Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1886-06-20

trolled monarch of the country. In war
he is almost absolute. And yet our
country is called n Republic But then
il must be admitted that it was only an
accident that made us a republic.
The New Order will know nothing Of
such an Office,
1t will know nothing of it because, as
Goodwin Smith said in an excellent article
in the atlantic Monthly for January,
1879, entitled; SIS Universal Suffrage
failureT
ut dhe Presidency, is at once the grand
prize and the most powerful stmulant of
faction"
The Presidency is truly under our sys-
tenn "the grand prize" that fosters an am
hition which no citizen in republic
ough to entertain and which has ruined
the usefulness of SO many of our best
men.
The Presidency is the chief "spoil" and
source of other spoils. We all remember
the frankness of Flanagan in a late Ma
tional Convention: "What are we here
for it not the spoils?' When the Co
| operative Commonwealth abolshes this
chief spoil with all other spoils and thus
stops their pay, our standing parties will
| dissolve for want of cohesion. as standing
| armies do when their pay stops.
But what does this discarding of these
prominent features of our government
mean? 1t means that the only political
machinery fit for the Cooperative Com
monwealth is DEMOCRACY.
For, however hazy the meaning of
that word is, nobody can fairly object if
we temporarily define democracy" as
| that form of administration where no one
of the public officers is at any time the
master Of the situations where, cOnse-
quently, none of the public affairs can at
any time he conducted with view to
private or class interests.
The New Order will, further, discard
the system of appointments from abore,
which is simply the principal means by
which Our ruling classes exercise their
power.
1t will throw overheard the doctrine of
the three eco ordinate" powers; that is,
the doctrine that the functions of govern
ment should be distributed among three
departments: the legislative, executive
and judicial, wholly Independent of, and
yet checking each other.
This doctrine amounts to this, that
laws should be enacted in one spirit, in
terpreted in another, and executed in
third spirit, which is preposterous. The
theory of checks and balances is one born
of passions, engendered by struggle
against arbitrary power; not one born of
philosophical observations. This fact
was entirely misconceiyed by Monies
queu-that embodied Empiricsm-and
strangely enough, also overlooked by our
practical forefathers, as noticed by Prof
Goodwin Smith in the article above men
toned.
The New Order will have no use what
ever for a Senate.
1t is useless. As John Stuart Mill re-
marks: ''In times of violent excitement,
the only times when it might produce
more good than harm, it is destined to
become Imperative" Those who object,
that the one-chamber system has always
been the forerunner of the usllrper, seem
never to have thought of the circum.
stance, that the usurper has always in
troduced the two-chamber system. With
the National Senate will go the doctrine
OF State sovereignty, which, though de-
crepit, is not yet dead. The doctrine is
a relic OF our infancy, when we were
small, nndeveloped, scattered commune
ties such as all civilized nations have
started with. 1t is worthy of observation.
that dual sovereignty has been the his
torical development of Great Britain.
Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain and
France, AS well as our country.
The Cooperative Commonwealth will
only know of Nation. with bic. very
big N. Ourpresent State lines only work
mischief. Parts of New Jersey and Del
aware belong as much to Philadelphia as
any part of Pennsylvania does, and New
Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut
are more intimately connected with New
York city than is Western New York.