Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-05
NOT MODERN POLITICIANS.

1t is salts factory to be able to go to the bot
tom of any trouble SO completely and thor
oughly as the Omaha World Herald does in
connection with the original package decision
That journal with the decisiveness of the
boundless West, fixes the blame to its own
satisfaction by declaring that ''the trouble
begins with the Constitution of the United
States, document framed many years ago
by set of old fogies. none OF whom could
be elected to Congress to-day upon any
ticket"
OF the statement with regard to the inability
of the men who framed the Constitution of
the United States to obtain political pre-
ferment from the present organization of
party politics. The men who framed the
Constitution gave no such proof of deftness
in fixing up primaries, or skill in laying a
course so as to secure the practical support
of the liquor interest while avoiding the
alienation of the temperance people, as
to warrant their indulgence in Congress
ional aspirations at the present day. What
would the men whose abilities lay in form
ing the written Constitution which has
proved the most perfect scheme of free gov
eminent on record in history. do in a politi-
cal competition where success is measured
by the number of appointments a member
of the legislative branch can extort from the
executive, or the amount of plunder he can
grab from the public building or river and
harbor appropriations? No, we fear the es-
teemed World Herald is entirely right.
Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Rut-
ledge and their colleagues exhibited few of
the traits which are now supposed to render
Congressional candidate most available.
But that fact need not necessarily de-
stroy our high ideal of the constitu-
tional fathers as men of profound
thought and far-seeing statesman
ship, whose constitutional work is now the
admiration of the civilized world. On the
contrary, although our Western cotempo-
rary is unaware Of it, its most severe bearing
is on our modern politics. Nothing can
more strikingly illustrate the alienation Of
our modern politics from the constitutional
standards under which the nation has grown
great and free, than the fact that the men who
they were alive ''be elected to Congress To-
day upon any ticket" Instead of the d.
vision of representative and executive du-
ties which they established, we have to-day
the spectacle of representatives claiming the
executive duty of appointments for their
personal aggrandlzement; in place of cleo
tions more or less directly expressing the
will of the people, public Offices are con-
trolled either by party machinery or by the
partisan bias of the body deciding the con-
tests. As a substitute for legislation which
looked forward to the careful founding of
free nation, we have the sort of statesman
ship which seeks political success by legis-
lating in the interest of classes. 1t is not at
all surprising that a student and apparent
advocate of political system of that sort
should feel that men of the calibef OF Ed
mund Randolph, Gouverneur Morris, Ru-
fus King and John Jay, would be wholly
out of place in its contests.
The recognition of the truth that there is
little in common between our modern poll
tics and the makers of the Constitution, is
important. though it may be for altogether
Ahotner purpose tnan tnat which the expo
nent of the Wild West had in view when it
declared their ineligibility for preferment
1t should inspire people who indulge in the
eccentricity of independent thought in con-
nection with political matters, to seek such
q reformation of our political system as to per-
nit the development of men like the makers
of the Constitution and to bring them to the
front when they have demonstrated their
existence