Few burgesses seem to know that ten ratepayers in a parish possess the right to nominate any one of their fellow ratepayers to represent them for three years on the Town Council. The nominations are now made in secret by party cliques, a practice never intended by our Constitution. This mischievous practice can be directly checked by the liberty of independent action thus provided for. I have already referred to the right to demand a poll at any statutory meeting where serious objection is taken to any proposed measure, a most important guarantee of municipal liberty, quite unknown, apparently, to the majority of ratepayers.
I need not enter upon the important questions of the selection of Poor-law guardians, of members of School Boards, and other officers supposed to be elected by ratepayers, because the same criticism applies to all. At present, indifference to all these important elections prevails unless a sharp contest springs up on party politics. Yet questions really vital to our national welfare are involved in these apparently minor points in our municipal housekeeping, and I believe that the indifference now felt towards our borough elections, when not stimulated by party strife, proceeds from ignorance of these larger relations.
It is in the hope of seeing this great municipal education begun on a large plan, quite above party strife, that I have ventured to refer to this episode of personal experience.
Those who profoundly believe in the moral government of this world, and who would help in establishing a true Theocracy, must seek truth from all sources. Our modern prophets, Herbert Spencer, John Ruskin, and many another seeker for truth, must be earnestly listened to; not as gods, but as men who with human limitations, nevertheless through evil and good report, never swerve from the steadfast unselfish search for truth—men who are enabled to see clearly great aspects of Divine truth, and who can refresh and guide us in our humbler, but providential task. Such men are often the truest followers of our Lord in this nineteenth century.
To all women voters, to all our poorer ratepayers, I earnestly recommend the formation of a union for the study of municipal rights and duties, and I hope that my humble but earnest effort in this direction will enlist the sympathy and guidance of all those truth-seers most able to help us.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Between four and five hundred summonses for rates this quarter in our little town.
ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE OPENING
OF THE
WOMEN’S MEDICAL COLLEGE
OF THE
New York Infirmary, 126, Second Avenue
November 2, 1868