The first thing to be reformed in county government is not the officers down at the courthouse, but our own attitude toward the county, and particularly toward public office. For, after all, public officers in this country are just what the people make them … [Footnote 3: H.S. Gilbertson, Forms of County Government, in the University of North Carolina Record, No. 159, October, 1918, p. 38.]
There are those who advocate breaking up the county into smaller units for purposes of local self-government, as in New England. Thomas Jefferson, living in Virginia where the county was the sole unit of local government, was a great admirer of the New England town meeting, and said that "public education and the subdivision of the counties into wards," or townships, were the "two hooks" upon which republican government must hang. On the other hand, we have observed an opposite tendency to concentrate the administration of schools, roads, health, and other matters, in the county government (see pp. 294,325). The fact is that both the organization for centralized, county-wide government, and that for the government of local communities within the county, have their uses. Neither can do its best work without the other. The problem is to deter mine what the business of each should be and to establish a proper balance between them. One thing is sure, namely, that the government of the county cannot be effective unless the people of the various communities within the county are organized to cooperate both for their local interests and for the interests of the county as a whole. This may be provided for in part through township governments, where they exist, and in part through such unofficial organization as that described for the New England town (p. 402), or as that furnished by the farm bureau with its local community committees (p. 30).
One of the most progressive states in the matter of county government is North Carolina. One of the chief instruments by which this progress has been made is the NORTH CAROLINA CLUB, organized by the University of North Carolina for the study and promotion of the interests of the state. The North Carolina Club has affiliated with it COUNTY CLUBS, each of which studies its own county and promotes its interests. In North Carolina they are working in both directions suggested above: in the direction of an effective central county government, and in the direction of organization of all local communities for the study of needs and for teamwork in providing for them. See references.
THE COUNTY AS A SUBDIVISION OF THE STATE
Another important factor in county government is the control exercised over it by the state. The county is not only a local self-governing unit, but it is also a division of the state for the administration of state laws. Its powers of self-government are given to it by the state, and along with these powers it has imposed upon it certain duties for the state. First of all, the county is a STATE JUDICIAL DISTRICT. The most important building at the county seat is the courthouse. The COUNTY COURT is one of the state courts described in the next chapter. The county judge is sometimes chosen by the people of the county, but he is really a state officer. In New England the county is almost solely a judicial district, and in all states its judicial purposes are of supreme importance.
But more than this, the county schools are a part of the state school system and must be administered in accordance with state laws, though by county and township officers. County officers must enforce the health laws of the state. County authorities not only levy and collect county taxes, but also collect state taxes from residents of the county.
THE NECESSITY FOR STATE CONTROL
Here again we have an illustration of the necessity for a careful balance between matters properly subject to local self-government and those properly subject to state control. Counties have suffered both from too much state control in some respects, and from too little in others.
The whole state is injured … if one township lets its citizenship deteriorate through ignorance or drunkenness, and so the state has a right to say that at least six months school term must be given in every township and that no whiskey-selling shall be permitted. Or if one township is infested with cattle ticks, other townships are injured, and so the state may set a minimum standard here …
It often happens that the citizens of one county pay more than their share of the state taxes because it has better methods of assessing and collecting taxes and of keeping accounts than other counties in the state. One of the greatest needs of counties, and one least provided for, is uniformity among the counties of a state in methods of keeping accounts (see example on page 410). Some states have established state systems of auditing county finances.