In 1900, by the opening of the Chicago drainage canal, there was provided a watercourse for the disposal of sewage and for navigation from Lake Michigan by way of the Chicago River to the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. Entailing as it did the reversal of the flow of the Chicago River, this, from the engineering standpoint, has been hailed as a great achievement. The large abstraction of water from Lake Michigan through the canal, however, had its effect in a lowering of levels in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River with consequent injury to navigation. This brought about constant opposition to the canal from the Federal Government and from Canada. Thus the Sanitary District of Chicago has been involved in a host of legal difficulties and put to much expense in adjusting its plant to the demands of the United States Government. The diversion in the meantime has been a constant source of ill-feeling towards the United States on the part of Canada and at present, although under federal control, offers an obstacle to the further development of Great Lakes and St. Lawrence waterways.

In papers read before this Association in 1906 and 1908, and in publications issued subsequently by the writers of those papers, the modern trend in state constitutions was quite fully presented. The detail of changes during the last three years has been so well covered in numerous publications, that a reiteration in this paper would surely be tedious and unfruitful. It may be sufficient to say that our state constitutions are constantly changing through amendment, that the powers of legislatures are undergoing further restrictions, that the executive is very slowly enlarging his powers, that the increasing mass of litigation compels an expansion of judicial organization, and that there is a growing emphasis on direct as against indirect democracy. Moreover, the states are slowly learning the art of regulating more effectively the great corporate interests under their jurisdiction; local government in county and city is in process of reorganization; taxation, public finance and the building of state-roads are important issues; and political parties begin to realize that at last their days of freedom and license are well nigh past, since they see before them, as a sort of handwriting on the wall, the direct primary, the short ballot, laws against corruption, and the voting machine in place of complaisant returning boards. Moreover our many states, diverse and widely scattered though they are, for the most part show a trend towards uniformity through the rise of the study of comparative legislation. Much of the credit for this should be attributed to the influence of such bodies as the American Bar Association, the National Civic Federation, the Conferences of Governors and the rapidly multiplying Legislative Reference Bureaus.