The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-04-29
SPLENDID SELF-DECEPTION.

President HARRISON has recently been
presenting some pretty theories of mon
archial government, as if they were the
true doctrine for republics to follow. A
contemporary summarizes the captivating
rhetoric Of the President on this question
As follows:
That we are great and rich; that the
wealth produced by our labor belongs pro-
perly to the government; that by its judici-
Gus expenditure commodious harbors and
noble water ways may be constructed; that
fleets of battle-ships and merchantmen,
carrying our commodities to every cline
and exhibiting our glorious flag in every
quarter, may De evoked as by the wand of
an enchanter; and that the overflow of the
federal treasury, under this truly benevo
lent and purely national policy, would fer
tilize the south not less than the north and
diffuse prosperity impartially through the
land this in few words hardly less ex
travagant than the Presidents, is the rose
ate vision which he opens to the eyes of his
fellow-citizens.
All of which sounds we'll enough in the
Dry, but the practice is somewhat different.
AS exhibited in this country, it means fed
eral control Of elections, with "bayonet
behind every ballot,'' so that the party in
power may be enabled to do its own reg
istration, counting and certifcation." 1t
means that the rights and liberties of the
people shall be trampled under foot at
their very homes by the armed emissaries
of the federal power that thus amuses and
dazzles the people while it plumbers them.
1t means the expenditure of round billion
of dollars in one term of Congress,
leaving a deficiency where there
had been a surplus in the ma
tional treasury. 1t means the taxa
ton of industry to the same appalling eX-
tent, for every cent paid in taxes to make
up this billion comes from the productive
industry of the people. 1t means the taxa
ton of the working classes for the benefit
of the rich, of the farm er for the benefit of
the trust shareholder. 1t is q constant
menace to the safety of the people that the
government should be intrusted with the
vast sums necessary for carrying into eff
feet these gigantic enterprises. 1t would
make the government absolutein its power,
of the people. Such a policy would place
in the hands of the federal government the
power that the trainers of the con stitution
were careful expressly to deny to it, and
would constitute a reversal of the tradi-
tional aim of this republic and Of the ever
expanding sentiment of the times against
absolute power.
In the language of one of the creates t
historians of our day, it IS the duty and
will be the peculiar event of our time, to
acknowledge that all power, whether in
tellectual or temporal, whether belonging
to governments or people, to philosophers
or ministers. in whatever cause it may be
eXercised-that all human power bears
within itself a natural vice, principle Of
feebleness and abuse, which renders it ne
cessary that it should be limited.
But least of all is unlimited power in the
hands of governmenent durable; and any
policy that has even a tendency to that end
is destructive of the liberty guaranteed by
republican institutions. The theory of a
splendid and all-powerful government
whose strength shall be so great that it
may in turn enrich the people or certain
portions of them, is moczery of the peo-
pie who are taxed to make it SO.