The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1905-01-13
DEMOCRATIC IDEAS VICToRI
Gus IN DEFEAT.

Mr.. Bryan IN an address at Mem
phis Thursday night igreported t.
have said that MIR. Roosevelt, if b,
carried out his programme, would
be regarded as the greatest Presi
dent in the history of the United
States.
u Mr.. Bryan especially commend
ed Mr.. Roosevelt's plan to confer
larger powers upon the Interstate
Commerce Commission. and de-
clared that while it would cause a
split in the Republican party,
Democrats will be found siding
with the President"
Disraeli said in one of his attacks
on Peel: "The right honorable
gentleman caught the Wings bath
ing and he walked away with their
clothes.' This is what Mr.. Roose-
welt seems to have done with the
Democrats.
The Sherman law represented
excellent Democratic doctrine.
MG Rosevelt was the first Presi-
den to enforce livery made
quatsly, to be sure, but enough to
makes reputation as an enemy of
monopoly. In urging that the In
terstate Commerce Commission be
given power to fix a rate when a
given rate is challenged the Presi.
dent took plank out of the St.
Louis platform. He carried away
another when he lntimated that it
was the purpose of the Admins
tration to bring the Philippines
ultimately into the relations that
Cuba now holds to the United
States. He appropriated another
in his campaign for tariff revision.
Commissioner Garfeld's sugges-
ton for the licensing by the Fed
eral Government of corporations
engaged in interstate commerce is
plagiarized freely from Mr.. Bryan.
Mr.. Roosevelt has not hesitated
to appropriate any Democratic
garments that looked as if they
might fit whatever political condi-
tions confronted him, and for the
present the Democratic party is
left naked in the midst of hard
political winter.
In these circumstances, what of
the party's future9 For the pres
ent it must evidently mark time.
There is no hope of an immediate
reunion of the various groups
while there are such radical differ
ences of principle within the party
itself; but it seems likely that there
must come ultimately a general re-
adjustment of party lines as a con-
sequence Of the struggle against
plutocracy on the one hand and
socialistic mobocracy on the other.
In spite Of the fact that the an
cient dogmas of the Democratic
faith are temporarily discredited,
The World still believes in them.
A majority of the people apparent
ly do not. The World believes
that the principles enunciated at
st. Louis are for the most part ex-
cellent. 1t was a mistake to say
that protection is robbery" 1t
was not true to say that Mr.. Roose-
welt had made war without the
consent of Congress. There was
little nonsense, we believe, about
Jeffersonian simplicity. But the
plea for the reduction of duties
that shelter mOnOpolies, the de
mand for the strict enforcement of
the anti trust laws and the anti
rebate laws, the plea for Filipino
freedom, the denunciation of mill
tarism, jingoism, imperialism and
government by executive order,
the protest against the usurpation |
of power by the President, the in
sistence on economical government |
ALI this is excellent Americanism |
as we'll as excellent Democracy. |
No distrust of party leadership can
obscure the virility Of these prin-
ciples, to which The World is de-
voted no less since election than it |
was before.
For the immediate present the /
future of the Democratic party
seems to rest in the hands Of one
Theodore Roosevelt. His
Administration may provide the
electric spark which will unite all
the different elements, and it may
not. Time will tell. But SO far
as Democratic principles triumph
through the Administration of
Theodore Roosevelt, The World
does not inland RI reinct the end