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Show - COMMENTS - RULE FROM THE TOP It is only because we have lost sight of the fact that povernmentf should be only the servant of men, that even here in this country, as well as in the Old World, government govern-ment threatens to become our permanent master. Local desires de-sires and needs have increased more rapidly than the capacity capa-city of local revenue to meet them. Inadequacy of local revenue in turn proceeds from the inability of local enterprise. enter-prise. The struggle has been constantly becoming more unequal un-equal as the emphasis and scope of ecomnomie life during" the past half century have been turning steadily away from the local to the national sphere. This has been necessarily accompanied by a steady expansion of the power and activity ac-tivity of the central government and a steady contraction of the effective powers of local government. When the ideals and principles of democratic society were developed, land was the principal source of economic income, and business activity, like the land itself, was principally prin-cipally local. In the early days of 'our,. history whenever men found themselves oppressed or confronted by an economic depression they could move on to new land and there earn their own living in their own way with their own labor and the resources of nature. After the Civil War the problem of adjusting the lives of the men who had fought the Civil War was solved in the building of the transcontinental railroads and the settlement of the Great West. After the World War, when our economy had become industrial, we found the means of readjustment in the building of motor roads automobiles, airplanes and radios and all of the devices . have made the modern economy so luxurious. |