The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-08-28

EQUAL SUFFRAGE A MISTAKE?
Editor Representative:
Dear Sir: An editorial in your last is
sue classes Prof. Ely among those college
professors who have lost faith in our re-
publican institutions, and long for re-
turn to monarchial government. The ex-
pressions quoted by the Journal do not
bear the construction there attached to
them. THE Journal does the professor an
injustice by isolating those sentences
from the context Prof. Ely's books, es-
pecially Social Aspects of Christianity
and Socialism and Social Reform, prove
him to be consistent and determined op-
ponent of plutocracy in all it's FORMS and
an earnest striver after social justice
The fact that he believes in government
ownership of all natural monopolies, and
that he was summoned before the regents
of the Wisconsin State University to ans
wer the charge of teaching socialism, is a
sufficient guarantee that he is not a tool
of plutocracy.
But Prof. Ely says that "the 18th CEN
fury ideas of essential equality are not to
be encouraged" Seriously, Mr.. Editor,
do you not agree with him? And is he
not right when he declares that "nothing
is more unequal than the equal treatment
of unequals," that under such conditions
1.-The feebler members suffer-" To deny
these propositions is logically to proclaim
ourselves socialists. Men are not essen
TALLY equal whatever we may say of their
political equality, and until we have
reached a much higher stage of evolution
socialism must remain both unjust and
impracticable.
The 18th century idea of essential
equality was not recognition of the
fact that every man has a human soul,
and certain inalienable rights as human
being; it was simply false assumption
that men are equal in abilities, privileges,
DESIRES etc.
1t is true, the spirit of the 18th century
and of the French revolution was the in
spiration Of much that is good in modern
democracy, but it is also true that the
ideas of Rousseau, Didorot ct al, logically
lead to the rejection of all authority, and
to absolute monarchy
"The 18th century" idea was both incor-
rect and inadequate. The Revolutionists
would make men politically equal, sup
pose by fiction that they are essentially
equal, and then turn them loose as so
many warning atoms. The ethical nature
of man was not recognized: his rights as
human being were forgotten. Out of this
unethical struggle could come, not social
justice, but social war; "the survival of
the fittest" here would mean the survival
of the most brutal, and the most cunning.
AS matter of fact we find in this bust
ness age" of ours, with political equality,
and under the system of unlimited compe-
tition, the weaker members of society "go
to the wall" with vengeance.
A century of democracy has demons
trated that political freedom does not
mean industrial freedom, that the right of
suffrage does not insure the right to live
as becomes human being. The right of
every man to decent living and reason
able opportunities Is more fundamental
than his rights as citizen.
do not know that Prof Ely has any
where attacked the doctrine of rule by
force Of numbers. Supposing he had,
would he not be right at least in theory :?
Why should men naturally unequal have
an equal voice In government? Is the ig-
uOTdut OulCdSC DIS competent 10 Q0C1uc
public matters as the educated philan-
thropist? May not government by the
people" mean a government by the pre-
ponderance of the ability and virtue of
the community rather than by the "sheer
force of numbers?" AS a social being,
man has a right to voice in the governs
ment of the community of which he forms
part, but it does not follow that all men
should have an equal voice. This is
speaking theoretically, of course; major
ity rule is, suppose, the most practicable
way yet discovered Of securing the ends of
political justice; but there is nothing es-
sentially right about equal suffrage. And
the democracy of the revolution has been
proved wofully inadequate to insure eth
er political, social or industrial justice.
We need new political economy and a
Christian democracy; we must come to
recognize man as moral being, rather
than political or Industrial unit.
--e JOHN A. RYAN.
Duluth, August 81, 1895.