The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-17

munitles are bound into one commun- ity They string wires and the busi- ness methods of centuries are thrown Into the waste basket. Some of them work together and individual isolation becomes the making of failure They stop to look at themselves in the cos mic mirror and self-dissatisfactio breeds reformation.
 That Is what Is happening now in this great country into which we have grown. We have somehow caught a glimpse of our real selves-perhaps not a complete reflection, but enough to set us thinking. We see ourselves rich, powerful, progressive. Do we see our selves sordid, with low ideals, with false ambitions? No: this last is Roo severe, we are not that, surely. Look again in the mirror. It Is perplexity that is marked on the national coun- tenance. We are troubled because some things are going wrong. We are sur- prised and some of us are angry be- cause old ways will no longer answer. We, some of us, are resentful because our pet doctrines are becoming evil dently unavoidable. We see great evils and are uncertain how to correct them; sometimes we gird at men who are trying to correct them in ways not ours Let us be more specific, we citi- zens of older commonwealths assem- bled here in amiable gool will, let us be more definite. We have certainly to re- adjust the boundaries of home-rule as distinguished from general law. Time was, and not so long ago. when towns were splitting up into smaller towns. The physical exigencies of the period demanded such action. To-day the cities, at least, are binding contiguous communities to themselves in larger and yet larger areas subject to a single code. This tendency has come with the trolley car and the telephone. Time was when the States were political units. Beyond the occasional election of senator what political question, in the larger sense, does any State leg islature discuss or vote upon? They, the legislatures, are busy, or ought to be- with providing for the education of the children, the maintenance of good order, the protection of the weak, the control of the strong. Now these prob lems are substantially the same in every State, thoug the means for dealing with tenn vary widely. Hence our need to learn from each other, to copy good laws from each oter, if we would both, if we would all, achieve
 the highest good.
 Among the highest of the rights oi the States Is the right to cooperate
 with other States in the adoption oi
 uniform laws to fit like conditions Ant yet we hesitate, and proceed along oul forty different ways because, long ago
 knowing little of each other, we were
 obliged to work separately and inde
 pendently. We of Connecticut need tt
 learn this lesson of the wisdom of oth
 or people. We may fairly claim t
 have done more than our sister State. in devising a practicable scheme for Q constitutional democracy. We have no lexcelled others in building statutory
 scheme based on the principles whicl | we were first to formulate. We ma, Ilearn from some of our young sistel States much of educational policy
 much, in other lines, of value to tht
 commonwealth. This is not to say tha' | we have nothing admirable to give 1T | return; we can pay in kind for wha i've take.