The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-11-21
\ LESSON IN POLITICS.

While the theorists are still study
ing the election returns from various
parts of the country. and emanating
various comments from wise lessons
down to the idiotic remarks of the
Salt Lake organs of discomfort that
said Utah should have gone Demo-
cratic because other states did SO, the
man in the street has evolved an
opinion of his own, and is making
something of hit wherever il Is
being explained. He says that the
recent election sounded the death
knell of individualism. The more one
thinks of it the more the idea grows
upon one.
II is easily conceded that individ-
uaiism wrecked the Democratic party
in the past fourteen years. and it was
not until individualism was dis
carded that the party was able TO get
to its feet and reap its present har-
vest as the result OF the general dis
content throughout the country.
Organism was the guiding star of the
party for years. and Organism
wrecked it. Instead of following the
time-honored principles of the Demo-
cratic party. the principles that were
read into its platform when the par
ty was first evolved by some of the
greatest statesmen that America ever
knew. the Democratic brethren fol-
lowed the ideas Of William j. Bryan.
Now that Organism has been cast
aside. now that the party is following
principles and not men, it is showing
strength. 1t is principle that keeps
a party alive; it is not a man or
set of men. A political party exists
because there is work for it to do,
and that means that its guiding stan
must be principle. not the rapidly
changing ideas OF some man.
In these latter days we have found
individualism in both parties. We
have Rooseveltism. and Cannonisn,
and LafOlletteism. Members of the
Republican party have run far afield
from the party platform to follow
some leader who offered them a pan
acea for all the ills TO which the body
polite is heir, In New York candi-
dates and party principles were lost
TO sight. 1t was a battle between the
friends and followers of Roosevelt on
the one side and the enemies of
Roosevelt on the other When the
Republican party gets back to prin-
ciple, stands on that principle and
declines TO follow the cratic leader
ship OF some will-O'-the-wisp, it will
come to its own again. Individualism
wrecked the Democratic party, and it
Will wreck the Republican party if it
is permitted TO prevail
In the days OF Abraham Lincoln
there was no talk of Lincolnism. The
Great Emancipator stood for princi-
pie. He may have been a born lead
er, but the fact is that despite the
adulation of this great man. he never
could have been described as person
ally magnetic. He drew men to him
by the magnet of high principle, and
his determination that right. and
right only. makes might He stood
for a principle, yet he never became
greater than the principle. nor at
tempted to.
That is true of all our great presi-
dents or party leaders. They were
great not because of any principle
within themselves, but because they
stood for some great cause near to
the hearts Of the people. A party
must be guided by principle, and
not particularly by men. When the
rank and file Of the Republican party
remembers that, it will be invincible.
And not until then.