Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1901-06-08
TRUE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.

In this free country any man who is
convinced that the whole course of hu-
man events is wrong is at liberty to
make his protest, to voice his lamenta
ton and to retire, if he will, from any
hopeful participation in public affairs.
But political party that acts upon
this plan can never be useful to itself
or to the world. While party does
not exist for the sake of success alone,
irrespective of the uses to be made of
success, it does not exist for the sake
of influencing, controlling, directing,
if it can, the whole history of the nation.
A party is but union of those who
hold the same fundamental convictions
of the principles and purpose of gov
eminent and are inspired by the same
ideals of national life and growth. A
party that only clings to outworn and
academic theories and refuses to re-
cognize the progress going on about
it has no useful mission to perform,
and the question of its organization is
of no interest to mankind.
Such was never the great Demo
cratic party that nodded the destinies
of this country through all the really
formative period of the republic It
was, as Senator Tlllman rightly says,
the party of progress as we'll as the
party of power" And 1t was the party
of power because it was the party of
progress, because it represented the
broadcast and highest American ideals.
No one ever questioned then what it
meant to be Democrat, and no one
who knows American history will raise
such question now. From the very
beginning there have been two oppos-
ing views, two opposite tendencies, In
the Interpretation of the functions of
government. The two parties have
been called by different names, the
lines of division have not always been
apparent, but the essential divergence
no CO.
it is no less essential now because tenn
porary conditions and economic and
other questions in no proper sense
political have confused the party
alignment.
Democracy stands for popular rights,
for the greatest measure of civil liber-
ty, the utmost respect for constitu-
tional law; it stands for honesty and
economy in the government and the
strict accountability of public servants;
it absolutely rejects all exercise of pub
lie power for private advantage, for the
promotion of special interests and
class privileges; 1t insists on the sub
ordination of the military power and
the Irritation of centralized authority !;
above ali, it stands for the equal rights
of all classes and conditions of men,
the obliteration of all sectional divi-
sion and differences, the unifcation of
the American people, and their con-
tinued and unchecked progress under
the expansive forces of their unmatched
free civilization.
American Democracy has no apollo
gies to make. Mere politicians, acting
in its name and seeking only some
temporary end, have led it into false
positions and frlttered away it's infu-
ence IN efforts to turn back the hands
upon the clock of time; but the essen
tial spirit of Democracy has been the
source of the nations strength and
life, and has carried it forward not
only in spite of such mistakes, but in
spite of the hindrances of un-Demo-
cratic and un-American policies that
laundering opposition has made posi-
BILE. For the enormous growth of the