THE COMMUNITY'S GOVERNMENT
Local self-government is a well-established tradition in the United
States, but as far as the rural community is concerned it is more
tradition than fact, for outside of New England the rural community has
no legal or political status. In New England the townships were
originally created as community units, for they were modelled after the
European village community. The meeting house determined the site of the
village where the farmers and craftsmen resided, and the boundaries of
the township were coincident with the limits of their lands. The origin
of the New England township has been well described by John Fiske in a
famous chapter on this subject:[75]
"When people from England first came to dwell in the
Wilderness of Massachusetts Bay, they settled in groups upon
small irregular-shaped patches of land, which soon came to
be known as townships. There were several reasons why they
settled thus in small groups, instead of scattering about
over the country and carving out broad estates for
themselves. In the first place, their principal reason for
coming to New England was their dissatisfaction with the way
in which church affairs were managed in the old country.
They wished to bring about a reform in the church, in such
wise that members of a congregation should have more voice
than formerly in the church-government, and that the
minister of each congregation should be more independent
than formerly of the bishop and of the civil government....
Such a group of people, arriving on the coast of
Massachusetts, would naturally select some convenient
locality, where they might build their houses near together
and all go to the same church. This migration, therefore,
was a movement, not of individuals or of separate families,
but of church congregations, and it continued to be so as
the settlers made their way inland and westward....
"In the second place, the soil of New England was not
favorable to the cultivation of great quantities of staple
articles, such as rice or tobacco, so that there was nothing
to tempt people to undertake extensive plantations. Most of
the people lived on small farms, each family raising but
little more than enough food for its own support; and the
small size of the farms made it possible to have a good many
in a compact neighborhood. It appeared also that towns could
be more easily defended against the Indians than scattered
plantations;...
"Thus the early settlers of New England came to live in
townships. A township would consist of about as many farms
as could be disposed within convenient distance from the
meeting-house, where all the inhabitants, young and old,
gathered every Sunday, coming on horseback or afoot....
Around the meeting-house and common the dwellings gradually
clustered into a village, and after a while the tavern,
store and town-house made their appearance."
When the Mormons settled Utah they established a very similar form of
community government centering around the church. Elsewhere, with rare
exceptions, throughout the North and West the township is the primary
unit of local government, save for school administration, but it is by
no means identical with a community. When the lands west of the
Alleghanies were surveyed for settlement they were laid off in blocks
six miles square, which were known as congressional townships, for
Congress gave each township a square mile of land the proceeds of which
should form a permanent school fund. In discussing the development of
the township in Illinois, Dr. Albert Shaw writes:
"To give effect to this liberal provision, the state enacted
a law making the township a body corporate and politic for
school purposes and authorizing the inhabitants to elect
school officers and maintain free schools. Here, then, was a
rudiment of local government. As New England township life
grew up around the church, so western localism finds its
nucleus in the school system. What more natural than that
the county election district should be made to coincide with
the school township, with a school-house for the voting
place? or that justices of the peace, constables and road
supervisors and overseers of the poor, should have their
jurisdiction determined by the same township lines?"[76]
Thus in many of the North-central States the township came to be the
local unit of government for certain minor purposes, though in other
states it is little more than an election district, and in none of them
is there preserved the old town meeting which gave the New England
township its fundamental democracy.
Owing to the large plantations and the economic and social conditions
prevailing throughout the South, it has had practically no units of
government smaller than the county, other than incorporated villages.
Until very recently our conception of society has been mostly in terms
of political units, largely on account of the lack of any local unit
which had social significance to rural people. In recent years, however,
students of rural government have become aware of the artificiality and
the anti-social character of the township unit. There may be two rival
villages within a township, each competing for trade and the support of
its associations, and striving for the political domination of the
township, while some of the farmers in a far corner of the township may
trade in a village in the next township. Or a village may be on a
township line, which must be observed in all matters of government
although there is no real division of interests between its people.
Outside of New England villages were located at points of geographical
advantage, or along through roads or railroads, primarily as business
centers. There was no particular relation between the village and the
farming area surrounding it. But as the village grew it often desired
modern improvements such as water systems, pavements, street lights,
etc., for which the farmers were unwilling to be taxed and which were
thus prevented as long as the village was controlled by the township.
This has led to most of the larger villages becoming incorporated, so
that they may administer their own local government and tax themselves
for such improvements as they desire. This separation of the village
from the township has been inevitable where the farmers take no pride or
interest in it, and has often been necessitated by their parsimony or
conservatism. This is well illustrated by an incident related by
Professor Herbert B. Adams:
"In my native town, Amherst, Mass., the villagers struggled
for years in town-meeting to secure some system of sewerage
for 'the center,' but the 'ends of the town' always voted
'no'. On one occasion, in order to allay suspicion of
extravagance, a leading villager moved that, whatever system
of sewerage be adopted, the surface water and rainfall be
allowed to take their natural course down-hill in the
ordinary gutters. The farmers sniffed danger in this wily
proposition and voted an overwhelming 'No.' Accordingly by
the local law of Amherst, water had to run uphill until the
next town-meeting! Such is the power of Democracy."[77]
This separate incorporation of the village has been a large factor in
making a distinction between villagers and farmers and preventing their
recognition of their community interests. Not infrequently, however, it
will be found that some of the more progressive villages are not
incorporated and that they have the loyalty of the farmers. Numerous
examples of unincorporated villages might be cited to show that where a
spirit of pride in local village institutions has been developed among
the farmers of the territory tributary to it, that village improvements
not only are not impeded, but the community is much strengthened. This
is more likely to be true, however, where the township boundary and the
natural community area are practically the same.
On the other hand, the progress of a rural community, i.e., a village
and the territory tributary to it, often is prevented if it cannot
command a majority of the votes in a township. In a nearby village is a
town hall which might be used as a community house and be a social
center for the whole community. But the borders of the township belong
to other communities and do not come to the township center, and these
people on the edge of the township very naturally take the position that
if the village and neighboring people wish to use the town hall, let
them rent it of the town, but why should the whole township be taxed for
advantages which only half of it can enjoy. The same line of argument
arises with regard to the location of schools, roads, libraries, and the
districts for public health nurses. Unless the whole township can be
equally well served, a community which forms but part of the township is
unable to secure these advantages unless it can command a majority of
the votes, or except as the village incorporates, and then it loses the
support of the taxes from the farms of the community which share the
benefits.
As long as farm life was on the neighborhood basis, its interests
largely centering in the district school and the country church, its
roads maintained by the labor of its citizens under a local road
supervisor, and trips to the village were made only once or twice a week
for mail and supplies, farmers did not feel the need for a unit of local
government other than the township. But when the church, the grange and
the lodge are in the village, when they desire consolidated schools,
libraries, and community houses, which are most convenient to all at the
village center, and when they desire the improvement of local roads so
that they will best connect with state and county roads, then the
interests of the farmers and the villagers unite them in these common
enterprises, and the community comes into conflict with the rest of the
township if the township is composed of more than one community.
On the other hand, it must be recognized that for many purposes the
community, or even the township, is too small a unit to secure the
greatest efficiency in administration of public agencies, and so there
has been a distinct tendency toward the centralization of many functions
of local government in county officials. Thus the county superintendent
of schools is assuming more and more control over the local school
system, the county supervision of roads is increasing, and we have shown
(p. 145) the desirability of a county health administration, the need
for county juvenile courts (p. 188), county boards for the
administration of welfare work (p. 191), and a county library system.
The county tends to become a rural municipality very similar in function
and organization to the city, and the logical outcome seems to be the
employment of a county manager under a commission or county council,
which has already become possible in Maryland and California.[78] That
this centralization makes possible a greater efficiency in
administration can hardly be doubted, but that it tends to destroy the
initiative and responsibility of the local community is equally
apparent. With an over-centralization of administration, whether in the
county or the state, the local community loses the very ties which have
bound it together. The adjustment of the desires for efficiency and for
local democracy is one of the unsolved problems of government.
Experience shows clearly that the local community or township is too
small a unit to secure efficient administration; but it is also evident
that without some degree of local responsibility and control,
centralized administration tends to become bureaucratic and the people
are deprived of that participation in government which is essential for
the life of a democracy.
Thus the need for the local self-government of rural communities has
become apparent to rural leaders. It is interesting to note that this is
becoming appreciated in the South, where on account of social and
economic conditions local government has been almost entirely lacking in
the past, but where new conditions give rise to new desires which cannot
be realized except through some means whereby a locality can be free to
work out its own salvation. This point of view has been vigorously
expressed by Dr. Clarence Poe, editor of the Progressive Farmer and a
recognized leader of rural life in the South:
"The chief task of the man who would help develop a rich and
puissant rural civilization here in the South--the chief
task perhaps of the man who would make an agricultural
State like North Carolina the great commonwealth it ought to
be--is to develop the rural community."...
"Consider the fact that the country community is the only
social unit known to our civilization that is without
definite boundaries and without machinery for
self-expression and development--without form, and void, as
was chaos before creation."...
"But for the country community there is no organic means of
expression whatever. There is, of course, that shadowy and
futile geographical division known as the Township--but it
is laid off utterly without regard to human consideration,
and serves no purpose save as a means of defining voting
boundaries and limiting the spheres of constables and
sheriff's deputies--a mere ghostly phantom of a social
entity that we need not consider at all."[79]
And he then goes on to show the advantages of the New England township.
_Community School Districts._--The most significant beginning toward the
creation of self-government for the rural community is in the laws which
have been passed by several states permitting redistricting for the
establishment of community high schools or consolidated schools,
irrespective of township or county boundaries and according to the
desire of the prospective patrons of the schools. Thus in 1919 Nebraska
passed a state rural school redistricting law under which every county
has a redistricting committee which determines what seem to be the
natural boundaries of the district, which are then subject to petitions
from the people for their alteration, and the whole plan is then
submitted to a vote of the county. "The law does not explicitly state
that the proposed districts must correspond to a natural community in
the social sense; it only says that they must be very much larger than
the old ones, approximately twenty-five square miles. The inevitable
result, however, of opening the question and of freeing community choice
from old political boundaries is to settle on new areas approaching
social units with self-conscious community ties."[80] Kansas and
Illinois have somewhat similar legislation and a community unit is
proposed by the Committee of 21 which has recently conducted a survey of
the rural school situation in the State of New York.
_Community House Districts_.--Wisconsin has passed an act whereby the
people of any local area may vote to erect and maintain a community
house and may establish the boundaries of the area in which the citizens
shall have the right to tax themselves for this purpose, and to elect
trustees of the house, in much the same manner as community school
districts are established. It seems probable that when a natural social
area has thus been determined it will probably be the same for both
school and community house, and that it might be the best unit for the
support of such community agencies as a public library, or a
public-health nurse, and thus a real community government might
gradually arise and might ultimately displace the arbitrary township
government, although the township might be retained for its original
purpose of land registration.
_Rural Community Incorporation_.--The most advanced step in giving the
rural community self-government is An Act to Provide for the
Incorporation of Rural Communities, passed by the legislature of North
Carolina in 1919.[81] This act gives authority for the incorporation of
rural communities including definite school districts, which may or may
not include hamlets or village centers, but which must be at least two
miles from any town or city of five thousand or more inhabitants. It
gives such incorporated rural communities the general powers and
privileges of an incorporated village, except that they cannot lose
their identity as a part of the school and road systems of the county.
Taxes may be levied for various public purposes, but they must be voted
at an annual meeting at which a majority of the registered voters must
be present, or be submitted to an election, and the amount of taxes and
bonds are limited. Although about a dozen communities have incorporated
under this act, but few of them seem to be actively functioning, due to
various local causes. The act itself, however, is well conceived and is
worthy of study by those interested in better rural government.
Another method of accomplishing the same end is by a special act of
incorporation for a particular community, as was passed by the
Legislature of New Jersey for Plainsboro Township in 1919.
Concerning the organization of this community, Hon. Alva Agee, State
Secretary of Agriculture, writes:
"Every voter within its boundaries signed a petition to the
legislature for the creation of a new township embracing the
territory belonging to the community, and this was granted.
The community then met, made a declaration of its purposes
and adopted a constitution providing for control of all
township and community affairs. It is a return to direct
government by the people, and places responsibility upon
every individual. It is the old New England town-meeting
made effective. Patient study of every detail was given by
members of the community."[82]
The declaration of purposes and constitution[83] are so unique that they
should be studied by all interested in community government.
"A DECLARATION OF PURPOSES
"We, the residents of Plainsboro Township, New Jersey,
declare our purpose to accept all the duties of American
citizenship.
We are forming an association to secure all the benefits of
community life, and affirm the right of our community to
each one's best effort.
We support all individual rights just as far as their use
does not harm our fellows.
We agree that the public good is superior to any private
gain obtained at the expense of community welfare.
We recognize and acknowledge the gracious influences of
practical Christianity in community life.
We ask that our homes be guarded by right social conditions
throughout our community.
We declare the duty of the community to provide good
schools, means for community recreation, safe sanitary
conditions, improved highways, and encouragement to thrift
and home-ownership.
We purpose to make the neatness and attractiveness of our
homes and farms assets of distinct value to the township.
We agree to do our share in the creation of public sentiment
in support of all measures in the public interest.
We agree to put aside all partisan and sectarian relations
when dealing with community matters.
We state our conviction that the best rewards from this
organized effort lie before each one in a deepened interest
in others and in an increased ability to cooperate the one
with the other for the good of all.
We, the citizens of Plainsboro Township, incorporated by act
of the Legislature of the State of New Jersey, approved
April 1, 1919, and accepted by us on May 6, 1919, subscribe
to this declaration."
If such a Declaration of Purposes were adopted by every rural community,
and were taught the children as a civic oath of allegiance, would it not
have more immediate effect on practical patriotism than even the
Declaration of Independence, and what new meaning would be given to
local government? Here is an example of rural civic spirit which, if it
could become general throughout the rural communities of the United
States, would remold the political and social organization of the whole
country; for it provides both the mechanism and the spirit which are
essential for making democracy a reality rather than an ideal.
_Community Government and Democracy._--The local community is
indispensable as the primary political unit for the maintenance of true
democracy, both because it is small enough that there can be personal
relations between its members, in which a real consensus of opinion can
be formed, and also because only in it can the masses of mankind have
any personal experience or participation in government. Unless the
individual has a social consciousness of the community in which he
lives, he can have but a feeble and hazy realization of larger social
groups. Unless the community through its individuals is self-conscious,
it cannot take its rightful place in the larger community of which it
forms a part. If democracy does not obtain in the local community, the
voice of such a community in the affairs of the county or state will be
that of its self-chosen leaders. It is difficult to conceive how any
real democracy can be secured in State or Nation where it does not
obtain in their constituent communities. It is entirely possible to have
a government democratic in form and theory, but actually a political or
economic feudalism, supported by local chieftains who represent not the
people, but themselves or some business or other special interests. The
very life of true democracy is in the participation of individuals in
the government of the local group and in the organization of the
locality groups, so that there may be a fair discussion and expression
by those who are bound together by common interests through some form of
self-government for the rural community.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] "Civil Government in the United States," pp. 17, 18. Boston, 1890.
[76] "Local Government in Illinois," p. 10. Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies
in History and Political Science. Vol. I, No. 3, 1883.
[77] Editor's note, p. 51. "Penn. Boroughs," by Wm. F. Holcomb. Johns
Hopkins Univ. Stud. in History and Pol. Sc. Vol. IV, No. 4, 1886.
[78] See E. H. Ryder, "Proposed Modifications and Recent Tendencies in
Rural Government and Legislation," p. 112, Proc. 3d Natl. Country Life
Conference.
[79] "Why Not Local Self-Government for Rural Communities," pp. 4-48.
North Carolina Club Year Book, 1917-1918. "County Government and County
Affairs in North Carolina." The University of North Carolina Record. No.
159. Oct., 1918. Chapel Hill, N. C.
[80] H. Paul Douglas. "Recent Legislation Facilitating Rural Community
Organization," p. 124, Proc. 3d Natl. Country Life Conference.
[81] Public Laws of 1919, Reprinted as Appendix A, p. 116, of A. W.
Hayes, "Rural Community Organization." Chicago, 1921.
[82] "A Community Organization." National Stockman and Farmer. July 26,
1919.
[83] For the constitution see Appendix A, page 247.