The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-02-28
Our House OF Lords.

Peudtc ChuCuS OpOA ohO
calculated to fill all serious persons
with dismay as to the future of the
country. We see in its action he
same tendencies provocative OF revo
luton and chaos which at present
threaten the British Empire through
the steadfast opposition of the House
of Lords to the progressive spirit of
the age.
We are ready enough in America to
read the signs of the times in Eng
land. We are ever ready to reproach
the effete scions of a~ristocracy for in
trenching themselves in their preju-
dice, their ignorance, tn cir ~selfshness
and their tyrannical disregard OF pop
ular rights. We are ready enough to
commiserate the unhappy nation
which is held back in field of time by
such narrow and petty despotism.
We are ready to prophesy the dread
results that must follow when the
people ultimately rise up for their
rights: we see in this prospect the
complete overturning of the present
order OF things, and new and untried
experiments in government growing
out of a period of ferment and tur-
MOL. But while we can see all thes
things truly enough in our neighbours
situation. we fail tx observe that al
most exactly the same danger threat
ems ourselves and from almost exactly
similar sources.
Constituted as 1t is today, the
United States Senate has become the
greatest danger that threatens the
American Constitution. 1t has grown
in long years to be a body defiant of
the will of the people and careless OF
their welfare. Political science and
political morality are unknown to its
members as a body. 1t is imbued
with an inveterate class spirit, and
every other consideration falls to the
ground when opposed to it. Even
party loyalty ceases to have the least
sway when the call of party conflicts
in the slightest degree with the claims
of that ~aristocracy of wealth which
has become the only recognized con-
stituency of our overbearing class
bound, retrogressive House of Lords.
Senators may class themselves as
democrats or republicans for political
convenience, just as British peers are
nominally arrayed al conservatives
and liberals. But when party doc
trines and class privileges clash, there
is never any hesitation i'll the breasts
of these devoted patriots in either
body. Party and people go under
every time, and the privileges of the
few are defended with hide-bound
prejudice.
1t will doubtless be argued in reply
to these remarks that the Senate of
the United States in its opposition to
the Wilson Tariff theory, for instance,
a a large popular support in addi-
ton to the members of the plutocracy
from which it springs and to whose
cause it is so firmly sworn. But it
would be a mistake to suppose that
the English House of Lords was with
out popular following. Outside of
the ranks of the landed aristocracy it
has adherents whose numbers run into
millions, and who frequently give it
the ascendaney in popular elections
for the House OF Commons. The ten
ants of the agricultural districts and
London tradesmen, who live upon the
expenditures of the nobility, are a
body of voters almost as impregnable
in. their loyalty to ''the established
ORDER of things as the holders of
titles and privileges themselves. The
ranks of this popular supporting
body are often swollen too by thou
sands temporarily won from among
such voters as from lack of knowledge
or lack of stability are open to APP
peals to their fears or their passions.
their ignorance or their short sighted
ness.
This is exactly a parallel case to
that which we see in d wi midst.
The ~plutocrats of the Senate and the
p~lutocratic order from which they
spring, control at times a huge army
of dependents, their workmen and
servants. corresponding to the tenan-
try Of the English landed estates, and
also that vast army of middlemen,
agents and retail dealers who ars un-
der the direct influence OF the capi-
t~alistic manufacturing class, and who
occupy a position in our politics not
unlike that Of British Tory trades
men.
The Democratic Senators are in the
course of demonstrating to the coun-
try that party is of no account with
them as compared with privilege.
They are in a practical alliance with
the Republicans--natural enemies OF
every popular right--to nuilify the
pledges of the Democracy in the lass
election, to defeat the popular judg-
ment expressed therein, and to set at
defiance all the modern ideas OF lib
srality and progress which are Taught
BY the most enlightened thinkers Of