Civil Government in the United States Considered with Some Reference to Its Origins Part 12

[Sidenote: Intense vitality of the towns.h.i.+p system.]

This example shows the intense vitality of the towns.h.i.+p system. It is the kind of government that people are sure to prefer when they have tried it under favourable conditions. In the West the hostile conditions against which it has to contend are either the recent existence of negro slavery and the ingrained prejudice in favour of the Virginia method, as in Missouri; or simply the spa.r.s.eness of population, as in Nebraska. Time will evidently remove the latter obstacle, and probably the former also. It is very significant that in Missouri, which began so lately as 1879 to erect towns.h.i.+p governments under a local option law similar to that of Illinois, the process has already extended over about one sixth part of the state; and in Nebraska, where the same process began in 1883, it has covered nearly one third of the organized counties of the state.

[Sidenote: County option and towns.h.i.+p option.]

The principle of local option as to government has been carried still farther in Minnesota and Dakota. The method just described may be called county option; the question is decided by a majority vote of the people of the county. But in Minnesota in 1878 it was enacted that as soon as any one of the little square towns.h.i.+ps in that state should contain as many as twenty-five legal voters, it might pet.i.tion the board of county commissioners and obtain a towns.h.i.+p organization, even though, the adjacent towns.h.i.+ps in the same county should remain under county government only. Five years later the same provision was adopted by Dakota, and under it towns.h.i.+p government is steadily spreading.

[Sidenote: Grades of towns.h.i.+p government.]

Two distinct grades of towns.h.i.+p government are to be observed in the states west of the Alleghanies; the one has the town-meeting for deliberative purposes, the other has not. In Ohio and Indiana, which derived their local inst.i.tutions largely from Pennsylvania, there is no such town-meeting, the administrative offices are more or less concentrated in a board of trustees, and the town is quite subordinate to the county. The princ.i.p.al features of this system have been reproduced in Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.

The other system, was that which we have seen beginning in Michigan, under the influence of New York and New England. Here the town-meeting, with legislative powers, is always present. The most noticeable feature of the Michigan system is the relation between towns.h.i.+p and county, which was taken from New York. The county board is composed of the supervisors of the several towns.h.i.+ps, and thus represents the towns.h.i.+ps. It is the same in Illinois. It is held by some writers that this is the most perfect form of local government,[11] but on the other hand the objection is made that county boards thus const.i.tuted are too large.[12] We have seen that in the states in question there are not less than 16, and sometimes more than 20, towns.h.i.+ps in each county. In a board of 16 or 20 members it is hard to fasten responsibility upon anybody in particular; and thus it becomes possible to have "combinations," and to indulge in that exchange of favours known as "log-rolling," which is one of the besetting sins of all large representative bodies. Responsibility is more concentrated in the smaller county boards of Ma.s.sachusetts, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

[Footnote 11: Howard, _Local Const. Hist._, pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 12: Bemis, _Local Government in Michigan_, J. H. U.

Studies, I., v.]

[Sidenote: An excellent result of the absence of centralization in the United States.]

It is one signal merit of the peaceful and untrammelled way in which American inst.i.tutions have grown up, the widest possible scope being allowed to individual and local preferences, that different states adopt different methods of attaining the great end at which all are aiming in common,--good government. One part of our vast country can profit by the experience of other parts, and if any system or method thus comes to prevail everywhere in the long run, it is likely to be by reason of its intrinsic excellence. Our country affords an admirable field for the study of the general principles which lie at the foundations of universal history. Governments, large and small, are growing up all about us, and in such wise that we can watch the processes of growth, and learn lessons which, after making due allowances for difference of circ.u.mstance, are very helpful in the study of other times and countries.

The general tendency toward the spread of towns.h.i.+p government in the more recently settled parts of the United States is unmistakable, and I have already remarked upon the influence of the public school system in aiding this tendency. The school district, as a preparation for the self-governing towns.h.i.+p, is already exerting its influence in Colorado, Nevada, California, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Was.h.i.+ngton.

[Sidenote: Towns.h.i.+p government is germinating in the South.]

Something similar is going on in the southern states, as already hinted in the case of South Carolina. Local taxation for school purposes has also been established in Kentucky and Tennessee, in both Virginias, and elsewhere. There has thus begun a most natural and wholesome movement, which might easily be checked, with disastrous results, by the injudicious appropriation of national revenue for the aid of southern schools. It is to be hoped that throughout the southern, states, as formerly in Michigan, the self-governing school district may prepare the way for the self-governing towns.h.i.+p, with its deliberative town-meeting. Such a growth must needs be slow, inasmuch as it requires long political training on the part of the negroes and the lower cla.s.ses of white people; but it is along such a line of development that such political training can best be acquired; and in no other way is complete harmony between the two races so likely to be secured.

[Sidenote: woman suffrage.]

Dr. Edward Bemis, who in a profoundly interesting essay[13] has called attention to this function of the school district as a stage in the evolution of the towns.h.i.+p, remarks also upon the fact that "it is in the local government of the school district that woman suffrage is being tried." In several states women may vote for school committees, or may be elected to school committees, or to sundry administrative school offices. At present (1894) there are not less than twenty-one states in which women have school suffrage. In Colorado and Wyoming women have full suffrage, voting at munic.i.p.al, state, and national elections. In Kansas they have munic.i.p.al suffrage, and a const.i.tutional amendment granting them full suffrage is now awaiting ratification. In England, it may be observed, unmarried women and widows who pay taxes vote not only on school matters, but generally in the local elections of vestries, boroughs, and poor-law unions. In the new Parish Councils Bill this munic.i.p.al suffrage is extended to married women. In the Isle of Man women vote for members of Parliament. In Australia they have long had munic.i.p.al suffrage, and in 1893 they were endowed with full rights of suffrage in New Zealand.

[Footnote 13: Local Government in Michigan and the Northwest, J.H.U.

Studies, I., v.]

The historical reason why the suffrage has so generally been restricted to men is perhaps to be sought in the conditions under which voting originated. In primeval times voting was probably adopted as a subst.i.tute for fighting. The smaller and presumably weaker party yielded to the larger without an actual trial of physical strength; heads were counted instead of being broken. Accordingly it was only the warriors who became voters. The restriction of political activity to men has also probably been emphasized by the fact that all the higher civilizations have pa.s.sed through a well-defined patriarchal stage of society in which each household was represented by its oldest warrior. From present indications it would seem that under the conditions of modern industrial society the arrangements that have so long subsisted are likely to be very essentially altered.

QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT.

1. Describe the origin and development of the town-meeting in Michigan.

2. Describe the settling of southern Illinois.

3. Describe the settling of northern Illinois.

4. What difference in thought and feeling existed between these sections?

5. What systems of local government came into rivalry in Illinois, and why?

6. What compromise between them was put into the state const.i.tution?

7. Which system, the town or the county, has shown the greater vitality, and why?

8. What obstacles has the town system to work against?

9. Show how the principle of local option in government has been applied in Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Dakota.

10. What two grades of town government exist west of the Alleghanies?

11. What objection exists to large county boards of government?

12. Why is our country an excellent field for the study of the principles of government?

13. What unmistakable tendency in the ease of towns.h.i.+p government is noticeable?

14. Speak of towns.h.i.+p government in the South.

15. What part have women in the affairs of the school district in many states?

16. What is the historical reason why suffrage has been restricted to men?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS.

It may need to be repeated (see page 12) that it is not expected that each pupil shall answer all the miscellaneous questions put, or respond to all the suggestions made in this book. Indeed, the teacher may be pardoned if now and then he finds it difficult himself to answer a question,--particularly if it is framed to provoke thought rather than lead to a conclusion, or if it is better fitted for some other community or part of the country than that in which he lives.

Let him therefore divide the questions among his pupils, or a.s.sign to them selected questions. In cases that call for special knowledge, let the topics go to pupils who may have exceptional facilities for information at home.

The important point is not so much the settlement of all the questions proposed as it is the encouragement of the inquiring and thinking spirit on the part of the pupil.

1. What impression do you get from this chapter about the hold of town government upon popular favour?

2. What do you regard as the best features of town government?

3. Is there any tendency anywhere to divide towns into smaller towns? If it exists, ill.u.s.trate and explain it.

4. Is there any tendency anywhere to unite towns into larger towns or into cities? If it exists, ill.u.s.trate and explain it.

5. In every town-meeting there are leaders,--usually men of character, ability, and means. Do you understand that these men practically have their own way in town affairs,--that the voters as a whole do but little more than fall in with the wishes and plans of their leaders? Or is there considerable independence in thought and action on the side of the voters?

6. Can a town do what it pleases, or is it limited in its action? If limited, by whom or by what is it restricted, and where are the restrictions recorded? (Consult the Statutes.)

7. Why should the majority rule in town-meeting? Suggest, if possible, a better way.

8. Is it, on the whole, wise that the vote of the poor man shall count as much as that of the rich, the vote of the ignorant as much as that of the intelligent, the vote of the unprincipled as much as that of the high-toned?

9. Have the poor, the ignorant, or the unprincipled any interests to be regarded in government?

10. Is the single vote a man casts the full measure of his influence and power in the town-meeting?

11. What are the objections to a suffrage restricted by property and intellectual qualifications? To a suffrage unrestricted by such qualifications?

12. Do women vote in your town? If so, give some account of their voting and of the success or popularity of the plan.