Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy

If the state is corrupt, the cities will reflect its conditions. Nor can the national government rise above its source. It will mirror the machinery of nomination and election, as well as the character of the legislature, which selects the members of the United States senate.

The state is the source of civil and criminal law, of domestic and industrial relations. It is the guardian of the peace, of the health and education of the people. It controls the roads and highways. It regulates the railroads and common carriers. Industrial and labor legislation fall within its juris diction, as does the care of women and child workers.

Its taxing power is ample to promote a social policy. Only the federal taxes are denied to it. It can tax and through taxation destroy, as it does in the liquor business. It controls education. Our west ern states have developed a comprehensive pro gramme of higher education. They are extending it to all classes by extension teaching and the appli cation oi scientific methods to agriculture. The indigent, unfortunate, and criminal classes are wards of the state, while the promotion of almost any policy for the improvement of social conditions is within its power. Wisconsin has raised the state from the low estate into which it had fallen and converted it into a vital political agency. It is utilizing the latent powers of commonwealth building. Twenty years ago Wisconsin was not unlike other states. Its legislature was discredited and corrupt. The bien nial bartering of legislation, of place and privilege, the boss and machine control were not dissimilar from conditions disclosed in other states. All this has passed away. In a few years time Wis consin has become the most efficient commonwealth in the Union. Of the honesty of the legislative and administrative departments there is no question. Executive offices are filled with trained men who are animated by enthusiasm for the public service.

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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy

Wisconsin is doing for America what Germany is doing for the world. It is an experiment station in politics, in social and industrial legislation, in the democratization of science and higher education. It is a state-wide laboratory in which popular government is being tested in its reaction on people, on the distribution of wealth, on social well-being.

The American state is probably our most conspicuous political failure. It has not awakened the interest of reformers as has the city. Nor has it aroused the ambitions of men as has the national government. Some writers have suggested there is no place for a quasi-sovereign commonwealth in our governmental system. They look upon it as a political vermiform appendix that has outlived the functions it was designed to perform. Decisions of the courts have impaired the dignity which the state enjoyed before the Civil War, while the resentment of business to any kind of interference has depreciated the status of the state still further.

Yet the state has wide possibilities.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.