Just a moment of your time.

Wareham's original charter, together with all its subsequent revisions, reduces to exactly five words: To Know The Town's Mind.

Colonial Times On Buzzards Bay
William Root Bliss, 1889

"THE object of all town meetings was "to know the Town's Mind;" whether it was for doing this, or for doing that, or for doing something else....

The colonial town meeting was... not an imitation of anything that had existed on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a primary and not a representative assembly."

Take a moment to wrap your mind around that. For the first time ever in recorded history, someone officially gave a shit about what you thought.

We, the citizens of Wareham, Massachusetts copyrighted those words; true, only after we dispossessed the Indians who gave us the idea in exchange for perpetual casino rights. Oh, alright, forget the last part. And forget the first part, too. How do you copyright the wheel? Jethro Tull, after all, never had much luck copyrighting the plow. Look it up.

The point is still profound. We have more continuous history of fending for ourselves than any other humans on this planet.

All of us here are proof, if nothing else, the citizens of Wareham have reclaimed that right.

Thank you.