Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-03-30

fundamental truths underlying the declar-
alton that this is "a government by the
people for the people" In limited sense
the experience of the people with the late
Legislature of California may seem to
support the conclusion the essayist reaches
concerning the capacity of the people to
wisely choose representatives, but as a
matter of fact the proof of capacity to SO
choose and wisely, is established by the
admission of the essayist that the philoso-
pliers err who insist that the majority is
morally corrupt, therefore it cannot be
safely trusted to exercise political func-
lions. For, as he shows, personal lack of
moral uprightness, even if admitted to
characterize the majority, is not inconsist-
ent with capacity to govern well, though,
to be fair, he limits that capacity to decide
rightly to questions of humanity, justice
and war. But what is the fact? From
Plato down the young man finds political
philosophers declaring the incapacity of the
people to make and execute laws: to rise
above given level, and asserting that
level to be below the intellectual plane
from which successful government must
come. Yet he witnesses the fact that in
this country the people do select from
among themselves representatives who
make their laws, and under which orderly
government by consent of all is MAIN
tanned. And this in the face of such
political critics as De Tocqueville, who
declared "the people have neither the
time nor the means to make the investi-
CATION necessary to form just estimate of
the character of single individual who
assumes to be competent and fit for an
office. But the student of the day will
find that what DIR. Holland so fifty termed
" the national heart" is right. That is to
say, the heart of the people, as mass, is
right and their ultimate Judgment is sound
The people did not fail Jackson or Mon
roe or Lincoln or Grant, either in war;
Justice or business economics. The great
majority in this country, the young man
finds as he reads the history of the nation,
has been right-at times wavering and in
doubt, at times departing from wise poll
cies, but ultimately right. And this be-
cause with the people ruling through the
submission Of the minority to the ex-
pressed will of the majority, our drift has
been steadily forward and upward to bet
ter things. 1t is very true, as has been
said already, that the majority may be
morally corrupt, in sense, and yet remain
politically sound. AS Mr.. Merwin puts it,
according to the idea of Arnold and those
thinking with him, the moral corruption
of the majority is confined to personal
morality. And in the light of the differ
ence between man as a political agent
and as an individual, it may be admitted
that the majority is corrupt and still it is
true that it maintains its capacity to wisely
exercise political power, for the natural
impulse is to go wrong in the matter of
personal duties, but in matters political
the natural tendency is to go right 1t is
not necessary to 60 over the familiar reas-
oning by which such conclusion has been
reached. The element of pity that Rous-
seau found to be the motor OF the impulse
to go right is supplemented by Mr.. Mer-
win, with the disposition on the part of
the majority to resent insult, and from
these premises he reaches the erroneous
conclusion stated in the outset. But it
flies in the face of the experience of the
people of this Republic, and, as remarked,
is not justified by the progress the ma
tion has made. 1t is good advice to the
young men of the day to "clear their
minds Of cant and to discover what they
really hold to be true in political and
social science" but they should be on their
guard against the sophisms that lead up
to the denial Of the capacity of the people
to choose their representatives. When
they reach that conclusion they are ready
to surrender their liberties. To para
phrase an expression of Dr. Phelps, be-
yond that for such people as ours there
is nothing but anarchy.