March 22, 1973
Page 9175
THE TOWN MEETING IN MAINE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the March 20, 1973, edition of the Evening Star and News carried an article, written by Mr. Day Thorpe, about true democracy in action: A town meeting in Blue Hill, Maine. As Mr. Thorpe noted in his article:
The town meeting is the purest and oldest form of democratic government we know, surviving from Colonial times before democratic principles were established in the Constitution.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE TOWN MEETING: ALIVE AND WELL IN MAINE
(By Day Thorpe)
To a man skeptical of the proposition that democracy – the government of the people by the people themselves – is the best road to enlightenment and happiness, a New England town meeting might seem an outworn tradition – in a class with therapeutic bloodletting or trial by fire-and-water. For the Town Meeting is the purest and oldest form of democratic government we know, surviving from Colonial times before democratic principles were established in the Constitution.
Edmund Wilson, in his book about Talcottville, N.Y., points out that the town meeting, at which every man is a peer among his peers, is essentially a product of our sea coast; that, as civilization moved inland in Colonial times, individuals acquired by purchase or grant vast areas the development of which, and the society of which, were effectively under their control.
I attended the 1973 town meeting of Blue Hill, Me., and discovered that democratic government in a small town is by no means a microcosmic replica of democratic government so uncritically and enthusiastically admired on a national scale. There has been a town meeting in Blue Hill on the first Monday in March for as long as the oldest inhabitant can remember – presumably since shortly after the place was settled in 1762. In the matter of town meetings, Blue Hill needs no guidelines; it knows how the thing is done.
A town of about 1,400 inhabitants, Blue Hill lies about three-quarters of the way up the Maine coast at the base of the 940-foot mountain which gives the place its name and which at certain times actually does appear to be blue. It was founded about the same time as Georgetown, but has not grown very much in population since the early 19th century.
During its early years its business was the building and sailing of ships, the exportation of granite and ice, and education. Its sea captains, who took their wives and children all over the world, made it a town remarkably cosmopolitan for its size and secluded location. It sent its granite to Washington, for the Treasury Building, to New Orleans and St. Louis, among other places, for their curbstones, and its ice to Baltimore and Singapore, among other places, for their gin-and- tonics. Early in the 19th century it founded its Academy, one of the first private schools in New England.
Sailing vessels, granite, and natural ice fell prey to their substitutes, each in its way, and about a century ago the town, consciously or otherwise, was on the lookout for a new occupation. It was born in 1882 when a lady from Bangor spent the summer in Blue Hill as a paying guest. Within a very few years a summer colony in Blue Hill was established with people from all over the country (but mainly from New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland) building houses which they passed on to their children, enjoying the water of the bay and the air of the hill.
A number of musicians settled in Blue Hill – notably Franz Kneisel, concert master of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the father of American chamber music; Horatio Parker and Henry Krehbiel. (It is amusing to find in several Maine guidebooks that Ethelbert Nevin lived and died in Blue Hill. The man never set foot in the town. Nevin was buried there posthumously by his loving and appreciative widow after royalties on "In Arcady," Nevin's once-popular piano suite, and "The Rosary" enabled her to build what still is one of the finest houses in town – appropriately named "Arcady.")
Today there are 11½ pages of resident taxpayers in the town report, 6½ pages of non-resident taxpayers. Of the $336,390.90 it cost to run the town last year, residents paid in taxes $173,000 and non-residents $162,000.
I use the prosaic words "resident" and "non-resident" as aids in pointing out that roughly half the cost of running the town is borne by people who are there only from July 1 through Labor Day, people who may have been coming to Blue Hill for half a century without ever seeing a flake of snow, even though the $20,000 for snow removal is the second largest item on the budget, surpassed only by education. In practice, the terms are "resident" and "summer resident."
A "resident" signifies in the vernacular, someone who was actually born in Blue Hill, or better yet someone whose parents and grandparents were born there also. About a dozen families reside in the town whose forebears settled there on the original land grants in 1762, with the result that names frequently fail to serve their basic purpose of identification.
For example, the town report lists 18 residents with the name of Candage, 27 by the name of Gray, and 19 by the name of Grinde. There are just two named Smith and two named Jones. A "summer resident" is a member of the community born elsewhere. There is an elderly lady who summered in Blue Hill as a girl and who for the past 15 years has lived there spring, summer, fall and winter. She is slightly miffed to hear herself spoken of as a "summer resident."
There are at least 16 Washingtonians now or formerly working for newspapers, television or radio who go to Blue Hill or to places within 35 miles of the town. I cannot explain this surprising concentration, for there is no evidence of a leader being followed, and I refrain from listing them for fear of overlooking somebody.
The active dean, unquestionably, is J. R. Wiggins who, with his son, a few years ago bought the weekly paper in Ellsworth, a suburb of Blue Hill. The skill acquired during his apprenticeship as editor of the Washington Post is evidenced by the rollicking writing that can be enjoyed every week, and by his exposes of the postal service. He has proved that inter-urban letters could be delivered more quickly than by the Post Office if they were dispatched on a cart drawn by a yoke of oxen, or expedited by E. B. White on a bicycle.
Two more bits of information preparatory to the understanding of Blue Hill's Town Meeting: In Blue Hill last year there were 91 births recorded – 53 males and 38 females. Men who so conspicuously beat the odds must frequently draw two cards to an inside straight. In addition, the town clerk reports that 112 dogs were licensed last year – female dogs, 8; spayed dogs, 45; and male dogs, 59.
Throughout town-meeting day the polls are open for voters to elect town officials. This time, as usual, more than half the residents eligible to vote did so – a percentage far greater than the ever-decreasing figure for national elections throughout the country. Party was not a factor: While Blue Hill is strongly Republican and while candidates for county, state and national office rely on party power, in the town election – in which every candidate is personally known to virtually every voter – a label is of no importance. At least, I never heard affiliation mentioned throughout the day or night.
At 5:30 in the afternoon, the Baptist Sewing Circle Ladies served dinner in the hall of the International Order of Odd Fellows, and nobody was in danger of hunger for the rest of the night, if ever. (It had never occurred to me that Baptists are marvelous cooks.)
Then we went to the Town Hall, where Jerry Durnbaugh had been appointed moderator by the selectmen – a move, as he himself pointed out, to keep him from talking from the floor. Durnbaugh, the town newspaper publisher, proved to be an excellent moderator, keeping the arguments remarkably relevant, firmly but inoffensively insisting that a proposal was not subject to discussion until it had been moved and seconded, and withal preserving a mien so interested but dispassionate that only a constant reader of his paper would know that he had very strong convictions on several of the subjects. The meeting lasted five hours, during which Durnbaugh declared one 30-second recess. The recess was, in fact, just 30 seconds.
The warrant – that is to say, the agenda – consisted of 61 articles, proposed for the most part by the selectmen, although residents can bring propositions before the meeting if they have the requisite backing, I could observe no logical order of the articles, some of the most important of which were near the end when the voters were tired and their nerves somewhat frazzled.
An "issue" at this town meeting was something new in my political experience – not at all something thought up by a candidate to harangue the public, yet never directly attacked nor debated, either. The Blue Hill voters for the most part were interested in the issues, were well informed about them, generally trusted the recommendations of the budget committee, and were not in the slightest awed by office or the image of their elected officials, who were several times during the night uncomfortably called on the carpet. The democracy of a town meeting is not an affront to a man's intelligence.
The first argument arose over $2,000 to defray the cost of the town police department. The sum was finally approved, but by no means unanimously. The article "to see, if the Town will vote to install a street light near Hester and Florence Moor's" was voted in the negative, while "to see if the Town will authorize the Selectmen to renew a lease to Ruth Stavola on Town Property on which her buildings now stand, and for how long" caused more than a little excitement.
It seems that 10 years ago the voters instructed the selectmen to arrange a lease with Mrs. Stavola, but they never got around to doing so. Thus Mrs. Stavola's two houses have been free of land rent for a decade. It was argued that the article itself was faultily constructed, since it is hard to renew a lease that doesn't exist.
A lawyer suggested that though a lease might not exist "in fact" it did "in will," and the article – amended to specify amount of money and length of term – finally won. "How do we know the selectmen will do what we tell them to this time?" someone asked earnestly. "They didn't before." (To own a house in Maine without the land on which it stands is not necessarily disastrous. Houses, even big ones, are shifted like checkers. The price of lumber today being what it is, you find your site and your house and consolidate them.)
One of the two most important considerations before the meeting was the use of federal revenue- sharing funds, which, for Blue Hill, amount to $20,000 a year for five years. The money can be spent for anything except education and matching-fund projects. (I was fascinated to find myself present at the decision, in one specific case out of thousands of how to use a minuscule part of those billions which to most of us have meant only newspaper headlines and comment by Eric Sevareid.)
It was proposed to use the money to make tax maps and to re-assess Blue Hill property, to resurface the town roads, to buy a new fire truck, less venerable than the present (1953) model.
The first two proposals were tabled, $35,000 for maps and re-assessment seeming too expensive, and the resurfacing of roads seeming untimely just before Blue Hill's new and first sewer system is to be installed. But the fire department has its $8,000 for its truck, and the town has $12,000 in the bank.
The other important article concerned a new state law requiring communities to pass ordinances involving zoning of the 250 feet of all shorelands; otherwise the community would be required to police the state's own regulations. This article was debated at great length. It was finally decided to postpone a decision, since the usual dilatoriness of the state could be relied upon, and since in any event the state could not meet its own deadline.
By far the most interesting subject of the town meeting was brought to the floor because of a relatively trivial objection. More than 75 percent of this year's $364,853 budget is for education – $114,000 for the grade school and $130,000 for the high school, plus repairs and incidentals which bring the total to approximately $250,000.
A voter questioned an item in the budget of $1,500 tuition to St. Paul's School, elsewhere in New England.
The organization of Blue Hill schools is remarkable. The grade school is similar to the typical public school – entirely a department of the civic government. The Blue Hill high school – the Academy – is quite different. It is an autonomous private school which charges tuition. The tuition of children of residents of Blue Hill is paid by the town, which guarantees the Academy that the majority of Blue Hill high school students will attend that school. The Academy also accepts students from elsewhere.
However, this is the unusual aspect of the situation, if a parent in Blue Hill wants to send his child to another high school – St. Albans in Washington, say, or Exeter in New Hampshire – the Blue Hill school board says: "Fine. Go in peace. We will pay the cost up to the limit of the Academy's tuition." (The present tuition is $960.) But the matter does not end there. While the town will apply the Academy's tuition at any school the parent requests, it can, in its absolute discretion, pay a higher tuition. If it believes that a child will benefit by instruction not available in Blue Hill, and if if knows that the parent cannot afford the foreign school, it can pay the entire tuition. Or in the case of a blind, deaf or otherwise handicapped child, it can pay a higher tuition anywhere it chooses.
Thus Blue Hill buys its high school education as a commodity, like a snow plow or 12 gross of paper clips. The town can get on with its business of government, the school with the business of education. I am aware that my picture is far too simple and perhaps too rosy, but in theory the division of responsibility is admirable, and in practice it has worked for many years.
That a man who is childless pay a share of the education of his neighbor's children is proper; that a man who is a taxpayer in a town even though he lives elsewhere pay a share of that town's school bill is also proper. But in Blue Hill a parent who believes his child can do better elsewhere does not find himself caught in an inflexible system.
It is possible, even probable, that this separation of school and state would not work in a large city, but perhaps some aspects of the plan could be adapted in those cities where the school boards are more interested in politics than in education.
An unexpected and refreshing feature of the meeting was the total absence of "The Star-Spangled Banner," prayers, invocations, introductions and speeches. The only extraneous matter was the questions "Can you hear me?" and "Is the PA system working?"