whether
the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be licensed for the ensuing
year; under an increasing referendum policy the acts of the State
legislature are frequently submitted for review to the local voters.

Where the town system does not exist or is part of a larger county,
officers are elected for more extended responsibility. The functions
of county officers are mainly judicial. Among the county officers are
the sheriff elected by the people to preserve order and justice
throughout the region, the coroner whose duty has been to investigate
sudden death or disaster, and to hold an inquest to determine the
origin of crime if it existed. The county commissioners or supervisors
are executive officers, corresponding to the selectmen of the town;
the clerk and treasurer of the county have duties similar to the town
officers with those titles.

149. =Political Relations and Responsibilities.=--The local
community, alike under township and county government, is a part of a
larger political unit, and so has relations with and responsibilities
to the greater State. The town meeting may legislate on such matters
as the erection of a new schoolhouse or the building of a town
highway, but it cannot locate the post-office or change the location
of a State or county road. It may make its local taxes large or small,
but it cannot increase or diminish the amount of the State tax or
regulate the national tariff. The townsman lives under the
jurisdiction of a law that is made by his representatives in the State
legislature or the national Congress, and he is tried and punished for
the infraction of law in a county, State, or national court. As a
citizen of these larger political units he may vote for county, State,
and national officials, and may himself aspire to the highest office
in the gift of his countrymen.

150. =Political Standards.=--To a foreigner such a system of
government may seem exceedingly complex, but by it self-government is
preserved to the people of the nation, and a good degree of efficiency
is maintained. There are problems of social control that need study
and that produce various experiments in one State or another before
they are widely adopted; there is corruption of party politics with
unscrupulous methods and machinery that is too well oiled with
"tainted" money; but local government averages up to the level of the
intelligence and morals of the community. If the schoolhouse is an
efficient centre fo