The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1880-02-13
The Duty Of the Political Parties.
FROM AN UNSIGNED PAPER IN THE MID
WINTER Scribner ON 1.-THE POLITICAL
OUTDOOR" WE TAKE THIS PIECE OF
PLAIN TALK TO POLITICIANS.

We have got to a stage in the new period
of national politics in which one party or
the other must take forward step, and
everybody to whom politics is serious
business, and not merely a machine for the
redistribution Of Offices at stated intervals,
is interested in the highest degree both in
compelling that step and in deciding in
which direction it shall be taken. The duty
of taking 1t rests as much on one side as on
the other. 1t is true that the party in power
only can take the initiative in all matters Of
legislation, but the duty of the opposition
is something more than criticism. 1t is
bound, whenever, it objects, to say what it
would, if it could, do instead of the thing it
objects to. 1t is bound to give the country
some better reason for putting 1t in possess
sion of the government than the bad man
agement of those who actually hold the gov
ernment. A capacity for judging by no
means arguesa capacity tor doing and po-
litical criticism differs from literary or
artistic criticism in that the critic is bound
to describe the kind of work he would pro.
duce in place Of what he condemns, IL the
opportunity were afforded him; and not only
this, but offer to produce it. 1t is only by taking
this position that any opposition can make
itself respectable, or play any useful part in
politics, or earn any title to public conf
dence. 1t cannot rely simply on the fail
ures and shortcomings of the other side.
1t must have programme, and submit it
frequently for popular approval.
The same thing is true, mutatis mutandis,
of the party in power 1t cannot rely on the
assertion tEat it is more patriotic, or more
moral, or more religious, or more upright in
any way than those who seek to supplant it
1t is only a very small part of the duty of
men in office to set an example of virtue in
handling money or dispensing justice. Nor
is party, like a church, depository Of set
| tied doctrines or cultivator of private NOR
ais. 1t is an organization for the transaction
of business. Its function, when in power,is
not simply to prevent murder and robbery,
and collect the revenue honestly but to make
incessant improvements, both in legislation
and administration, so as not only to increase
their efficiency but to adapt them to the ever
changing needs and conditions of pro-
gressive society. No party can in our time,
therefore Justify its retention ofpower by the
simple plea that something very unpleasant
would happen If it went out of office, owing
to the moral inferiority of those who would
probably take its place. The Turkish gov
ernment is now the only one in the Western
world which gives this as its raison
d'etre.
Democrats and Republicans have success.
fully protected themselves for ten years or
more against the demand that they should
move on, by the plea that they were either
getting rid of "the results of the war;" or
saving "the results of the war;" or in some
manner dealing with the results of the war.
In whatever shape the plea was produced,
it furnished reason for looking back and
not forward.for standing still and not march
ing onward. Whatever justification it may
have been heretofore possible to find for this
attitude, it is quite certain that all dealing
with the results of the war which is possible
through legislation has been exhausted.
There remains not single problem arising
out of the war; except the disposition of the
legal tender notes of the government, which
is not now largely or wholly economical in
its character, and is certain to be solved, if
soluble, by the ordinary movements of trade
and population, and by the ordinary social
agencies of commercial civilization.