Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-28
IMPERFECT DEMOCRACY.
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH,

| recent election, that majority or us are
Democrats with capital d. But the small
letter is larger than the big one and takes us
all in. We are all agreed in our belief in
democracy. There is no king in this country
| and no desire for one. Nor have we any
titled people, except the officers of our mill.
| tary tablishment. We are all democrats.
That is We are all democrats politically.
| But we stop there. We set all men upon an
| equality in the voting booths. One man Is
| just as good as another there. The righteous
| and the rascal, the man who works with
| his brains, and the man who works with his
| hands, he who can read and write and he
who is as destitute of these accomplish
ments as were ever the mobiles OF the Middle
Ages, the man who has character and the
man who has no character at all-eKcept
| bad one, rich and poor, high and low,
| Christian and pagan, Saxon and Slav, white
| and black, all drop their ballots into the
| box, and every man is counted one, only
one.
There was q picture in one of the papers
before the election, which represented the
good goddess Liberty holding up O pair of
| scales, with a well-dressed and intelligent
looking gentleman in one side, and ragged,
| frowsy beggar on the other side; and the
scales exactly balanced. That was picture
of political democracy. And that is the kind
of democracy to which, wisely and unwise-
1y, for good or ill, this country stands COM
mitted. We believe in it. If we have lost
faith in it, then we are political heretics
Our Political Democracy Imperfect.
BUT we go no further. One man is as
good as another during the first week in
November, but not at any other time. All
men are equal at the polls, but not at any
other place. Even our doctrine of political
democracy Is singularly imperfect. Any
man may vote, no matter how ignorant of
pubic interests, no matter how opposed to
all that is of advantage to the COM
munfty. But the women must not vote.
The illiterate, the iniquitous. the freed
slave, the foreigner who has not even
learned our speech, and every rascal out of
jail, may share in our decisions of all great
questions. But the most intelligent, the
most respectab BILE, the best behaved, and, all
things considered, the wisest class of people
in this country are excluded. OF course l
mean the women. An absurd prejudice,
which had its origin in the turbulent days
when service to the State consisted in the
ability to smite with the fist and to thrust
with the spear, and human beings were of
value in proportion to the toughness of
their muscles-this prejudice still influences
even this democratic country. The man
who keeps a saloon may vote, and welcome;
have no voice in the affairs of the nation,
which is her country as much as his. We
are rather narrow minded as yet, even in
our political democracy.
But other than political democracy, We
have none at all. The only democracy that
really counts, that amounts to anything,
that promises much for the betterment of
the nation, and that is genuine and honest
is social democracy. Imean the kind of ap-
probation of human brotherhood that
brings people together, all sorts of people,
into relations of friendliness. This we lack.
We are social aristocrats. We are glad to
associate with people who have as good fur
niture in their houses as we have. We are
quite opposed to very close intimacy with
any, other people. The dweIlers in the
palaces are sometimes rather unpleasant
citizens, with remarkably few IDEAS and
these expressed with fine disregard for
the principles OF English grammar. While
the people who pay house rent at the rate
of twenty dollars q month are frequently
people of good manners, of education, who
read more books in n week than their richer
neighbors in year, and who think wise
thoughts about the world they live in.
A misunderstanding Somewhere.
1T seems absurd that in this democratic
country there should be such aristocratic
lines drawn and so foolisaly drawn. If the
pleasure of society consists in eating ex-
pensive dinners and in exhibiting expen-
sive clothes, then by all means admit to it
only those who can afford these baser de-
lights. But if the best of life, as Emerson
said, is conservative, welcome then to all
people who can talk Much is lost on both
sides of this arbitrary line.
Palmer still is the distinction between the
educated and the uneducated, between the
people who live comfortably and the peo-
pie who live uncomfortably. The priv-
legged classes are on one side and the I'M
privileged masses are on the other side, and
there is great gulf between them. They
live each in their own quarter of the town.
They do not even see each other. They are
open on both sides to those unfounded
prejudices which are brought by ignorance.
The classes think OF the masses as improvi-
dent and untidy and unclean people who |
would be great deal better off if they did |
not put their wages into the saloons rather |
than the banks; while the masses think |
the hardest kind of thoughts of the classes. |
The words that were spoke en- last summer in |
the midst of our industrial excitement by |
people, by the poor, even by the |
pastors of churches who did not know what |
they were talking about, words of abuse of |
the rich as hard-hearted tvrants, show what |
democracy. There must be misunderstand- |
ing.
What misfortune it issto have all the |
poor and ignorant people kept to them |
selves and all the rich and cultured people |
kept to themselves, and no fraternal in ter |
course between them. 1t is the old story of |
putting the dough in one dish and the yeast |
in another, and expecting bread. 1t is a |
bar, which ought to be evident to everybody, |
in the face of national progress. How Gun
betterment be expected in what we call the |
lower classes, when the only people who can
help are parted from those who need help
by the conditions of our social life?
Taking a New Look at Life
Il REJOICE that this unpatriotie, un-
fraternal and unchristian state of things is
getting to be recognized. There are great
many young people who would be glad to be !
of service to their less fortunate neigh
bors. They have learned that noblesse
oblige is capable of translation not only
into English but into daily life. They
desire, as Ruskin says, to make their minds
not prisons but treasure houses of knowl-
edge.
The growth of thes social settlement idea
Is an indication of this new look at life. The
Extension Society," whose Pitts
burg branch holds a public meeting to-
night, is another sign of progress. 1t seems
to me that the churches might do great
deal more than they are at present doing in
of social democracy. They
succeed after fashion, in getting all kinds
Of people together to say prayers and hear
sermons: they might get the same people
together socially and double their good