There have sprung up all sorts of collateral organizations to help the officials: societies for municipal research, municipal reference libraries, citizens' unions, municipal leagues, and municipal parties. These are further supplemented by organizations which indirectly add to the momentum of practical, enlightened municipal sentiment: boards of commerce, associations of business and professional men of every variety, women's clubs, men's clubs, children's clubs, recreation clubs, social clubs, every one with its own peculiar vigilance upon some corner of the city's affairs. So every important city is guarded by a network of voluntary organizations. All these changes in city government, in municipal laws and political mechanisms, and in the people's attitude toward their cities, have tended to dignify municipal service. The city job has been lifted to a higher plane. Lord Rosebery, the brilliant chairman of the first London County Council, the governing body of the world's largest city, said many years ago: "I wish that my voice could extend to every municipality in the kingdom, and impress upon every man, however high his position, however great his wealth, however consummate his talents may be, the importance and nobility of municipal work." It is such a spirit as this that has made the government of Glasgow a model of democratic efficiency; and it is the beginnings of this spirit that the municipal historian finds developing in the last twenty years of American life. It is indeed difficult to see how our cities can slip back again into the clutches of bosses and rings and repeat the shameful history of the last decades of the nineteenth century. CHAPTER VII. LEGISLATIVE OMNIPOTENCE