The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1908-06-07
OUR PRIME POSSESSION


Harking back to the first principles
of our Republican form of govern
ment we may find plenty of causes
for Justification, If not OF graduation,
upon the tendency of the day to
carry the law-making function direct
to the people; for who has a better
right to it, conception, ordinance and
administration, than the people to
whom this government belongs, first
and absolutely. Its earlier manifest
ations may be charged with crudities,
blunders and irregularities; that goes
without saying because of the new
ness of the thing; but it does not fol
low that time and experience will not
qualify the people to ultimately en-
ploy their better wisdom and faculties
and devise and execute their codes as
admirably as their alleged representa-
tives have ever done in the course OF
history
We are not a nation OF fools how
soever the fools may berate usl
The political leaders OF the past
have not absorbed, nor cornered, the
sum of all sagacity in the matter of
human government; or, if they have,
it has never been demonstrated with
any startling and convincing effect
during the last As years, except along
adverse lines and preparing and per-
fecting the art OF grating and in
cinching up the interests of the I'm
terests" until the ringing voice OF
real President called the halt and
gave the people the auspicious mo-
ment in which to swing their sign of
authority on high.
The masters" OF political logic and
the high-caste champions" of the
people sit insecurely in their saddles
of prestige; the men to whom the
commonalty has kow-towed for the
past half century are shaken with
fear and chagrin at the appalling fact
that they are about to be deposed;
that they may counsel, but not cbm-
mand; that the people are to gradu-
ally become a law into themselves
and take over the supreme right they
have always had, constitutionally, and
have used but tentatively all these
years; that they are awakening to the
travesty of the old system and are
going in for the real thing in the way
of popular government.
Who can blame them?.
They have seen the best and great |
est of their country's resources de- !
liberately stolen from them by the
very men they have charged with the
task of saving and protecting them; /
they have seen the limitless and heart
less spoilation of their noblest and
amplest prerogatives, at the hands of
the servants that swore to defend |
and cherish them; they have come to
know the shame and bitterness of a |
treachery so universal and so organi- |
zed, that the marvel of the day is that
the people will take SO mild a means |
to right the huge and vicious wrong, |
and that revolution does not show its
drastic front; they have listened to
the lying voice Of trusted leaders so
long that the lure of the falsehood
has worn itself out against the wound !
ed patience of a people deceived and
denied and undone!
They may founder and fail and fall
in their new effort to take up the reins
and drive the hard bargains of ma |
tional and communal control with |
safety and success; but the germ has |
innoculated the mentality Of the race
and the impulses of civic redemption
are all at work in the splendid task
against the forces of greed and NAL
administration; and the carpings Of
self-ordained critics and erstwhile
counselors, political and otherwise,
shall not prevail against the new
order of things.