The Globe-republican., 1893-06-30
OUR POLITICAL PARTIES.
Ingalls, Points Out the Principles
that Divide Voters.
The Republican Party the Party of Prog
ress, the Democratic Party the Party
of Inertia-W0man Suf-
frage.

From the St Louis Globe Democrat
Political parties, like poets, are born
and not made. They are neither part
nerships nor incorporated societies, nor
Joint stock companies, nor artificial be-
ings created by law. They grow by
an interior vitality, and are not planned
nor constructed. They have no archi-
forces are spent and their functions
performed they disappear. A party is
a social solidarity, natural group in
the state, composed of men of common
memories, kindred convictions, similar
sympathies, interests and aspirations
upon questions affecting the civil and
political rights of its members and the
continuance of the national life. It's
existence does not depend upon success
or defeat, but upon necessity. 1t can
not be improvised. nor can it be extir-
pated by hostile majorities. When it
expires it is from its inherent limita
tions.
Parties are Indispensable to people
that are free, and it is only by their ac-
tivity and collision that the latent
forces of the state are evoked and its
highest glory attained. The citizen
who affects to be better than any party
is a public enemy, and the statesman
who asserts that he is greater than any
party is either charla tan or a novice.
As parties cannot be made to order.
neither can issues be formulated on the
spur of the moment. Platforms are
the creeds of parties, their articles of
faith, the expression of their conscious
ness and of the phenomena of their in
ner life. There are no imprOmptu
platforms. key-notes utter themselves
and war cries have no grammar.
Names and descriptions are imrnaterial.
The democratic and republican parties
have changed their names. as dominos
are changed at a masquerade. but their
substance and principles are imnuta-
BILE.
RADICALIsM AND CONSERVATISM.
The political orbit of the United
States has been determined from the
beginning by the conflict between two
theories which may be ikened in a
general way to the centipetal and CEN
trifugal forces of the solar system, the
tendency towards and away from CEN
tralization of power, as the planets are
drawn to and repealed from the sun
and thus retained in their eternal cir
cult. The Germans use the word par
ticularism" to signify devotion to the
interests of a province or kingdom
rather than to the empire, and in our
politics the contest has been between
10, Il hot
liberalism and strict construction of the
constitution. On the one side are con-
servatives. on the other radicals. The
motto of one party is ''En avant'-Go
ahead; of the other, ''Laissez faire"-
Let alone. One is the engine. the other
is the brake. Here is inertia. That
is democracy. There is progress.
That is republicanism. Both are
Indispensable to national per-
manence and development. The
pendulum has alternately swung from
one to the other, but the hands have
recorded constant advance round the
dial of the century. Great as have Oc-
casionally been the majorities in the
electoral college. the popular vote for
many administrations has been divided
with practical equality between these
two theories of government. There
have been casual and temporary associ-
atoms, quasi-political, calling them
selves parties, based upon moral, edu-
cational, ecclesiastical and social ques-
tions, but history does not concern
itself with them. They are eddies in
the currtnt. collecting debris, rubbish |
and offal. which drifts in an aimless
circle for awhile, and then sinks and is
swept away.
A REPUBLICAN VIEW OF DEMOCRACY.
Macaulay describes class of En-
glishmen who preferred to perish by |
precedent rather than to be saved by |
innovation. In the United States these |
would be democrats. and in casting the |
political horoscope the continued ex-
istence of the democratic party, its sue
cessors and assigns. must be taken for |
granted as inevitable. 1t is imperish- |
able, because it rests upon the basis of
negation. 1t is opposed to any change |
in the status quo. Were there no dem |
ocratic party in being it would be in |
simultaneously evolved upon the pre-
sentation of any programme proposing |
affirmative action by the government
in any direction upon any subject
AT every step of our historic advance
toward nationality the democratic party |
has been steadfast and immovable in |
opposition. All that has been done has |
been in violation of the constitution. |
Since it has been accomplished they |
acquiesce, but insist that nothing more
shall be done. They opposed the coer-
cion of the seeding states. the draft,
national banks, the issue of bonds, the
legal tender act, the abolition of slav-
ery. the prosecution of the war. negro
suffrage, resumption of specie pay
ments, the homestead laws, railroad
land grants and protective tariff as |,
unconstitutional. but there is no more
danger of discrimination against inn
portant American industries by Cleve-
lands administration than there is of
reputation of the national debt or the
abrogation of the constitutional amend
mentS.
Democrats have politically neither
conscience, courage nor convictions.