The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1891-03-30
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Dom PIatt on Mems Reasons for
their Party Allegiance.
Correspondents Of the Press

a., "nion uduure TO lose IN
tne organization itself the object for
which the body was organized marks
the history of religion the world over.
Men will fight to the death for sect
Dased on dogmas they have never heard,
OF, nearing, understood. Thisis especially
the case when the church is opposed or
prosecuted. We have seen great masses
OF men who rarely even opened the Bible
get up in wrath to fight for a general
reading of that sacred volume. A COM
| petitive examination as to the dogmas of
a sect among its laymen would wofully
| thin out the number even of the true
believers.
What we have observed and all recog-
nize in religious bodies is true of poll
tics. This is especially the case in the
United States, where politics has all the
fanaticism of religion and fascination of
gambling. Deprive an American citizeno of
| politics and you deprive him oflife. And
yet the average man often cannot give a
reason for the faith that is in him. We
have the people today nearly equally di-
vided in two hostile camps. Now, ask
the average voter why he is of such a
party, and the sum of his reply will be
thatthe other side are, in his estimation,
dishonest, unpatriotic people, and his
side thoroughly American.
There are, of course, reasons for the
existence of the one party as well as the
other, but these reasons are generally
unknown to the rank and file. That
commonly given, that the other party, be-
ing half of the American people, is COM
posed of knaves and fools, and ones own
organization is made up of sensible men
and patriots, is enough to consign the
supposed reasoner to mild ward in an
asylum for the insane.
The natural division into two parts of
all civilized communities lies between
those who have and those who have not.
The man who comes into this world of
toll, for such it is, to claim his living,
and finds no shelter, food or raiment
prepared for him, not even work, while
another with no better claim than his
own has all provided, naturally feels an
antagonism for the more fortunate. This
deepens when it is discovered that the
privileges accorded few in the way of
accumulated property not only secure
to them living for each, but are aug
mented by luxuries that rob the many
of bare subsistence. The hostile armies
organize on this line, and in all civilized
communities of the earth this conflict is
raging.
Now the party of the outs are the
masses; in other words, the people. The
party of ms make the classes, composed
of the favored few. For hundred years
the HAYES and have-nots of the United
States. under our present form of gov
eminent, have been forming instructive
ly. The growth has been slow from the
fact that our wide, fruitful continent for
nearly half century equalized property.
As we get from the earth all that we
live on, the many farms open to actual
settlers deprived capital of its power to
Cypress, and made labor SO valuable in
itself that it cared little how poor it
came into the world. Every man was
sure of competence for himself and
family, while the road to wealth seemed
open to all. The great body of our peo-
pie were made up of those possessed of
an easy competence, while ON one side
a less number extremely rich. AS late
as 1856 we had but three millionaires in
all the United States, while the percent
age of men owning their own homes was
greater than among any other people in
the world.
At the period speak of the political
contests were mainly over abstract politi-
cal questions, and although conducted
with much interest and noise, the result
in each instance was accepted good nat
uredly, and the excitement would sub
side until aroused again by another can
vass
This condition in the last three decades
has shifted to something far more seri-
GUS. The immense stream of immigrants
steadily pouring upon our shores has
absorbed the public domain. It occu-
pies all that is left of the vast tracts
seized on and held by railroad corpora
tions, and the tide of hungry labor
sweeping back from the interior to older
settlements has brought us precisely the
same fierce competition that is the curse
of Europe. We have today larger body
of tenantry in proportion to our popula-
ton than any other nation under the
sun. The comfortable middle class has
nearly all disappeared, and great gulf
lies between the very poor and very rich.
Under this condition, that grows more
intense every day, the two parties as
sumo toward each other an antagonism
never dreamed of by the trainers of our
political fabric. We have developed
into government of parties. The party
in power is the government, and the
party out of power has no rights the
more successful organization feels bound
to respect. The significance of this may
be felt when we stop to consider that not
only every Office in the government suf-
fers from change Of administration,
but every cent of property is affected.
This includes the vast accommodations in
the hands of individuals, the immense
investments, as in railroads, all the real
and fictitious values gathered in by cor
porations, trusts, monopolies and all the
labor of the land.
Now do not mean to assert that all
these are benefited or abused in the
change from one party government to
another, but mean that there is lodged
at Washington a power capable of such
influence that is felt throughout the land
by all these interests. also assert that
as feelings deepen between the classes
and the masses day will come when
that power will be exercised, and we
will waken to the fact that this great re-
public of which we are so proud has ele-
ments of despotism in it that would
startle a car. We have been taught
that nothing is SO fierce, cruel and OPP
pressive as a majority.
Of the results, however, I am not treat
ing-only of the actual condition. There
is popular superstition to the effect
that man is a Republican or Demo-
GRAFT because of his possessing certain
views, or political principles, as they are
called. The fact is, if man has any
views it is because he is a Republican
or Democrat. But if the two parties
were sifted down to those possessed of
convictions, or even opinions, very little
would be left of the two organizations.
Men instinctively drop into one party or
the other. 1t is mere matter of feel
ing and outside influences, that are the
furthest removed from the intellectual
processes. Hence it is that thousands on
thousands of men are Republicans who
ought to be Democrats, and perhaps as
many natural Democrats are found