Observance of quarantine against typhoid.
How may wells become polluted? Give cases of which you may know.
Study diagram on page 314.
Methods of sewage disposal in your community. Laws on the subject.
Can you suggest improvements?
Regulation of milk production and handling in your community: on
the farms where it is produced; in the hands of dealers and
distributors; in the home. Who make these regulations?
Outline on a map the area from which your community is supplied
with milk. Show on a map cities that are supplied by your county
with dairy products, garden vegetables, meats, etc.
Clean-up campaigns in your community.
Progress and methods of fly and mosquito extermination in your
community.
The work of the Rockefeller Foundation for the extermination of
hookworm disease (see references).
Hospitals that serve your community. Where located. By whom
supported (private, city or town, county, state).
NATIONAL CONTROL OF HEALTH CONSERVATION
Health protection, like education, has been considered primarily
the duty of the state. But many conditions affecting health have
arisen that the state cannot completely control. Chiefly under the
power given to it by the Constitution to regulate foreign and
interstate commerce (p. 451), Congress has passed many laws that
protect health, placing their enforcement in the hands of the
several departments of the national government.
HEALTH WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
The Department of Agriculture conducts much public health work,
through its home demonstration agents, its Office of Rural
Engineering, which deals with problems of farm water supply and
rural sanitation, its Bureau of Entomology which wages war against
flies and other disease-carrying insects, and its Bureau of Animal
Industry which inspects cattle, meats, and dairy products. The
Department of Agriculture also administers the Food and Drugs Act,
the purpose of which is to secure purity of food products and to
require that they and medicinal drugs shall be labeled in such a
way as to show what they contain. Fraudulent and harmful "cures"
and "patent medicines" may thus be exposed.
THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
The United States Public Health Service investigates diseases and
health conditions and the means of controlling them. It has given
considerable attention to rural sanitation. It issues reports and
other publications of great value to the citizen, some of them
being listed at the end of this chapter. It has representatives in
all important foreign ports, inspects all ships that enter
American harbors, and holds them in quarantine until they and
their passengers are given a clean bill of health. Cholera and
other dangerous diseases have thus been prevented from gaining a
foothold on American soil.
HEALTH WORK OF OTHER DEPARTMENTS
The War Department has also waged a relentless warfare against
disease, not only in the army itself, but also in the Panama Canal
Zone, Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, and other regions
occupied by the army. The Department of Labor seeks to improve the
physical conditions of labor for both men and women, and its
Children's Bureau is charged with a study of all matters
pertaining to the welfare of children. In the Department of the
Interior the Census Bureau collects national vital statistics; the
Bureau of Mines has done valuable work for the prevention of
accidents in mines and mining industries; and the Bureau of
Education seeks to promote physical education, instruction in home
economics, and education in the home relating to the care of
children.
STATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HEALTH PROTECTION
A very large part of the duty of health protection must, however,
remain with the states. Every state has its department of health,
headed by a state board of health, or a commissioner of health, or
both. These departments differ greatly in their organization and
in the extent and effectiveness of their work.
NEW YORK STATE ORGANIZATION
One of the best organized state departments of health is that of
New York. Among its most important features are (1) a PUBLIC
HEALTH COUNCIL which has power to establish a state-wide SANITARY
CODE; (2) the concentration of all administrative power in the
hands of a single state COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH, who has a staff of
experts to direct special lines of health work; and (3) a well-
organized scheme of cooperation between the state department and
local health authorities.
LOCAL ORGANIZATION FOR HEALTH PROTECTION
The absence or weakness of local organization for health
protection has been one of the obstacles to progress in physical
well-being in the United States. Driven by an appalling death rate
and frequent epidemics, our large cities have developed health
departments which in many cases have proved very effective. But in
smaller communities, while health departments or health officers
usually exist, the organization has for the most part been very
ineffective. The people themselves have not been sufficiently
aroused to their needs and to methods of meeting them. New York
and Massachusetts are among the most progressive states in this
matter. Each local community in these states (town, village, or
small city) has its board of health and health officer; but these
communities are grouped into HEALTH DISTRICTS (8 in Massachusetts,
20 in New York), each district being in charge of a health officer
appointed by the state commissioner or board of health. In New
York the district health officer, who is there called the SANITARY
SUPERVISOR, has the following duties:
To keep informed regarding the work of each local health officer
within his sanitary district.
To aid the local health officers in making health surveys of the
community under their control.
To aid each local health officer in the performance of his duties,
particularly on the appearance of contagious diseases.
To hold conferences of local health officers.
To study the causes of excessive death rates.
To promote efficient registration of births and deaths.
To inspect all labor camps and to enforce in them all public
health regulations.
To inspect Indian reservations and to enforce all provisions of
the sanitary code in them.
To secure the cooperation of medical organizations for the
improvement of the public health.
To promote the information of the public in matters pertaining to
the public health.
EXAMPLE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Another type of local health organization and of cooperation
between local and state authorities for health protection and
promotion has been developed in North Carolina, where 85 per cent
of the population is rural. Here the county has been taken as the
unit of local organization. Health conditions had been very bad in
this state, hookworm disease, tuberculosis, malaria, and other
diseases being prevalent. The state board of health, assisted by
the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission (see above, page 320, and
references below), began an investigation and an educational
campaign among the people, with the result that many of the
counties of the state now have an organization for health
cooperation unsurpassed, perhaps, in any other state. Each county
has a health department, which is controlled jointly by the state
board of health and a county board of health. The county board of
health consists of the mayor of the county seat, the chairman of
the board of county commissioners, the county superintendent of
schools, and two physicians of the county elected by the other
three members. The work of the health department is directed by a
county health officer, who is appointed by the state board of
health of which he is also a member. He has a staff of trained
assistants.
In this plan note the cooperation between state and local
communities, between town and county officials, and between the
school authorities and the health organization. Note, also, the
leadership of specialists in health matters.
Topics for investigation:
Organization of the department of health in your community (both
county and town): the board of health; the executive health
officer or officers; the kinds of work done.
Amount of money spent by your local health department for all
purposes and for each purpose separately. Compare with the amounts
spent for roads, for schools, and for other work of the local
government.
The interest shown by the people in your community in public
health matters.
Some of the more important health problems of your community.
The leadership in your community in health matters.
Cooperation between the state government and your local government
in health matters.
The more important local and state laws relating to health in your
community.
Organization of your state department of health.
Local health problems that need state control.
State health problems that need local cooperation.
The operation of the Food and Drugs Act in your community.
The work of the Public Health Service.
The extermination of yellow fever in the United States.
The fight against the bubonic plague in California.
The work of the War Department to maintain the health of the
soldiers during the recent war. Volunteer agencies that cooperated
in this work.
Work done in your community for the promotion of health by the
Department of Agriculture and the United States Public Health
Service.
The work of the Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor.
The inspection of immigrants.
READINGS
Reports of local and state boards of health.
Publications of state agricultural college relating to public
health.
Publications of the United States Public Health Service,
Washington. The following are illustrative:
Federal Public Health Administration: Its Development and Present
Status. Reprint No. 112, U. S. Pub. Health Reports, 1913.
Public Health Reports. Issued weekly.
Rural Sanitation, Pub. Health Bulletin No. 94, 1918.
Health Insurance, Pub. Health Reports, vol, 34, No. 16, 1919.
The Nation's Physical Fitness, Pub. Health Reports, vol. 34, No.
13, 1919.
Good Water for Farm Homes, Pub. Health Bulletin No. 70, 1915.
Typhoid Fever: Its Causation and Prevention, Pub. Health Bulletin
No. 69, 1915.
Public Health Almanac (for current year).
What the Farmer Can Do to Prevent Malaria, Pub. Health Reports,
No. 11, Supplement, 1914.
Fighting Trim: The Importance of Right Living. Supplement No. 5,
Pub. Health Reports, 1913.
The Transmission of Disease by Flies, Supplement No. 29, Pub.
Health Reports, 1916.
The Citizen and Public Health, Supplement No. 4, Pub. Health
Reports, 1913.
The Department of Agriculture publications contain material
relating to public health. For example:
Health Laws, Year Book, 1913, pp. 125-134.
Animal Disease and Our Food Supply, Year Book, 1915, pp. 159-172.
Public Abattoirs in New Zealand and Australia, Year Book, 1914,
pp. 433-436.
Meat Inspection Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Year Book 1916, pp. 77-98.
Sewage Disposal on the Farm, Year Book, 1916, pp. 347-374.
Clean Water and How to Get It on the Farm, Year Book, 1914, pp.
139-156.
Dunn, THE COMMUNITY AND THE CITIZEN, Chapter IX.
Beard, C. A., AMERICAN CITY GOVERNMENT, pp. 261-282.
Among the Bulletins of the United States Bureau of Education
treating of health matters are the following:
1910, No. 5, American schoolhouses.
1913. No. 44, Organized health work in schools. No. 48, School
hygiene. No. 52, Sanitary schoolhouses.
1914, No. 10, Physical growth and school progress. No. 17,
Sanitary survey of the schools of Orange County, Va. No. 20, The
rural school and hookworm disease.
1915, No. 4, The health of school children. No. 21, Schoolhouse
sanitation. No. 50, Health of school children.
1917, No. 50, Physical education in secondary schools.
1919, No. 2, Standardization of medical inspection facilities. No.
65, The eyesight of school children.
Publications of the Children's Bureau, Department of Labor.
See, for example, Rural Children in Selected Counties of North
Carolina, Rural Child Welfare Series No. 2, and Baby-Saving
Campaigns. A Preliminary Report on What American Cities are Doing
to Prevent Infant Mortality, Bureau Publication No. 3. See list of
publications issued by the Bureau.
In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:
Series B: Lesson 14, The United States Public Health Service.
Series C: Lesson 19, How the city cares for health.
Reports of the Rockefeller Foundation, 61 Broadway, New York City.
CHAPTER XXI
SOCIAL, AESTHETIC, AND SPIRITUAL WANTS
HAPPINESS THROUGH SERVICE
Several times in the preceding chapters reference has been made to
our national purpose "to transmute days of dreary work into
happier lives." This does not mean to get rid of work; for
happiness can be attained only IN work and THROUGH work. Happiness
IN work depends largely upon our freedom and ability to choose the
kind of service for which we are best fitted, and upon the extent
to which we prepare ourselves for it. It also depends to a large
extent upon good health (p. 309).
SATISFACTION OF HIGHER WANTS
But there never was a truer statement than that "all work and no
play makes Jack a dull boy." In return for his work every citizen
is entitled to enough compensation to enable him to provide not
only for the bare necessities of life, such as food and shelter,
but also for the pleasure that he derives from the satisfaction of
his higher wants, such as social life and recreation, an education
that will give him a richer enjoyment of life, pleasant
surroundings, religious advantages.
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY TO ENJOY LIFE
All these things have much to do with our national well-being and
our citizenship. Our nation is democratic only in proportion to
the equality of opportunity enjoyed by all citizens to satisfy
these wants. Moreover, the efficiency of each citizen in
productive work and as a participator in self-government depends
more than we sometimes think upon his opportunity to "enjoy life"
in pleasant surroundings and in wholesome social relations. In the
past the citizen has been left largely to his own resources and to
purely voluntary cooperation to provide for these wants.
Government has not even adequately PROTECTED his rights of this
kind, to say nothing of positively PROMOTING them. At present,
however, community team work through government is being organized
as never before both to promote and to protect the interests of
all citizens in the fullest possible enjoyment of life.
RECREATION AND SOCIAL LIFE
THE VALUE OF PLAY
Children enjoy play because it satisfies physical, mental, and
social wants. But it is also the principal means by which they
prepare for the more serious duties of later life. It builds up
health, trains the muscles and the senses, and sharpens the wits.
It gives practice in team work, develops leadership, and teaches
the value of "rules of the game." Every child is entitled to an
abundant opportunity to play, both because of the happiness it
affords him and because by it he is trained for membership in the
community. It is to the interest of the community to afford him
the opportunity. It is largely for this reason that most of the
states protect children by law from being put to work for a living
at too early an age.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAY IN CITIES
In large cities thousands of children live in crowded districts
where there is no place to play except in the public streets. So
little appreciative have we been of the importance of play in the
development of young citizens that great numbers of city schools
have been built with no provision whatever for playgrounds. This
mistake is slowly being corrected, often at great expense. No city
school is now considered first-class if it does not have an ample
and well-equipped playground, with competent directors to teach
children how to get the most out of their play. Most cities are
also establishing public playgrounds apart from the schools,
sometimes under the management of the school board, but often
under that of a special playground or recreation commission.
PLAY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
Play for the children of rural communities is as important as for
those of cities, but even less attention has been given to it.
Many a country school has no playground, and if it has one it is
likely to be small and not equipped with play apparatus. Why
should there be playgrounds when there is all outdoors in which to
play? Why should there be expensive play apparatus and play
directors when boys and girls can get all the "exercise" they need
at home or on the farm? "Play" means more than mere physical
exercise, and must be pleasurable if it is to have value.
Organized play is as truly a means of education as any school
instruction, and must have competent leadership or direction. In
rural districts, where the children live far apart, there is
particular need for a common meeting place for organized group
play, and the school is the most appropriate place for it.
ARGUMENT FOR SCHOOL CONSOLIDATION
The need for organized play in rural communities is one of the
best arguments for school consolidation, for it brings together
larger numbers and makes possible the employment of a competent
play director and the proper equipment of the playground. Teacher-
training schools now make a point of training play leaders as well
as teachers of arithmetic and geography.
MEANING OF RECREATION
As children grow older, an increasing part of their time must be
given to work--school work, tasks at home, remunerative employment
outside of the home. After leaving school and throughout adult
life, work absorbs the major part of one's time and attention. But
even then, "all work and no play" will continue to "make Jack a
dull boy." We now call play "recreation," for by it body and mind
and spirit are refreshed, renewed, RE-CREATED, after close
application to work. That is why school work is broken by
"recesses." Recreation is necessary as a means of providing for
physical, mental, and social wants; for the pleasure that it
affords. But it is also important in its relation to work, for
without it body and mind become "fagged," people grow "stale" at
their work, producing power and power of service are reduced.
THE HABIT OF PLAY
It is very easy to get out of the habit of play, and especially
difficult to form the habit in adult life if it has not been done
in youth. People often become so absorbed in work that there seems
to be no time for recreation. In such cases not only is the
enjoyment of life narrowed, but there is a risk of damaging the
quality of one's work and even of shortening one's life of
productive activity, or of service.
LEISURE A REQUIREMENT
Every worker is entitled to opportunity for recreation, both for
his own sake and for the well-being of the community. This means,
first of all, that he must have LEISURE for it. When people have
to work hard for ten or twelve or more hours a day, year in and
year out, as was once customary in industry, there is neither time
nor energy for wholesome recreation. That such conditions existed,
and still exist to a considerable extent, is due to gross
imperfections in the industrial organization of the community. One
of the evidences of progress toward "transmuting days of dreary
work into happier lives" is the reduction in the hours of toil in
many industries, and the consequent increase of leisure for the
enjoyment of life and for self-improvement.
One of the things for which labor unions have struggled is the
shortening of the working day. Through their efforts, and through
the awakening of public interest and knowledge in regard to the
matter, the working day is now fixed by law at eight hours in most
industries, often with a half holiday on Saturdays. Experience has
shown that this change has in no way reduced the product of
industry. There are still some industries, however, in which men
toil at the hardest kind of labor for twelve or more hours a day,
sometimes even including Sundays.
A LIVING WAGE A NECESSITY
A second thing necessary to afford opportunity for recreation is
an income from one's work sufficient to provide more than the bare
necessities of life. Before the war, it is said, more than five
million families, or about one fourth of the families in the
United States, were trying to live on a wage of $50 a month, or
less. During the war, wages of skilled and unskilled labor shot
upward; but so, also, did the cost of living. It is not easy to
determine just what share of the proceeds of industry should, in
justice, go to the laborer in wages. But it should be enough to
provide not only for food and clothing and shelter, but also for
decent family life, for healthful surroundings, for education for
the children, and for wholesome recreation.
Labor unions and others interested in a fairer distribution of the
proceeds of industry have long been working for the enactment of
"minimum wage laws," that is, laws fixing the least wage that may
be paid for each class of labor, this to be enough to provide a
reasonable satisfaction of all the wants of life. Some states have
already enacted such laws, and during the recent war the federal
government in some cases fixed rates of wages, and appointed labor
boards to adjust wages to the rising cost of living.
THE WISE USE OF LEISURE
Neither leisure nor income, however, suffice for recreation unless
they are wisely used. Mere idleness is not recreation; and many
people use their leisure in DISSIPATION instead of in recreation.
"Dissipation" is the opposite of thrift. It means to "throw away,"
or to be wasteful. A person may "dissipate" his income. We have
come to understand the word "dissipation," however, to mean
excessive indulgence in pleasures or amusements that are wasteful
of time, energy, or health, or all three, and we call the person
"dissipated" who is addicted to such indulgence. Any amusement,
even though harmless in itself, may become dissipation if indulged
in to excess, or at the sacrifice of other things that are better.
RURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR RECREATION
One of the principal disadvantages often put forward against life
in rural communities is the lack of opportunity for recreation. It
partly explains the difficulty of obtaining an abundance of farm
labor, and is one of the obstacles to inducing young people to
remain on the farm. Unfortunately, too, the women on the farm have
often been the chief sufferers from close confinement to the
drudgery of housework, with little opportunity for recreation and
less chance than the men have to enjoy the companionship of other
people.
The very nature of farming entails hard work and long hours,
especially at certain seasons. Under existing conditions it is
hard to see how the farmer's working day could be limited to eight
hours as in most other occupations.
The citizen farmer who lives in the same community with the miner ...
must invest in land and buildings, tools and livestock. He
must pay taxes and insurance and repairs and veterinary fees. He
must work often sixteen hours, seldom less than ten, and he must
be on duty day and night, ready always to care for his independent
plant--all this, and yet in order to receive a labor income equal
to that of the soft coal miner ... the farmer must not only work
himself as no professional laborer ever works, but he must also
work his children without pay.
[Footnote: E. Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture,
University of Illinois, in "Proceedings of the First National
Country Life Conference," Baltimore, 1919. p. 183.]
IMPROVED CONDITIONS ON THE FARM
Although this only too faithfully describes living conditions on
the farm as they have been in the past and still are in many
cases, much improvement has taken place. Improvement of
agricultural machinery and methods has brought a greater measure
of leisure to the farmer, while better means of transportation and
communication have both saved him time and made easier for him and
his family association with other people and the enjoyment of
entertainment in the neighboring village or city. The farm woman
has benefited by the introduction of labor-saving devices and
better management in the household, and by the development of
community cooperation in such matters as dairying and laundry work
(see pp. 106, 107). In fact, better team work in every phase of
the business of agriculture means greater opportunity for the
enjoyment of living, and the efforts of the national and state
governments to encourage such team work and to improve the methods
of agriculture have for their purpose not merely the increase of
the agricultural product, but also the greater happiness of the
rural citizen.
FACILITIES FOR DISSIPATION
When leisure may be found for recreation, the facilities for it
are often inadequate. The city, and even the village, affords
facilities for amusement and social enjoyment that good roads,
automobiles, and trolley lines have made more accessible than
formerly to the country round about. While the urban community
naturally affords greater opportunity than the rural community for
social recreation, its opportunities for dissipation are equally
great. "Going to the movies" may be a real recreation, or it may
become a dissipation when indulged in to excess without
discrimination as to the merit of the performance. Almost every
village has its well-known "loafing places," and the saloon used
to be a favorite meeting place for certain classes of people.
Amusements that are especially harmful are more or less regulated
by law. Even moving pictures are "censored." Saloons have now been
totally abolished.
FACILITIES FOR RECREATION
The most effective preventive of dissipation is ample provision
for wholesome recreation. Various agencies in urban communities
seek to supply this need, both for their own residents and for
visitors from outside. Men's clubs, such as chambers of commerce,
afford social and amusement advantages for the business men of the
town, and for visiting farmers who formerly met only at the store
or courthouse, in the saloon or on the street corner. Public
libraries, often with the cooperation of women's clubs, provide
"rest rooms," arranged for the comfort and entertainment of
visiting women, and afford means of profitable and enjoyable
recreation for young people. Town churches sometimes maintain
social rooms, open during the week for similar purposes. The Young
Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations have performed a
great service by providing entertainment and social life for young
people. One of the more recent developments is the "community
center," usually at the schoolhouse, where there are offered
lectures and concerts, social entertainments, dances, games, and
sports. In some large cities such "recreation centers" are of the
greatest value in the crowded districts.
OPPORTUNITIES AFFORDED BY THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL
Rural communities have suffered from a dearth of recreational
facilities of their own, especially of a SOCIAL type. One of the
most promising influences to supply this deficiency is the
CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, which makes provision for assembly halls,
social gatherings, and recreation grounds for young and old alike.
An illustration of this is given in Chapter XIX (p. 296).
Development of community recreation centers at consolidated rural
schools is going on rapidly in many parts of the country.
Iowa affords a striking example of this. In that state more than
2000 one-room country schools have been consolidated into
something more than 300, and consolidation is still going on. Some
of these consolidated schools have five acres of land, where
provision is made, not only for gardening and farming activities,
but also for picnic grounds and for fields for athletic sports and
contests. The buildings contain assembly halls, gymnasiums, and
kitchens where food is prepared for social entertainments as well
as for school lunches and for the teaching of cooking.
NEED FOR LEADERSHIP
One of the chief obstacles to the development of rural community
recreation has been the absence of leadership. The consolidated
school helps to remedy this. Other agencies, however, are doing
something to provide such leadership, among the most active of
which is the county work department of the Young Men's Christian
Association, which has organized county-wide athletic associations
and rural play festivals and field days in many localities.
KNOWING HOW TO USE OPPORTUNITIES
There are agencies, or organizations, in almost every community
that could and should serve recreational ends. The trouble with
many of us is not so much the lack of time or of the means for
recreation, but a lack of knowledge of how to get the most out of
our recreational opportunities. Hence the need for leadership.
Hence, also, the need for an education that will open up to us new
avenues of enjoyment. Recreation may be obtained not only from
athletic sports and social entertainments, but from the fields and
woods, from books and music and pictures, even from VARIETY IN OUR
WORK, if we only knew how to find it. The school is under as great
obligation to provide us with an education that will teach us this
as it is to equip us to earn a living.
Investigate and report on:
The opportunities for play in your community.
The forms of play most prevalent in your community.
The extent to which play in your community develops team work and
leadership.
How your school playground could be improved.
Play as a means of education in your school.
Agencies besides the school that afford opportunity for play in
your community.
Leisure on the farms of your locality: for men; for women; for
children.
Could an eight-hour day be applied to farming in your locality?
Why?
Length of the working day for different employments in your town
or neighboring city.
Minimum wage laws in your state.
Recreational facilities and agencies in your community.
Community centers in your community and their activities.
The value of a county field day in your community.
Meaning of the statement that "the boy without a playground is
father to the man without a job."
ATTRACTIVE SURROUNDINGS
APPRECIATION OF THAT WHICH IS BEAUTIFUL
Beauty in one's surroundings adds much to the enjoyment of life,
and therefore, also, to one's efficiency in work and as a citizen.
People are often apparently blind to the beauty that is around
them. "Having eyes, they see not; and ears, they hear not." Those
who live in the open country are surrounded by natural beauties of
which city dwellers are largely deprived. Too often, however, they
are unconscious of them or indifferent to them. To the hard-
working farmer a gorgeous sunset may be little more than a sign of
the weather on the morrow, and the beauty of a field of wheat or
corn may be lost in the thought of the toil that has gone into it,
or of the dollars that may come out of it. Fortunate is the rural
dweller whose toil and isolation are tempered by an appreciation
of the beauties of the natural world about him!
ITS CULTIVATION
Love for and appreciation of that which is beautiful may be
cultivated. It is a part of one's education. The schools now give
more attention to it than formerly; but many of them do not yet
give enough. Appreciation of beauty is cultivated not merely by
instruction in "art," but also by those studies that increase
one's knowledge of the common things about us. The teaching of
agriculture and of science has a very practical purpose; but its
purpose is only partly accomplished if it teaches us how to raise
corn or cotton without opening our eyes to the wonders of nature
involved in the process.
An appreciation of beauty may be cultivated, also, by association
with it, as it may be destroyed by constant association with that
which is ugly. People who live in unkempt and slovenly
surroundings are likely to become indifferent to them. It is the
duty of every one to have a care for the appearance of his
surroundings both because of its effect upon himself and its
influence upon others.
IMPORTANCE OF APPEARANCES
A stranger who visits our school is likely to judge it, first of
all, by its appearance. He will note whether or not the building
is in good repair, the condition of the grounds and fences, the
presence or absence of flower beds, shrubs, and trees. Inside, he
will observe the cleanliness and orderliness of the room, the
decorations on the walls, the presence or absence of pictures and
flowers and plants; yes, and also the care the pupils and teacher
take of their personal appearance. These things are signs to the
visitor of the interest taken by pupils, school authorities, and
the community in their school. They are also signs of the
character of the work done in the school, and of the happiness of
the pupils.
A COMMUNITY JUDGED BY APPEARANCES
In a similar manner, the visitor to your community will form his
first opinion of it by its appearance. He will note, first of all
the appearance of the homes, and then, probably, the cleanliness
and state of repair of the streets or roads. He will observe the
condition of the fences, and whether or not the weeds are cut
along the roads. He will notice, also, the extent to which the
people love flowers, and care for trees and vacant lots. All of
these things will be signs to him of the prosperity, the
happiness, the "community spirit," of the citizens. They will
doubtless enter into his decision as to whether or not he cares to
live, or establish a business, or educate his children, in that
community.
COMMUNITY INTEREST IN BEAUTY
In cities a good deal of attention is usually given to such
matters, and laws exist, with government officers to administer
them, for the protection and promotion of community beauty. In
rural communities these matters are left more largely to
individual initiative and voluntary cooperation. It becomes a
matter of public interest and spirit on the part of the individual
and the family. It is true that some things are done through
government authorities, as in the improvement of the roads and the
building of bridges and culverts that are of pleasing design as
well as serviceable. In some New England "towns" there are "town
planning" boards, which carefully plan for the laying out of
streets and their improvement, the proper location of public
buildings and the style of architecture to be used, the location
and development of parks and playgrounds, the enactment of
suitable housing laws, and other matters pertaining to the beauty
of the community as well as to the well-being of its citizens.
COMMUNITY PLANNING
Systematic planning of rural communities with a view to making
them beautiful has not been carried very far in this country. In
fact, as one travels over a large part of the United States one is
impressed by the monotonous and unattractive character of the
towns and villages. This is not true everywhere, for in some parts
of the country, usually those that have been settled longest, one
sees beautiful villages that fit harmoniously into the landscape.
But over large areas of the country it seems that wherever man has
gone he has marred the beauty of nature.
INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE
There is nothing in which the influence of example is so quickly
seen as in matters relating to appearance. People are prone to
copy their neighbors in matters of style, whether it be in dress
or in architecture.
In one rather wretched community a few boys who were studying
civics sought permission to lay sod in the dooryard of a tenement
house. Having obtained permission and laid the sod, it was not
long before some one else in the neighborhood did likewise, and
soon people all around were sodding their yards or sowing grass
seed. Then they began to repair and paint their fences and
otherwise "tidy up" their places, until the whole neighborhood was
transformed in appearance. It is interesting to note, also, that
as the community improved in appearance, it also became less
lawless than it had been.
This is one phase of community life in which it is easy to
establish leadership, and in which young people can perform
valuable civic service and contribute materially toward
"transmuting days of dreary work into happier lives."
Investigate and report on:
The natural beauty of your community.
How natural beauty has been destroyed in your community.
How natural beauty has been preserved in your community.
Our national parks.
How your school promotes the love for beauty.
How your school could be made more beautiful.
How you and your schoolmates could make your school more
beautiful.
What impression a stranger would get of your community from its
appearance.
The features in the appearance of your community of which you are
proud. Those of which you are ashamed.
Agencies that exist in your community to promote its beauty
Ways in which you can participate in making your community more
beautiful.
RELIGIOUS LIFE AND AGENCIES
GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION
In some countries church and state are inseparably bound together.
Before the recent war the Russian Czar was also the head of the
Russian church. In our own country in colonial times, no citizen
was permitted to vote in the New England town meeting who did not
belong to the Puritan church of the community. This religious
qualification for participation in government was in the course of
time dispensed with, and one of the fundamental principles of our
democracy is that every citizen shall have complete liberty of
religious belief. Our government exercises no control over the
religious life of the people other than to guarantee this liberty.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (United States
Constitution, Amendment I). State constitutions contain similar
guarantees. To prevent government interference with religion,
religious institutions are exempt from taxation.
RELIGION A MEANS OF CONTROL
On the other hand, the church and other religious institutions are
an important means of community control. They do not exercise this
control through government, but through the influence of their own
beliefs and organization upon the conduct of their members. If
everybody should live in accordance with the Golden Rule, there
would be no need for government as a means of repression, but only
as a means of performing service.
RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES AN OBSTACLE TO TEAM WORK
One of the unfortunate things about the church has been the fact
that more or less important differences in religious belief have
tended to break up the community into numerous religious groups,
or churches. This may be necessary in purely religious matters,
but it has too often happened that the people have allowed their
religious differences to prevent united action in other matters of
common interest to the entire community. In some cases communities
have been broken up into rival, or even hostile, factions because
of this. There is, however, a growing tolerance of one religious
sect or denomination by others, which is in accord with the
Christian spirit, and is necessary if community life is to be well
developed. It often happens that there are more churches of the
same denomination in a community than it can support. In such
cases, at least, there is need for church consolidation similar to
the consolidation of schools, and for the same reason.
SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE CHURCH
The church may be, and often is, an important agency in the
community for the performance of services other than that of
ministering to the religious wants of the people. Or, to speak
more correctly, it has realized more or less fully that the
religious wants of the people are closely bound up with their
other wants, and seeks to minister to these other wants as a part
of its religious duty. Thus, we find the church growing more
active in looking after the health interests, educational
interests, and social and recreational interests of its members
and others.
Investigate and report on:
The number of religious denominations having churches in your
community.
The number of churches in each denomination.
Membership and attendance in the churches of your community.
Arguments for and against church consolidation in your community.
Activities of churches in your community, other than religious.
Religious organizations other than churches in your community.
READINGS
In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:
Series A: Lesson 27, Concentration of social institutions (including the
school and the church).
Series B: Lesson 12, Impersonality of modern life.
Lesson 20, The church as a social institution.
Lesson 29, Labor organizations.
Series C: Lesson 11, The effects of machinery on rural life.
Lesson 29, Child labor.
Lesson 32, Housing for workers.
"Sources of Information on Play and Recreation," by Lee F. Hanmer
and Howard W. Knight; Department of Recreation, Russell Sage
Foundation, New York (1915).
THE PLAYGROUND. A monthly publication of the Playground and
Recreation Association of America, 1 Madison Ave., New York ($2 a
year).
NEIGHBORHOOD PLAY. A manual of rural recreation (The Youth's
Companion, Boston).
McCready, S. B., Rural Science Reader. In "Rural Education
Series," H. W. Foght, general editor (Heath).
Write the County Work Department, International Committee of the
Y. M. C. A. for material.
Foght, H. W., THE RURAL TEACHER AND HIS WORK, Chapter VI (The
rural school and community recreation).
Jackson, Henry E., A COMMUNITY Center--WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO
ORGANIZE IT, U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1918, No. 11.
Quick, Herbert, "The rural awakening in its relation to civic and
social center development." Bulletin No. 474, University of
Wisconsin.
"Beautifying the Farmstead," Farmers' Bulletin No. 1087, U. S.
Department of Agriculture.
Proceedings First National Country Life Conference (address Dwight
Sanderson, Secretary, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.); "Play
and recreation in rural life," p. 95; "Religious forces for
country life," p. 83.
Jackson, Henry E., THE COMMUNITY CHURCH (Macmillan).
Numerous "surveys" of rural communities have been made by various
agencies. Among them are those made by the Department of Church
and Country Life of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian
Church, 156 Fifth Ave., New York. Extensive surveys are being made
by the Inter-Church World Movement, 45 West 18th St., New York.
Bulletin No. 184 of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Iowa
State Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa, contains a social survey
of Orange Township, Blackhawk County, Iowa.
Write your State Agricultural College or State University for
possible materials of a local character.
CHAPTER XXII
DEPENDENT, DEFECTIVE, AND DELINQUENT MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
In every community there are some members who are not self-
supporting and who do not contribute materially to the community's
progress (see Chapter V and Chapter XI).
WHO CONSTITUTE DEPENDENTS, DEFECTIVES, AND DELINQUENTS
The very young and the very aged come within this group. Both are
peculiarly dependent upon others, though the aged may, by thrift
in earlier years, have acquired a competence with which to meet
the needs of old age; and the young are expected, in later years,
to compensate the community for the care they have received from
others during childhood.
There are those, also, of all ages, who are incapacitated for
self-support and for service by disease, or by physical or mental
defects such as bodily deformities, blindness, or feeble-
mindedness. In addition, there are some who, though physically
able to perform service, deliberately prey upon the community in
one manner or another without giving anything in return. The
latter constitute the DELINQUENT class, and include criminals.
RELATION OF THE FAMILY TO THE PROBLEM
Normally, the needs of those who are unable to support themselves,
whether because of extreme youth or old age or because of physical
or mental defects, are provided for by the family. It frequently
happens, however, that the family is unable to perform this
service. It may be entirely broken up. Children may be left
without parents, and the aged without children. The natural
supporters of the family may be stricken by disease, or by
accident, or by financial misfortune. Moreover, the proper care
and treatment of many defectives require better facilities and
greater skill than can be provided even by well-to-do families.
Thus a class of DEPENDENTS is produced--dependents upon the
community as a whole. They may or may not be DEFECTIVES, physical
or mental. Dissipation and thriftlessness are two of the chief
causes of dependency.
TREATMENT IN EARLY TIMES
In the lower stages of civilization it was not uncommon for the
feeble and the helpless to be put to death, even sickly children
and persons infirm from old age. This was done in the name of
community interest. The struggle for existence was so severe that
the presence of non-producing or non-fighting members endangered
the entire group. Besides, it was the belief in most cases that
the sacrifice of the helpless simply hastened their passage into a
happier life.
REDUCING THE WASTAGE OF HUMAN LIFE
Humane considerations now prevent such treatment of the helpless.
Moreover, with our increased skill in medicine and surgery and
education, the diseased and defective may often be restored to
health or fitted for some form of self-support that makes them
happier and of use to the community. The wastage of human life has
been greatly reduced in recent years. Many of the soldiers who
returned from the war in Europe so broken in body or mind that in
former times they would have dragged out the remainder of their
lives a burden to themselves and to others have, by surgical skill
and special forms of education, been restored wholly or partially
to the ranks of the self-supporting and useful members of the
community. This REHABILITATION of the dependent and defective
members of the community, whether their misfortune is due to war
or other causes, is the chief aim of the treatment given them by
the community at the present time.
RESPONSIBILITY OF EACH COMMUNITY
It is an accepted principle that each community should, so far as
possible, care for its own unfortunates, and the effectiveness
with which it is done varies. But everywhere it has taken a long
time to change from the old policy of mere RELIEF to the new
policy of REHABILITATION (see above).
THE LOCAL ALMSHOUSE AND ITS DEFECTS
In New England and in a few other states the town, or township, is
the unit for administering "poor relief," but elsewhere it is the
county. The "almshouse," or "poor farm," or "county infirmary" is
the usual local institution for this purpose. Unfortunately it has
been, as a rule, badly managed. Men and women, old people and
children, healthy and diseased, blind and crippled, moral and
immoral, even the insane, have been housed together, often
mingling with one another with little restriction. The evils of
such a system are apparent.
SHORT-SIGHTED POLICY
Moreover, the policy of the typical almshouse has been merely to
give shelter and food and clothing to those who appeal for it,
rather than to remedy the causes of dependency or to restore the
unfortunate to a basis of self-support and usefulness. Medical
treatment is of course given, but the means do not exist to give
special expert treatment to particular classes of defectives.
Little educational opportunity worthy of the name is afforded.
While able-bodied inmates usually have some work to do, it is
seldom of a character to train for self-support or to create
habits of industry.
REMEDIES PROPOSED
To provide this special treatment requires elaborate equipment and
expert service, which cost a great deal of money, more than most
counties or towns feel that they can afford. Communities must come
to realize that they cannot afford to neglect their unfortunate
members, no matter what it costs to care for them. But the cost
need not be so great as it seems. A great deal of money is now
WASTED on almshouses without adequate results. This can largely be
remedied by insisting upon more expert supervision in such
institutions, and by a system of regular inspection by expert
state officers. Greater care should be exercised with respect to
those who are admitted to the institutions. Only the deserving
should be allowed to live on the public funds. It is not uncommon
for some classes of shiftless people to make a practice of seeking
shelter in the almshouse during the winter, where they live in
comparative comfort and idleness at the public expense, only to
leave in the spring for a life of aimless indolence, imposing as
beggars upon kind-hearted people.
PURPOSE OF STATE INSTITUTIONS
Moreover, the county almshouse should be only a temporary place of
detention for many of the people who now are kept there
permanently. Those who need special treatment or training should
be passed on as quickly as possible to special institutions that
are equipped to care for them. Since most local communities could
not well afford to maintain such special institutions for the
comparatively few who would need them, the state should maintain
enough of them at central points to provide for the needs of all
local communities.
The states do maintain such institutions--hospitals and
sanitariums for various types of mental disease, homes for orphans
and for the aged, and for persons with incurable diseases, asylums
and schools for the blind and the deaf-and-dumb, industrial
schools for boys and girls. The problem of the state is, first, to
develop such institutions to the highest possible degree of
efficiency for the REHABILITATION of their patients or inmates,
and, second, to secure effective cooperation on the part of local
authorities and institutions in transferring those, and only
those, who are entitled to state assistance.
COOPERATION FOR "OUTDOOR" RELIEF
When dependents are cared for in institutions, it is called INDOOR
RELIEF; when they are cared for outside of institutions, in their
homes, it is called OUTDOOR RELIEF. Outdoor relief requires
community organization and cooperation and expert leadership quite
as much as indoor relief. The lack of these has often resulted in
great harm both to the community and to the needy person.
Promiscuous giving of charity by well-intentioned persons often
results in giving to the undeserving as well as to the deserving.
There are lazy and shiftless individuals who find it easier to
live on charity than by honest work, and whose lack of self-
respect permits them to do so. Sometimes they do so by fraudulent
methods. Giving to such persons encourages pauperism and fraud
instead of curing it. Kind-hearted people often say that they
would rather be cheated occasionally by dishonest applicants for
charity than to fail to help the really needy by too great
caution. The answer to this is that by proper community
organization and cooperation the needy will be found with much
greater certainty, the fraudulent will be detected, and the aid
given to those who should have it will be much more effective. The
citizen who turns an applicant for aid over to an effective
organization in a great majority of cases performs a much greater
service both to the applicant and to the community than by
attempting to give aid directly. A few pennies or a few dollars
given even to a worthy applicant may not reach the root of the
trouble at all, and may be the innocent cause of perpetuating the
trouble.
VOLUNTARY AGENCIES
Many voluntary organizations exist for charitable and
philanthropic purposes. The church has always been one of the
chief agencies to care for the poor and unfortunate; but there are
many others, especially in our large cities. Sometimes they
maintain hospitals and other institutions for the treatment of
those who need indoor relief. They have done a great deal of good.
But they are subject to the same difficulties that individuals
encounter in dealing wisely with particular cases. They have often
devoted themselves too exclusively to giving temporary relief
instead of seeking to cure causes and to rehabilitate the
unfortunate. They are frequently deceived by impostors. Seldom do
they have expert investigators to follow up individual cases and
to prescribe the most effective remedy. They frequently duplicate
one another's work in a wasteful manner.
CHARITY ORGANIZATION
This lack of team work has been in large measure remedied,
especially in city communities, by the establishment of CHARITY
ORGANIZATION SOCIETIES. Such societies do not as a rule give
direct relief, but act as a "clearing house" for existing
charitable agencies in the community. That is, they organize the
effort of the various existing agencies. They have a corps of
trained investigators who look into each case reported by any
individual or charitable agency in the community, make a careful
record of it, and prescribe the proper treatment. The case is
usually turned over to one of the existing agencies that is
properly equipped to handle it. Philanthropic persons may turn to
the charity organization society for advice as to purposes for
which money is most needed. The aim of charity organization is to
remedy causes of dependency and to restore dependents to a self-
sustaining basis so far as that is possible.
GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION FOR POOR RELIEF
Charity organization societies are wholly voluntary organizations;
and there is need for such voluntary cooperation to care for the
community's unfortunate and to root out the causes of dependency.
Such organizations should, however, work in cooperation with
governmental agencies. There are state boards of charities which
usually have supervision over the various state institutions for
dependents and defectives. Every large city government has its
department of charities, sometimes combined with the department of
health. The "overseer of the poor" is one of the oldest of town
officers. The care of dependents and defectives in small, or
rural, communities has, however, been very poorly organized.
RELATION BETWEEN STATE AND LOCAL ORGANIZATION
An effective attack upon the public welfare problems of a state is
twofold: (1) by a state welfare board and state welfare
institutions, and (2) by town and county welfare boards and
institutions... .
Public welfare work calls for a state board of public welfare,
statewide in authority ... and for state institutions that are
large enough to care for the delinquents, the dependents, the
defectives, and the neglected who cannot be better cared for by
local authority and institutions. ...
But, on the other hand, it calls for county boards of public
welfare with county-wide authority and trained executive
secretaries. ... Many of our ills bulk up so big that they can be
successfully attacked only in detail by local interest, local
effort, and local institutions. Tuberculosis and poverty are
capital instances of social problems that are beyond the
possibilities of state institutions, and that necessarily wait
upon organized county efforts of effective sort. ... We do not
know the deaf, the blind, the feeble-minded, the epileptic, the
crippled, and the neglected or wayward boys and girls--their
number, their names, and their residences in any county of the
state ... because there is at present no local organization
charged with the responsibility of accounting for such
unfortunates. ...
[Footnote: E. C. Branson, "County responsibility for public
welfare," in the North Carolina Club YEAR BOOK, 1917-1918, pp.
161, 162 (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.).]
CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY MUST BE REMOVED
There will doubtless always be some dependent and defective
members of the community for whom the community must care. Their
number, however, may be greatly reduced by creating conditions
that will remove their causes. It has been reported from many
localities, for example, that the prohibition of the sale of
intoxicating liquors has resulted in the emptying of the "work
houses" which communities have sustained for the confinement of
vagrants and persons convicted of petty misdemeanors. Much
dependency has resulted from the crippling of wage earners by
industrial accidents and from "industrial diseases" arising from
work in unwholesome conditions. These causes may be removed by the
maintenance of wholesome working conditions, by the installation
of safety devices, and by the exercise of greater care by workers
and employers. The "safety first" movement strikes at the root of
much dependency. Inability to read signs and to understand
instructions on the part of illiterate and foreign workers is the
cause of many accidents.
SOCIAL INSURANCE
Some states have passed "employers' liability laws," designed to
hold employers responsible for accidents resulting from failure to
provide safe working conditions. Others have "workmen's
compensation laws" which provide that an injured workman shall
receive a portion of his wages during incapacity from accident or
illness. In some countries various forms of COMPULSORY STATE
INSURANCE have been adopted. Germany, for example, has long had
laws requiring employees to take out accident insurance and
insurance against sickness, both employees and employers
contributing to the insurance fund. Pensions for the aged and for
widows are also provided for, the government itself contributing
to the fund for this purpose. At the close of the year 1919, 39 of
our 48 states had laws providing for aid by the state to mothers
who were unable to provide properly for their children.
The aim in our community life should be as far as possible to
PREVENT dependency and not merely to relieve suffering after it
occurs. We shall find that the problem will tend to disappear in
proportion as we develop in our communities adequate provision for
health protection and physical development (Chapter XX), for
vocational and general education (Chapter XIX), for wholesome
recreation (Chapter XXI), for the cultivation of habits of thrift
(Chapter XIII); and as we are successful in producing a right
attitude toward the problem of earning a living and wholesome
relations between employer and employee (Chapter XI).
Investigate and report on:
The rehabilitation of crippled soldiers after the war.
Your county or town almshouse or poor farm: The kinds of cases
sheltered there; its cost to the community; the methods of
treatment employed.
Other local institutions for indoor relief in your community.
State institutions for the care of dependents and defectives in
your state. Their kinds and location.
The difference between "poverty" and "pauperism."
The extent and kind of "charity work" done by the church which you
attend (get accurate information).
The voluntary organizations of your community that give "poor
relief." The kind of charitable work done by each.
Charity organization in your community. Its results and the need
for it.
The causes of dependence in your community.
The extent to which voluntary charitable work in your community is
directed to removing the causes of dependency.
The organization of your county or town government for the care of
dependents and defectives.
Employers' liability laws, workmen's compensation laws, mothers'
pension laws, in your state.
THE CRIMINAL CLASS
It is said that there are at least 250,000 people in the United
States who make their living by crime, and there are many more who
commit crime on occasion. It is said, also, that to support and
control this criminal class costs the people of the United States
not less than $600,000,000 per annum, or as much as is expended
for the entire educational system of the country.
WHAT CRIME IS
Crime is the violation of law. The criminal is a member of the
community who refuses to cooperate with others in accordance with
the law. The conduct of an individual may be wrong and harmful to
the community without being criminal; it becomes criminal only
when the law actually forbids it. A given act may be a crime in
one state and not in another state, because the laws of the states
differ in their definition of crimes. They also differ in the
penalties imposed for the same crime.
EARLY METHODS OF TREATING CRIMINALS
The methods of dealing with criminals have changed greatly with
the progress of civilization, and especially in recent years since
the causes of crime have become better understood. In the earlier
methods two ideas were prominent: the infliction of punishment,
and the deterrence of others from committing the same offense. The
penalties inflicted were therefore very severe. The death penalty
was inflicted not only for taking human life but also for minor
offenses, such as stealing. Even in our own country in colonial
times bodily mutilation was not uncommon, such as branding with a
hot iron, or cutting off the ears. Prisons were vile and loathsome
places.
REHABILITATION OF CRIMINALS
Humane feelings have caused the abandonment of such treatment. The
death penalty still remains for the worst of crimes; but even it
has become more humane in its methods. Many believe that it should
be entirely abandoned. The eighth amendment to the Constitution of
the United States says that "excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments
inflicted." Moreover, a new idea has entered into the matter. It
is the same idea that controls the modern treatment of dependents,
namely, that of REHABILITATING the criminal. It is now recognized
that crime results in most cases from diseased conditions either
in the individual or in the community. Some individuals commit
crime merely because it seems to them the easiest way to make a
living or to gain some other end; but even such individuals are
MORALLY diseased. Much crime is due to temporary mental
disturbance, as from the use of intoxicants or other drugs.
Sometimes it is the act of persons who are actually insane or
feeble-minded. Very often it is committed under pressure of
poverty.
In view of these facts, while the deliberate violator of law
should doubtless be punished, it is even more important that the
causes of crime should be removed, and that the criminal should,
in as many cases as possible, be restored to a useful and an
honest manner of life. The proper treatment of dependents and
defectives, and the removal of causes of dependency and
defectiveness, are essential steps toward the lessening of crime.
THE LOCAL JAIL
The county jail and the town "lock-up" are the usual local
institutions where persons suspected of having violated the law
are detained while awaiting trial in the courts, and also where
those convicted of petty misdemeanors are imprisoned for
punishment. The jail and the "lock-up" are as notorious as the
almshouse for unwholesome conditions and mismanagement, though
conditions have greatly improved under the influence of an
awakened public opinion. They have often, been unsanitary in the
extreme. Prisoners have often been treated more like cattle than
like human beings. Young and old are thrown together, the hardened
criminal with the youthful "first offender," and with those merely
suspected of crime, many of whom will be proved to be innocent.
The result is demoralizing. Our jails have sometimes been said to
be "schools of vice and crime."
NEEDED REFORM OF THE JAIL
Two reforms, at least, are needed in local jails. First, they
should be made as wholesome as possible, both physically and
morally. They should be perfectly sanitary, and the food should at
least be clean and nourishing. Arrangements should be made to keep
the different classes of inmates separate, especially the hardened
and vicious criminals from youthful transgressors and suspects. In
the second place, the local jail should be merely a place of
detention for those awaiting trial or, after trial, transfer to
other institutions. Those found guilty by the courts should be
transferred as quickly as possible to institutions where they may
receive treatment fitted to their needs.
FITTING THE TREATMENT TO THE OFFENDER
Of three persons who steal ten dollars, one may be a deliberate
thief who prefers to make his living this way; another may be
driven by hunger; and the third may be mentally unbalanced. It is
obvious that the treatment accorded to each should be determined
by these facts rather than by the mere amount of the theft. The
first doubtless needs punishment; but he should also have
treatment designed to change his attitude toward the community and
to fit him to make an honest living. The second needs to be
relieved of his want and to be given an opportunity for self-
support. The third needs hospital treatment. We are only beginning
to see that punishment is only a part of the treatment necessary,
and that the treatment should be made to fit the criminal fully as
much as to fit the crime.
STATE INSTITUTIONS FOR DELINQUENTS
Proper treatment for all the various classes of cases cannot well
be given in the county jail; nor can the local community as a rule
afford to maintain separate institutions for them, as the number
in each class is very small in a given community. Hence the
necessity for state institutions to which those convicted in the
local courts may be sent. Such institutions exist, although not
always adequate to the needs of the state. They include state
penitentiaries, reform and industrial schools, hospitals for the
insane, special schools for the feeble-minded, and others. These
institutions have been steadily improving in their efficiency. The
greater difficulty seems to be in the local communities, in
securing the assignment of offenders to the proper institutions.
ADMINISTRATION OF STATE PRISONS
Great changes have occurred in recent years in the methods of
administering state penitentiaries, especially in some states.
Under old conditions convicts were either confined in isolation
and idleness or condemned to hard labor, punishment being the sole
idea in both cases. The most rigid and arbitrary discipline was
enforced. Modern penitentiaries keep prisoners employed in
occupations that are of use to the state, that are designed to
train the prisoner for useful service, and that yield him some
compensation that will help to make him self-supporting when he
leaves. They also maintain schools for the instruction of
prisoners in at least the common branches of knowledge and in
vocational subjects. Great care is taken of the health. In some
cases the prisoners are graded according to their conduct and
their ability to assume responsibility, certain privileges and
freedom and participation in the administration of the prison
being bestowed upon them so long as they show a sense of their
responsibility. The period of imprisonment may be shortened as a
reward for good conduct.
JUVENILE OFFENDERS
One of the most important reforms that have been made is that in
the treatment of juvenile offenders. The main feature of this is
the establishment of a JUVENILE COURT, where the usual procedure
and publicity of a criminal court are avoided, and where the judge
takes a fatherly attitude toward the accused. Each case is
carefully investigated to discover the cause of trouble and to
arrive at a wise conclusion as to the treatment to be given. In
the case of first offenders, or where other conditions justify it,
the prisoner is released ON PROBATION. That is, he is given his
freedom on his honor, but under the supervision of a PROBATION
OFFICER to whom he must report at regular intervals. In the case
of more serious offenses, or of repeated wrong-doing, or of
violation of parole, offenders are sent to reform schools or
industrial schools. The entire effort is to set the young offender
on the right road to honest self-support and good citizenship.
Unfortunately, however, this machinery for the treatment of
juvenile delinquency is so far found almost exclusively in cities.
The problem of juvenile delinquency in rural communities is one
that requires more attention than has been given to it. It is a
problem that the young citizen himself can greatly help to solve
by the cultivation, in himself and in his friends, of right
conceptions of citizenship.
Investigate and report on the following:
The organization of your county and town governments to protect
persons and property against criminals, to apprehend law
violators, and to bring them to justice.
The cost to your county or town of this organization.
The desirability or undesirability of differing definitions of
crime in different states, and of different punishments for the
same crime.
The efficacy of severe punishments in preventing crime.
Should capital punishment be abolished?
The meaning of "bail," and why it is provided for.
The effect of prohibition upon the amount of crime in your
community.
The number of prisoners confined in your county jail during the
past year, why they were there, and what it cost to keep them.
The meaning of "fitting punishment to the criminal rather than to
the crime."
The treatment of prisoners in your state penitentiary.
The method of dealing with juvenile offenders in your community.
The meaning of "probation"; of "parole"; of an "indeterminate
sentence."
The extent of juvenile delinquency in your community; its causes.
The use of convict labor outside of prisons.
READINGS
Reports of county and town authorities.
Reports of state board of charities and of administrative boards
of state institutions.
Publications of the Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor.
Send for list from which to select. Two valuable publications of
this Bureau are:
Bureau Publication No. 32, "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural New
York."
Bureau Publication. No. 60, "Standards of Child Welfare." This
contains among other valuable material, discussions of child labor
and legislation relating to it, of the care of dependent and
defective children, and of juvenile delinquency.
In Lessons in Community and National Life:
Series A: Lesson 5, The human resources of a community.
Lesson 28, The worker in our society.
Series C: Lesson 8, Preventing waste of human beings.
Lesson 20, The family and social control.
Lesson 30, Social insurance.
The following are a few good books relating to the topics of this
chapter:
Burch, H. R, and Patterson, S. H., American Social Problems,
chaps, xvi-xx (Macmillan).
Henderson, C. R., Dependents, Defectives, and Delinquents.
Warner, A. G., American Charities.
Devine, E. T., Principles of Relief.
Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House, and The House on Henry
Street.
Ellwood, C. A., Sociology and Modern Social Problems.
CHAPTER XXIII
TEAM WORK IN TAXATION
THE DISLIKE OF THE PEOPLE FOR TAXATION
People have never liked to pay taxes. Their repugnance to it is
largely a survival of the times when an autocratic ruling class
imposed taxes upon the people for its own selfish purposes.
Struggling for the bare necessities of life, the people had to pay
the bills of the ruling class who lived in luxury. The long
struggle for liberty in England and in the English colonies was a
struggle against the power of rulers to impose taxes without the
consent of the people. The habit of mind with respect to taxation
formed under such conditions has to a considerable extent
persisted into the present, when conditions are very different.
WHAT TAXATION MEANS IN A DEMOCRACY
The change to government "of the people, by the people, for the
people" should put the paying of taxes in a very different light.
We decide upon a service we want performed for us, we provide the
governing machinery to perform the service, and the service must
be paid for. We do not object to paying for having our house
built, our food provided, our clothes made, and our goods hauled.
Why should we object to paying for the service of schools, roads,
protection of health and property, the defense of our liberties?
THE RETURNS FROM TAXATION
Such objection seems especially unreasonable when we consider that
the value of the service rendered by government is, as a rule, far
in excess of what it costs the individual citizen. In Chapter XVII
we saw that a Virginia farmer, the value of whose farm was
assessed at $3000, was taxed $19.48 for road improvements. In
return for this he acquired the use of a system of roads
throughout the county that cost at least $173,000. This local
system connected him with the transportation system of the entire
country, gave him a market for his produce, greatly increased the
value of his land, brought better school facilities, and enriched
his life in many ways.
The recent war imposed an unusually heavy burden of taxation upon
us. But when we think of the millions of people who paid for the
war with their LIVES, and of the fact that the war was fought for
the most precious of all things,--human liberty,--the money tax
that each citizen had to pay in some form or other seems very
insignificant.
BENEFITS OF TEAM WORK IN TAXATION
In Chapter IV we read how Benjamin Franklin secured the services
of a man to keep the pavements of the neighborhood clean "for the
sum of sixpence per month to be paid by each house." By this bit
of cooperation, each householder was relieved of a burden, and had
the benefit not only of having his own pavement cleaned, but also
of knowing that those of all his neighbors would be equally clean,
and thus of having a pleasanter neighborhood, and the cost was
insignificant. This incident illustrates the underlying principle
of taxation in a self-governing community. The poorest citizen is
made rich in the benefits that he may enjoy, while the cost is
made proportional to his ability to pay.
MISUSE OF TAXES
Like the rest of our governing machinery, however, our system of
levying, collecting, and paying taxes does not always work
perfectly, and there is more or less ground for dissatisfaction
with it. In the first place, the people do not always get full
value for their taxes. While it is true that the farmer receives,
in return for his road tax, vastly more than he could purchase
privately with the same amount of money, yet, if the road
improvements are poorly made, he gets less than he should. It
usually costs as much to employ an inefficient road supervisor, or
school teacher or superintendent, or sheriff, as to employ an
efficient one--in fact, in the long run it costs more. Sometimes
more persons are employed in government offices than there is any
need for, or some of those employed are shirkers, or otherwise
inefficient. There is wastefulness in the methods by which
appropriations are made for the expenses of government. Sometimes
there is "graft," by which public money is diverted to the private
uses of officials, contractors, or others.
A CAUSE OF DISSATISFACTION
Such abuses as these are, of course, not faults of the TAXING
system, but they naturally make citizens reluctant to pay taxes.
People want to know that their money is spent for the purposes for
which it was paid, and that it is used economically and
effectively for these purposes. Nothing else will do so much to
remove the dislike of taxation as assurance on these points. As
Franklin said with reference to his successful experiment in
street cleaning, it "raised a general desire to have all the
streets paved, and made the people more willing to submit to a tax
for that purpose."
TAXATION MUST BE JUST
A system of taxation must be JUST if it is to meet with popular
approval. It is not easy, nor indeed possible, to devise a system
that works with absolute justice in every case; for the assessment
of taxes is a complicated process, and reliance must be placed to
a considerable extent upon the honesty and conscientiousness of
individual citizens. The people are satisfied, however, if they
see that every reasonable effort is made to secure justice.
The first essential in a just system is that EVERY CITIZEN SHALL
BEAR HIS SHARE of the burden. Therefore the paying of taxes is
compulsory by law. It is also just that each citizen shall pay
only IN PROPORTION TO HIS ABILITY. These two principles of
taxation are similar to those applied in the selective draft for
war service. It is in assessing taxes according to ability to pay
that one of the principal difficulties appears. But an effort has
been made to do this by the following procedure.
HOW THE AMOUNT TO BE RAISED IS DETERMINED
It is first necessary to know how much money will be needed by the
government. Each year, therefore, the heads of the various
branches and departments of government make an estimate for the
coming year, based on their knowledge of past expenditures and
present and future needs. Such estimate can be made intelligently
only when there is an accurate and businesslike system of keeping
accounts and records, and a well-planned BUDGET SYSTEM.
Unbusinesslike methods of keeping accounts and the lack of a
budget system have been among the chief weaknesses of our
governments, equally characteristic of local, state, and national
governments. Efforts are being made to remedy these defects and
are described in Chapters XXV, XXVI, and XXVII.
TAXES ON PERSONS, PROPERTY, AND PRIVILEGES
The second thing to be ascertained is the ability of each citizen
to pay. In some states a uniform POLL TAX is assessed upon every
adult citizen. This is a tax upon the PERSON and usually amounts
to about two dollars. Only those are exempt who are incapable of
self-support. But the chief reliance is upon a property tax. State
and local governments depend principally upon a GENERAL PROPERTY
TAX, for which purpose property is divided into two kinds: REAL
ESTATE, which includes land and buildings, and PERSONAL PROPERTY,
which includes furniture, tools, livestock, money, and valuables
of various kinds. In addition to the general property tax there
may be taxes upon INCOMES and upon INHERITANCES. There are also
LICENSE TAXES, such as dog and automobile licenses. Finally there
are taxes upon certain PRIVILEGES which are bestowed upon the
individual by the community and have a money value. Of such a
nature is the license tax imposed upon a peddler or upon a person
who maintains a market stand on the public street. Such, also, are
the taxes placed upon corporations for the privilege of using the
public highways for car tracks, water mains, or telephone poles.
It is necessary, therefore, for the government to ASSESS THE VALUE
of the property (or privilege) of each citizen, and it has its
organization for this purpose. Each local community The assessment
of (township, county, or city) has one or more TAX ASESSORS, who
endeavor to ascertain by inquiry values or inspection the value of
each citizen's property. The sum of the individual assessments
constitutes the assessment valuation for the town, or county, or
city; and the sum of the valuations of these local communities
constitutes the valuation for the entire state.
THE RATE OF TAXATION
The third step is to ascertain the RATE of taxation. This is found
by dividing the total amount to be raised by taxation The rate of
by the total property valuation of the county or taxation state,
as the case may be. If the amount to be raised is $500,000, and
the property valuation is $10,000,000, the rate would be 5 per
cent, and the tax is levied against each citizen at this rate. A
citizen who owns twice as much property as another should pay
twice as much tax. Each should pay according to his ability.
DIFFICULTY OF JUST ASSESSMENT
This seems like a simple procedure; but it is very difficult to
get a just result. The difficulty lies chiefly in the assessment
It requires a good deal of intelligence to assess property fairly,
even with the best of intentions. Assessors are not always
competent. Two assessors may differ in their judgment, so that
assessments in one part of the community may run at a lower level
than in another part. Thus assessments vary in their fairness in
different townships of the same county, and in different counties
of the same state. An attempt is made to avoid this by means of
county and state TAX EQUALIZATION BOARDS, which seek to adjust
differences of this sort. But their efforts are only partially
successful.
RESPONSIBILITY OF PROPERTY OWNERS
Property owners are themselves, however, more responsible than
anyone else for the inequities of taxation in our country. It is a
common practice of tax assessors to accept the property owner's
own statement of the valuation of his property. In an
astonishingly large proportion of cases he gives a valuation far
below the real one. Even when the assessor inspects the property,
it is easy to conceal from his eyes certain forms of personal
property, such as money, stocks and bonds, and jewelry. Land and
livestock cannot be concealed; and for this reason farmers are
likely to pay a heavier share of taxes than others whose property
is in less conspicuous forms. But they may make false valuations.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNJUST ASSESSMENTS
In one state, where the law requires the assessment of real estate
"at its true value in money when sold in the ordinary manner of
sale," a study in one township showed that "the average TAX value
of farm land in the open country ... is $7.89, while the average
MARKET value runs around $20. The 73 largest taxpayers give in
their farm holdings at values ranging from $6 to $20 an acre. Thus
the burden of state and county support falls three or four times
as heavily on one acre of farm land as on another--on farms lying
side by side.
"When we look at suburban farm land the tax values range from $17
to $2220 an acre.
"But the most amazing 'jokes' appear in the values put by their
owners on improved town lots. In the same end of the town we found
three handsome town properties worth around $15,000 each, the tax
values were $550, $4400, $4950. In another neighborhood, two
adjoining homes about equal in value were listed at $500 and
$3400; one at about 50 per cent and the other at about 8 per cent
of the actual value."
With regard to personal property in the same township, the
wealthiest private taxpayer in the township lists household goods
and utensils, work-stock, vehicles, money, jewelry ... at $216.
The next wealthiest private taxpayer covers all these properties
with $105. He's a farmer and well-to-do, but his household
furniture, farm animals, vehicles, implements, and the like, are
worth only $105--on the tax list.
"Another large landowner covers his household goods, farm animals,
vehicles, and the like, with $82; another with $457, and another
with $2272. The differences lie not so much in the properties as
in the consciences of these big landlords."[Footnote: 1 E. C.
Branson, A Township Tax-List Study; in North Carolina Club Year
Book, 1917-1918, pp. 66, 67 (The University of North Carolina
Extension Series No. 30).]
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE HONESTY
Such inequalities as these may be found in almost every tax list
in any community. One of the strange things about it is that
citizens evade taxation who would not think of being dishonest or
unfair in a private business transaction. The reason is not easy
to understand. Doubtless it is partly due to the feeling that as
long as "everybody does it" it is justifiable. Of course this is
not true. One taxpayer is reported as saying, "I feel dog-mean
whenever I give in my taxes; but I'm doing as well as the rest and
a little better than most."
GOOD SENSE AND GOOD BUSINESS
Dishonest returns by one taxpayer defraud the citizen who is
honest, because they place a heavier burden of taxation upon the
latter. Moreover, the dishonest taxpayer and good cheats himself
along with others, for the lower the business valuation of
property, the higher the rate of taxation, or the poorer the
service received from the government. "It is good sense and good
business for a state to show up with large tax values and low tax
rates. It shows a brisk and lively prosperity that is attractive
to outside capital and enterprise." [Footnote: E. C. Branson, A
Township Tax-List Study]
INTELLIGENCE AND PUBLICITY NEEDED
To secure fairer taxation and better returns from taxation there
is need of improvement in the organization for tax assessment and
tax equalization. It is especially important to make it more
difficult for the "tax dodger" to evade his responsibility. It
would seem, however, that there would be fewer "tax dodgers" if
the people once got "the right idea" of what taxation really means
in a democracy. Great improvement would doubtless result, even
under present conditions, if honest citizens would take more
interest in the results of assessments as shown in the tax lists.
The writer quoted in the paragraphs above asserts that, next to
the Bible, "the most important book in any county is the Tax List,
and it is the one book that the people in general know least
about."
Everybody knows in a vague, general way that something is wrong
with our tax system ... but what everybody does not know is what
the facts are in concrete, accurate detail. There is no cure like
publicity for wrongs in a democracy. Give the folks the facts,
whatever they are, and the folks will do the rest. ... But at
present nobody knows the facts. That is to say, nobody but the tax
listers, the registers, and the sheriffs. And they are dumb
because their official lives depend on silence. [Footnote:. C.
Branson, A Township Tax-List Study.]
Investigate and report on the following:
Do people of your acquaintance like to pay taxes? What reasons do
they give?
The cost of your town government, your county government, and your
state government per year.
The purposes for which most money is spent by your town
government, your county government, and your state government.
The assessed valuation of property in your town, county, state.
Does the law in your state require that property shall be assessed
at its full market value? If not, at what part of its market
value?
The tax rate in your county. Is it high or low? Reasons why it is
high or low.
The tax list of your town.
The sources of revenue in your county and state, and the amount
raised from each source.
The work of a tax assessor in your town.
Where taxes are paid in your community.
Who has charge of tax collections in your community?
What happens to a citizen in your community who fails to pay his
taxes?
The difference between "assessing" and "levying" taxes.
Who levies the taxes in your town? county? state?
Explain the statement that "large tax values and low tax rates
attract outside capital and enterprise".
TAXATION BY THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
We have been speaking so far of taxation, for the purposes of
state and local governments. But Congress also has power by "to
lay and collect taxes ... to pay the debts and provide for the
common defense and general welfare of the United States"
(Constitution, Art. I, sec. 8, clause i). State and local
governments raise most of their revenues by DIRECT taxation upon
the property of citizens. The national government, on the other
hand, has always relied chiefly upon INDIRECT taxation. Congress
levies DUTIES ON IMPORTS. These duties are paid in the first
instance by the importer. The latter, however, adds the tax to the
price of the goods, so that it is paid finally by the consumers
and not by the importer. In a similar manner Congress levies
EXCISE TAXES, which are taxes upon products manufactured in this
country. The principal excise taxes have been those levied on
alcoholic liquors and tobacco. But here again the tax is paid by
the consumer in the price which he pays for the liquor or tobacco.
ADVANTAGES OF INDIRECT TAXATION
The chief advantage of indirect taxes is the ease and certainty
with which they may be collected by the government. the citizen
pays them whenever he buys the articles on which the tax is
levied. The retail dealer passes them on to the wholesaler, and so
finally the importer is reimbursed. The government collects the
taxes at customs houses at ports of entry, or at the tobacco
factories and, formerly, at distilleries. Prohibition has deprived
the government of one of its chief sources of revenue. Indirect
taxes are also less objectionable to the people, for they are
seldom conscious of paying them when they buy goods upon which
they are levied.
FEDERAL INCOME TAX
Congress has the power to levy direct as well as indirect taxes,
but it has usually avoided direct taxation, partly for the reasons
stated above, and partly because the Constitution provides that
"no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in
proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to
be taken"; that is, in proportion to population. It has been found
difficult in practice to make such apportionment. Various attempts
by Congress to levy a direct tax on incomes have been declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because it was not so
apportioned. The Constitution has now been amended, however, to
give Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes on incomes from
whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several
states, and without regard to any census or enumeration"
(Amendment XVI).
A large revenue is now derived from the national income tax. The
law at first exempted from it single persons whose income was less
than $3000, and married persons whose income was less than $4000.
As a result of the war, only those are now exempt whose incomes
are less than $1000, if single, and $2000 if married, with an
additional exemption for each dependent child. The tax is
PROGRESSIVE: that is, the larger one's income, the higher RATE one
pays.
WAR TAXES
In ordinary times of peace, state and local governments together
spend much more money than the national government. In war time
the reverse is true. Enormous sums of money were required for the
conduct of the recent war. As a result the rates of import,
excise, and income taxes were greatly increased, and unusual forms
of taxation were adopted. A war tax was placed upon many articles
of common use, an inheritance tax was imposed similar to that in
some of the states, and the EXCESS PROFITS of businesses which the
war made unusually prosperous were taxed heavily. The effort in
every case was to distribute the tax so that every one should do
his share, while the burden should rest most heavily upon those
who could best bear it.
GOVERNMENT LOANS
A large part of the money necessary for war purposes, and for
permanent improvements in time of peace, is raised by borrowing.
Governments, whether national, state, or local, borrow money by
the sale of BONDS, the purchase price with interest being returned
to the purchaser after a stated period of years. The national
government borrowed more than 22 billion dollars during the war by
the sale of "liberty bonds," and an additional large sum by the
sale of "war savings stamps". These loans made by the people are
ultimately paid off with funds raised by taxation. The people to-
day advance money to the government, which the people of to-morrow
pay back by taxation. This is justifiable because the war was
fought for the benefit of future generations as well as of the
people to-day. For the same reason, the cost of permanent
improvements, such as roads and public buildings, is distributed
over a period of years.
Investigate and report on:
The full meaning of Article I, section 8, clause i, and section 7,
clause I, of the Constitution.
The loss to the nation of revenue as a result of the prohibition
of the liquor traffic.
Compensating financial gains to the nation through prohibition of
the liquor traffic.
Why an income tax is a good form of taxation. Why it should be
"progressive".
The justice of an inheritance tax. Of a tax on excess profits.
Articles upon which you pay an import duty.
Why government is justified in using force to compel the payment
of taxes.
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,
SATURDAY 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 illustrations 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
There are those who take the extreme position that government
should manage practically everything for us. Such are the
Socialists, who believe that the unequal distribution of wealth
and the resulting inequalities in opportunity to satisfy wants are
due to the control of industry by a small and essentially selfish
capitalistic class. They believe that all natural resources and
all capital should belong to the people jointly, and that the
people's government should control both the production and the
distribution of wealth.
It has been objected to the socialist scheme that, since
government would still be in the hands of imperfect human beings,
it would not be wise enough to accomplish the desired result; that
political motives would enter into government management, as they
do in government enterprises to-day, and would prevent the
achievement of the desired results; and that, the opportunity for
private initiative and enterprise having been removed, there would
be lacking one of the chief inducements to human progress.
Socialism has made considerable progress in some nations of the
world, but it is by no means popular in the United States,
although it has many advocates. We adhere in the main to the
principle that government should do things for us only when they
could not be so well done by private enterprise, and should
control our conduct only so far as to secure equality of personal
freedom. The fact remains, however, that an increasing amount of
service is being performed for us by government, and an increasing
control exercised by it over private enterprise.
ORGANIZATION FOR SERVICE AND FOR CONTROL
Insofar as government performs service for us, it must have an
organization for that purpose, with competent leadership. And if
it is not to interfere unduly with freedom of action or personal
liberty, the people must have an organization by which to maintain
control over it. Thus there must be an organization to ensure
efficient SERVICE, and there must be an organization to ensure
democracy, or POPULAR CONTROL. If both organizations are
effective, we have an EFFICIENT DEMOCRACY, toward which we have
been striving through all our history, but which we have not yet
completely attained.
A government may be efficient in performing service for the people
without being democratic. In fact, it may be easier to get
efficient service under an autocratic government. Germany before
the war illustrated this. But we believe that a government may be
both efficient and democratic. This depends upon competent
leadership and popular control; and both of these depend upon
education (Chapter XIX).
In the remaining pages of this book we shall consider both the
organization of our government for service and that for popular
control. In this chapter we shall examine some of the methods by
which we seek to control government, or to be SELF-governing.
DIRECT SELF-GOVERNMENT
The people of a community may govern themselves by direct action
or indirectly through representatives, just as a group of farmers
may build their own schoolhouse or church, or employ someone to do
it for them. When English colonists settled New England,
geographical conditions and other reasons led them to form small,
compact communities, in which it was easy to assemble frequently
at the meetinghouse to discuss matters of community concern and to
agree upon, rules, or laws, to regulate them. This local
government by "town meeting" has persisted in many New England
"towns," or "townships," to the present day.
REPRESENTATIVE SELF-GOVERNMENT
This direct action of the people in the New England town is for
the purpose of MAKING the laws only. When it comes to the
enforcement of these laws, it is necessary to delegate the
authority to someone. The town meeting could make a law against
permitting hogs to run at large, but it chose someone, a "hog
reeve," to see that the law was observed. When the community is
large it is found more convenient to choose representatives also
to make the laws. Thus each Massachusetts town had its
representative in the lawmaking assembly of the colony as a whole.
This representative system of government now prevails in our
cities, counties, states, and nation.
DIRECT SELF-GOVERNMENT THROUGH CONSTITUTIONS
Even in the larger communities, however, such as cities, states,
and the nation itself, the people have sought to retain more or
less direct control over lawmaking. In the first place, the
"fundamental law" of the states and nation found in their
constitutions, which determine what the form and powers of
government shall be, has been adopted by more direct action of the
people than most other laws. The Preamble to the federal
Constitution asserts that "We, the people of the United
States...do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America." Neither state nor national constitutions can
be altered except by special action by the people themselves,
either by direct vote at the polls or by conventions of
representatives chosen especially for the purpose.
DIRECT LAWMAKING: INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM
It has long been the practice in many communities to submit
important local questions to popular vote for decision, such as
the question of issuing bonds for public improvements, or of
licensing saloons. Within recent years in a number of states the
people have gained direct control over lawmaking in regard to any
subject whatever, both in local and state affairs, by means of the
"initiative and referendum." The "initiative" is the right of the
voters themselves to "initiate," or propose, legislation. This is
done by means of a petition signed by a specified number of
voters. The legislature may then act upon the proposed law; but if
it does not do so, the law is submitted to the people for their
vote at the next election. On the other hand, if the legislature
passes a law that is objectionable to some of the voters a
petition signed by a specified number of voters requires the law
to be REFERRED to the people for their approval or rejection. This
is the "referendum."
DEMOCRACY OF THE WEST
Of the 21 states that had adopted the initiative and referendum
(to 1917) only four were east of the Mississippi River (Maine,
Maryland, Michigan, and Ohio). [Footnote: "The Initiative and
Referendum," Bulletin No. 6, submitted to the Constitutional
Convention of Massachusetts (1917) by the Commission to Compile
Information and Data, p. 10.] The movement to increase popular
control over government has always been stronger in the West, as
we shall see in other connections.
For the most part, however, our laws are made by our
representatives, over whom we exercise more or less control. Some
of the more important means by which this control is exercised are
described in following chapters; but first of all we exercise
control by CHOOSING our representatives at frequent intervals. Let
us inquire to what extent the people have a voice in this choice.
THE SUFFRAGE