Part 53 (2/2)

READINGS

County and state reports. Local tax lists.

In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:

Series B: Lesson 22, Financing the war.

Lesson 23, Thrift and war savings.

The United States Treasury Department; in Federal Executive Departments,

Bulletin, 1919, No. 74, U.S. Bureau of Education.

In Long's AMERICAN PATRIOTIC PROSE:

Taxation and Government (John Fiske), pp. 249-254.

North Carolina Club YEAR BOOK, 1917-1918, pp. 49-68 (University of North Carolina Record, Extension Series No. 30, Chapel Hill, N.C.).

Tufts, Jas. H., THE REAL BUSINESS OF LIVING, pp. 52-54; 242-246 (Henry Holt Co.).

Hart, A.B., ACTUAL GOVERNMENT, pp. 381-429 (Longmans, Green & Co.).

Reed, T.H., FORM AND FUNCTIONS OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, pp. 468-481 (World Book Co.).

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, under ”Tax” and ”Taxation.”

Plehn, C.C., INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC FINANCE (Macmillan).

CHAPTER XXIV

HOW WE GOVERN OURSELVES

Early in our study we considered the question WHY we have government (Chapter IV). We saw then that it is the people's organization for teamwork in protecting and promoting their common interests. Succeeding chapters contain evidence that this is so, although they also show that the results achieved by government are by no means perfect. Now we are to consider HOW we have organized to get teamwork and how well our organization is suited to its purpose.

GOVERNMENT AS A PROTECTOR OF INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE

”American experience indicates that what men do for themselves, on their own initiative, is better done than what paternalistic government attempts to do for them.” [Footnote: Editorial, SAt.u.r.dAY EVENING POST, February 12, 1921.] Americans have always disliked PATERNALISM in government, which means an attempt on the part of government to control the personal affairs of the people as a father (Latin, PATER) controls the affairs of a small child.

Democracy is founded on faith in the ability of the people to manage their own affairs with due regard for the equal rights of other people. We look upon our government chiefly as an instrument to ensure an equal opportunity to all to exercise initiative and to manage their own affairs; or, to use the terms we have used before, not so much to do things for us, as to secure teamwork in doing things for ourselves. We have had numerous examples of this principle in preceding chapters, one of which was the extent to which private initiative and enterprise were depended upon for the development of our public lands.

GOVERNMENT AS A PERFORMER OF SERVICE

As our community life has become more complex, and as our dependence upon one another has become greater, we have gradually come to expect government to do many things for us, and to control our individual conduct in many ways, that were not thought of at an earlier time. We have had ill.u.s.trations of this, also, in foregoing chapters. For example, whereas roads were at first built and controlled almost entirely by private enterprise, now they are mostly PUBLIC highways, maintained by state and local governments with the cooperation of the national government. Proposals to place railroads under government management have always met, and still meet, with opposition; but government exercises a much greater control over them than formerly. Even education has only gradually become compulsory by law, and the ”public” high school is of recent origin. Until quite recently the people have been left largely to their own resources for the protection of health, and for recreation and social life.

VIEWS OF THE SOCIALISTS

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