The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-27


 TO paraphrase the words of Patrick
 Henry, if this be socialism, make the most of it!'
 The article in question from Harper's Weekly is as follows:
 Among the Latin races we find many political parties. There is for instance, the party of the right and the party of
 the left, the party of the centre, and sometimes the party of the right centre
 and the party of the left centre. But,
 among English-speaking people, we have
 never had but two great political parties. It was so in England. It is so in Amer ica. These two parties, without regard to the names by which they are designated, have always been the conservatives on
 the one hand and the radicals on the other.
 The first division of parties in England occurred in the long parliament One
 party was designated as the roundheads
 and the other as the cavaliers These two parties subsequently, by different
 names, were called whigs and tories, and
 are now, in England, called conservatives
 and liberals.
 The first great division of parties in
 this country occurred in Mir. Adams ad-
 ministration, under the names federalists
 and republicans. The republicans were
 the conservatives, the federalists were the radicals. This government was or ganized with written constitution. the purpose nddntent of which was to place express limitations upon the federal gov ernment The federaists, under the lead ership of MT. Hamilton MT. Adams and others. by strained construction of the general welfare clause, sought to de-
 stroy the limitations, in the effort to
 make it appear, in effect, that Congress
 was a body with absolute power, and could do anything it wanted to do, and
 was invested with practically all the powers of the British parliament They passed the alien and sedition laws, which endangered the personal lib-
 erty of the citizen, and alarmed the con-
 servative sentiment of the country. MT.
 Jefferson took a different view He was
 a conservative. He organized the con-
 servative party which subsequently, be-
 came known as the democratic party. He
 gained victory after victory, until he
 destroyed the federalist party, and
 brought about the adoption of the first
 ten amendments to the constitution,
 which were intended more perfectly to
 enforce the limitations of the original instrument upon the powers of the gen eral government.
 The republican party today Is but revival, under a different name, of the old federalist party. If the con servative interest of the country be not today represented by the demo- cratic party, it is not represented at all. Lord Macauley, in speaking of the two great parties into which the Eng fish speaking people were divided, says: We find, also, everywhere another class of men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, always pressing for ward, quick to discern the imperfec- tions of whatever exists, disposed to think lightly of the risks and incon- veniences which attend improvements, and disposed to give every change credit for being an improvement. In the sentiments of both there is some thing to approve. But of both the best specimens will be found not far from the common frontier. The extreme section of one class consists of shall low and reckless empires" And in a subsequent paragraph he says: Tt Is true, too, that though both parties have often seriously erred, England could have spared neither I may say, also, that this division of parties is not transitory, since it springs from the inherent character istics of our people. Something akin to this same division will be found in the board of directors of every cor poration It exists, in fact, in every family. Sometimes the husband Is the radical, and the wife the conserva- tive; and sometimes the wife is the radical, and the husband the conserva- | tive.
 | Again, it sometimes happens that a great political party, like a great ship at sea, may lose it's anchor. and may | be tossed to and fro upon the trou- | bled waters This is exactly, in my | judgment, what has happened to the
 democratic party in three great na- tional campaigns. The country has wit
 messed the spectacle of opposing can
 didates for the presidency wing with each other as to who can prove him | self to be the greater radical, or as they prefer to express it, the more
 progressive. while in the meantime the great conservative interest of the 1 country finds itself wholly without | representation.
 But this does not mean that the ship | is sunk, that new anchor may not be l found, that the party of conservatism is l