The Farmer and His Community

by Dwight Sanderson

As long as farm life was on the neighborhood basis, its interests largely centering in the district school and the country church, its roads maintained by the labor of its citizens under a local road supervisor, and trips to the village were made only once or twice a week for mail and supplies, farmers did not feel the need for a unit of local government other than the township. But when the church, the grange and the lodge are in the village, when they desire consolidated schools, libraries, and community houses, which are most convenient to all at the village center, and when they desire the improvement of local roads so that they will best connect with state and county roads, then the interests of the farmers and the villagers unite them in these common enterprises, and the community comes into conflict with the rest of the township if the township is composed of more than one community.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that for many purposes the community, or even the township, is too small a unit to secure the greatest efficiency in administration of public agencies, and so there has been a distinct tendency toward the centralization of many functions of local government in county officials. Thus the county superintendent of schools is assuming more and more control over the local school system, the county supervision of roads is increasing, and we have shown (p. 145) the desirability of a county health administration, the need for county juvenile courts (p. 188), county boards for the administration of welfare work (p. 191), and a county library system. The county tends to become a rural municipality very similar in function and organization to the city, and the logical outcome seems to be the employment of a county manager under a commission or county council, which has already become possible in Maryland and California.[78] That this centralization makes possible a greater efficiency in administration can hardly be doubted, but that it tends to destroy the initiative and responsibility of the local community is equally apparent. With an over-centralization of administration, whether in the county or the state, the local community loses the very ties which have bound it together. The adjustment of the desires for efficiency and for local democracy is one of the unsolved problems of government. Experience shows clearly that the local community or township is too small a unit to secure efficient administration; but it is also evident that without some degree of local responsibility and control, centralized administration tends to become bureaucratic and the people are deprived of that participation in government which is essential for the life of a democracy.

Thus the need for the local self-government of rural communities has become apparent to rural leaders. It is interesting to note that this is becoming appreciated in the South, where on account of social and economic conditions local government has been almost entirely lacking in the past, but where new conditions give rise to new desires which cannot be realized except through some means whereby a locality can be free to work out its own salvation. This point of view has been vigorously expressed by Dr. Clarence Poe, editor of the Progressive Farmer and a recognized leader of rural life in the South:

"The chief task of the man who would help develop a rich and puissant rural civilization here in the South—the chief task perhaps of the man who would make an agricultural State like North Carolina the great commonwealth it ought to be—is to develop the rural community."...

"Consider the fact that the country community is the only social unit known to our civilization that is without definite boundaries and without machinery for self-expression and development—without form, and void, as was chaos before creation."...

"But for the country community there is no organic means of expression whatever. There is, of course, that shadowy and futile geographical division known as the Township—but it is laid off utterly without regard to human consideration, and serves no purpose save as a means of defining voting boundaries and limiting the spheres of constables and sheriff's deputies—a mere ghostly phantom of a social entity that we need not consider at all."[79]

And he then goes on to show the advantages of the New England township.

Community School Districts.—The most significant beginning toward the creation of self-government for the rural community is in the laws which have been passed by several states permitting redistricting for the establishment of community high schools or consolidated schools, irrespective of township or county boundaries and according to the desire of the prospective patrons of the schools. Thus in 1919 Nebraska passed a state rural school redistricting law under which every county has a redistricting committee which determines what seem to be the natural boundaries of the district, which are then subject to petitions from the people for their alteration, and the whole plan is then submitted to a vote of the county. "The law does not explicitly state that the proposed districts must correspond to a natural community in the social sense; it only says that they must be very much larger than the old ones, approximately twenty-five square miles. The inevitable result, however, of opening the question and of freeing community choice from old political boundaries is to settle on new areas approaching social units with self-conscious community ties."[80] Kansas and Illinois have somewhat similar legislation and a community unit is proposed by the Committee of 21 which has recently conducted a survey of the rural school situation in the State of New York.

Community House Districts.—Wisconsin has passed an act whereby the people of any local area may vote to erect and maintain a community house and may establish the boundaries of the area in which the citizens shall have the right to tax themselves for this purpose, and to elect trustees of the house, in much the same manner as community school districts are established. It seems probable that when a natural social area has thus been determined it will probably be the same for both school and community house, and that it might be the best unit for the support of such community agencies as a public library, or a public-health nurse, and thus a real community government might gradually arise and might ultimately displace the arbitrary township government, although the township might be retained for its original purpose of land registration.

Rural Community Incorporation.—The most advanced step in giving the rural community self-government is An Act to Provide for the Incorporation of Rural Communities, passed by the legislature of North Carolina in 1919.[81] This act gives authority for the incorporation of rural communities including definite school districts, which may or may not include hamlets or village centers, but which must be at least two miles from any town or city of five thousand or more inhabitants. It gives such incorporated rural communities the general powers and privileges of an incorporated village, except that they cannot lose their identity as a part of the school and road systems of the county. Taxes may be levied for various public purposes, but they must be voted at an annual meeting at which a majority of the registered voters must be present, or be submitted to an election, and the amount of taxes and bonds are limited. Although about a dozen communities have incorporated under this act, but few of them seem to be actively functioning, due to various local causes. The act itself, however, is well conceived and is worthy of study by those interested in better rural government.