The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-03-04
TRUE DEMOCRACY.
NOBLE SPEECH DELIVERED BY A
YOUNG DEMOCRAT.
Thomas ID. O'Brien, Esq, at the
Democratic Banquet Held in St.
Paul, ON Washington's
Birthday.
In the Presence Of Cleveland's Tool and Car
isles Deputy, Who Came to Minnesota to
Preach the Cause Of the National Banks and
the Destruction of the Greenbacks.

The toast which has been assigned to
me, '"rhe Democratic Party" is sufficient
to inspire eloquence and might well
change the halting sentences of a COM
mon-place speaker into the rounded
periods of finished orator.
1t brings to mind the heroes and pa.ri-
OTIS of '76. the first Democrats Of this
country-Washingto Madison, Jeffer-
son. and all those Democrats whose
names are signed to the Declaration Of
independence. 1t turns our thoughts to
the lives and conduct of the great men
who founded this government upon prin-
ciples of true democracy, and their illus
trious successors who have striven to
maintain it so.
AS pleasant as such contemplation is,
however, it would be mere idleness in US
to content ourselves with rehearsing the
past glories Of the party. 1t is not suffi
cient and the day will never come when
it will be sufficient to say that Democracy
has been established; the struggle to
maintain it will be ever present; the bat
tie for democracy is here today, and now,
and upon our conduct must depend the
issue. Today as ever, we see the people
divided into two great classes-the rich
and powerful minority, we'll armed and
equipped and thoroughly disciplined,
seeking still greater privileges and riches
at the expense of the disorganiZed and
oppressed masses, with human nature as
cruel, as selfish and as grasping as in
the ages that we describe as dark.
To understand what we mean by de-
mocracy we must consider the theory
oh, %1,sr RI
ed. do not refer now to what has been
sneeringly called the "glittering gener-
alities" of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, but to the precise laws placed up
on the statute books of the first state,
and of each succeeding state as it was Or
ganized.
America was then over and above all
else. an agricultural country. Up to that
time oppression had always come to the
people through the land, and SO the Dem
ocrats of the revolution believed that to
make the people free, to give every man
an equal chance to earn an Independent
living, they had only to make the land
free. They therefore declared lands to
be allodial, prohibited entails and ab0l-
ished the rule of primo -geniture.
First in the work of freeing the land
from the aristocrats and mOnOpOlists OF
that day came Thomas Jefferson. MIR.
James Parton in his excellent life of JEFF
fersOn, says: I'm his work of reOrganiZ-
ing the code, Jefferson struck first at the
system of entail, and after three weeks
struggle that incubus was lifted" 1t was
twelve years later, however, that he sue
ceeded in abolishing the rule of primo
geniture. During the debates upon this
question it was proposed that the eldest
son should have at least a double portion
of the fathers estate, but Jefferson op-
posed that also, saying: 'If the eldest
son could eat twice as much, and did
double work it might be a natural evil
dence of his right to double portion,
but being on "a par in his powers and
wants with his brothers and sisters, he
should also be on par in the partici-
patton of his patrimony." That 1t was
for the purpose of preventing the accum-
ulation and perpetuation of immense for
tunes that these laws were passed, is,
of course, not doubted. In his autobiog-
raphy. Jefferson says: "When left con-
gress in '76, it was in the persuasion
that our whole code must be reviewed,
adapted to our republican form Of govern
Elent and, now that We had no negatives
of councils, governors or kings to restrain
us lIOul uOllb llSut. IudL IL SuOulu ne CUT
rected in all its parts with a sing.e eye
to reason and the good of those for
whose government it was framed or
the measures before the legislature of
Virginia. he says: Il considered four
passed or reported as forming a system
by which every fibre would be eradicated
of ancient or future aristocracy, and the
foundation laid for a government truly
republican," These were, the repeal Of
the laws Of entail, the adjustment of
the rule of primogeniture, liberty of con-
science and a system of general educa-
ton.
jefferson and his associates did free
the land and today, next to air and water,
ii is the freest of mans earthly desires.
They did give us the religious liberty we
enjoy, and brought education within the
reach of all. But those men, great as hey
were, were not inspired, and therefore
could not foresee the discovery of steam
or the invention of the electric telegraph,
nor did they foresee the changes to be
wrought in business and industrial con-
ditions by the development of the mod
ern corporation. They made free the land,
bat they could not know that in after
years d mighty railroad corpora ton,
made possible through physical forces
then unknown. void clasp those lands
with arms of steel, and exact from their
owners a tribute far greater than ever
demanded by baron or feudal ,ord or
that the invention of the electric tele-
graph would enable the forestallers of
the markets of the whole world to COM
bine and rob the producer Of the balance.
One cannot avoid being alarmed at the
growth of the modern corporation, which
embodies within itself all the power and
disposition for evil formerly possessed by
the opponents of democracy. The ten
dency of the age is to obliterate the in
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