River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-07-17
Local SelfGovernment.

HAAhNA HAaA ~ DONA'
the Northern and Southern Democrats
against the election bill is that il is a
blow at local self-goverument. OF
course this argument is not germane,
because as matter of fact the bill APP
plies TO no election in which the ques'
ton OF local self-goveTnment is con-
cerned. If the bill becomes a law the
right to choose local officers in the
Southern States from governors down
in whatever way the people of the
state desire remains entirely unaffect-
ed. The eight ballot-box law, by
which the negroes of South Carolina
are DISTINGUISHED, will remain unre-
pealed SO far as the election of all
state and local officers is concerned.
The great privilege of cheating the
ringers" will remain untouched ex-
cept in the matter of congressional
elections. So as matter of fact the
question of local self-government is
not i'm issue at all.
But it is worth while TO examine this
argument, Notwithstanding its lack of
application to the bill In issue, and
compare it with the practices of the
people in whose behalf it is offered
in order to test their sincerity. By
local government is meant, of
course, the right of the people-that
is all the people-to manage their own
local affairs. This is the right which
the Southern Democrats profess to be
contending for with great vehemence.
Have the Southern white Democrats
been in the habit of practicing the
doctrines which they now preach, or
has their practice been exactly the
reversed Before the war, which was
the more democratic section of the
country, the North or the South!
Where did the people the more COM
pletely manage their local affairs, in
Massachusetts or in South Cardinal
There is nobody SO reckless, we pre-
sumo, as to deny that the governments
of all the slave-holding states before
the war were practically in the hands
of an oligarchy and that the common
people had very little to do with them.
Since the war the situation has not
materially changed. The black man
has been enfranchised by the constitu.
ton, but the white oligarchy still
insist that they are the rulers of the
South. not by virtue of superior num-
bers, but by virtue of God.given
right. All legislation since the war
in the Southern States has tended to
concentrate power in the hands of a
white eligarchy. This tendency was
very forcibly pointed out by Mr..
Haugen of Wisconsin, in speech IN
the House last week. Mr.. Haugen
showed that in none of the Southern
tier of states was the choice of cleo
ton officers lodged in the community
in which they were to serve. In
every instance local elections were
guided and controlled by officers ap-
pointed by the state. In Virginia the
legislature usurpS local self-govern-
ment in every county by appointing
three electoral commissioners in each
one. In Maryland the appointment of
all local elections boards is vested in
the governor. In Mississippi an cleo
ton commission consisting of COVER
nor, lieutenant governor and secretary
of state form the fountain head from
which flows the authority to supervise
and conduct elections. In Alabama
the power is vested in the sheriff.
county Judge, and clerk of the court;
in South Carolina it is in the state;
likewise in Florida and North Carroll
ma; in Arkansas. in the county judge.
In Short" said Mr.. Haugen, ''you
may look all through the Southern
states in vain for a discoverable trace
of the home, town or city government
of the Northwest, inherited by us
from New England. In Democratic
states the tendency is all the time in
the opposite direction. to rob the local
community of the privilege of con.
trolling it's own affairs, and to place at
the head of the government the state
instead of the people constituting the
state" In the light of these facts it
is impossible to believe that the South
ern argument for local self-govern-
ment which is now so vehemently
made Is gincere. Belief in govern
menment by the people is incompati-
BILE with the tendency of all Southern
legislation to take the government out
of the bands OF the pople and concen-
trate it in the hands Of the few.-Port-
land (Me.) Press. July Isl.
What is home without a newspa-