New-York tribune., 1905-02-10
MORE "yEFFBRsoNIAy" THAN JEFFERSON

".
Our neghbor, THE World paid a rather
picturesque and striking compliment to the
Hon. Samuel W. Mccall when it said yesterday:
There seems to be only one Jeffersonian Demo
"crat left in the Congress of the United States
land he is Republican from Massachusetts"
Mr.. McCals speech on the Esch- Townsend bill
may entitle him to distinction as the lone sur
viving exponent of Jeffersonian principles The
Hon. John Sharp Williams is a good deal of a
Jeffersonian during the recesses of Congress.
Yet on the floor of the House he has never vent
ured TO push the traditional Jeffersonan theory
of government half so far as Mr. Mccall has
pushed it. Neither he nor any other of the Dem
Ocratc leaders can complain if "The World
awards the palm for "Jeffersonianism" to this
Massachusetts Republican"
But if this judgment is just-and even fatter-
ing-to Mr.. Mccall, we cannot but think it
little hard on Jefferson. 1t seems to imply that
Jefferson, If he were alive to-day, would take
the same strict construction, ultPa-individual-
isttc view of government and the uses of gov
ernment that Mr.. Mccall does Such a conclu-
sion should not be jumped at rashly Jefferson
was dOctrinaire. But he was also a states
man, and when the pinch came he habltually
subordinated doctrinairism to craftsmanship
Mr.. Mccall has adopted and advocated in recent
years the theory-held also a theory by JEFF
tutionally acquire and hold dependencies" The
Massachusetts statesman has tried to have the
eX propriO vigOre doctrine of constitutional ex-
tension applied to Porto Rico and the Philip
pines. Jefferson believed in this "Jeffersonan"
doctrine until he purchased Louisiana. He ad-
mitted that that purchase made blank paper
of the Constitution Yet under the pressure of
national necessity he bought Louisiana from
France, and governed it exactly as we have
been governing Porto Rico and the Philippines.
Jefferson aimed primarily at results He formu-
lated dogmas and applied them. But he was no
slave to dogma and did not hesitate to brush it
aside when it plainly conhicted with national
progress.
Who can safely say that, were Jefferson alive
to-day, he would insist on pushing to its logical
extreme his weak central government theOries2
He favored weak central government because
political despotism was the chief menace in his
day to the development of personal liberty and
democratic equality. Conditions have changed
in century. Government has terrors in a
nation which has really learned to be self-gov-
erning Public sentiment to-day is turning
overwhelmingly toward a strong central gov
ernment as the only agency capable of repairing
the abuses which have arisen in the working
out of the Jeffersonian theory of unregulated
and unrestricted competition. If Jefferson had
to deal with existing conditions would he not
be likely to repudiate his strict construction
views. as he repudiated them when the Op-
portunity came to purchase Louisiana?
1t is this suspicion, perhaps, which haunts the
dreams Of backsliding "Jeffersonians" like Mr..
Williams and forces them to face both ways on
the issues raised in the Esch-Townsend meas
ure Yet their attitude does Jefferson greater
credit perhaps, than the superloyalty Of "lone
survivors like Mr.. Mccall. The great Virginian
was the last man of his time TO worship fe-
itch or to believe that craftsmanship consists in
slavish adherence to conceptions which have
served their purpose and had their day.