The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1904-01-28

Their with good instincts practices to-
wards his children. In the domestic
sphere it is always commended, because
It is humane and decent and produces
only happiness and good. 1t is really the
measure of efficiency and perfection in
free government. "Of the people, by
the people, for the people," History
contains no record of any savage tribe
with a geological survey, a census bu-
reau, weather bureau, department of
commerce and labor, or division dis
tributing seeds, potatoes and turnips
free through its post Office, or even with
post Office to distribute them through.
Government of the people, by a tyrant,
with club, always lacks the alarming
attributes of paternalism.
The trainers of our national constitu-
ton, realizing that they we're preparing
an instrument by which the people of
that and coming time were to evolve
the most perfect and effective govern
ment on the earth incorporated into that
instrument all the paternalism feasible
at that period Of human knowledge, and
provided for advance in knowledge by
Incorporating a provision empowering
congress to legislate for the general
welfare" 1t is a fact that nearly all
the progress we have made in that gov
eminent has been in improving and add
ing paternalistic features. In this year
of grace, 1904, we shall expend in the
United States and our insular possess
sions practically $150,OO0,000 for our
postal service alone, and that is typical
paternalism.
The most beneficent way in which a
kind father can assist his children is
by helping them to help themselves.
That is the principle of the Brownlow
bill in so far as it involves any paternal-
ism. A very Interesting precedent for
government assistance and stimulus to
q state, in a matter which the state
could not have carried out alone, has
been afforded in California. The Fifty
sixth congress appropriated $40O. 900, to
be used in conjunction with an equal
amount appropriated by the legislature
of California, to construct dam across
the narrows of the Yuba river, one of
the tributaries of the Sacramento.
Hydraulic mining, one of the industries
which had made California known as
the golden state" had been paralyzed
by a decree of the United States court,
enjofning all hydraulic mining on the
head waters of the Sacramento and San
Joaquin rivers. The debris washed
down from the banks of gravel, which
had been dissolved to get their hidden
gold, had been carried down by the wa
tiers and deposited upon the lowlands.
Farms had been destroyed, cities had
watched the rivers flowing by gradually
raised until their bottoms were far
above the streets and inundation pre-
rented only by high levees. The only
method by which such damage could
be prevented and the industry resumed
was to build a dam and. by thus holding
back the water, making settling pond.
To do this on sufficiently extensive
scale to afford satisfactory and. adequate
relief required a greater expenditure
than California felt that 1t could afford.
She appealed to congress to help her
with the burden and congress respond
ed. The dam is being built. Great
benefits are anticipated. 1t is expected
that the object lesson thus afforded will
induce the expenditure of much state
and private money for a similar pur-
pose and that the government, having
thus helped the people to help them
selves in this way, need not be called on
further.