The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1912-04-16

WIN nundred cOVerts and ambuShes,
that the opinion of the nation makes
little noise in the committee rooms
Of legislatures; that it is certain large,
special interests and not the people
who maintain the lobby; that the ar
gument Of the lobby is oftentimes
louder and more potent than the argu-
ment of the hustings and the floor of
the representative body. He would
have found, moreover, that until very
recent years opinion had had very diff
ticult access, if any at all, in most
seasons, of the private conferences in
! which candidates for office were chos-
candidates for both administrative
and legislative office and that in the
private conference whereit was deter
mined who should be nominated and,
therefore, of course, who should be
elected, the same influences had es-
tablished themselves which ruled in
the legislative lobby. That money, the
money that kept the whole organiza-
ton together, flowed in, not from the
general body of the people but from
those who wished to determine in
their own private interest what gov
ernors and Legislators should and
should not do.
1T is plain, in such circumstances,
what he would have insisted, as we
are insisting now, that if there could
be found no means by which the au-
thority and purpose of the people
could break into these private places
and establish their rule again, if the
| jungle proved too thick for the com
mon thought to explore, if the coverts
where the real power lurked were too
difficult to find, the forces of genuine
democracy must move around them
instead of through them, must sur
round and beleager them. must estab-
| fish force outside of them by which
they can be dominated or overawed.
It is with the discussion of Just such
affairs that the public mind is now
preoccupied and engrossed. Debate
is busy with them from one end Of
the land to the other.
AS regards the economic policy of
the country it is perfectly plain that
Mr.. jefferson would have insisted
upon tariff fitted to actual condi
tons, by which he would have meant
not the interests of the few men who
| lind access to the hearings of the
Ways and Means Committee of the
| House and the Finance Committee of
the Senate, but the interests of the
business men and manufacturers and
farmers and workers and professional
men of every kind and class He
would have insisted that the sched-
ules should be turned wrong side out
and every item of their contents sub
iected to the general scrutiny of all
concerned. 1t is plain, also, that he would
have insisted upon a currency system
elastic indeed and suited to the vary
ing circumstances of the money mark
ct in a great industrial and trading ma
ton, but absolutely fortified and Sc
cured against central control, the
influence of lotteries and leagues of
banks to which it is now in constant
danger of being subjected. He would
have known that the currency ques-
ton is not only an economic question
but political question, and that,
above all things else, control must be
in the hands of those who represent
the general interest and not in the
hands of those who represent the
things we are seeking to guard
against
In the general field of business his
thought would, of course, have gone
about to establish freedom, to throw
business opportunity open at every
point to new men, to destroy the pro
cesses of monopoly, to exclude the
poison of special favors, to see that,
whether big or little, business was
not dominated by anything but the
law itself, and that that law was
made in the interest of plain, unprivi-
legged men everywhere.
"Jeffersons principles are sources
Of light because they are not made up
of pure reason, but spring out of as
piration, impulse, vision, sympathy.
They burn with the fervor of the
heart; they wear the light of inter-
probation he sought to speak in, the