The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-15

marked that this endorsement was the
 only evidence he had ever known that stanton possessed real humor The
 world is full of men ready to tell how
 the war ought to be carried on by oth- CTS; but the war goes on just the same, and the men who bear the burden and heat of the struggle in actual service
 accomplish the results, and their self constituted and little-quallfled adyis- CTS have really no substantial part in the business.
 It is plain that the true way to be- gin an active part in the affairs of
 government is not by being elected or appointed to office; that should always
 be a result rather than beginning of interest, activity, experience and
 proved capacity in the affairs of gov ernment This is especially true of the greater offices. As to the smaller offices, especially those which occupy
 the entire time of the officer, it often very undesirable for young man of education and good parts to abandon his profession or business or what ever calling he would naturally follow to fill one of them There are very l few public offices in comparison with 1 the number of citizens, and at the best I only very small part of the young
 men of the country could enter into active governmental work by holding | them
 I If you can imagine all the sixteen i hundred thousand voters of the State l of New York, for example, going to 1 the polls on an election day with no 1 previous concert of action, but each determined to vote for the man who l of all his acquaintance seems to him I the best to fill the position, or for the l man whose opinion most closely agrees {! with his upon some subject which hap pens to be uppermost in his mind what would be the result? What thous- 1 ands of names would be found upon l the ballots when they came to be 1 counted If a majority of votes were I required to elect, of course there would
 never be an election.
 The men elected in such way would l have no guide as to the principles, or 1 policies, or rules of conduct which the I majority of the voters wished them to
 follow in the offices to which they were elected
 Such a method of conducting popular l government, however, is not merely fu 1 tile, 1t is impossible; for human na- ture Is such that long before such an
 election could be reached some men 1 who wished for the offices would have l taken steps to secure in advance the l support of voters; some men who had l business or property interests which they desired to have protected or pro- i noted through the operation of gov l ernment would have taken steps to se- cure support for candidates in their in- terest: and some men who were anx. l ious to advance principles or policies
 that they considered to be for the good of the commonwealth would have talk 1 en steps to secure support for candi> 1 dates representing those principles and ] policies. All of these would have got their friends and supporters to help
 them, and in each group a temporary I organization would have grown up for
 effective work in securing support. Un-
 der these circumstances, when the
 votes came to be cast, the candidates 1 of some of these extempore organiza-
 tions would inevitably have plurality
 of votes, and the great mass of voters I who did not follow any organized lead
 ership would find that their ballots
 were practically thrown away by req
 son of being scattered about among a
 great number of candidates instead of
 being concentrated so as to be effee-
 tive.
 There are certain distinct and funda-
 mentally opposed schools of thought and opinion which range portions of l the people on different sides of many i questions through long series of years. For example, the people of the United l States during most of our national ex- 1 istence have been divided between the l advocates of a strict construction and 1 the advocates of liberal construction
 of the constitution. One would confine
 the powers of the national government
 within the narrowest possible limits;
 the other would find in the constitu-
 tion all the powers that any nation can
 have except as they are expressly limit
 ed by the terms of the constitution. One l tends to carry the independence of lo- cal lf-government to an extreme; the 1 other tends to carry the standardization
 of national government to an extreme.
 This fundamental difference of view
 has divided the people of the country
 in a long series of successive elections
 upon many specific and important
 questions; upon the power of the na-
 tional government to carry on inter-
 tension of slavery; to establish a na-
 nal Improvements; to restrict the ex- tional bank; to charter Pacific rail- 1 roads; to maintain tariff for protec-
 tion as distinguished from a tariff for
 revenue only; to acquire and incorpor-
 ate in the United States additional ter
 ritory; to acquire and govern so-called
 colonial possessions upon the extent of
 the power to regulate commerce, of the