Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-04-18
WHAT DEMOCRACY HAS DONE.

WHAT DEMOCRACY HAS DONE.
Why the Party Exists and Always VIII An
. Government Like Ours-Soms Perti-
Dont Questions Well Answered.
A subscriber asks the Chicago Herald to
narrate the benefits which the Democratic
party, as an organization, has conferred
upon the country. He is constantly i'm.
portuned with this question by well-mean-
Ing Republicans, who aver that their partv
saved the Union, and, therefore, ought to
remain forever in the office Of conseryator
OF the public liberties. Through a popular
dread Of tlresome reiteration in this hasty
age, first principles, as in this case, are en-.
tirely lost to notice, and young Democrats
come forward who following q natural in
stinct, can yet advance no reason which any
school or any orator las given why they
should vote against the Republican party.
The Democratic party exists, and has al
ways 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. With
out an opposition the Government must
centralize and become despotic, as
under Napoleon, when the Leg1s-
lature and tribunates were gradually
merged into Casar's Senate. Because
the Democratic party preserved its organi.
zation throughout the civil war, every Re.
publican of to-day may be thankful he is
not under monarchy, with all public docu-
ments written and all solemn acts done in
the name of son OF some favorite leader OF
the Northern idea-some son who to-day,
thanks to the Democratic party, fills mis-
sion in life which NAV be more humble, but
better comPorts with the merits Of the man
and the happiness of the people.
The Democratic party in its best elements
has always been loyal to the idea that the
people should have the highest practical at.
tainment Of home rule; that government
should meddle in the least degree with pri
vate enterprises; that taxes should be used
for economical governmental expenditure
and should be collected so that only the
Treasury should profit through the contribu.
tions of the inhabitants assessed. The
party has steadfastly maintained that the
officers Of the State are the servants Of the
people, and that criticism and punishment
of derelict officer are the dearest rights of
the electors. These ideas are Jeffersoniau
and JacksOnian. Through fidelity to them
the non-military leaders Of the Northern op-
position during the civil conflict were ma
ligned, prescribed and imprisoned. In its
struggle for self-preservation the Republic
repudiated even the basic idea that a politi.
cal opposition could exist. Those Demo
Gratis who could see as Lincoln saw-en.
hsted-as Grant, Sherman, Halleck. Nc
Clellan. Hancock, Thomas, Rosecrans, Lo
gan. Those Democrats who were unable tC
see as Lincoln saw went to prison. The
election of 1858 beheld the Democratic
party still in existence, though too weak to
exercise n conserving influence on free gov.
ernment After four further years of Re
publican post-bellum rule, dedicated TO a
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 brcathed as
the dying, and only schemes for the en-
slavement of men were politically respect
able.
But all the leaders of the Democratic par
ty in our time have not been false and per-
tidious. Out of the haze and mist of the
scandals that surrounded the celebrated
second term there rose the figure of Sam
uel J. Tilden, whose warnings sounded to O
stricken and humiliated people as the voice
of statesman to be trusted in trying
time. His cry was for return to simple
government, for a reduction of war taxa
ton, for a severe accountability in public
office.
To that brave outcry, at that crucial mo-
ment, between corruption and self-g govern
ment-the outcry which brought the Nation
TO its senses-the country is indebted for its
existence to-day, and indebted rs much as
TO the act OF the Gran, the Sherman, the
Thomas, the private Democratic soldier or
the private Republican soldier, that held
the States together a decade before. Be-
cause 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 stewardship Of the Nation begun at q
date-it is true-twenty years late, but be.
gun.
To-day we may still have the true Demo
cratic picture of the recognized and only
leader Of his party, holding his personal
opportunities as nothing, and pronouncing
to a prohigate Legislature and to a country
that must awaken or perish-pronouncin Z
to the scandal and anger of all Republicans
ir authority, and TO the Inconvenience OF
distin guished statesmen, who ought to bear
friendship rather than nbetrayal-pronounc-
ing the gospel of free home rule in these
memorable words from Clcyeland's message
of December 6, 1887:
The simple and plain duty irhich scs o,re The
peopLs Is 70 reduce taxation 10 the necessary a.
peHyes Of GH economical operation of the Coz
erHment, and 10 restore 10 The business of the
country the money rhich zoe hold IN the treas.
Ury through the perveTsioR Of Governmental
uosnera