The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-21
BENJAMIN. CARTER ON NPARTY'S NEEDS SObriety and Success Will Remain Inseparable INFLUENCE OF BRYAN Says Democracy Needs Only to Stand United on Promises of
 1910 and Record
 of 1911
INFLUENCE OF BRYAN

l To the Editor of The Age Herald: 1 About two years ago l was in Bir'
 mingham and a few friends were chew
 ing the end, almost all bitter, of poll ties. Somebody raised the question
 What is a democrat?" Each of u' managed to frame a description thai satisfied himself, but the only thing we all agreed on was that any of the definitions included less voters by . million or two than could elect pres ident. Things have changed. How have they changed and why?
 In 1911 what Is a democrat? Is not the answer pretty easy? A democrat is man who opposes the generic mo- tion that the law shall elevate and prosper the few great ones of com merce and industry in the faith that those will care for the needs Of the many and who specially puts his faith in a tariff for revenue; who believes the President should be kept in bis constitutional place. and that the re- served rights of the states have their practical importance to the citizen and are not to be subject to whims of Con- gress Some democrats believe that other things. more or less new, are ifn- portant but do not all democrats hold the entire faith I have stated? NOW the momentous fact is that this short creed is professed, openly or secretly, by probably two million, more than half of the voters of the United States. Oscar w. Underwood, when he made
 
 House said that the democratic party of the nation owed nothing to MT. Bryan for its victories of 1910. l have thought of that many a time since and have thought how clear 1t IS that democratic success of a year ago Is as free of debt to Bryan ideas as to Mir Bryans personal exertions. The whole fact is that the democrats car ried the elections last year because the country believed they were in earnest about reducing tariff burdens and did not know whether the insurgent re- publicans were in earnest or not, and because 1t took no stock in new na- tionalism'' and had rather more regard for law generally than for Theodore Roosevelt Democratic governors were elected by majorities of 10S,000 in Ohio, 67,000 in New York, 15,000 In Massa-. chusetts, 49.o0o in New Jersey, 400o in Connecticut. Does anybody believe that a corporal's guard of democrats, independents or republicans voted for Harmon or Dix or Wilson or any of the others for any other than these old democratic reasons?
 Since the election of 1910 the demo- cratic party (chiefly through the la bors of Underwood has been greatly entrenched in the confidence of the public as a true cahmpion of tariff re- vision that will lessen the burdens of the average taxpayer and not give anybody a just grievance in the pro cess The extra session of Congress adjourned with remarkable record, not merely of persistence and solidarity but of self control as well in the work of the House majority.
 l believe 1t is not well understood except in Washington how inconsid- erable share any leader but Under wood had in the recent tariff legisla- tio. The newspaper men don't print caucus secrets" but they are talked about all over the capital and in ev- cry department.
 In 1910 the democrats were fortunate In that the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill was pub .icly regarded as a repudiation of 1908 promises of the republicans: an uncom- monly sharp issue was made on the tariff at time when high prices of food and clothing had made people very sensitive. Of course the democrats were aided, too, by MT. Roosevelts desperate attempts to smirch all the democratic candidates. in- cluding a judge who had refused to trample on the law in order to make humane decision and governor, who, when serving as commissioner of Presi- dent Roosevelt, had wanted to indict a member of the cabinet for past infractions of the law against railroad rebates. But all the points on which the republicans impaled themselves belonged to the old democratic panoply; and the thing most worth remembering at this time is that wien the democratic party has been de- feated it was almost always using some new-fangled equipment.
 N0strums Have Not Won
 There has hardly been time since you ol I could vote when majority of the voters of this country did not believe in democratic doctrines I have here stated but there have always been ambitious leaders who, winning some local success for themselves on novel issues, finally persuaded the democrats of the nation to put their trust in those same notions; and party calamity has always followed. It has been the same story over and over again: greenbackery in the late 7o's; farmers warehouses and other Ocala-isms in parts of the country in the soc. The Bryan programme in 1896; government ownership of railroads and coal mines, which took David B. Hill off his feet in 1898. A few smooth men have got themselves elected to Congress term or two, and in the end have put the | democratic party in. the ditch.
 | There has been one basic error in all
 of these propaganda which have led the democratic party into disaster. Each has made its appeal to a class of people
 whom politicians seem prone to believe | the most numerous, but which in fact
 is tremendously in the minority, to-wit the people who have no stake in the we'll
 being of the country. or in the perpetuity
 of a form of government good for al
 and who are ready for anything that will cripple all who have property, biz | or little. or any sort of financial stand
 ing. say there are not enough of these
 people to elect President of the Unitet
 States. believe there will never be Put there Is no blinking the fact tha