The midland journal., 1917-04-13
REEORMS NEEDED IN MARY
LAND.
Corrupt Elections, Useless Offices,
Taxation and Other Political
Problems Considered.
Series OF Articles By jackson III.
Ralston.
Article XVI
Article XVI

Article XVI
To the Editor of the Midland
Journal
In writing this closing article
cannot do better than quote q few
sentences from De Tocqueville's
Democracy in America" Deter
mined admirer of Democratic Gov
ernment, yet he was entirely
alive to its faults and dangers.
Speaking of the people under de-
mocracy, he said, "They console
themselves for being in tutelage by
the reflection that they have chosen
their own guardians. Every man al
lows himself to- be put in leading
strings because he sees that it is not
a person or class of persons, but the
people at large that hold the end of
his chain By this system the people
shake off their state of dependence
just long enough to select their
master, and then relapse into it
again. A great many persons at the
present day are quite content with
this sort of compromise between ad
ministrative despotism and the
sovereignty of the people; and they
think they have done enough for the
protection of individual freedom
when they have surrenderd it to the
power of the nation at large"
Again he says: ''It is in vain to
summon the people, who have been
rendered so dependent on the central
power, to choose from time to time
the representatives of that power;
this rare and brief exercise of their
free choice, however important it
may be, will not prevent them from
gradually losing the faculties of
thinking, feeling, and acting for
themselves and thus gradually fall
ing below the level of humanity.
add that they will soon become in
capable of exercising the great
privilege which remains to them. :"
He further believed that it was
"easier to establish an absolute and
despotic government amongst peo
pie in which the conditions of so
ciety are equal, than amongst any
other; and 1 think that if such
government were once. established
amongst such people, it would not
only oppress men, but would event
ually strip each of them of severa'
of the highest qualities of hu-
manity."
In what 1 have written have en-
deavored as we'll as was possible to
me to point ,out the fact that the
people Of the State of Maryland have
surrendered their liberties, without
full consciousness of the fact that
they have allowed corruption to in
crease among them; have permitted
their rulers to be the choice not of
the people at large but Of narrow
oligarchies known as machines; have
allowed their powers over legisla-
tion to rest in the hands of a few
men largely controlled by selfish in
terests; have been content, as De
Tocqueville indicated, to consider
that their duties to the Government
were fulfilled when they had ex-
pressed a choice for certain men for
public Office and, as he did not point
out, but James Bryce has described
these selected by machines; have
multiplied the powers of machines
by indirect and inefficient govern
ment; have perpetuated systems OF
taxation oppressive to industry, and
not at all proportioned to the bene-
fits conferred by government and so
ciety at large.
Notwithstanding the serious in
dictments which may be brought
against our state government be-
cause of it's departure from true de-
mocracy and because of the many
respects in which it has shackled the
political freedom of our citizens, l
do not believe, and l should exceed
ingly regret to believe, that condi-
tions in Maryland are in any degree
hopeless.
1 advert again to the fact that
while we have not that most import
ant democratic reform, the Initia-
tive, in Maryland, we have at least
the Referendum. While we have
q paralyzing system of taxation, we
are at least free to correct it by the
substitution of better one. While
we have corrupt elections it is within
Ne power of our electors to correct
terially this system by taking adj