The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-02
GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP.

f GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP.
 We regard the government owner ship of the public utilities as cure for nothing, but, on the contrary, as the surrender of all that differentiates free dom from feudalism, of all that was secured by the War of the Revolution, of all that is worth having and keeping in the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.
 Socialism, as it is defined by it's modern teachers, is the exact reverse of democracy. as it was preached by it's apostles from 1900 to 1900. But we waive alike precedents and doctrines and names. We concede that we must address ourselves to the actulities of the time. As an actuality, therefore, we hold government ownership of the public utilities not only with distrust as a remedy for any existing evil. but with horror as proposition compltely to reyolutionize our republican system, transferring to the body of politicians In chance possession of the machinery the means of stamping out opposition Ind of perpetuating themselves in pow 1T. .7sss@s. ..t e,-..-s,,..s 4.
 In organizing public opinion for po- itical movement, in laying lines for party battles. we cannot lose sight wholly of theories and doctrines. We thould guard against weak yielding 10 the impulses of the moment, and a blind pursuit of the phantoms of ex- pediency. That is what we call rain DOW chasing. Time, place and circum- stance; where no principle is involved, must be considered by statesmen and yet those who most strenuously argue In favor of the new gospel of govern nent ownership, inveigh loudest against opportunisn1. On the one hand, hey are opportunists, seizing what they consider the popular disapproval sf corporate methods to ride into pow IT, and, on the other hand, they are loctrinafres, proposing to uproot the foundations of the worlds existing abric, and to reconstruct it upon a slan of their own, yet vague in it's de- saiI, but sufficiently explicit in it's general terms to imply the annihilation If what is and to promise the millen- aiurn in all that is to be. This seems to us in the character of ! means to an end, and as a remedy in- initely worse than the. disease, and in The character of a party movement, looking to the successful issue of the coming political battle or any future battle. as the nerest iridescent dream. MT. Bryan is going abroad to study systems. He is yet young enough to learn. He will find when he gets over there feudalism, through the govern . ment ownership of most of the good things of life, is still in the saddle. He will find that prerogative and class and saste distinction are surest produced by government ownership. He will find that fhdivualism, wherein our repub- lican system has differed from the nlOnarchic system, reeedes in propor- ton as government is able to lay the weight of Its hand upon the citizen and to convert to itself power over property as well as over life and death. He will find, in short, that the wider the state is separated from private business, the purer and better the public service, the happier and freer the people; for, if there be any virtue in the separation of church and state, the. argument which leads thereto will be found to apply just as strongly to every form of di- vorcenlent between political organism and individual effort.
 The theory in which a century of democracy intrenched itself was that the world is governed too much. In our opinion that was a true theory. The corporations are in many cases bad enough. But we should, and we shall, find remedial agents short of sur- rendering to corrupt and corrupting politicians, actual and effective weap- ons for the enrichment of them selves and their reainers, for the en- slavement of the individual and for the destruction of liberty. Against the cor poration more or less seperate, the peaple have some chance; against an organized body of politicians armed with the resources of all the corpora tions, none whatever. The corporations at most, can only make a divided pub- lie opinion. With the railways and the telegraph, in its grip government may abolish publicopinion. We may some times catch the corporation on the wing ~-as we have caught the Equitable-we shall. not zevertake a gigantic party cor poration, in possession of all the offices and all the approaches.
 Better to suffer the ills we have-by no means hopeless as long as truth is free to combat them-than fly to cover inside the casemates of partly despot- ism never to hope again.~-LouIsville Courier-JournaE
 
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