But that is but one side of the story. For while, on the one hand, the importance of the county is threatened in particular fields there seems to be before it in other directions a career of greater usefulness than ever before. This present observation, however, applies only to those states where the town or township has come in for particular emphasis, or where, as will be suggested later in the discussion, the principle of federation may be adopted by a number of contiguous municipalities as a step toward consolidation of local governments.
In a number of states where the New England influence has been strong the town is frequently the unit (though not always exclusively) for the custodianship of certain records such as deeds and mortgages, for public health administration, for commitment of paupers, for road construction and maintenance or for tax assessment and collection.
The relation of the county to the town in these concerns is analogous to that of the state to county in such matters as the care of the insane and the control of trunk-line highways. It is a question of finding a unit large enough (and not too large) to fit the problem in hand. Public health, for example, is largely a matter of controlling sources of disease in milk and water supply, which under modern methods of living are usually much more widely distributed than the area which is served. Effective control in that case would simply mean control through a unit larger than the town, to wit: the county, unless control on a still wider scale should prove feasible. Similarly in the matter of police protection: the town constable is an anachronism in these days of rapid transit. The county is a more appropriate police unit than the town. Town custodianship of records means duplication, lack of standards and waste. Town commitment of paupers to the county almshouse or poor farm is a temptation on the part of the smaller locality to shift its burdens on to the shoulders of the whole county.
When it comes to highway construction, the high technical skill which needs to go into the work is a commodity which comes too high for a town and even, as we have pointed out, for the county.
But the most serious misfits of town government are the local agents of tax administration. Wherever the town is the smallest tax unit not only is the number of officials needlessly multiplied, but diverse standards of property valuation are set up and competition is resorted to between towns with a view to escaping their just share of taxation. Without a dissenting voice the recognized tax experts of the county are firmly of the opinion that the town as a unit of tax assessment and tax collection must give way to the county.
And so, the readjustments that are working out the ultimate destiny of the county are not wholly of a negative sort. It is not all a matter of trimming the county’s wings.
[16] Variously designated in different states as state’s attorney, prosecutor of the pleas, county attorney and solicitor.
[17] In Pennsylvania known as the “prothonotary.”
[18] This discussion of highway matters is based principally upon a monograph by J. E. Pennybacker, Chief of Road Economics, Office of Public Roads, Department of Agriculture. Y. B. Separate, 1914.