The State and the Farmer Author:Liberty Hyde Bailey Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: desire or willingness to shift responsibility. Much can be done and has been done wisely to strengthen the local institutions by the timely aid and suggestion of... more » the national Department; but it is easy to see that such a policy might arise as a gradual result of the best-intentioned work as to prove in the end to be destructive rather than constructive. States rights. We have passed the old formula of "states rights." We have learned that certain things would better be delegated to federal agencies. Consolidation or centralization of power is a necessity. Yet at the same time we are pressed by the necessity of maintaining local initiative and vitality. It is possible to centralize power and at the same time to develop the locality— be it state, county, or neighborhood—if only we keep a clear distinction of functions. The real states' rights principle underlies the development of the individual and the community rather than the maintenance of the pride and prerogative of the commonwealth as an organThe Sphere of the State 103 ism; that is, it means community privilege, duty and opportunity. It is properly a strong internal constructive policy. Such policies are more and more delegated to Congress, where fewer persons partake in them, and the states are not developing coordinately with the nation. Government should be kept at home. We have talked much about states rights, but very little about state opportunity or cooperation between the states. We have tended to emphasize separateness rather than unity. The American, with his strong ideas of individualism, has really made less progress toward practical democracy in some directions than some of the monarchical peoples. The obligation of helping its people rests primarily on the state organization; but if the state will not ...« less