The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-05-03

perhaps the most workable-avoided
any Interpretation whatever as savor-
ing too much of higher critical" i'm
piety. Why examine too particularly
the sacred doctrines handed down by
the founder of the party, or speculate
too deeply as to their possible applica-
ton to the problems of today? Why
not stand pat" on Jeffersonianism
underlined and undefiled?
These beliefs and purposes are eter-
nal and Observation-Disclosures to every
condition affecting our peoples well
fare, and adequate to every emer-
gency in our national life. The DEM
ocracy of today will attain its highest
mission of beneficence. will offer the
surest protection to our peoples
rights and interests and will best de-
serve the approval and support of our
countrymen when it resents the sug-
gestion that either time or circum-
stance can make obsolete the endur-
ing principles which Jefferson laid at
the foundation of the democratic party.
We need not name the propounder
of this theory of Jeffersonianism ON
inform and omnipotent. Only one liv-
ing American statesman could have
framed those inspiring and self-illu-
minating sentences.
Against this jefferson, inscrutable
and aloof, Mayor Mcclellan seemed to
pit Jefferson hitched tight to the car
of up-to-date Conservatism" Jeffer-
son in his own day was attacked as
an atheist. an anarchist and a destroy
err of social order. He was an intense
and consistent radical, applying the
new found principle of individualism
to break down absolutism and central
ization in government. Yet Mayor Nc
Clellan assured his Democratic club
hearers that 'radicalism has no place
among the followers of Jefferson"
Because Jefferson preached individu-
alism, Jeffersonians like MIR. Mcclellan
or like the Hon. Samuel w. Mccall
now hold that free scope must be
given both to the real individual and
to the artificial individual multiplied
to the millionth power in strength
through the fiction of incorporation.
This is the Jeffersonianism which asks
that individual rights be not abridged
hairs breadth, when it really means
to demand that corporations shall be
free to exercise unchecked all the
rights ever vested in the single and
relatively powerless individual.
President woodrow wilson is too
close student OF American history
to confuse the situation Jefferson dealt
with and the situation with which we
have to deal today. Therefore he
frankly repudiates Mayor McClellan's
| premises by admitting that it is 'im-
possible to apply the policies of the
time of Jefferson to the time we live
/ in" We can apply only the great
Virginians ideals, as President Will
son urged, and these ideals must al
ways appeal more to the radical than
to the conservative temperament. Mr..
| Wilson sensibly pointed out that the
Jeffersonian must discriminate be-
tween the actual individual and the
| corporate Individual discrimination
the necessity of which the supreme
court has recently emphasized. There
in lies the whole cruX of the contro-
versy within the .Jeffersonian ranks.
Yet in introducing sanity instead of
solemnity into this discussion the pres
ident of Princeton university has per-
haps set an embarrassing precedent.
Ii reason, not rhetoric, is to rule on
these festal occasions, they will soon
lose their present opaqueness and
| Oracular charm.