. The courts have, moreover, construed these charters strictly, holding the cities closely bound to those powers which the legislatures conferred upon them. The task of governing the early American town was simple enough. In 1790 New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston were the only towns in the United States of over 8000 inhabitants; all together they numbered scarcely 130,000. Their populations were homogeneous; their wants were few; and they were still in that happy childhood when every voter knew nearly every other voter and when everybody knew his neighbor's business as well as his own, and perhaps better.