Lower coast gazette., 1909-06-12
SATURDAY. JUNE y. 1863.
Triumphant Democracy.

When Andrew Carnegie in 1856 published his
book under the title Of Triumphant Democracy, he
presumably glorIfed a democracy that Wouid al
low an average American citizen Of superior IT,
tellectual power to acquire great wealth and nigh
social status. This was triumphant democracy
from his point Of view, but many centuries earlier
than the eruption Of Andrew Carnegie from the
Highlands of Scotland to the hills of Western Pen
~sylVania. the democratic empire Of the Chinese
had permitted and sometimes enabled persons Of
the very lowest classes Of the empire, bit with
adeGsate Intellectual development, to attain the
highest positions in tie government by regular
evil service procedure. Andrew Carnegles ti-
umphant democracy was the democracy that made
him rich. When he published his book much Of
his wealth had already been amassed, but the
Homestead riot did not occur until 1892 and the
Steel Trust was not organized until some years
later. Andrew Carnegie's democracy was in some
particulars genuine e. Insofar as it protected the
individual man and gave to the individual man a
free and unhampered opportunity to seek to pro-
cure his personal betterment, so long as he did not
interfere with others engaged in like pursuits, it
was genuine. But when it lead him into combina-
tons by reans of which he suppressed small endeay-
ors on the part of others then it was not genuine.
We are led to these reflections by the confu-
sion that has crept into modern politics by identi-
flying political parties with issues of the hour and
not with the great principals which underly their
creation. In general way democracy means the
popular fozm of government, wherein the people
are able to express their will directly as in a New
England town meeting, and as was the custom in
Ancient Athens, or as is now generally the case,
through elected delegates. In England we have a
democratic monarchy in which popular elections
prevail, in which the undemocratic feature Of a
monarch by inheritance still prevails, with a SEN
ate, or House of Lords, which, in like manner,
owes it's existence to inherited privileges and not
to popular election. On the other hand we have
in France a republican form Of government where
in the democratic idea prevails very slightly and
militarism and aristocratic ideas seem to be the
dominent ones.
In our own country we started with two par
ties, the Federalists, the party advocating a strong
central government, with the assumption by the
general government Of practically all overs not
specifically reserved to the states, and of a Demo-
cratic Republican party, of which Thomas Jeffer-
rSOIl Wdo Vic SCllilS dlIu NlilSi 6lIllllCSL, Win du-
vocated the retention by the states of their respec-
tive individual autonomies as far as possible and
the delegation to the central government Of only
such powers as were necessary to carry on such gov
eminent. In their judgment this required the con-
troll of the national army, of the coinage Of the
country, of the handling of the mail matter, of the
control of the navigable waters of the country and
OF the relations of the federal union as a whole to
to the rest of the world. In a closer analysis these
party divisions might well be formulated UNDER the
general terms of the aristocratic and democratic.
The arstocratc, or wealthy, or privileged few be-
ing always anxious to secure greater advantages
to themselves and the rank and file of the coun-
try, with the ambitions that have generally char
acterized the white race, desiring to promote
their own wealth and culture by active, individual
effort and striving for such government as Should
freely permit this.
In the days before the civil war, John G.
Whittier wrote an Ode to Democracy and much
of intelligent and intellectual New England was
democratic. William Cullen Bryant was a demo-
erat and we can see today that even our own Su-
preme Court, with a republican majority among
it's members, is democratic inasmuch as it ~sustains
the rights of the individual states every time that
that issue is %squarely presented to it.
With the advent of the civil war, and the
slavery issue becoming paramount to all others, in
~tellectual New England went into the so-called re-
publican party, the name being chosen as a sort of
a receivership to steal part of the claims of the
democratic party and to receive the assets of the
defunct wing party ard to to take over bodily and
tosucceed to the work of the abolition party.
The culture of cotton in the South and the
constantly increasing demand for labor, and the
only labor available being slave labor, there de-
veloped in the South an agricultural aristocracy
which choose to call itself democratic and to afili-
ate with the Democrats of the North, hoping in
this way to secure the control Of the country, al
though their motives were entirely different. 1t
is always thus when special issues present them
selves in any country that the parties divide up