The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-05-23


If we turn from the document itself
and the Interpretation of 1t afforded by
the practice of the fathers to the history
out of which the Declaration grew, its
significance is equally clear; it was his
torically, not protest against govern
ment by an aristocracy or an oligarchy,
but against government for the benefit
of the governors. The principles of the
Declaration of Independence were partly
an inheritance from the French partly
| from the English, and in both countries
the Issue was the same: Do governments
exist for the benefit of the governed, or
| for that of the governors? In the old
Roman Empire the government existed
| for the benefit of the ruling class, undis-
| guisedly and avowedly so. The pro-
vinces were conquered that they might be
| taxed and the taxes were not expended
| in the provinces for the benefit of the
people who paid them: they were sent to
| Rome to contribute to the luxury of the
| imperial oligarchy centered there. This
principle of government for the benefit
of the governed passed over into the
Latin races, and was known in the end
of the last century, from the dynasty
which represented it, as Bourbonlsm. Its
| most dramatic and probably worst exhi-
| bition was in France, where, under Louis
XVI, the peasantry burned their fruit
| trees and their furniture for fuel and fed
on grass, while the king expended s2O0OOO
| a year on his stables alone. 1t was
| against this government for the benefit
| of the governors, this government which
consigned to misery and death unnum-
| bered thousands of the people that II
might keep in corrupting idleness a few
hundred OF favored mobiles. that the
| French revolted. The same system
fought hard to get lodgment in Eng
| land. Overthrown i'm the death Of
| Charles l., 1t came back in the corona
| tion of Charles ii. Overthrown in the
| advent of William and Mary, it bought
its way back by corrupting the parlia-
| ment under George III. Trevelyan de-
scribes the condition of affairs in his his
! tory OF the American Revolution, and a
| sentence from his description may here
| suffice to epitomize 1t: "A great peer
| had small cause to regret that the gates
| of commerce were barred to him and his,
as long as he could help himself out f
| taxes. and help himself royalty" How
royalty and how unscrupulously he did
help himself Trevelyan makes clear.
| That 1t was the object of the English
bureaucracy to use the American colonies
for its own enrichment, as it had used
| Ireland and India, history makes equally
| clear. That II was against this spolia
| tion of the governed for the benefit Of
| the governor, not for any abstract right
of government, that the Declaration
| of independence was a protest and the
American Revolution a successful revolt.
| Is made certain by the reading Of the
| document itself, by study of the history
| which preceded and gave birth to IT, and
by the political institutions which were
| founded upon 1t.
There are times when self-government
| Is palpably inconsistent with the Declar-
alton OF Independence, Self.government
| In the Indian Territory created plutoC-
| racy, which is the meanest and most
despicable of all forms of government.
1t made of the Territory a paradise for
land-robbers, and a refuge for the ban
ditu and train wreckers who fled thither
after every succeeding tragedy to es-
cape the processes of the courts. Official
reports have shown how, under self-gov-
ernment, spoliation, corruption, robberies,
| assassinations, flouTished. At length, in
order 10 protect inalienable right to
life. liberty, and the pursuit Of happiness,