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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 28, 1899)
fa EiT ' . . * Mfe flft 'Cbe Conservative. to such severe tests , applied to such a variety of municipal questions , shown itself capable of such elasticity , and proved such a crowning success. No conception was had until of late years that the town meeting system could effect what it is now known to be capable of. Men elsewhere , partly from want of experience , and partly from a tendency to follow the fashion of affect ing city charters , despaired of pre serving the town meeting system , and so yielded to what seemed the in evitable. Furthermore , in earlier years , the present Australian system of voting was not known , nor were other advances in municipal methods then employed which are now in daily use. In Brookline - line for a number of years , it has been the practice at each annual town meet ing for a moderator to appoint 20 or more citizens to examine into and re port in print upon all the pending town business , and this voluntary examina tion by competent citizens is usually accepted as satisfactory. This critical , expert investigation is quite outside of any statute requirement and ceases with the annual meeting ; but the value of these voluntary services , goes far to strengthen confidence and to assure success of the entire system. Brookline has never extended the work of this committee to continue throughout the year , because that would encourage in difference at the town meetings , and would incite natural indolence , which is apt to welcome a delegated responsi bility , whereas personal attention gener ally distributed is essential to a whole some public spirit. The 19th century has witnessed ad vances in municipal government under the town meeting system , just as it has seen the advances in science and art. The 20th century approaches , with an opening for still further growth in the practice of municipal administration , and out in Brookline it is now proposed to consider a fresh start , not based upon the experiments which stamp the vagaries of city charters , but resting upon the sound result of a unique and praiseworthy experience , its town meeting. The wealthy suburb of Boston pro poses to perpetuate , as nearly as prac ticable , its present system , and to apply that system to the wealthiest community for its population , and one of the most rapidly growing towns in the United States. Two substitutes , or modifications , of the simple plan now proposed have been brought forward. One is to have voting done in part by mail , a method not known to bo in use in this'country. . The-other is to choose the 800 members of the town council by lot instead of by ballot. At the coming special town meeting f jr the Consideration of the matter , other plans may be brought out , so that the meeting is apt to be one of the most memorable in the history of the town. It is by comparison that adequate ideas are sometimes expressed. The following , once employed by a Brookline citizen , affords a striking example of what the town meeting system had done : "To what extent the town meeting system would be successfully carried out , our ancestors could hardly have realized. Harvard college has funds of about $10,000,000 , and represents edu cation. The Boston & Albany railroad company has a capital of about $25,000- 000 , and represents transportation. The Bell Telephone company has a capital of $50,000,000 and represents electric communication. The town of Brookliuo has a capital of about $75,000,000 , ere long to be $100,000,000 , or more , and represents municipal government. Those are four typical New England corpora tions. All are different ; all very suc cessful. The first three are controlled by the highest procurable talent ; the fourth in one sense the greatest of them all is controlled by the people in town meeting assembled ; and with no more town meetings than a century ago , the volume of business done now is a thousand times as great as then ; yet the business , which now covers a far wider and complicated range of subjects than formerly , is easily , quickly and safely done an impressive lesson to the world of successful administrative autonomy. " It is the "preservation of this system by its successful application to a com munity large in numbers , which Brookline - line now engages to undertake. Frequently some PARTISAN IIES. slavish editorial tool of McKiuleyism has the effrontery to assert that Jefferson and Monroe were expansionists in the sense of McKinley. They entirely overlook the contradictory fact of the notorious endeavors of these early presidents to keep out of entangling foreign alliances. They forget how nervous both Jefferson and Monroe were that the Louisiana purchase was un constitutional. They forget that Jeffer son , almost childishly , desired con gressional endorsement. The fact is , and was then , that the Louisiana and Florida acquisitions were entirely within , not only the letter but spirit of the constitution. They were steps of wise and far-seeing statesmanship. They were in the line of common defense. Had they not been made at the time , had both territories remained in the possession of France and Spain , they would have had to bo taken possession of at any cost when the country so ex panded , from within , that their pos session was a necessity to farther and peaceful growth. No internal necespity demands the possession of the Philip pines , No internal necesoity demands * ; ' that of Cuba. We have all that we can do , more than we have statesmanlike ability to do , to master the constitutional problem of a healthy internal growth. The national stomach is already over extended to bursting with undigested , unassimilated and actually non-digest ible material. If wo could take a national purgative and clear our body of that injurious material ; if we could make of the Philippines or Cuba a "botany bag" forouriudigestibles , there might be some slight excuse for their acquisition as national cesspools. No such wisdom is shown , either by the national surgeons or anti-imperialist charlatans. FRANK S. BILLINGS. Sharon , Mass. The conscience THE EDITORIAL CONSCIENCE. of the average editor is something of a conundrum , especially to those who know them as men of honor outside the editorial chair. The majority of them seem to be bought and sold like cattle. They are the chained slaves of the business end of the establishment. Many of them excel the proverbial flea at intellectual prestidigitation. One never knows where they are at. At one time we find them writing on a republican paper in the most rabid manner of a red-shirt fire-eater. On the next day they may be proving themselves liars on a democratic sheet. Now they uphold - -AM * anarchy , tomorrow they may bo socialists. One day they denounce sil ver and the next decry gold as of Satan , devilish with the trust of monopoly. They abuse the power of their position to denounce honest men while at the same time they uphold the rarest principle of honor. Oonsistenoy , except in lying , is unknown to the editorial conscience. There is said to be some honor among thieves , but no one ever heard it claimed for a member of the editorial fraternity. The printer's devil seems to raise more hell in the editorial than the press room. It is doubtful if there is an independent , manly editor on the American daily press , unless he hap - pens to own or control the ruling interest in his paper. American editors are partisan liars , not partizans of the truth. The press is as corrupt as the politics it reflects. It has no conscience. FRANK S. BILLINGS. Sharon , Mass. Resolutions just adopted by the Balti more board of trade declare that it is absolutely essential that action shall be taken by the new congress for a law re moving the currency question from poli tics , and which shall preclude another campaign like that of 1890 , making money the issue. Anti-imperialism is pro-constitution alism.
