Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1891-01-08
UNNATURAL ELEMENTS IN GOVERN.
NENT.


MENT.
The fundamentals of the American
Government are unimpaired. The Con-
stitution of the United States contains all
the springs of all liberty and all the Guar.
antees essential to free and prosperous gov.
ernment The difficulties we encounter
to-day are not fundamental; they relate to
the superstructures we rear by legislation
and custom.
we repeat, the substructure of the gov.
eminent of the republic is sound. and al,
the subserviency, corruption and vena,itv
attaching to legislation is of unnatural
growth. So far from being pessimistic, We
see every reason for belief that these ms.
directions may be changed, corruption put
under foot, and the power of rings and
combines Broken up. For the destiny If
the nation has not been accomplished and
1t is not given that the people are to fore
ever submit to usurpation of their power
Because of this belief, we have regarded
the Farmers Alliance movement as one Of
the results through which usurpation is to
be broken, and power seized upon by rings
and bosses wrested from them and restored
to the people.
1nese are not mere generalities; who
ever looks over the record of late tariff leo
islation. for example, will find in it alone
ample evidence that not the well-being of
the whole people was consulted. but rather
the desires and dictations of manufacturing
rings and capitalized enterprises of selfish
proportions. Loyalty to party" has been
the whip in the hands of the bosses and the
ring-masters to drive the people into line
with their policies that conserve more pri-
vate ends than general interests. Men do
not owe loyalty to party when it errs or
becomes tool of the corrupt. "Loyalty,"
If properly disable in a republic at all, is
due to truth and to country: party is but a
means, to be abandoned or taken UP lust
as it carries i'll or well. 1t is because the
people now fully realize this truth that
the party journal has no influence among
them and that the independent and free
handed paper is the true exponent of pub
lie opinion.
The new era of this Government is to
slough off all unnatural elements; the in
terests of the people as whole are to be
alone conserved; congested populations are
not to De encouraged 10 drain rural vital
lty; rings trusts and combinations are to
be moral, if not legal, offenses; the Senate
is to be restored to something near its
original character, and premiums are not
to be hawked about for sittings in it, such,
for instance, as tempted Mr.. Aston, who
was offered seat from Florida for the
bonus of $250,000. Every tendency to
class distinction is to be obliterated; under
the mere shibboleth of protection" we are
not to line the purses of manufacturers
rings at the expense of the consumers; but
reciprocity that protects home production
by enlarging the export trade is to be-
come the policy of the nation. The aris-
tocratic drift of the Senate is to cease;
mere obstruction and hindrance to legisla-
ton for party advantage is to be regarded
as an offense; allegiance to the country is
to precede loyalty to party; public servants
are to hold themselves accountable to the
people and not to political bosses; the rot
ten-borough system of government must
give way to the law of equitable repre-
sentation, which is equal representation;
finally legislation is to have its paternity
in the needs of the people legally reflected
and not in the lobby at Washington or the
council chambers of trusts and rings and
political conclaves having party advantage
alone in view. 1t may be many years
before the fruition of these high hopes is
attained, but it must come to pass, or the
republic will sink into the mire of class,
and fall beneath the rule of the rich that
are corrupt and the corrupt that are not,
but would be rich.