The Louisiana Democrat., 1891-09-09
A DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE.
Ono of the Great Truths Enunciated by
Mr.. Mills,

a DEMOCRAiIC FhlNCIFLE.
Ono of the Great Truths Enunciated by
Mr.. Mills.
There are democrats and democrats.
AS party lines are drawn men divide
from instinct, from prejudice, from
self interest, from all manner of mo-
tives. But whenever in this massing
of men along the lines of opposing
ideas there is found a man who loves
democratic principle for its own sake;
who sees how men may become freer,
and, being frcer, better; whose reason
takes firm hold on the few great truths
of liberty and progress which are true
always because they underlie human
nature; and who has the courage to
stand for the truth he sees, there is
found a man whose work makes the
world better in his own generation and
for all generations to come. There
can be no higher aim in life than to do
the work of such democrat.
Speaking at Iowa City as an Ameri-
can democrat to the people of state
who have been cursed with the oppres-
sion of benevolent bigotry, Hon. Roger
@. Mills has enunciated one of these
great truths Of liberty and progress
with force and clearness that could
have come only from clear insight and
an entire conviction of it's paramount
Importance. "The great error of pro-
hibitory legislation" he said, lis that
Toe iv.f, n uioa in fh q Y,hucip01
body; that it puts temperance and in
temperance in the flesh, overlooking
the fact that they live in heart and
mind, in the immaterial part on which
law can lay no hand; that the great
work of reform is to reach ones self
and not another"
This is the very fundamental truth of
democracy and liberty. Were it false,
liberty would be forever false pre-
tense; self-government for all time a
dream impossible of fulfillment, and
the progress of humanity mere vanity
and figment of the imagination. 1t must
be true, for were it not, men were mere
brutes. born to Cypress each other and
to live forever by fraud and force ap-
piled against each other under the law
that governs in all pandemoniums.
1t is true that men are born free.
They might have been born with no
power of choice between good and evil,
but they were left free to choose, to
suffer, to learn, and so advance in the
slow processes of time to some great
end to be achieved through their lib
erty. We can see what they are, guess
what they have been, and so arrive at
some faint idea of the progress they
have already made through the suffer-
ing incident to their freedom; but 1--WE
know not yet what they shall be-" We
can only know that their progress de-
pends on their liberty. and that he does
most for the advancement of humanity
who does most to make it free.
And if there is one truth which more
than all others can make and keep
men free, it is this, that ''the great
work of reform is to reach ones self
and not another" 1t is within the
power of every man in his lifetime to
deprive himself of the power to choose
evil rather than good. Every man is
capable of self-government. If he will,
he can live without wronging himself
or others. But as matter of human
nature, men will not, until experience
forces them to it. Always they find
it easier to govern others than to gov
ern themselves; to force others than to
force themselves. Instead of so re-
forming themselves in heart and intel
lect that they can become power for
good over others, through the strength
of intellectual and moral force, they
leave their own hearts and minds
ungoverned that they may use over
the bodies of others the brute
force of law, for more jails, more
shackles, more clubs, more bayo-
nets. The world can never be bettered
so, for the betterment of humanity
must come through the betterment of
its heart and mind, which no force of
club or bayonet can compel to choose
the good. Men remain free in heart
and mind in spite of oppression, which
only weds them more firmly to their
own wrong, and makes it less possible
for them to reach the right.
The remedy for every wrong is more
right; for every oppression, greater
freedom. Only as men are free can
they govern themselves, only as they
become capable of self-government are
they useful in their own generation and
instruments in working out the redemp-
tion of humanity from the curse Of
force and fraud. of ignorance and un-
necessary suffering. And wherever a
democrat is found proclaiming these
truths his voice is as that of one cry
ing in the wilderness that the way of
liberty may be prepared and the paths
of rornnracS 1nada sfrai inhf W Io,,;r