Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1912-06-28
THE ISSUE OF THE DAY.

The Hamiltonian theory so far prevailed in our
constitution and government as to %interpose the
electoral college between the people and the presi-
dency and the state legislatures between the people
and the senate, just as it interposes congress be-
tween the people and the making of laws. Later
political developments interposed party conven-
tons between the people and the officers elected
by their direct vote. In presidential contests the
party conventions took from the electoral college
the actual choosing Of the president, but gave it
not the people but to the party delegates.
But as the people gradually progressed in poll
tics they began to reclaim their inherent power.
One by one various barriers between them and d.
rect political action have been removed. Primary
elections gave back to them the actual naming of
the officers elected by their direct vote. This year
saw for the first time the body Of the people hav-
ing a direct voice in the selection of candidates for
the presidency.
For some years in manv states the people by
primary election avs have directly named their
senator's. In some new western states the people
have for a time had a direct voice in the making
and repeating of the laws. All of this is a more
or less logical development, a natural extension of
the Jeffersonian theory of government. All polit-
ical power resides in the people and they can exer-
else it directly or by delegated authority as they
see fit.
The old party lines do not confine this new is
sue. In the republican party, additionally the
party of Hamilton, are found the most radical of
the progressives, and the progressives are great in
number in the republican party. The democratic
party. the party of Jefferson, on the other hand
hnu manu- hiuh in itc Corpcilc onI ~ ouAkox:t,
who are as strong and as fixed in opposition to the
new order of things proposed as an old federalist
come to life would be.
Progress and reaction, the progressives against
the reactionares are the general terms by which
the W antagonisms and their respective prutsgo-
nists are loosely defined. The limits of the issue.
the extent to which the principle at present is to
be applied is not yet defined and loose and indef.
mite terms must l%suffice.
Broadly speaking the progressives favor bring
ing the body Of the people in closer touch with
and inmore immediate influence and control of the
government, the making and execution of the laws
and the actual selection of the officers Of govern
ment, They believe in a government BY as we'll as
OF and FOR the people. This does not mean the
substitution of a pure democracy in place of a rep
resentative democracy. But it does mean to make
the peoples representatives more directly respon-
sible to the people and responsive to their will.
1t aims to give to the unorganized body of the
people the same BRIGHTNESS of influence that
great organized interests have long exerted.
Carried to its ultimate conclusion this would
mean national initiative, referendum and recall,
but it is universally recognized that the nation is
too large and unwieldy for that, The progressiyes
content themselves with a propaganda against the
control of the government by the great interests,
the making and enforcement of laws against mo.
%nopolies. trusts and combines, the direct election
of senators, the conservation of resources for the
people rather than their exploitation by large az
gregations of capital.
Machine control in politics is an allied i'll thew
oppose. In slang phrase is it the 1.-The PEOPLE
Against the Bosses and Big Business The tariff
as the mother of trusts and the petted child of boss
rule, is opposed by many progressives. though
others believe in the tariff as an economic question.
The reactionaries on the other hand. theoreti-
caly at least, distrust the direct participation of
the people in the government. They believe in a
delegated representative government. In their
view the officers of the government are guardians
as we'll as the servants of the people with some
thing of parental authority.
Vested rights, settled conditions that great
business best thrives in, the maintenance of the
existing order of things are in their philosophy too
important and delicate to be subject to the volatile
popular mind or the ignorance of the body of the
people. They speak much of the heritage of the
fathers" the safeguards Of the constitution