Throughout the United States there are provided special, though simple, forms of municipal government for villages under the various names of village, borough or town. Oddly enough the notable exceptions to this general practice are to be found in New England, the region which includes three of the most densely populated states in the Union. Moreover, it is in the two most densely populated of these that the least progress has been made toward the development of an orderly system of village government.

At one time the whole area of New England, except certain unorganized tracts in the north, was under town government and so continued until the growth of urban conditions led to city incorporation. In every case incorporation was by special act, and such is the method employed in every case to the present time. The readiness of the town government to assume the functions proper to an urban community not only retarded city incorporation, but prevented, in large measure, the growth of special forms of government for villages. It is not unusual to find towns which include within their limits many square miles of rural territory, providing all or part of its population with fire protection, water, sewers, lights, side-walks, parks and libraries. But there has grown up, sometimes under general laws though more commonly as a result of special legislation, a heterogeneous collection of municipal governments and taxing authorities variously denominated villages, fire, water, lighting, sewer, highway and improvement districts, producing a confusion comparable only to the conditions in England before the municipal reforms of recent date.

In conservative quarters, where the state of Kansas has been looked upon as particularly susceptible to the attractions of political novelties parading under the name of reform, the early and wide adoption of the commission form of government for cities has doubtless caused no surprise. Any tendency which Kansas may have to become a laboratory of political experiment is not, as is often inferred, due to sheer instability of political character. It flows, rather, from that supreme faith in democracy common to the trans-Mississippi region, intensified by a lofty idealism and an intense Puritanism inherited from the men and women who emigrated there in the fifties to make Kansas a bulwark of freedom. These original traits of character have, to a remarkable degree, persisted and find political expression even at the present day. Notwithstanding all this, the State had, like so many others, fallen under the control of a political organization strongly intrenched behind a spoils system and, if current reports are true, supported by large corporations for their own good. The recent widespread revolt against such conditions reached Kansas and reacting on the Kansas character brought about a far-reaching political upheaval. The net result of the agitation was a political over-turning, an awakened sense of personal responsibility on the part of the voter and a renewed interest in affairs State and municipal.