New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-03-30

The Two Parties
To those of our readers who are
puzzled for an answer to explain
their party allegiance we commend
the exceedingly suggestive prize let
ter appearing on our Platform Con-
test page to-day.
AS this writer suggests, there is
no question that parties and issues
are at present in state Of con-
fusion. Yet the outstanding fact of
our political life is that despite this
confusion the parties are still vigor-
Gus and the great bulk Of Americans
at least nine out of ten, let us say
have a strong feeling of "belong-
ing" to one great party or the other.
When visitor asks us "Why?" we
may be stumped for a ready answer
Also, if our party put up an objec-
tionable candidate, we should be
more than ready to vote against
him, so considerably has the spirit
of independence permeated our
politics. But the fundamental fact
of allegiance remains. How ex-
plain it?
1t is the fashionable talk of GER
tain radical intellectuals TO assert
that habit plus the trickery and
cajolements of politicians is the only
cause for the perpetuation of the
parties. The New York World
in it's burst Of enthusiasm for Her.
bert Hoover suddenly reached much
the same conclusion. There would
be more force in The Worlds plea
for -partisanship were it not for
the suspicion that The World
plunged for the Republican Mr..
Hoover in the laudable but highly
partisan hope of saving something
from the wreck Of the Democratic
party. AS for the theory of the
radicals, it insults the capacity and
sense of everybody. If true, if the
voters are SO stupid and inert and
easily led by the nose, why have
popular government at all and where
is the hope of anything better or
different so long as it lasts?
The fact is, we think with our
correspondent on the platform page.
The people are not fools. AS she
we'll says, Fundamentally, the two
parties are as definite as ever"
Their differences are confused by
passing personalities and changing
issues, by local problems. Allegiance
to one party or the other may be
weakened by this confusion, but it
still persists for the very good
reason that it is based on fundamen-
tai differences in outlook, in prin-
ciple, in method, in character, which
have, roughly speaking, always
separated the two major parties in
America and probably always will
separate them.
Our correspondent quotes Patrick
Henry and Samuel Adams as the
two prototypes of the two groups:
"Give me liberty or give me death,
said Patrick Henry.
Let each hamlet and town elect a
committee of representatives and let
them evolve some judicial way out OF
this difficulty, the small committees
then uniting in general one for each
colony said Samuel Adams">
The argument would place the
theorist and idealist, who is quick on
the trigger, with the Democratic
party-with Patrick Henry and with
Thomas Jefferson. 1t would place
the slower working out of progress
through the practical evolution of a
system of representative government
with the Republican party-with
Lincoln, the practical idealist, as it's
highest eXemplar. Our correspond
ent is not far wrong in classifying
old Sam Adams with the latter
group; for, despite his opposition
to the extreme Federalists, he was
essentially man who thought of
political philosophy in terms of men
and events.
Party lines have been drawn more
and more sharply about President
Wilson's administration, and for one
good and fundamental reason, This
Democratic President at home and
abroad has, to the Republican mind.
seemed typically devoted to the idea
it was Competition" in domestic
business, it was internationalism at
Paris-and typically uninterested
and impractical in carrying his
ideas into effect. And despite the
very practical Democrats and the
a