Local Self-Governvient. 259
��LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.
By R. L. Bridgman.
" The right of local self-government " sisted to the last that it was an inva- is a common expression. Believers in sion of local rights. that " right " are numerous and influ- Apparently it is a common doctrine, ential in politics, from the ancient accepted without question by most of democrat who insists upon a narrow our people, that there is inherent in limitation of the powers of our national municipal corporations an indefeasible government, to the local leader who right to rule themselves in local mat- asserts that his towTi has an exclusive ters. A recent pamphlet by Mr. James right to manage its own affairs. They M. Bugbee of Boston says, — maintain this " right " as apohtical prin- " How jealously the people guarded ciple, no matter if the local manage- their 7-ights of local self-government ment injures seriously the adjoining against the encroachments of the cen- municipalities, and practically brings tral power, is shown in the refusal of the the law of the State into contempt. inhabitants of Watertown to pay a tax
The recent enactment by the Massa- of eight pounds " for fortifications in chusetts Legislature of a law vesting in Cambridge ; and their pastor and elders the governor the power of appointing said : " It was not safe to pay moneys the Boston Police Commissioners, em- after that sort, for fear of bringing phasized in the public mind by pro- themselves and posterity into bond- longed hostile filibustering under the age."
lead of Boston members, has revealed The writer of to-day, and the local
a public opinion concerning the rights leaders of two hundred years ago, evi-
of local self-government which involves dently agree that the local government
a serious misapprehension of the real had rights not to be restricted by a
right of towns and cities to rule over higher power.
their own affairs. Not until the agi- Professor Edward Channing of Har- tation had proceeded for weeks, did vard University, in a pamphlet in the the difficulties involved concerning the Johns Hopkins historical series, con- rights of self-government become set- trasting New England with Virginia, tied in the minds of the majority ; and says, —
it was doubtless true that the position " In New England, on the contrary,
maintained throughout by the minority the mass of the people, from the very
was at first held in common by most earliest time, seized the control of
of the members. Abundant press com- affairs, and fiercely resented any en-
ment also. Republican and Democratic, croachment on what they considered
both within and without the State, was their rights.^^
to the effect that the law was a direct Professor James K. Hosmer, in an-
blow at the city's right of self-govern- other pamphlet of the same series,
ment, and hostile to the principles of remarks, —
democracy. Some journals which even " At the time of the colonization of
advised the enactment of the law in- America, the old self-government of
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