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'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.