Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1903-11-12

tellgent will. Other, they are defaulters
Believing that under God man shall not
fail, l believe utterly in democracy as the
final experiment Of time,. up, to which all
others have led. If this idea is bankrupted
all goes down. Only as it reasons deeply
scope of its duties shall it avert failure
and cataclysm. God, or the deluge
| believe in democracy because l hold
that man is not a mechanism but me
chanic-that every individual soul of the
race is sacred, that the probation Of man
kind lies in the full consent to human
equality before God, and to all the equities
bulwark against tyranny. This must be
the. method, if there be any, before which
a false subordination and a false insub
ordination are both to be banished. The
salvation of the peoples is in divine hu
man society which at last shall realize the
whole purpose of Jesus Christ. 1t has
not yet been seen; but "to this bear al
all its common responsibilities, and "eacl
for alp fulfilling, every relation-this, and
because it is ideal" is the finaity. In
it democracy and Christianity would
meet, and righteousness wed peace
To conquer this ideal into actuaity is
the task and travail Of time-to doubt
that. it can be is to surrender the cause OF
mankind.
There is now in some quarters a sckly
and sentimental dissent from the goal OF
democracy, and cowardly whispered
preference against the substantive claim
of man as man. This reluctancy from the
burden of the problem and disregard OF
the good of the manv Is ordinarily tracea
be to a selfish and absentee spirit. 1t
assumes to distrust what love of case dis
likes, and what comfortable and compa
+, -
ments are all in the present, as it is, and
it will take no stock in the future as it
should be. IL interprets the ma jor con
sideratlons of life by the minor. The Of
fense of the cross is not ceased" But ii
Is crucifiXon that leads to resurrection
Away with this droning and whining pes
simsm!
And, on the other hand, there are those
who applaud democracy without reckoning
its principles and its foundations. Be.
tween it and absolutism there is, in time
long ruin, no logical half way. Can man
learn that democracy brings no one down
but every one up! Can man learn its
reciprocities and its emancipations? Will
man see the basilar doctrine of the IN
herent value and brthright of each several
sou'-va!ue to itself, to all others and to
the one God OF all?
Ii not. then all falls apart and a society
not made mp of bulk of subservients and
a few preferred creditors is fatuity and
4 dream, and the Nazarene was a dreamer
But that way lies the madness of anarchy
Any government is, at a given time,
strong, as the ratio is of its people (or
parts) who believe in it and are ready to
back that belief, Ultimately it is as
strong as it has principles worthy to be
ocracy is the utmost diffusion of two
things: (al authority. OBJ responsibility.
Both of these. Neither goes well or far,
or can stand fast, alone. These balanced
centrifugal and ccntripetal forces main,
tain the orbit. All the phases and hopes
OF a genuine and rational democracy arc
reducible to the balance of this double
idea. The duality is critical.
BY this as a definition | will stand
that true democracy is u government in
which every whole man, ana because a
man, counts one. Persons are the units,
and government Of, by and for these is
the sum of all its parts. Its spirit is as
| great as the number of spirits that share
it, and as good as the number of coed
spirits that share it. Its division exactly
equals the dividend, and the quotient is
| one.
Division of labor which is made to
mean you labor and | divide" is not
| democracy. Since, in this long division
of authority and responsibility every
man should be fitted to count one. Dem
ocracy mcnaces itself, denies its raison
d'etre. when it for moment negects to
seek this fitness of its merits. Represcn-
| tation Is of these fit merits. The proxy
is valid only in this The ballot afiirms
| the importance of each integer. Its quail
| flied intelligence and its unmolested free
| dom Is its safety, that always it shall be
| counted as one, and never more or less.
| Less or more is the suppression somewhere
OF manhood; less, it were tyrannizcd; /;
more, 1t were tyrannical. To corrupt, to
scduce; to lntmldate or to suppress it Is
to violate democracy. Democracy alone
causes the rights of minority to fear a
| majority. For all and by all this recog-
nltlon of man declares that because every
man should count one he SHALL No other
method OF government declares this, or
attempts to realize it. Resting its case
upon the right assessment of what con
stitutes human value" it implies that
rights and duties are strictly correlativc
and reciprocal 1t studies its rules in the
daylight OF its principles. Our Supreme
Court is governed by this overruling equi-
tty. Democracy IS its test and its dictum
1t is the ultimate national refuge of the
people. 1t gives the higher law.
The dlstributlve assignment of govern
mcnt is the radical end of democracy, not
descending to man, but ascending with
ulllI. IL Is HDl IdltIlldl, buI ltUltIlltl.
Human ethics rising from loyalty to
one mere tribe or can - lshmaelitish!-
rises toward the comprehension of man
right. The history of this growth of hui
man institutions, making and remaking
themselves, discovers that they move with
the instinct of generic human life. The
impulse strengthens as if by hydrostatic
pressure. That great democrat, Lincoln;
that splendid representative of the fine
old nriStnprntIp family Df said we'll
in 1856, what has the broadest possible
application: "They who deny freedom
to others deserve it not for themselves,
and under the rule of just God cannot
long retain it." The paramount doctrine
of equal rights is that each soul has dl-
vine right, a kingly and knightly right,
to all the liberty he can use. and has the
to show what he can use. Its formative
proposition is that a just society. lies IN
the good of all its elements, and that this
good lies in the removing, by pick or
powder, of all ayoidable hindrances to
the affirmation of social personality, lies
in its enabling and enrolling ESQ far as
circumstances cam eacn unitary being to
nve the fullest possible life.
All liberty" has social limitations, and
its problem is to reduce these limitations
to the lowest terms necessary to and con
sstent with its own utmost diffusion.
Freedom also is law.
1t is not the commercial, the strategic,
bearings of the Monroe doctrine that
makes it strong in our American hearts
and determination, but its immense moral
meaning that democracy shall not have its
providential arena narrowed, nor its scope
thwarted by the imposition of another
theory of the people. America (noble
America) is the vantage ground and the
bulwark of popular free. government, and
to maintain this high theory of man un
endangered, we will fight if need be
Though God forbid the necd) if all the
seas are to run red 1t was this tremen
dous instinct in which, in one of the no
blest wars of time, we rose up to lift Cuba
IRON under the bloody heel of the line of
Philip III. and of Alva. The peoples day
advances.
come, therefore, to assert that which
hnrn tricd To nnnrnach and this IL Is.