Part 5 (1/2)
A fair idea of the proceedings at all town meetings may be gained through description of one. For several reasons, a detailed account here of what actually happened recently at a town meeting is, it seems to me, justified. At such a gathering is seen, in plain operation, in the primary political a.s.sembly, the principles of direct legislation. The departure from those principles in a representative gathering is then the more clearly seen. In many parts of the country, too, the methods of the town meeting are little known. By observing the transactions in particular, the reader will learn the variety in the play of democratic principle and draw from it instructive inference.
The town of Rockland, Plymouth county, in the east of Ma.s.sachusetts, has 5,200 inhabitants; a.s.sesses for taxation 5,787 acres of land; contains 1,078 dwelling houses, 800 of which are occupied by owners, and numbers 1,591 poll tax payers, who are therefore voters.
At 9 a.m., on Monday, March 2, 1891, 819 voters of Rockland a.s.sembled in the opera house for the annual town meeting, the ”warrant” for which, in accordance with the law, had been publicly posted seven days before and published once in each of the two town newspapers. A presiding officer for the day, called a moderator, was elected by show of hands, after which an election by ballot for town officers for the ensuing year was begun. The supervisors of the voting were the town clerk and the three selectmen (the executive officers of the town), who were seated on a platform at one end of the hall. To cast his ballot, a voter mounted the platform, his name was called aloud by the clerk, his ballot was deposited, a check bell striking as it was thrown in the ballot-box, and the voter stepped on and down. The ballot was a printed one, its size, color, and type regulated by state law. When the voters had cast their ballots, five tellers, who had been chosen by show of hands, counted the vote. In this balloting for town officers, there was no division into Republicans and Democrats, although considerable grouping together through party a.s.sociation could be traced. The officers elected were a town clerk and treasurer; a board of three, to serve as selectmen, a.s.sessors, overseers of the poor, and fence viewers; three school committeemen; a water commissioner; a board of health of three members; two library trustees; three auditors, and seven constables.
A vote was also taken by ballot--”Yes” or ”No”--on the question: ”Shall licenses be granted for the sale of intoxicating liquors in this town?”
The yeas were 317; nays, 347. The form of ballot used in this case was precisely that invariably employed in the Referendum in Switzerland.
After a recess of an hour at midday, the business laid out in the ”warrant” was resumed. There were present 700 to 800 voters, with, as on-lookers on the same floor, a large number of women, the princ.i.p.al and pupils of the high school, and the teachers and children of the grammar schools.
The ”warrant” (the schedule for the meeting) consisted of forty-four ”articles,” each representing a matter to be debated and voted on--that is to say, a subject for legislation. These articles had been placed in the warrant by the selectmen, either on their own motion or on request of citizens. The election of moderator had taken place under article 1; that of town officers under article 2; the license vote under article 3.
The voting on the rest of the articles now took place by show of hands.
Article 4 related to the annual reports of the town officers, printed copies of which were to be had by each citizen. These were read and discussed. Article 5 related to the general appropriations for town expenses for the ensuing year. The following were decided on, each item being voted on separately:
For highway repairs $3,800 For military aid $500 For removing snow 300 For guideboards 50 For fire department 1,200 For abatement of taxes and For police service 500 collector's fee 500 For night watch 600 For support of poor 5,500 For town officers 2,200 For library, etc 1,000 For town committees, and For schools, proper 11,300 Abingdon records 50 For school-incidentals 1,000 For miscellaneous expenses 1,200 For school books 1,000 For interest 1,000 For hydrants 2,300 For memorial day 100 For water bonds, etc 2,500
Article 6, which was agreed to, authorized the town treasurer to borrow money in antic.i.p.ation of the collection of taxes; article 7 related to the method of collecting the town taxes. It was decided these should be farmed out to the lowest bidder, and, on the spot, a citizen secured the contract at sixty-eight cents on the hundred. Article 8 related to the powers of the tax collector; 9, to a list of jurors reported by the selectmen, which was accepted; 10, to methods of repairing highways and sidewalks; 11, to appropriating money for memorial day. Articles 10 and 11 were pa.s.sed over, having been covered in the general appropriations, and the selectmen were instructed to enforce in highway work the nine-hour law. Article 12, which was adopted, provided for a night watch; 13, relating to copying the records of Abingdon, had been pa.s.sed upon in the general appropriations; 14, providing for widening and straightening a street, was pa.s.sed, and $350 appropriated for the purpose; 15, providing for concrete sidewalks, excited much debate, and $300 was appropriated in addition to material on hand. Articles 16, appropriating $350 for draining a street, and 17, requesting the selectmen to lay out a water course on another street, were adopted.
Article 18, which was carried by a large majority, appropriated, in five items, discussed and voted on separately, $7,250 for the fire department. Article 19 appropriated $100 for a town road, 20 $200 for another, and these were adopted, but 21, by which $325 was asked for another road, was laid on the table. Articles 22 and 23, appropriating $75 and $25 for bridges, were pa.s.sed. Article 24, proposing the graveling of a sidewalk, was referred to the selectmen. Articles 25, 26, 27, and 28, proposing the laying of sidewalks, were adopted, with appropriations of $150, $125, $150, and $150; but 29, also proposing a new sidewalk, was laid on the table. Article 30, proposing a new sidewalk, was adopted, with an appropriation of $300, but 31, proposing another, was laid on the table. Articles 32, proposing to change the grading of two streets, with an appropriation of $500; 33, appropriating $300 for a highway roller; 34, providing for a public drinking fountain, and appropriating $200; 35, providing for a new bridge, and appropriating $75, were all adopted. Articles 36, 37, and 38, providing for extensions to the water mains, were laid on the table. Article 39, appropriating $300 for relocation of a telephone line, was adopted; but articles 40, providing for a memorial building, 41, providing for a town hall, and 42, providing for a soldiers' memorial, were laid on the table. Lastly, articles 43 and 44, providing for changes in street names, were accepted as reported by the selectmen.
After finis.h.i.+ng the ”warrant,” the meeting appropriated $10 to pay the moderator, fixed $3 a day as the rate for the selectmen, and directed the latter not to employ as constable any man who had been rejected by a vote of the town. It was 10.45 p.m. when the a.s.semblage broke up, a recess having been taken from 5.30 to 7.30.
The proceedings at this meeting were characterized by democratic methods. When the town officers handed in their reports, they were questioned and criticised by one citizen and another. A motion to refer the general appropriation list to a committee of twenty-five met with overwhelming defeat in the face of the expressed sentiment that about all left of primitive democracy was the old-fas.h.i.+oned town meeting. One of the speakers on the town library appropriation was a lady, and her point was carried. On the question of buying new fire extinguis.h.i.+ng apparatus, there were sides and leaders, with prolonged debate. As to roads and bridges, each matter was dealt with on its own merits and separately from other similar propositions. In the election for officers, women voted for school committeemen.
The only officials of Rockland under annual salary are the treasurer and town physician. Selectmen receive a sum per diem; constables, fees; school committeemen make out their own bills. The others serve for nothing.
Rockland, politically, is a typical New England town. What is to be said of its manner of town meeting may, with little modification, be said of all. Each citizen present at such a meeting may join in the debate. From the printed copy of the officers' reports he may learn what his town government has done in the year past; from the printed warrant he may see what is proposed to be done in the year coming. He who knows the better way in any of the business is sure to receive a hearing. The pockets of all being concerned, whatever is best and cheapest is insured. Bribery, successful only in the dark, has little or no field in the town meeting.
Provision usually exists by which a town may dispose of any urgent matters springing up for legislation in the course of the year: as a rule a special town meeting may be called on pet.i.tion of a small number of citizens, commonly seven to eleven.
In a study of the town meeting system of today, in ”Harper's Monthly,”
June, 1891, Henry Loomis Nelson brought out many convincing facts as to its superiority over government by a town board. Where the cost for public lighting in a New England town had been but $2,000, in a New York town of the same size it had amounted to $11,000. The cities of Worcester, Ma.s.s., and Syracuse, New York, each of about 80,000 inhabitants, were compared, with the New England city in every respect by far the more economically governed. Towns in New England are uniformly superior to others in other parts of the country with regard to the extent of sewers and paved streets. The aggregate of town debts in New England is vastly less than the aggregate for a similar population in the Middle States. The state const.i.tutions of New England commonly relate to fundamental principles, since each district may protect itself by the town meeting; but outside New England, to a.s.sert the rights of localities, state const.i.tutions usually perforce embody particulars. In their fire and police departments, and public school and water supply systems, New England towns lead the rest of the country.
”The influence,” says Mr. Nelson, ”of the town meeting government upon the physical character of the country, upon the highways and bridges, and upon the appearance of the villages, is familiar to all who have traveled through New England. The excellent roads, the stanch bridges, the trim tree-shaded streets, the universal signs of thrift and of the people's pride in the outward aspects of their villages, are too well known to be dwelt upon.” In every New England community many of the men are qualified by experience to take charge of a public meeting and conduct its proceedings with some regard to the forms observed in parliamentary bodies. But elsewhere in the Union few of the citizens have any knowledge of such forms and observances. ”In New England there is not a voter who may not, and very few voters who do not, actively partic.i.p.ate in the work of government. In the other parts of the country hardly any one takes part in public affairs except the office-holder.”
John Fiske, in ”Civil Government in the United States,” (1890), says that ”the general tendency toward the spread of towns.h.i.+p government in the more recently settled parts of the United States is unmistakable.”
The first western state to adopt the town meeting system was Michigan; but it now prevails in four-fifths of the counties of Illinois; in one-sixth of Missouri, where it was begun in 1879; and in one-third of the counties of Nebraska, which adopted it in 1883; while it has gone much further in Minnesota and Dakota, in which states it has been law since 1878 and 1883, respectively.
”Within its proper sphere,” says Fiske, ”government by town meeting is the form of government most effectively under watch and control.
Everything is done in the full daylight of publicity. The specific objects for which public money is to be appropriated are discussed in the presence of everybody, and any one who disapproves of any of these objects, or of the way in which it is proposed to obtain it, has an opportunity to declare his opinions.” ”The inhabitant of a New England town is perpetually reminded that 'our government' is 'the people.'
Although he may think loosely about the government of his state or the still more remote government at Was.h.i.+ngton, he is kept pretty close to the facts where local affairs are concerned, and in this there is a political training of no small value.”
The same writer notes in the New England towns a tendency to retain good men in office, such as we have seen is the case in Switzerland. ”The annual election affords an easy means of dropping an unsatisfactory officer. But in practice nothing has been more common than for the same persons to be re-elected as selectmen or constables or town-clerks for year after year, as long as they are willing or able to serve. The notion that there is anything peculiarly American or democratic in what is known as 'rotation in office' is therefore not sustained by the practice of the New England town, which is the most complete democracy in the world.” In another feature is there resemblance to Swiss custom: some of the town officials serve without pay and none receive exorbitant salaries.
_The Referendum in States, Cities, Counties, Etc._
Few are aware of the advances which direct legislation has made in state government in the United States. Many facts on this subject, collected by Mr. Ellis P. Oberholtzer, were published in the ”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,” November, 1891.
Condensed, this writer's statement is as follows: Const.i.tutional amendments now go to the people for a vote in every state except Delaware. The significance of this fact, and the resemblance of this vote to the Swiss Referendum, are seen when one considers the subject matter of a state const.i.tution. Nowadays, such a const.i.tution usually limits a legislature to a short biennial session and defines in detail what laws the legislature may and may not pa.s.s. In fact, then, in adopting a const.i.tution once in ten or twenty years, the voters of a state decide upon admissible legislation. Thus they themselves are the real legislators. Among the matters once left entirely to legislatures, but now commonly dealt with in const.i.tutions, are the following: Prohibiting or regulating the liquor traffic; prohibiting or chartering lotteries; determining tax rates; founding and locating state schools and other state inst.i.tutions; establis.h.i.+ng a legal rate of interest; fixing the salaries of public officials; drawing up railroad and other corporation regulations; and defining the relations of husbands and wives, and of debtors and creditors. In line with all this is a tendency to easy amendment. In nearly all the new states and in those older ones which have recently revised their const.i.tutions, the time in which amendments may be effected is as a rule but half of that formerly required. Where once the approval of two successive legislatures was exacted, now the consent of one is considered sufficient.
In fifteen states, until submitted to a popular vote, no law changing the location of the capital is valid; in seven, no laws establis.h.i.+ng banking corporations; in eleven, no laws for the incurrence of debts excepting such as are specified in the const.i.tution, and no excess of ”casual deficits” beyond a stipulated sum; in several, no rate of a.s.sessment exceeding a figure proportionate to the aggregate valuation of the taxable property. Without the Referendum, Illinois cannot sell its state ca.n.a.l; Minnesota cannot pay interest or princ.i.p.al of the Minnesota railroad; North Carolina cannot extend the state credit to aid any person or corporation, excepting to help certain railroads unfinished in 1876. With the Referendum, Colorado may adopt woman suffrage and create a debt for public buildings; Texas may fix a location for a college for colored youth; Wyoming may decide on the sites for its state university, insane asylum and penitentiary.