The Father and the Mother State : Part 6

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 21 of 23)

Comparison Between National and Local Effort. - One reason why some elements of social progress lag behind others which are not more firmly believed in is that confusion of effort has followed the contrary forms of attack upon the national, the state, or the local governments for the furtherance of the object in which all parties believe. Instances are not needed in this connection for every person who has worked or who desires to work for social betterment finds this question at the gateway of organized effort. Shall one turn to the centralizing tendency in political life of our country for support of a given measure, or shall one make a breakwater in that tendency and concentrate attention upon the smaller political units?

Preferential Voting. - The second problem of political science and art which presses upon the attention of our electorate is one which is bound up in methods of selection and election of our legislators and executives. The ever-recurring question of, "For whom shall we vote?" - rests back upon the deeper question, "For whom shall we have a chance to vote?" The primary was supposed to end the acknowledged corruption and inadequacy of the caucus system. The primary is an advance on the secret caucus with its choice of men for the highest office by a few partisan politicians only, whose business it is to keep party lines strong and to make them carry their candidate into office. The primary, however, we see, is a very expensive method and open to many dangers, and progressive students of political methods are not satisfied with it. Why can we not move, and strongly, for preferential voting? For some plan by which it shall be the public purse only which secures the necessary printing and circularizing for required information, and no personal differences in wealth shall have any weight in the listing of names on the ballot?

To have a law by which any legally named number of voters (a sufficient number to keep out lonely cranks, but not a sufficient number to suppress considerable minorities) should indicate by petition desire for a chance to vote for a specific representative of their political ideals? The legal requirement that such persons so named should have a place on the official ballot and that all voting citizens should be able to indicate their graded preference for all candidates thus officially listed, would give the people of a democracy a chance to really choose the kind of legislators they want and the kind of executives they think they need. In the present situation the independent mind and conscientious purpose often has a choice only between "necessary evils" or the refuge of the political "woods."

Proportional Representation. - The adoption of some form of preferential voting can alone give the voters a chance for proportional representation of their ideals and aims in legislative bodies. We are seeing that the limits of useful partisanship in politics are narrower than was once thought. No sane and sensible person really believes that all of goodness and of wisdom is contained in his party and that its success is a valid reason for "turning out the rascals" of the other party. No sane and sensible person believes that there is such a thing as "Democratic" economy, or "Republican" justice, or "Socialistic" efficiency, or "Labor Party" good government. There are only economy, efficiency, justice, and good government. Each party may have a different ideal of the best method of attaining these political necessities, and, therefore, since truth is not gained by dogmatic assumptions of any one set of persons but by approach to problems of mind and character from different angles of experience and of study, each party should have its representatives in the legislative bodies of nation, state, and community.

And every new idea of political reform and social progress that by dint of hard work among the intellectual and moral élite has gained a substantial following in public opinion of even a relatively small minority, has, in justice, and in demand for constant advance in human affairs, a right to a place in the high debate of political leadership. It is, therefore, for those who believe in the worth and use of freedom and of mutual tolerance and respect, in political discussion and action, to work for some method of selection of political representatives of the people which will make our legislative bodies more truly official sections of the thought and moral ideal of the whole life of the body politic. This is, perhaps, the greatest of the political calls for increased wisdom and practical sense in our country.

The third problem which presses for attention, study and possible solution upon the voters of the United States, and one in which the new voters, the women, are peculiarly concerned and in a position of past experience and of present activity to add much weight and value to the debate it occasions, is this:

What Shall Public and What Shall Private Social Service Attempt? - How far and by what ways shall the varied philanthropic and educational activities which are named in mass "social work," and which have been developed and are now so largely operated by private and volunteer agencies and organizations, be made a part of the official service of the father and the mother state? In this social work, so far, the few have set a pattern of aid to individuals, which public agencies have tended to take over without much serious study of whether in any particular case the transfer was necessary or wise. This change has often been made, also, without determining whether or not further supervisory work by the private citizen was needed to keep the social enterprise true to its original and tested principles of action.

The time has come when in all such changes from private and volunteer work of a few to the demand for support and the dependence upon guidance of the many, through public officials, we should have some clear guiding principle. What that principle may be it is not the purpose here to discuss, but the state that is now doing so much that only families were formerly expected to do, and is attempting to do so much that only trained and devoted service of experts chosen by acknowledged leaders in social service has previously tried to accomplish, must be tutored and must be supervised by a more intelligent electorate if it is to do its more ambitious tasks well. No private agency should allow its finest fruits of longest study and effort to be absorbed by official provision and control, unless it can gain assurance that those fruits will be secure in the transfer.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.