The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-03-29

United States experience has shown that
| the effort to substitute for the genuine
rule of the people something else always
means the rule OF privilege in some form
or other. sometimes political privilege,
| sometimes financial privilege, often a
| mixture Of both.
Whenever there is tyranny by the
majority ! shall certainly fight it, But
! the tyrannies from which we have been
suffering in this country have, ninety
nine times ont of hundred, been tytan-
MES by a minority that is tyranny by
privilege. Sometimes as in the case
Of some public utility franchise or other
bit OF grabbing by d rev what belongs
to the many. the tyranny is primarily
commercial; at other times. it is pri-
marily political. This, for instance, is
true Just at the present day in those
states where the people have been denied
the right to vote at primaries in order
10 express their preferences for president.
BY the way, ludicrous feature of the
Michigan situation has been that the
men who denied the right Of the people
to vote ut the primaries did il by pass
ing the primary law in such shape that
it would only take effect after the latest
date that primaries could be held to elect
delegates to the convention in June.
This represents a merely meaner form
of opposition to the movement for public
decency than would have been straight
ont vote against the entire PROPOSE
ton
in government like ours, orr repre-
seutatves do not rule us in the sense
that monarchy or an aristocracy bears
rule over the people, We, the people,
rule ourselves, and what we really want
from our representatives is that they
shall manage the government for us
along the lines we lay down, and shall
do this with efficiency and in good faith
We welcome leadership and advice, of
course, and we. are content to let ex-
perts do the expert business to which we
assign them without fussy interference
from us. But the expert must under
stand that he is carrying out our gen
eral purpose and not substituting his
own for It, The leader must understand
that he leads MS, that he guides us, by
convincing us so that we viii follow
his direction. He must not get il into
his head that it is his business to drive
MS or to rule us, His business is to
manage the government for us
"To illustrate what | mean. take the
Panama canal under Colonel Goethais |
That has been the biggest Job of the
kind ever undertaken by any nation. She |
biggest piece of engineering work ever
attempted in the world. After trying |
several experiments, we finally found |
in Colonel Goethals the man Who could |
do the job. and we set him to work. :
and he has nearly done it-and no iob
Of the size has ever been done better.
We have been delighted to give him I
a free hand and let him manage the
whole affair. But we first of all decided /
that we wanted canal, and that we
wanted it in Panama, and that we want
ed it Of a given type and then set Colo
mel Cocktails to work to realize those
various wishes of ours.
"Wel what is true of Colonel Goeth-
ais is true of all other public officials,
from Justice of the peace and an alder
man up to the president and the chief
Justice of the United States. There is
not any one of them who is ruling US.
We are ruling ourselves. Each one of
them is managing his special bit of work
in the public interest, just exactly as
colonel Goethals is managing the build
ng OF the Panama canal in the public
interest. We rule ourselves, and we
.hoose our representatives not to rule
rs but to manage the public business
Tor us along the lines we have laid down
md approved. The men who disbelieve
n the rule OF the people, and who think
rat the people shall be ruled by part
If them flor to call such part a rep
part is entirely meaning
ess) treat the constitution as a straight
Jacket for restraining an unruly pa
ient-the people We on the contrary
reat the constitution as an instrument
designed to secure justice through giving
.ull expression to the deliberate and
vell-thought-o out Judgment OF the peo-
lie. They are false friends of the peo.
Die, and enemies of true constitutional