The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-07-10
Party Ties Loosening.

There are many who believe that
the time is near at hand when the
republican and democratic parties
will cease to exist as such.
The line of cleavage is already OBJ
liberated in many places. Not even
on the matter of the tariff is, the
differentiation complete. Thousands
of republicans are clamoring for tar
if reduction, and a lesser number
are questioning the benefits of the
protective policy to the working man.
On the other hand, not all democrats
are advocates of free trade, or even
of a tariff for revenue only Many
leading democrats believe in a pro-
tective tariff, and thousands Of voters
in the south would be republicans
because of the policy of protection
were it not for the race problem.
Again, in the matter of support for
the so-called progressive" ideas the
members of the two parties are hope
lessly mixed. The republican party
is rent asunder, and the two groups
of leaders with their following are
as far apart as the poles. The SOL
idarity of the democratic party is but
little if any greater.
For these reasons, and others ma
jor and minor, the words Democrat
and Republican are becoming to
mean less as the years SO by, and the
battle for great principles is giving
way to an unseemly and selfish con-
test for the spoils of office.
Soon there must be new align
ment of Americans political divis-
ion along that natural line to one
side or the other of which, generally
speaking, all men belong. By inner
itance, environment or education
man naturally is conservative or pro-
gressive. He believes in that which
has been tried and proven; breads
change and distrusts innovation. Or
he believes nothing is so good but
that it might be better; hates stag
nation and clamors for something
new. Conservatism in the extreme
fails of the harvest through too great
caution; progressiveness in the ex-
IRENE reaps the harvest and through
dumps it into the ditch.
Each is necessary to the other, and
between these extremes is vast ele-
ment, divided, to be sure, by the
natural line, but, nevertheless, so
closely approaching the line as to
readily intermingle, throwing the
preponderance of weight first on one
side and then on the other, and oper-
ating to prevent conservatism becom-
ing a moss-grown deaths head of
inactivity and progressiveness from
becoming a dancing hobgoblin of in
security.
If the election this fall were to
be a choice between conservatives
and gressives-between those who
would rather bear those ills we have
than fly to others we know not Of
and those who believe this world is
full of change, change, change, moth
ing but change'-men would divide
as naturally as oil and water sepa-
rate, and the prepondering element
would win. The victory won, it
would prevail according as the victo
rious conservatives were electrified
by progression or the victorious pro-
gressives were steadied and sobered
by conservatism. When the one be-
came insufferably inert or the other
too dangerously active or expert
mental there would be a shifting of
weight across the line of demarca-
ton, and a change in government |
would result at the next election.
But always there would be the |
natural instructive division of the |
people in principle rather than on
party lines, which are rapidly coming |
to the point of meaning nothing more |
than who shall hold the offices.