The checks above mentioned are not the only ones to be found, however, in our municipal government. The city is organized, like the state government, on the plan of distributed powers and diffused responsibility. It contains, as a rule, an elaborate system of checks which affords little opportunity for the prompt and effective expression of local public opinion in the administration of municipal affairs. At the same time, it gives the municipal authorities power to inaugurate and carry out policies to which local public sentiment may be strongly opposed. This is seen in the control which the mayor and council quite generally exercise over the matter of municipal franchises. Probably not a city of any importance could be mentioned in which the council has not granted privileges which have enriched individuals and private corporations at the expense of the public. This power has been the chief source of municipal corruption, since it has made the misgovernment of cities a source of great profit to a wealthy and influential class. Those who imagine that the ignorant and vicious part of our urban population is the main obstacle to reform take but a superficial view of the matter. The real source of misgovernment--the active cause of corruption--is to be found, not in the slums, not in the population ordinarily regarded as ignorant and vicious, but in the selfishness and greed of those who are the recognized leaders in commercial and industrial affairs. It is this class that, as Lincoln Steffens says, may be found "buying boodlers in St. Louis, defending grafters in Minneapolis, originating corruption in Pittsburg, sharing with bosses in Philadelphia, deploring reform in Chicago, and beating good government with corruption funds in New York."[174] This is the natural fruit of our system of municipal government. The powerful corporate interests engaged in the exploitation of municipal franchises are securely entrenched behind a series of constitutional and legal checks on the majority which makes it extremely difficult for public opinion to exercise any effective control over them. The effort to provide a remedy for this condition of affairs took the form of a movement to limit the powers of the council. Boards and commissions have been created in whose hands have been placed much of the business formerly controlled by this body. The policy of subdividing the legislative authority of the city and distributing it among a number of independent boards has been carried so far, notably in New York, that, as Seth Low observes, the council has been largely deprived of all its legislative functions with the single exception of the power to grant public franchises.[175] It must not be inferred, however, that public opinion has favored the retention of this power by the council. The attempt on the part of the people to control the franchise-granting power has thus far largely failed, not because of any lack of popular support, but because our