CHAPTER VIII

HOME RULE

Two Uniforms.-There are two government officers that every boy and girl sees daily on the street. They both wear uniforms. They both render important and familiar services to us all. I mean the policeman and the postman.

At first sight you might think there was no especial difference between these two public servants, except the particular work they did. But there is one other difference that is most important and packed with meaning. If you understand this difference and the reason for it you will understand a very large part of American government. You will gain an idea that goes to the roots of our whole system.

You can discover this important fact for yourself. Look at a postage-stamp and you will find on it the words "U. S. Postage." Look on the policeman's shield and you will find the name of your city, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, or your village, however small. The name of the locality is there-but no "U.S."

The Two Kinds of Work.-This is not mere chance. It has a far-reaching cause. Can you work it out for yourself? Why should the postman be as he is an officer of the United States, of the national government at Washington, and the policeman an officer of your

local government? Is not the reason fairly clear when you come to think of it? The policeman's job is wholly local. He has his beat, which may change, but his work never takes him out of the locality. It is local peace, local order, that he is to preserve. So he is hired and paid by the local government, the village or city where you live. The postman, on the other hand, is part of a vast system that covers the whole country. Your particular postman's job is local enough, to deliver letters on a given street or route. But the letters he delivers come from all over the United States, all over the world. He is one small cog in a great machine which has to be unified and under one central control to work well. Naturally he is hired and paid by the national government, the Post-Office Department, at Washington.

The Principle of Home Rule.-Now, the great, general rule of America is to let each community do just as much governing as it safely can. The principle of home rule this is often called, and the idea of it is deep in every American. It goes back to our whole notion of personal liberty and the right of each individual to run his own concerns.

In the Family. Self-control or self-government is the beginning of home rule. Every American boy and girl is trusted far more than other children. It is the American way to put children on their honor as far as possible, to let them learn the value of money by using and saving it, to run their games, and generally take responsibility early. There are, of course, many things in which parents and teachers must give orders and

children must obey implicitly. Whenever possible, Americans prefer to let their children learn by choosing and deciding for themselves. This system, we believe, produces self-reliant men and women, rich in individual character and common sense and what is called initiative, the ability to act alone, on one's own ideas, without prodding from some from some one else. Americans are selfstarters, we like to think.

Centralized Government. This principle applies not only in the home but all the way up, through each division of the country, in village, town, county, city, and State. You can see that the country might still be a democracy and be run on quite the reverse principle. All the power might be centralized at Washington. Your policeman might be hired by the government at Washington just as is the postman. That is, in fact, very much the way the French Government is run.

The American Theory.-But it is not the American way. Our theory is exactly that of home rule, that each community ought to run as much of its local affairs as it can run well. By handling their local affairs, running their schools, paving their streets, operating their own fire departments, Americans learn about public affairs and become self-reliant citizens, able to vote more wisely on the great national questions that arise. You can see that this is the selfgovernment theory over again, that America tries to develop self-reliance in its communities exactly as it does in its boys and girls.

The Forty-Eight States.-The States are the essential framework of home rule in our government. They are

something far more than mere areas of square miles, physical divisions into which the nation is carved. They are living parts of our national being, as complete in themselves and as necessary and vital to the life of the nation as the nine individual players are necessary to a ball team. That is why they are all symbolized separately in the flag, each by a star and the thirteen original States by a stripe as well.

Without the States, each leading a life of its own, it is doubtful if our nation could endure. It was the prediction of European observers that no nation as vast as ours could long exist as a republic. That it has done so and has prospered and stands to-day securer than ever is due first of all to this basic American idea of a union of States, all endowed with full power of home rule.

Chance had everything to do with the creation of this unit at the start. As you know, there were thirteen colonies at the time of the Revolution and these thirteen colonies became the thirteen original States. Our forefathers united these separate governments into one government, which they called the United States of America. The name recorded exactly what happened. "Federal" is another word often used to describe this fact in our government, that it was formed of several governments united in one government. The word means just that. The Latin motto "E pluribus unum,' which is on our coins, meaning "One from many," expresses the same idea.

There was no effort to destroy any part of the State governments. These going concerns were accepted of

necessity. The problem that faced the wise, far-seeing, and patient men who met in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was how to give full home rule to each of these separate States and yet so firmly unite them in a single nation that no quarrel from without or within could ever break them apart. How marvellously successful they were, time has proved. William Ewart Gladstone, the great Englishman, declared that the American Constitution was "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." That is the general opinion of man

kind.

The National Government.-You see, then, the general scheme of our government. You can easily work out some of the details yourself. The mails were put in charge of the federal government (that is the government at Washington) for the obvious reason suggested before. Mails had to travel between States and, of course, no one State could handle them efficiently. All commerce between States (interstate commerce, it is called, which is Latin for between-state) was placed under national control. The coining of money, which has to circulate in every State, was placed under federal control. The power to declare war and control of the army and navy were also given to the national government. Otherwise, as you can see, the separate States might have quarrelled as they pleased and there would have been no real nation at all. Also the national government received the important power to raise money by taxation to pay its expenses. (You will remember from your American history that after the Revolu