Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-18
The United State.


Of his observations in this country has
entitled his book 1.-The United State"
1t is an ingenius phrase and it very
aptly expresses the present condition
of our great republic. The map shows
about half hundred states and terri
tories making up the country, but when
we come to think of it the lines between
them Go rot stand for much, after all.
1t is one of the most significant things
in the development of our institutions
that our states have steadily declined
in importance as political units. This
is nothing to be regretted, for it has
come with progress and greater power
as a nation, and it is a change which
has gone on within the constitution.
It is likely that when the federal gov
eminent was organized in 1889, most
people looked upon the constitution as
something like a treaty between sover-
eign states with the general govern
ment as a central agent to see that it's
provisions were carried into effect. Now
nobody believes that the states are
sovereign, and few would have them so.
They are convenient geographical allot-
ments with certain powers of local gov
eminent, but their boundary lines stand
for conditions that are pretty well out
grown. They have become inseparably
welded together into a great union
whose central government has ever-in-
creasing powers, and the united states,
which at first belied their name, have
become in truth the United State.
All this does not mean that states
are ceasing to have pride in their ORR
gin and history, or that their local
characteristics are being wholly oblit-
Grated. but state names now stand
for much less difference in the individ-
ual types than in the former days. An
indication of the drift is in the way in
which Congress and the President now
fact on matters formerly conceded to be
within the province of states. The in
terstate commerce law, the antitrust
laws, national legislation in matters of
irriga tion forestry and river and har-
Dor improvements, and the agitation for
uniformity of legislation on matters
like marriage, divorce and commercial
transactions are some of the many
straws drifting in the same direction.
| AS the states have suffered in loss of
power and individual prestige, so have
their governors and capitals suffered.
| Probably not one American in many
thousand can name the governors of all
| the states. and few of us who are out
of school can name the capitals of the
states. We doubt if one Journal reader
in score can name the governors of
Iour six New England states. And as
states and governors have dwindled, so
have cities and their mayors grown I'M
til now the mayors of the great cities
are more prominently in the public eye
than the governors of the states in
which the cities are located. The mu-
nicipal campaigns in New York, Phila-
ldelpha and Chicago, attract about as
much attention as do state campaigns,
and cities like Toledo, Cleveland and
Cincinnati have mayors who are known
the breadth of the land. Pingree owed
more of his reputation to his work as
mayor of Detroit than to his work as
lgovernor Of Michigan.
1t is not strange that cities have
lgrown in power and prominence at the
Iexpense of states when it is considered
that one-third of our population now
lives in cities while only one-thirtieth
of it lived in cities, a century ago. The
Estate of New York transacts its bust
ness at an annual outlay of about $24-
100000 while the city of the same name
within it's borders is run at an annual
leXpense of 500, 100000. And yet the city
is the creature of the state and there
is no danger that it will replace the
state as the unit in our government,
though cities, rather than provinces,
were the units in the Roman empire.