Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1902-10-02
THE EXPANSION
OF DEMOCRACY
BY FRED DALE WOOD, IN THE
SEATTLE TIMES.
An Expansion that Does Not Mean Conquered,
Alien People. or War and Bloodshed, but
the Broad Expansion Of the American
People, to the Grand Destiny Contemplated
By the Founders of the Nation.


fusing to the one who subsequently reads
the whole, it will not be the result of in
teEtion. To the average one, perhaps,
it suggests thoughts OF territorial acqnisi-
ton, with or without the aid of the Con-
stitution, and consequent discussion,
from the view point of partisan, of the
rightfulness of it. This is not my pur-
pose but, rather, to indicate the trend
of democracy toward a broader and purer
expansion than that encompassed in OBJ
tanning empty title to tropical areas
which can only be maintained by force
OF arms and upon the theory OF one OF
Erin's sons, that "it's not that Oh hats
we that bate We, but It's the authority
Oh have over ye."
Dem ocracy is. in a sense, iconoclasm.
Democracy, within itself, implies destruc-
ton, but only that destruction which per-
mits better building and more graceful
fashioning upon the ruins OF that which
was destroyed. Democracy is progress
the evolution from the old into the new
the betterment OF the days that are and
are to come. Were it not so, there could
be bnt one result-political atrophy and
the death of patriotism.
When Hamilton in New York, was
using all his magnificent talents against
odds for the adoption OF the cons;itu
ton, young Virgnian gentleman came
to the aid of the magnetic West Indian,
and thusit was that Alexander Hamilton
aristocrat and Thomas Jefferson, plebe,
for the first, and almost the last, time
agreed upon anything. They were as
widely antithetical as Heaven and
Gehenna. One stood for aristocracy and
concentration, the other stood for dem
ocracy and expansion. AS it was then,
So it is now, yet nowhere it is written in
the books that expansion means also con-
quest and assimilation. The democracy
OF today is the democracy of Jefferson,
seeking always to broaden to the benefit
of the many rather than narrow to the
advantage OF the few.
Every human has an ideal. He may
not always attain it-seldom does-but,
consciously and subconsciously, he strives
for it, and so keeps in motion the safety
piston OF American politics. Striving for
the ideal made an almost bealdless boy
thrice governor of Massachusetts, when
normal conditions seemed to indicate
republican success; yet he saw the sun
OF life lie down behind the blue rim OF
the sky in the days when life was all be-
fore him and at an age when most men
are only commencing to live. Robert
Pattison, a democrat, was elected COVER
nor of PENIS expanded Pennsylvania
colony, which has usually been danger
ously near the 200, 900 republican mark
almost since the Civil War; Judge May
nard, democratic candidate for one Of the
justiceships upon the supreme bench of
New York, ran 5000 votes behind his
ticket because the people knew him to be
not worthy; Chamberlain, a democrat,
was recently elected governor in republic
can Oregon; Tammany, greatest of demo-
cratic political organizations, was ousted
from power in the late New York cleo
tons, Notwithstanding it controlled every
wheel and cog in the city political mach
inc; SO the story might be indefinitely
continued, and to the thinking man the
story means much.
1t is not only in the selection Of men to
fill the public offices that the expansion
OF democracy is evidenced. The people
demand and receive that for which it
would have been thought impossible, or,
at least, absurd, to have asked twenty
FIVE years ago. 1t was the idea Of the
founders Of the republic (even Jefferson
was not wholly free from the taint) that
the people could not be entirely trusted
to run their own government, and so it
was that provision was made for chosen
few to do cur voting for US. We are
prone to magnify the Importance of our
franchise; yet, the American has never
lived, unless he has been q member of
the electoral college, who has ever cast
ballot for tho president or vice-presi-
dent, and nothing in our political sys.
tenn guarantees that the majority can
didate will be finally chosen. Three times,
since 1875, majority Of the voters in the
United States have thrown away their
votes because under our electoral sys-
tenn, the ballots were not properly dis
tributed. An illustration may be had in
the fact that judicious placing of less
than 10000 votes in 1896 would have put