Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-12-12
THE INDEPENDENT VS.. THE PARTISAN
PRESS

policies that leaders of the Republican
party have seen fit to brand upon its es-
cutcheon. Because the RECORD UNION
considers no party superior to criticism,
and no policy sound simply because it
wears the party ear-mark, several of our
contemporaries have seen fit to speak of
the RECORD UNION as Republican organ
changing front and revolving against its
party Our contemporaries are not par
donable for this blunder. The RECORD.
UNION is not and never was a Republican
organ, nor the servitor of any political or
ganlzation. Our contemporaries are for
getiui OF the past, if they do not recall
that this journals traditional pride has
been, as it now is, to be classed with the
independent and thinking press that con-
sIders parties merely as agencies, but the
national veal as the supreme concern of
all the people.
When the press cannot discuss affairs of
State upon their merits and from the
standpoint of craftsmanship, regardless of
the party that thinkers with them, the use
fulness of American journalism will have
come to an end. But that era will never
dawn for the independent press. 1t is the
saving grace of journalism in this day of
yenallty, boss-rule, ring conspiracy, op-
pressive combinations and the attempted
political domination of monopolists of un-
wisely administered and ambitious wealth.
A party paper, by the very necessity of
Its existence, is confined to narrow views
1t cannot be broader than the sentiment of
the dominant and changing power in the
party it represents. This is truth so APP
parent that the party newspaper has
ceased to be much more than party cir
-cular, and incapable of rising higher than
the immediate exigence of each days life
1t is because there is not strength in nor
broad respect for the partisan newspaper,
that it commands no special influence.
The intelligence that peruses it knows
that the journal does not, and cannot ex-
press any view or advocate any policy not
dictated to it from the prop which holsters
it.
The RECORD UNION has always en-
joyed the distinction of being independent
of all parties and of party dictation, and
free from Indebtedness or obligation to
any. Whether it commends or criticises,
1t is upon the principle involved and not
because declaration takes its keynote from
party dictation. Party tradition and ac-
complishment which are worthy and wise
have and will have respect, no matter what
the title of the organization.
At this particular juncture in the his
tory of the nation, when it is to decide
upon the Policy that is to govern its deal
ings and relations with all the world and
the domestic policy of the country also,
party as such sinks out of sight. But at the
same time, so long as party clings to ex-
istence upon the strength of its early ira
ditions, and by their memory seeks to
cloak unwisdom in the present, it must
and will receive the unmeasursd reproach
of an independent and untrammeled press.
Parties are to be taught from this time
forward that in free land there must be
no drift towards class. 1t is because the
Democratic party has unpatriotic tradi.
tons and has been historic as an obstruc-
ZIONIST it has been seldom in the last
thirty years permitted to mold the national
policy. 1t is because the Republican party
is driving with hot haste into the position
of the royalist party of England-in its
attitude towards public affairs-and is be-
coming dangerously representative of self
ish class interests, and the moneyed powers,
that it stands upon the verge of precipice
from which its mere patriotic traditions
will not save it.
The Farmers Alliance is one incident
In the revolt of the people against dangers
that are threatening the very life of this
nation, and not the least of which IS the
menace of associated capital in its effort to
dictate party and national policy. Upon
associated capital the RECORD UNION, nor
any of the Independent press worthy of
that designation, have no war to make.
Its rights are as strong and broad as the
Constitution itself, but not broader nor
stronger than the best interests of the
whole people. The tendency of associ-
ated capital to use party, and to exercise
itself so as TO control national policy in its
own interest, IS menace to free institu-
tions and the perpetuity Of government by
and for the people, to which no patriotic
citizen can close his eyes, and which it is
the office of the independent press to an
tagonize and curb.
1t is tendency of party, in the vicissi-
tudes of national life to succumb to the
usurpation of the rich and those who
would constitute themselves the governing
classes. In resistance of this tendency
protesting organizations of the people
spring up, precisely as the Alliance now
has. They lack coherency, because peo-
piles movements, such as it. have not the
concentrated reasons for existing that trust
movements have. But when such parties
arise, all the old political organizations in
variably begin to make overtures to them
That is what is now happening, but
partisan press will not present the subject
to the people in that light, no more than
1t will rebuke the combinations that con-
troll or seek to dominate in their parties.
1t is to the independent press, therefore,
that the people must look for correct treat
ment of all such movements, and hence in
the independent press resides largely the
patriotism, courage and power that is to
check usurpation, curb aristocratic ambi-
ton. conserve the restoration of power,
political and commercial, to the people,
and diyest rings, trusts, bosses and ill-used
wealth of the power in the nation that
they have seized upon.
THE San Francisco Gail says; 1--WE infer
.l,,+ tho Farmers' Alliance INDUCED in a