St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-04-03
LODGE ON HIS ART

With the tentative tread of one cross
ing thin ice Senator HENRY CABOT
LODGE. to whom has been derisively
applied the appeliatiOn of 1.-THE scholar
in politics." cautiously, and with album
dant reservations. attempts in the cur
rent Forum TO forecast the future of the
party to whose overthrow he was so en-
inent q contributor. 1t is proper that a
man who had so little foresight as to in.
troduce and press a force bill at a mo-
ment when the "Solid South' seemed on
the point of diS%integrating under the
Alliance movement, should be some.
what cautious about predicting results.
The senator, of course, is confident
that the Republican party has a contin-
lou existence which will survive the
defeats of 80 and '92, because it rep
resents what he terms the spirit of
progress; its duty being to fill the part
of a watchful opposition: to keep clear
of all vague heresieS'' TO 'the great
principles they profess" and to be true
to its traditions and to American poll
cies. The path to victory runs along
these lines. And so, on the whole, the
senator thinks that the Republican
party will not share the fate of its
mother, the Wing, and its grandmother,
the Federal parties and pass INTO the
''ewigkeit," but will survive its disas-
tiers if it continue on the course which
invited them.
Dropping into speculative philosophy
on the why and wherefore of parties,
the senator says: party divisions, at
bottom, rest on the differences, inherent
ID human nature, between people who
desire progress and those whose con-
trolling impulse is in favor of keeping
things as they are" This, lin the last
analysis, is the true line of dem~arcation
between the two great political forces
among men-One of movement and the
other of inactiOn." Following out this
definition, he eomplacently terms his
party II of progress and the Demo
cratic party one of inaction, and saws
that JEFFERSON came into power. not
so much because of the growth of Dem
Ocratic principles as because he and
his party represented 1.-The forces of
conservatism, and even of reaction"
Senator LODGE cOnsultS his wishes
rather than his information when he
characterizes the man who wrote the
most progressive document ever
p~enned-the Declaration of Independ-
ence-who forever divorced church
from state in this country, and abolished
the laws of entail and primOgeniture, as
a man of conservatism, and even OF
reaction" Nor is his dehpition of the
bottom u of political parties any
more accurate. Had he termed the
Republican party and its ancestors the
parties OF unrest instead of progress, he
would have been nearer the fact. though
yet far from it. Progress is not a term
of scientific precision; it is merely rela-
tive. The POpulistS are certain that
what the senator terms their "vague
hereSies" are progressive movements.
The PrOhlbltiOnists are equally sure
that they are progressivists. The pas
Senger in a railroad coach sittisg with
his back to the engine can easily per-
suade himself that he is going in the
direction he faces.
The real cause of the division of men
into these various political OrganlZa-
tons, where their action is the result of
Judgment rather than of hereditv or
environment or self-seeking, is found
IN the concept men form of what a gov
eminent is: what its functions are;
what its relations to the governed are.
If a man is convinced that a nation is
but the aggregate of the people COM
posing it; that the uation is strong lust
as the individuals are strong; that men
are strong just as they are Self-reliant,
and weak in the degree in which they
are dependent; that therefore a nation
is strong or weak just as it leaves its
people to their own resources, giving
them the widest possible freedom with
its correlative of responsibility, and
weak just as it attempts to relieve
them from their responsibility by
caring for them, he will be a Demo-
cTat, because that is what Democracy
means. If, on the other hand, he be-
lieVeS that everything of which he dis
approves may be eradicated by the SIM
pie enactment of law; if he thinks that
men can be legiSlated into morality; if
he thinks that the enormous forces of
the state in its police and taxing DOW
ers should be used to promote any and
all measures which are supposed to ad-
vance the material interests of the peo-
pie; if he believes that the government
- $50 - -, - 60 - ~
pie the proper objects of its constant
snlicitude and care. then he will attach
himself to any of the parties which
promise to further his particular view
of governmental usefulness. He will be
a Republican, a PopuliSt. a Prohibitions
list or a Nationalist, as one or the other
advocate the application of power which
he anOrOvpS Of