Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-06-03

EGQAkQu4 1exu1Q
a writer commenting upon he recant
decision Of the United States Supreme
Court ii the Porto Rican cases has
drawn the curiously superficial conclu-
sion that this is a blow at imperialism,
because it exhalts the authority Of the
Congress of the United States at the sex-
pense of the President, and makes the
former, n not the latter, determine
in what direction the constitution shall
be extended. The conclusion which this
writer endeavors to have drawn is that
our government cannot be made an inn
sperialistic one so long as autocratic
power is not accorded 20 the cnlei ex-
ecutive. We suppose that it is inevi-
table that the great mass of our peo-
pie should persist in considering ques-
tons of this kind from an obviously
superficial point of view. If it were ar
ranged that the President of the United
States should On state occasions wear
a crown and carry in his hand a sceptre,
although his authority might not be IN
the least increased, millions would, no
doubt, affirm that the end of American
liberty had been reached. On the other
hand, if, without the European para
phernalia OF office, a radical anti-demo-
cratic change vas made in our system
OF government, a great many of our peo-
pie would rest in entire ignorance of the
transition, simply because the crown
and the sceptre, the stars and the gar
tiers of an old world imperial establish
ment, would be wanting.
The system of government establish
ed by our ~forefathers. was democratic
to this extent, that it proclaimed the
doctrine of human equality. 1t was
not, it is true, lived up to, for the
reason that we had the problem OF
negro slavery Upon our hands, and
it was not easy to reconcile the own
ership of colored men with the theory
that all men were free and equal. A
more logical people, the French, for
example, would not have tolerated such
a contradiction; and with us, as we all
know, it ended, after three generations.
in a terrible civil war. The amend
ments made during the reconstruction
period brought the constitution of the
United States into harmony with the
Declaration of Independence, SO far as
concerned the theory of human equal
ity. But no one who watches the great
movements of public opinion needs to
to be told that public enthusiasm for
and confidence in the theory of demo-
cratic government have, in the last
decade or two, undergone a sensible Ge-
cline, particularly among those respon-
sible for Republican party policy.
1t is no doubt true that it was a mis-
take to give the ballot to the negroes
affnr tbd a1nco of tho ,ro re tbo rrbo1
lion, but they are now gradually being
deprived of it almost without protest
by processes of law which, if proposed
twenty-five years ago, would have arols-
ed a cry of Indignation throughout the
northern States from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. 1t has been asserted that. Il
the negroes a be prevented from yot-
ing by statutory Oh constitutional linn
Itatlons, the negro issue will be ctlmin-
ated from politics, and it will be pos
sible to build a strong Republican party
in the Southern States. This latter e
suit is looked upon as so eminently
desirable that a large number of lead
ing Republicans are quite willing to
Ignore the fact that their predecessors
OF a quarter of a century ago woull
have considered such acquiescence to
be a base betrayal of a sacred trust.
We are thus parting with the old
fashioned idea of democracy and al
vancing toward Imperialism in our
W country, for imperialism, as it an
not be too often said, does not consist
in having an emperor, but in governing
a country On the well established basis
that all men are not free and equal.
and, as some are wiser and better t1an
others, the wisest and best should rule
over their less-favored fellow men.
1t does not matter whether the form
of rule is that of a czar, or that OF an
imperial parliament which rules ever
subject people in the name of a con-
quering and governing nation. The
government of England is just as i'm
perialistic as the government of Rus
STA. The Inhabitants of Somah Coast