Marshall County independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1897-1902, 1900-08-10
WHAT Is IMPERIALISM

the consent of the governed, but
that those powers shall never be
separated from the people, to the
end that the working autonomy of
our republic may always prove to
be a "government of the people, by
the people, for the people," as hap
PLY expressed by the immortal Lin
coin in his Gettysburg speech. The
Jealous care of those who drew the
specifications and outlined the charts
by which our ship of state was to be
constructed and run was ever exer-
cised to prevent the possibility of
any function of popular self-govern-
ments being far removed from the
people themselves, to prevent its be-
ing taken out of the hands of the
people or placed beyond their con-
troll. With that end steadfastly in
view, their all controlling aim was
to SO Safeguard every function of
the peoples government as to make
all persons, chosen from time &c
time to administer temporarily the
public affairs of the republic, keenly
and Immediately responsible to the
people, whose instruments and ser
wants they were intended to be al
ways. The bedrock idea of the
whole plan was firm belief that the
closer the government is kept to the
people and the more keenly respon-
sible each public servant is kept to
the will of the people, the safer and
better will the liberties and the
sacred rights of the people be pre-
served, and the more impossible and
ineffective will be the ever-present
temptation (on the part of those
temporarily in authority to pervert
and use the functions of government
in promoting selfish ends, securing
special privileges or working out
unjust and unfair advantages. In
theory, at least, therefore, we find
every public servant responsible, di-
rectly or indirectly, to the people.
And. in studying the deliberations
in which the safe guards and wise
provisions thrown by them around
our government were formed, we
also find that those unselfish patriots
who planned it were so jealous
about having the peoples control
over every governmental function
preserved in Its entirety that every
thing which was or is one degree
removed from the direct control of |
the common people was and is the
result of compromise-not COM
promise, how ever, between those
who favored a marked degree of re-
moval from the common people, on
the one hand, and those who tav-
ored the most intimate and immedi-
ate responsibility of the government
to the people, on the other; but a
between those who,
while favoring alike the most i'm
mediate responsibility to the govern
ment to the people, were trying TO
accomplish three things; "govern-
ment of the people, by the people,
for the people" which should pre-
serve justice, insure equality and be
sufficiently strong and stable TO per-
form its functions effectively.
But, in these later days, the tend
ency to remove the government
away from the people more and
more, as we'll as the tendency to re
gard lightly and brush aside easily
the sacred landmarks of limitation
set in our constitution, and even to
set the constitution itself aside as a
thing of the past, obsolete, out-of-
date and inapplIcable to present con-
to be growing more
accelerated and emphasized day
after day, week after week, month
after month and year after year.
And the manifestation of these
has become justly alarm
ing to those of our people who be-
lleve in constitutional government
and are painfully conscious of the
frequency ami boldness
with which its well-defned limita-
tons are being questioned, strained
or totally disregarded. This tend
ency to remove the government
further and further from the people,
to constantly minimize the force of
the peoples voice in the disposition