The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-30


 Business methods must be kept up to
 date or competition will drive them to
 the wall. In state craft there is nothing
 quite analogous, and political institu-
 tions have to run their course and, if
 headed for destruction, to destruction
 they must go.
 Rome once started down hill, must needssrun it's course of hundreds of years
 to the destruction of the Roman empire, | France must needs run into the French
 revolution and later against the war | machine called Germany to discover the
 rottenness of its institutions; so with | Spain, China and the rest of them. l It would seem as though enlightened | self-consciousness would get where it l could take in hand political institutions ] producing bad results and alter them for l the better, instead of allowing them to l run over wastes of time to logical ruin. Men on the other hand change in | quantity and quality, especially by in- l Aux of foreign clements, Thereupon un- | changed institutions and changed hu- man units produce dislocation and the l institutions begin to grind out unantici- l pated products.
 The town meeting form of govern /! ment was right enough for Boston until | Boston got so large that it's freemen l could not crowd into hall, Whereupon Boston town government degenerated | into indoors mob rule.
 Political institutions ill this country
 worked fairly well when the population was homogenious, mostly Puritan or equally respectable, and all taxpayers l t0 n bnIlt tha 60 mo a ynrn op pvtpOt
 The sons of the Puritans have become
 Yankees and further change has been wrought by immigration.
 Industrial civilization has developed industrial temptation, and native and foreigner alike have fallen, and side by side in the dirt they both grovel before the golden calf.
 1 Men are in politics largely for what | there is in 1t. Our presidents are guided | in their actions during their first terms | largely by contemplated effects upon | chances for reelection. Congressmen | must mend fences and vote according to the popularity of measures in their dis tricts In every state and municipal election the district and ward bosses have bargained with nominees, for spells in return for office.
 The Puritanic sons of New England, true to their religious bent and backed largely by the clergy, have long been en- gagged in taking all that they have from those that have not; while our foreign rulers, through our municipal institu- tions, are successful engineering other peoples property into their own pock- cts.
 Again, the men who foot the bills are no longer the men who vote the appro- priations In other, words, our institu- tions under changed management are not working the most satisfactory re- suits, nor so as to survive the Attest.
 The problem is, can our institutions be changed and so changed as to en- throne as rulers those Attest to rule.
 The successful solution depends upon whether or not the American people as a whole are honest at heart or whether interest in good government and pure democracy is confined to a select blue stocking and academic minority
 It is theoretically possible to change discordant institutions into accord with character, but hardly possible to change institutions whose bad results accord with deeenerated character.
 The power behind the throne in the United States is the political machine and the caucus.
 Much scoldiug has been done in pulpit and lecture platform to incite first class men to attend ward caucuses. At the caucus it met ward-healer, wire butler. log-rolery bargainer, briber and brbee, rum, tobacco, profanity, expec- toraton and smoke with a saloon- keeper in the chair and slate for the plan of campaign. Such the caucus in structure and equally such it's function.
 After trial or two with nothing ac- complished, the first-class man or per haps the secoud-class man is apt to withdraw from the caucus, with his sense of duty, and ever after to listen philosophically and unmoved to the scolding. No one claims that this is strong or right, but every one admits it is true and apparently irremediable by | any means in sight. The better clement | simply won't mix in caucus or any, where else with the man our institutions | bring to the surface there. It is not a | theory, but a condition to be reckoned | with Can a method of nomination be | devised which shall clip the wings of | the machine, destroy it's slate and do | away with the caucus?
 We take a census that is supposed to | register every man, woman and child in | the country, and everything else pretty N nearly from horses to potatoes; man, ! animals and vegetables are all there.
 Directories are gotten out in every | everybody knows everyone else, etc,
 Now can all this be taken to mean | town of any size and in the smaller ones | that men in the United States have | themselves so consciously in hand that it would be possible to register the sov- l ereign will by consciously registering l the part of the sovereignty each freeman represents?
 Suppose the newspapers publish a advertisement for one week, four weeks before election day, stating that the sovereign is petitioned to ex- press it's will as to who shall be mayor, treasurer, comptroller, etc, of the city of New Haven for four years from such to such date The name and address of each freeman is known and registered in public files also the amount of taxes paid by such freeman to the city for
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