The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-31

the people should rule. Charters should
 say what they mean, and mean what they
 say.
 One of the dangers to municipal govern
 ment lies In the fact that the importance
 of the institutional charters is some
 times forgotten, that their Limitations art sometimes considered as fetters and thus
 some people come to forget that part ol
 self-government which relates to being goverened and remember only that pari which consists in their governing. There is danger here, but everything in this world has it's danger. If the idea sug gested prevailed, popular absoluteisn might sometimes begin, and one party rule supreme over the other. It is char acteristie of absolutelsm that it believes .i-~e -s~aes. ,aan- Inc happily ruled by for mulas and systems alone, while tn, scholar of liberty knows that as inpor- tant as systems and institutions, prin- ciples and bills of rights are they still demand rational and moral being for which they are intended, like the revela- tion itself, which is for conscious man alone. In this lies the forceful responsi- bility of demagogues Take power; bear down limitation is their call on the people. as it was the call of the cour- tiers of Louis XIV. Their advice resem- bles in politics that which is given on the tenet of one of old regarding bodily temperance-"I1at, drink and lust, the rest Is nothing"
 Popular suffrage is, or should be, power, sweeping, real power, so vast that even it's semblance would boar down every thing before it, and no board, or single headed commission should administer the affairs of city, unless such form of government and such board be chosen and elected for that purpose by the people, by whom they should be held strictly accountable for every official act or deed
 The idea of all government by the peo- pie directly implies power for good, while that of liberty under popular control inn piles check and protection. A popular government without power and inherent strength is like aught else without powef useless for action-yet action is the ob- ject of all government. The American people are competent to rule and control their own affairs-their nation their states, their municipalities, their home fresdes, without delegating authority to others.
 Let us energetically cling to our insti- tutional government and actively avoid extremes. The question is always fair, whether other systems than direct pop ular government, either avoid whatever the dangers thereof may be or do not substitute greater evils for 1t. We must in this as in everything else while honestly endeavoring to remedy or pre- vent evil, have an eye to the whole and see which yields the fairest results Nothing Is more dangerous in a discus- sion of a question like this than to take single brilliant facts as representative Of systems, plans and schemes. They prove general soundness as little as brilliant deeds prove their morality.
 What the taxpayer. citizen, in dweiler and we'll wlsher of a city mostly desires for his comfort, happiness and safety is the right, to wield his ballot for direct self-government under a strong organic law; for he must recognize that the of flee of a good constitution, besides that of pronouncing and guaranteeing hls right as citizen and property holder is that as a fundamental law it so defines and limits the chief power that each morning in it's own orb. without jostling the others it prevents iarring and grants harmonious protection to all the minor powers that be.