Community and government

Front matter

UK 424 03 Copy 1

IV, No. 5

A MANUAL OF DISCUSSION AND STUDY OF THE NEWER IDEALS OF CITIZENSHIP

Preface

This manual has been prepared especially for those teachers, principals and superintendents of North Carolina who are interested in the teaching and enactment of citizenship in accordance with the newer ideals of education, community and government. A previous manual, "Constructive Ventures in Government" has been made the basis for this re-statement of the problems of community and government. The general form and purposes, therefore, of the two manuals are essentially the same.

The purposes are clear and simple. To promote the fascinating business of being and becoming citizens and the systematic study of social problems is one purpose. If, in the prosecution of this purpose, a renewed interest in democracy and a clearer idea of social responsibility may be created, a forward step will have been made. The added chapter on "The Meaning of Community" looks to this end.

To emphasize a citizenship and government based on the ideals of social service and achievement is another purpose. As wide and comprehensive as are the needs of its people, so inclusive should be the government of a democracy. Our government can set no goal of achievement short of the highest development of the social personality and welfare of all its people.

To magnify a training for citizenship based on knowledge and first-hand materials for the study of government is another purpose. While the enactment of this ideal seems new, it is original in the best theory of government. Madison's statement is good: "A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

To contribute to the growing meaning of community and the powers, obligations, and opportunities of local government is another purpose. Perhaps no greater advance has been made in the after-war period than the increased recognition of the institution of community, whether it be community of organization, of fellowship, of industry, of arts and letters, of learning, of religion, or of citizenship. And certainly one of the consistent points of emphasis in the ever-enlarging services of a larger national government is the increasing importance of good local government.

To emphasize the companionable nature of both the study of and participation in government is another purpose. There is not only the enthusiastic and buoyant outlook of men and women working side by side for the bringing about of the newer ideals of citizenship ; but there is likewise the remarkable opportunity for joining the great body of young men and young women in our educational institutions and out who are keenly interested and alive to the opportunities and obligations of social progress.

The manual is, therefore, not in any sense a technical study of civil government, but a program of companionable study and action based upon the interpretation of present-day social problems and needs of local, state and national government. It is planned to supplement previous manuals: one by Professor James Holly Hanford, of the Department of English, entitled "OUR HERITAGE : A Study Through Literature of the American Tradition"; another by Dean D. D. Carroll, of the School of Commerce, entitled "STUDIES IN CITIZENSHIP FOR WOMEN" in which he outlines the technical forms of government; and a third entitled "AMERICANIZATION," by Mrs. Thomas W. Lingle. It is planned also to harmonize with the special studies which Professors Hamilton and Knight are preparing and the very valuable and original county studies which Professor Branson has been making and stimulating for the last seven years.

It is not expected that any group will undertake all the readings or complete all the studies and projects suggested. The manual itself provides for essential minimums and its outlines and suggestions offer stimulation for maximum achievements in accordance with the disposition and resources of the groups concerned. It is arranged for special intensive studies of limited fields or for general study of the entire field. It may also be used in estimating the relative progressiveness of communities, counties, or cities in which use a sort of score card or measuring scale of progress may be made out by the club. Details of method for use of the manual may be gathered from the part (VI) which discusses the readings and plans. Forms of co-operation on the part of the University Bureau of Extension are explained in the last division of the manual.

Special thanks are extended to Dr. E. C. Brooks, State Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina, for his keen interest in the form and content of this manual and for valuable suggestions as to its effective use. It is hoped that experiments and projects being planned in the several communities will prove of definite value.

HOWARD W. ODUM.

Chapel Hill, November 15, 1920.

Contents

PAGE

Preface 3

PART I The Meaning of Community 11

The Meaning of Woman's New Part in Government — Viewpoints, Motives and Objectives of Participation 20

PART II Government and Social Problems of Town and City 43

The city a complex of opportunity and obligation — Two decades of progress — The scope of municipal services — General administration — Financial methods — City planning — Public works — Public safety — Public health —Sanitation and housing inspection — Charities, corrections and public welfare — Public recreation — Public education — Miscellaneous services — Services to the rural community.

PART III Government and Social Problems of County, Village and Open Countryside 58

County government and country life — Status of county government — The scope of county services — North Carolina county government — County officials — Forms of county service — Forms of co-operation — Country life problems and government — Economic problems — Social and institutional problems — Problems of organization and government.

Part I The Meaning Of Community

1. An early community pact. Perhaps there is no more appropriate way of beginning this discussion of the meaning of community than with the example of a community pact typical of all our American democracy and free institutions and entered into three hundred years ago this eleventh day of November nineteen hundred twenty. For the Mayflower compact not only represents an ideal of a community of men and women coming together for certain very definite and inclusive purposes of association and welfare, but it is typical also of the plans and purposes of this manual of community and government, in that it reveals the true basis and method of community and government working together. The Mayflower compact may well serve also as a fitting conclusion and challenge to present-day community work.

"In the name of God, Amen, Doe by these presents solemnly and mutually, in ye presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a Civil body politick for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of ye ends aforesaid and By Verture Hearof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal lawes, ordnances, Acts, constitutions and offices from time to time as shall be thought most meete and convenient for ye general goode of ye colonic. Unto which we promise a due submission and obedience."

2. Community and government. As in the beginning of our government, expressed in the Mayflower compact and a year earlier in the '^General Assembly" at James City in Virginia, community and government are inseparable in relationships so in our present-day efforts to give renewed energy and meaning to democracy, we must find in community and government the hope of greater realization. Group self-government in the community is but another form of socially-minded citizens organizing "for better ordering and preservation." For government in a democracy is of the citizens themselves, here and now in their midst, and not something apart and mystical. As the government is, so is the service to the citizen. The individual in the community may wrongly think he can separate himself from his government ; but if there be poor government, whether in health, education, protection, convenience, or any other form, the citizen suffers. And poor government in the community, on the other hand, can be corrected only by the citizens themselves. Community organization, therefore, becomes one of the chief modes of good government.

3. Community and democracy. The same is true of democracy itself. A great America composed of thousands of communities must, of a necessity, render its democrary through its communities. To quote Follett, "The technique of democracy is group organization." And Mr. Louis D. Brandeis expresses a similar sentiment when he affirms that "The great America for which we long is unattainable unless that individuality of communities becomes far more highly developed and becomes a common American phenomenon. For a century our growth has come through national expansion and the increase of the functions of the federal government. The growth of the future — at least of the immediate future — must be in quality and spiritual value. And that can come only through the concentrated, intensified strivings of smaller groups. The field for the special effort should now be the state, the city, the village. ... If ideals are developed locally the national ones will come pretty near taking care of themselves." One would need to test the efficacy of democracy only by applying it to the institutional services which it renders to the citizens in the community, in the home, in his school, in his work. If only our growing citizen may realize the bigness of the task ahead — to develop the community democracy of the future, based upon the ideals of national government and co-ordinated by the central government of states and nation!

4. The romance of democracy. Community welfare is but the enacted romance of democracy. All our plans of democracy have been based on ideals and the romance of a universal welfare. "What has made the democracy real is the fact that America has "made good" the statements, dedications, and covenants of the early groups of community folk working together. The great state papers of the Nation, fired with their idealism and romance, are great, as Mr. Roosevelt points out, because the American people have made them good. The ideals of democracy expressed by Mr. Wilson in his great addresses will be real and great only as the American communities make them true. Throughout the history of this country we have written, spoken, and dreamed dreams of a government in which all the people old and young, rich and poor, strong and weak, would have a chance in life. We have never debated any other alternative. And yet, when it comes to the enactment of this idealism, community democracy and organization must largely bear the responsibility of making the romance of our aspirations real.

5. The community and state. The most striking example of the failure of a government to make good its ideals is that of the German nation. This has been explained, perhaps more satisfactorily than in any other way, by the fact that all of Germany's idealism was attacked from within as faulty and in its stead substituted a mechanical sovereignty neglectful of the individual and the community self government. The American tendency ought to be the opposite although oft-reminders seem necessary. Just as the ideals of community government are prominent in the growing conceptions of the modern state, so in the unit of national government expressed in our ''states" there is recognized an invaluable agent for democratic government. The "state" as one of the units of national government becomes a larger community capable of carrying forward a better representative government. Likewise this unit of state government finds its strongest forces for democracy in its counties, cities, towns, villages and rural communities, all of which are coming to a fuller realization of the bigness of community organization and service.

6. The community and the school. Even the school, with its redirected programs for the teaching of active citizenship, finds the community, in the long run, its arbiter. For the school can be no more democratic than the community in whose image it is fashioned and the teachers whose training .the community fosters ; nor can the quality of its democratic education be much different from that of the commimity responsible for its personnel and government. This conviction has led Professor Hart to conclude that "the democratic problem in education is not primarily a problem of training children; it is the problem of making a community within which children cannot help growing up to be democratic, intelligent, disciplined to freedom, reverent of the goods of life, and eager to share in the task of the age. ' ' But the school and education, more than any other force perhaps, can make and remake the community after the fashion of socially-minded, self-governing and mutually participating groups. The school can offer its instruction and its plant for the centering of community activities and for the promotion of community knowledge and spirit. The school can teach its citizenship on the basis of these ideals and upon the actual working basis of community projects and community interest. The teachers and administrative officials themselves will become better grounded in the fundamentals of local and state government and will thereby become better teachers and better officials.

7. A basis of citizenship. The community, therefore, for the school, becomes the greatest laboratory of citizenship. While it is true that the school itself may become a little democracy, utilizing its organization and its functions for the promotion and practice of democracy, the real laboratory for democracy must be in the community. Here are all the institutional modes of life as expressed in the home, the school, the church, the state, and industry or work. Here are the scores of "little states" themselves. Here are opportunities for organic democracy, political democracy and educational democracy. Here are citizens in the making and older citizens in the re-making. Here are problems of association and recreation; of government and politics; of employment and leisure ; and of all the other human interests. When, therefore, the school can know its community and its citizens, and when the community can know its school and its work, new forces will have been released for the bringing up of well trained citizens for the future.

8. The community an institution. It must be very clear, therefore, that the community is an institution. For some time we have considered only four major institutions that make for civilization and social progress — the home, the school, the church and the state or government. To these we have now added community and industry. If one wishes to test the power and significance of community as an institution he would but need to inquire into the possibilities of the family without community support ; or of the school, or government, or of the church where the community is divided, or of conditions of labor where the community takes no thought for the welfare of workers. Or, again, what of the opportunities and obligations of play and recreation ; of general social life and pleasuref ul association ; of voluntary organizations and benevolent societies; and of the many forms of association not included in the other institutional modes of life? For almost unlimited good or evil have been many of the community's contributions and neglects in the realm of its own responsibility to its growing-up citizens. But even as the community must contribute to its fellow-institutions, so must the home, the school, government, church, and industry contribute their utmost to the making of the community a better place in which to live. This correlation of the institutions is one of the finer tests of community democracy.

9. The evolution of the community. If there could be further doubt as to the meaning of community it would be necessary only to trace its development and influence in the past, to note its present moulding of democracy, and to look forward to its growing power in local, national and international development. The history of peoples, of course, begins with the family; from the family grew, through association and co-operation in community efforts, the phratry, the gens, the clan, the tribe, the confederation, the nation, the empire. These organizations arose out of the imperative need for commimity co-operation for purposes of defense, subsistence, worship, special projects and others. The community of efforts and association has been the beginning and the mode of survival. Where no community co-operation could be effected survival was barely possible ; community, therefore, becomes in its spirit and form a fundamental in the development of all society and government. The spirit of community is essential. The American nation had not realized, prior to the great war, to what extent it was a community of communities;

the aggregate of community organization and effort during the war made the total national power. And if one looks to the future, to possibilities of the international mind and international relations it is very clear that community of interests and organization must be the only mode of relationship. The larger community of fellowship, learning, labor — and others — will contribute to whatever of technique that may make for world peace and fellowship. The school, in its promotion of community citizenship draws on its age-long resources and is therefore working in harmony with its fundamental history and principles.

10. The individual and community inseparable. It is very clear also, from all the above viewpoints, that the individual good is inseparably bound up in the community. If the aim of all our democracy and social progress be the highest possible development of the individual, through his social personality and relationship, it will be seen that the community's relation to the individual is fundamental. There have been individuals and families who have believed that they were independent of the rest of the community; that they could live their own lives heedless of the needs and limitations of the community. Came the day when disease or vice or poverty which they and the rest of the community had allowed to permeate the group disproved this theory. There have been families who held that theirs was no responsibility to other families or to the community's responsibility to its people. And the day has come when disease or vice, permitted by them in the community, has entered the home and taken away all that was uppermost in their lives and purposes. No individual or family can become isolated from the community, and it becomes, therefore, not only a duty, but a privilege and opportunity for every individual and every family to join hands in making the community a suitable example of democratic opportunity. Even as in the history of the community, so to-day, the individuals and communities who do not co-operate in community democracy scarcely survive in the long run.

11. Local communities interrelated. Of special importance and illustrative also of the task of democracy, is the close interrelationship of community to community. Evidence of this is abundant. It is easily manifest in the school where one community, having neglected its duty to the child, sends it on to another community; it is evident in the counties, where one county, having neglected its opportunities for rendering health and education service to its children, turns them over as burdens to another county. It is evident in the matter of work and morals; in progressive and non-progressive tendencies; and wherever communities touch in social relationships. It is very clear, therefore, that each community must find its positive obligation to develop its highest organization and service, and likewise must contribute, wherever possible, by example and participation, to the promotion of the highest development of community welfare everywhere. The very basis of uniform citizenship and democracy rests upon uniform community development and service everywhere. The task of every school, therefore, becomes increasingly important as it undertakes the teaching of citizenship and the building of community spirit.

12. Community ideals. There are many ideals of community work and association, even as there are ideals and possibilities in democracy and human aspirations. Some of these may be mentioned as typical. Every community ought to know itself and its citizens. "To know each other well enough to work together and to play together" ought to be a reasonable standard. Do we know each other so well? Would we not understand each other better and eliminate much of the limitations of working together if we knew each other better? Is not this an attainable ideal under the plan of community organization? The community will have other ideals in view. Sometimes the beautification of town and surrounding neighborhood is foremost ; sometimes an economic ideal needs to be worked out ; sometimes it is the problem of schools and teachers; sometimes it is the matter of streets, roads, health, and the general welfare. Sometimes it is the community spirit and recreation that predominates; and sometimes the prevailing interest is in local government itself through which the other ideals are to be contributed.

13. The community at work. But whatever the ideals and the specific purposes for the time being, the -community finds itself facing many tasks of importance. The community at work becomes an inspiration to democracy. And while there are many modes and methods of work the ultimate goal will be as nearly complete and efficient community organization as possible. On community organization an entire chapter will be necessary. Its form will be conditioned by the nature of the community, the purpose involved, and the resources available. Sometimes the community center forms a large part of the organized efforts of the community and combines with the school to make a clearing house for community activities from voting to play. Sometimes there is a general civic center which joins with schools and other institutions. Sometimes the churches contribute to organized community work. Sometimes the larger part of community work is done by the community club. Sometimes there are various organizations such as the woman's club, civic associations, chambers of commerce, and others. Sometimes community activities take the form of community fairs and gatherings, exhibits and clinics, campaigns and projects. And sometimes governmental and semi- governmental co-operation constitutes a large part of community organization, as for instance public welfare programs, home and farm demonstration agents, health officers, school teachers and officials. Not infrequently to the local voluntary associations and agencies national voluntary agencies contribute much.

14. Federated community service. In all the work of organization and promotion the community may well hope to work out a federated plan of service which will answer the greatest possible service with the least possible waste and duplication. Such a federated service would provide a close correlation of the efforts of all departments of public service among themselves and also a similar close correlation with voluntary agencies. Not infrequently the best plan of federating all efforts is found in a county council or other county organization looking toward the complete service to the county and all its communities. The problem of Health is a good example; education and the school represent another form of the county unit method of work. "Whatever the form of co-ordinated activities, the school finds itself a stragetic position and can contribute largely to success.

15. Types of communities. The nature of work done and the form of organization undertaken, as well as the number and character of the personnel of workers will depend much upon the type of community. It is quite evident that the city will have within its domain different types of communities from the general community of the small town or the village. The town will be different from the country community and communities in the cities, villages, and rural districts will differ among themselves. The very boundaries, territory and distinctions of communities vary greatly. Sometimes the community is centered around the school; sometimes around the several churches; sometimes a post-office or trading center ; sometimes a community may be bounded by its newspaper constituency or by its technical political or civil divisions of county and district. In the city it may be even a block, or ward, while in extreme rural districts the community may be bounded by streams or hills.

16. The small town community. The city and its problems of community organization have been the subject for much study and planning, and with success. The rural community is now being estimated as one of the most important problems of education and welfare. And this should be true. More should be done. Of special importance, however, from the viewpoint of the school is the small town community which has much of the county and city alike. Its possibilities are almost unlimited for good — and sometimes it seems for evil ! And, because of its reasonable size, its democratic citizenship, its neglect, its crowds of merry boys and girls, it is a challenge to the school for the development of the perfect community. Shall we not make of the small town the ideal of community living?

17. Active Citizenship. The community offers an almost undiscovered field for leadership and active citizenship in the promotion of community organization and local government. The following pages of this manual suggest some of the many opportunities available for the active citizen. To young men and young women, to the newly enfranchised women voters, and to voters of many years, the community calls. To all these and especially to school folk everywhere comes the heartening appeal of community and government.

THE MEANING OF WOMAN'S NEW PART IN GOVERN- MENT

18. Progress in democracy and government. The early years of this century will always remain eloquent with notable records of achievement in democracy and government. Even before the Great War the very definite tendencies toward larger ideals of government had resulted in achievements of no. little value. These achievements consisted not alone in improved organization and structure of democratic government but more essentially of the growth of community building through citizen interest, civic co-operation, and active participation in governmental services. Here were opened up new fields, new visions, new opportunities with practical difficulties and practical results available for the citizen of today and tomorrow. In the realm of community building, public service, and patriotism the citizen of today may reach goals unknown to the citizen of yesterday. And to this pre-war ideal the war itself has given great momentum, tending to give it direction and form adequate for after-war progress and public welfare standards.

19. The war and democracy. Then came the Great War in which not only the spirit of our democracy but also the very form of our government was tried by the fire of the world crisis. Would the spirit and soul of democracy, functioning through our fundamental American institutions, not only preserve its own traditions but blaze forth for the international mind and spirit the great truths of a progressive government, strong enough and big enough to cherish and cultivate the ideals of a people, and at the same time maintain their active and faithful interest in the means and forms of government control ? Would the machinery of a government, by and for the people, stand up under the test of gigantic struggle and unforeseen emergency, while putting to rout the forces of governments whose ideals and enactments would make machinery of men? The victory of our ideals is tribute to the contrast between our own potentials and the Europeans whom Mr. Chapman describes as loving too much "the glittering wares".

That art and education had devised To charm the leisure of philosophers; The thought, the passion have been undersized

In Europe's overeducated brain; And while the savants attitudinized, Excess of learning made their learning vain Till Fate broke all the toys and cried,

Begin again!

America does begin again but in the triumph of liberty whose cause transfigures the tragedies of struggle and challenges all citizenship not to forget too soon the ideals and achievements of recent democracy.

20. The 19th amendment. The third great achievement is found in the enactment of the nineteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution of the United States. This amendment, granting to women the right of suffrage, constitutes one of the most definite and positive contributions to the theory and practice of government ever recorded. "Within the few days that have elapsed since the Secretary of State certified to the validity of the amendment most citizens have scarcely realized the importance of the step. Here again both the spirit and form of our government are vitally affected. Certain it is that, in spirit, the amendment recognizes the great principles underlying representative government in giving to the people governed the rights of expression through representative modes of democracy. Democracy has been called the last and best solution of the social problem; the 19th amendment may be said to be the latest contribution to the solution of the problem of democracy. And while ranking perhaps as the greatest contribution of modern times, it will nevertheless, for a time, add new difficulties and problems to be worked out in the effort to realize adequate form for the expression of the ideals of democracy. Certain it is also that the coming of a new body of voters, v^^ith capacity potential approximating the present body, will affect the technique and practice of our government in the manner of elections, in the personnel of officials, and in the manner and methods of government operation. All these problems are a suitable challenge not only to the new voters but to the old as well. One may well doubt the efficacy of the patriotism of citizens who will not recognize the tremendous meaning of the new movement and set themselves wisely and seriously to the tasks ahead.

21. Woman of the ages. In the desire to understand and interpret the possibilities of the hour one would fain become the world artist and paint, with the master's hand, the composite spirit of womanhood, reviewing the past with its aspirations, joy and sorrows; its heritage of rich and joyous living; its never-ceasing story of romance ; withal its age-long tragedies and pitfalls of organic struggle; and its immeasurable contribution to the eternal values of human institutions. In this instance, perhaps the artist must needs paint the picture of the spiritualized American grandmother sitting in her corner when the day is done, dreaming dreams of yesterday, but