The Honolulu republican. [volume] (Honolulu, T.H.) 1900-1902, 1901-05-19

rs reality he who runs may read
more Of the spirit of Jefersorian
Democracy in the Chicago and
Kansas City platforms than can
be found in any other platform Of the
Democratic party Furthermore, in
his political beginnings. when he knew
or had read little else, Mr. Bryan cram
med himself with lessons from Jeffer-
sons life and was an ostentatious dis
ciple of that eminent radical Indeed.
it is precisely this quality OF Jefer-
sonism in Mr. Bryan and his platforms
which is offensive TO the conservative
or old school Democracy II was left
10 Organism TO illustrate the fact,
which the Bourbon Democracy does
not even yet comprehend, that Jeffer-
sonian Democracy is quite out of joint
with the times II Jefferson should
come back now to the country whose
political institutions and polity he
so largely shaped and inspired, he
would meet the same sort of a recep-
ton, as. in Mr.. Stead's opinion, would
be given in Chicago to his great fore
runner as social leveller.
Both Jefferson and Jackson lived
compared to those in which Mr.. Bryan
and social notions. They could. with
confidence, appeal to the plain peo-
pie" then, because there were few of
any other class TO oppose or control
them They did not take into &C
count the coming supremacy of or
ganized capital, much more potent
in its control of the dependent plain
people" than Mr.. Bryan's idealistic
notions of individual liberty, because
they had not dreamed of the revolu-
tionary advent of steam and electri-
city, or the teeming population which
has been their concomittant Fisher
Ames had said. in 1871: Ages must
elapse before the vast wilderness
west of the Alleghanies can be neo-
pied, and then God only knows how
they can be governed" And Jeffer-
son in his first inaugural address,
contemplating only The an-fhxessern
territory as far as the Mississippi.
said: There is room enough for our
descendants to the hundredth and the
thousandth generation The same
sudden creation of modern means of
u duo pOI anu OtuCA LlC(AoAASas
appliances, which so utterly co1found-
ed the prophecy of Ames, has thrown
out upon the banks of progress tie
let-alone individualistic police of JEFF
ferson and Jackson. where it lies OBJ
soIete and stale.
Jefferson and Jackson established
system of political equality, and
then dreamed that this comprehended
economic equality, or at least, econo-
mic freedom. But so great has been
the economic and social change since
these great pollucal builders wrought
that we are, in the words of lola,
lin a democracy ravaged by political
equality and economic inequality"
The great French radical could not
have described more truly or aptly
our present condition, if he had his
eye upon us instead of France, or
perhaps European society in general,
when he spoke these words. Though
] this condition is the basis of Bryan
ism and of parry cleavage, yet it is
so uneonsciously; or. at the most. is
vaguely perceived. We are in state
of economic anarchy. We pretend to
be living in Jeffersonian equality
though We have not adjusted our
methods and institutions to changing
conditions for hundred years.-Al-
bert Watkins in the May Forum.