Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-10
WATERBURY EVENING DEMOCRAT TUESDAY. APRIL To- ls88
WHAT DEMOCRACY HAS DONE.
A Few Points Which Will Be Interesting
 to Democratic Readers.

A Few Points Which Will Be Interesting
 to Democratic Readers.
 A subscriber asks The Herald to nar- rate the benefits which the Democratic party, as an organization, has conferred upon the country. He is constantly inn portuned with this question by well mean ing Republicans, who aver that the party saved the Union, and therefore ought to remain forever in the office of conservator of the public liberties. Through a popu- lar dread of tiresome reiteration in this hasty age, first principles, as in this case, are entirely lost to notice, and young Democrats come forward who, following a natural instinct, can yet advance no re sson why any school or any orator has given why they should vote against the Republican party.
 The Democratic party exists, and has always existed, because this is a republic. The very spirit of free government is lodged in the arrangement that there shall be at least two great bodies of electors, each striving for the honor of serving the state as trustee of the governing power. Without an opposition the government must centralize and become despotic, as under Napoleon, when the legislature and the tribunates were gradually merged into Csesar's senate. Because the Demo- cratic party preserved it's organization throughout the civil war, every Republi- can of today may be thankful he is not under a monarchy, with all public docu- ments written and all solemn acts done in the name of a son of some favorite leader of the northern idea-some son who to- day, thanks to the Democratic party, fills a mission in life which may be more hum- ble, but better compOrts with the merits of the man and the happiness of the people.
 The Democratic party in it's best ele- ments has always been loyal to the idea that the people should have the highest practicable attainment of home rule; that government should meddle in the least degree with private enterprise; that taxes should be used for economical govern mental expenditure, and should be col lected so that only the treasury should profit through the contributions of the in- habitants assessed. The party has stead fastly maintained that the officers of the state are the servants of the people, and that criticism and punishment of 8 dere- lict officer are the dearest rights of the electors. These ideas are Jeffersonian and Jacksonian. Through fidelity to them the non-military leaders of the northern opposition during the civil conflict were maligned, prescribed and imprisoned. In it's struggle for OC1l plOoCA NdUlOA C11O 4CPuOAAS 1Cpuu1auCu even the basic idea that political opposi- tion could exist. Those Democrats who could see as Lincoln saw, enlisted-as Grant, Sherman, Halleck, Mcclellan, Hancock, Thomas, Rosecrans, Logan. Those Democrats who were unable to see as Lincoln saw went to prison. The elec- tion of 1868 beheld the Democratic party still in existence, though too weak to ex- ercise conserving influence on free gov ernment After four further years of Re- publican post bellum rule, dedicated to 8 further destruction of Democratic princi- pies, the country beheld the lowest estate of the Democratic party, when centralism reached its meridian, when the aspiration of free and honest government breathed as the dying, and only schemes for the en- slavement of men were politically respect able.
 | But all the leaders of the Democratic party in our time have not been false and perfdious. Out of the haze and mist of ] the scandals that surrounded the cele- bratad second term there rose the figure of Samuel J. Tilden, whose warnings sounded to stricken and humiliated peo- pie as the voice of a statesman to be trusted in a trying time. His cry was for a return to simple government, for a re- duction of war taxation, for severe ac- countability in public office.
 To that brave outcry, at that crucial moment, between corruption and self government-the outcry which brought | the nation to it's senses-the country is 1 indebted for it's existence to-day, and in- debted as much as to the act of the Grant, 1 the Sherman, the Thomas, the private Democratic soldier or the private Repub- lican soldier, that held the states together a decade before. Because there was still a Democratic party, led by an honest man, the ''bosses," who had degraded every form of republicanism, were finally whipped from public place and the stew ardship of the nation begun at date, it is true, twenty years late, but begun.
 Today The Herald's subscribers may still have the true Democratic picture of the recognized and only leader of his party, holding his personal opportunities as nothing, and pronouncing to profligate legislature and to a country that must awaken or perish-pronouncing to the scandal and anger of all Republicans in authority, and to the inconvenience of dis. tinguished statesmen, who ought to bear friendship rather than betrayal-pro nouncing the gospel of free home rule ir these memorable words in his message o1 Dec. 6, 1887:
 ..The simple and plain duty which w owe the people is to reduce taxation to tht operation of the government, and to re money which we hold in the treasury through the perversion or governments powers.-Chicago Herald"
 Emperor William Never Smoked.