KENNETT, Mo.

John Q. and Mary Citizen

Anytown, Mo.

Dear John Q. and Mary:

I hope this letter finds you both in good cheer and good health as we begin the rite of passage from those cold and wintry northern winds across our state's frozen plains to the promise of new life and new hope in our glorious season of spring. These days in which the sun comes closer to what only recently seemed like barren wasteland are, indeed, a time of transformation. If you're a Missourian you know our springs are famous for their budding trees and flowers, their surprising glimpses of green grass overtaking the brown tones of cold, hard soil.

It's a time we can all give thanks for being citizens of a great state that history has blessed over many generations by providing us with outstanding men and women who truly made a difference in their lifetimes. We inherited much from these pioneers who survived floods, droughts, hard times, even a civil war, and the strength that is their legacy is a lasting resource.

I hope you don't mind my sharing with you some thoughts I've been having with increased frequency in recent years, thoughts that have sometimes proved troubling and anything but reassuring as we have entered both a new century and a new millennium. At the moment we began these two historical guideposts, we seemed to encounter some new problems that had apparently escaped us in the last century and millennium, and their appearances, while subtle, were nevertheless real enough to prove both disturbing and challenging.

Today these problems are even more real than a few months and years ago, real enough to have an impact on today's scene and frightening enough to challenge each one of us to consider very seriously how we might resolve them, while maintaining traditional values and beliefs.

As we view this year's session of our cherished General Assembly and read the programs set forth by our elected leader, the governor, we could well develop the fear of being overridden by misfortunes that threaten our standard of living, even our sense of well-being.

We fully realize our state is facing a serious financial challenge, one that could very well erode, even eliminate, some of the state's activities that in past years have been deemed essential. Frankly, our state is slowly, but certainly, running sufficiently short of needed revenue that programs once called essential are being threatened.

Perhaps as disturbing is the possibility that some of the clearly defined needs of our citizens cannot be met under current conditions. The state's condition is similar to the fate being faced by fixed-income families in our midst whose income has increasingly become limited and whose cash balances are being slowly, but inexorably, worn away by rising prices and more and more surcharges over which they have no control.

Yes, we are still a wealthy state, but our resources are becoming more limited and our options seem to approach the point of vanishing. These are the reasons I'm writing to you.

As only a cautious optimist, I continue to believe one of the greatest obstacles to a brighter future can be found in our unwillingness to take part in the democratic process our nation's founders worked so hard to create. They fashioned a constitutional charter which, while initially limiting, is based exclusively on the willingness of citizens to be actively involved in their various self-governments. They believed this component to be the most important of any of the duties or powers they delegated to the various public offices they created.

If this was the first ideal set by our Founders, we who inherited the legacy have made it one of our last priorities. Half of us don't go to the polls once every four years to choose candidates for the most important jobs in America, and I long ago repressed the more disappointing percentage of us who go to the polls every two years to elect our state representatives.

No nation in the world elects more public officials than America, yet we value this right so lightly that it seems chic to complain about the time and trouble we must expend for this little appreciated freedom.

Not only do we hesitate to participate in the democratic process, we arrive at conclusions, only partially based on fact, that are pejorative in nature and serve to work against the democratic process. We have decided that limiting the length of legislative and executive service for invaluable public servants is the proper method for getting rid of those who are inadequate. We are in the process of deporting some of the best minds and most experienced legislators in state history, oblivious to the brain-drain this concept has foisted on our democratic right to choose the candidates of our choice.

We are willing to limit the amount of humanitarian services we can provide to the underprivileged, poor, indigent, afflicted, mentally ill by limiting the amount our elected government can provide its citizens through revenue-limiting statutes. The only "crisis" that counts in today's world is when citizens, by virtue of good economies, pay taxes that have been prejudged to be too high by a myopic minority who prefer to pay only an amount they label as "fair." We, the citizens, approved this concept years ago, without thought or foresight.

We, the people, have permitted our great achievement of representative government -- universal suffrage -- to be sullied by partisan gibberish and dollar dominance, handing victories to those who outspend their opponents. In earlier times, this was called aristocracy. Today, none call it democracy.

These evils, we the people, have permitted because we, all of us, accepted our citizen responsibilities so lightly.

Yours truly,

A Fellow Missourian.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.