The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1920-01-16

lection Of his rights assumes the SOL
emn obligation to protect the disarm-
cd citizen from every arm uplifted for
| his injury. We need machinery in
every state and in each community
that will give to the consumer a tri-
bunal before which dealer accused of
profiteering can be brought for exam
ination. The Federal Trade Commits
sion is step in the right direction,
but the subject is too big to be hand
led by the national government alone
or by a national commission. The re-
NEEDY must be as complete as the
evil, and it cannot be complete unless
states and communities, as well as
the Federal Government, are prepared
to deal with this subject.
81 assume that the party will accept
prohibition as the permanent policy
of the country. Three-fourths of the
Democrats in the Senate and two
thirds of the Democrats in the House
voted to submit the national amend
ment, and every Democratic State
voted for ratifcation-and every Re-
publican State, except three. 1t is in
conceivable, therefore, that our party
should antagonize the moral sense Of
the nation. John Barleycorn is dead.
The Democratic party cannot tie it.
self to corpse or become the cham
pion Of an outlawed traffice.
Accept Woman's Suffrage.
81 assume that the party will accept
woman's suffrage also as an accepted
fact. The women saved our party
from defeat in the last campaign, and
we need their aid to hasten the tri-
umphs of every righteous cause.
venture to suggest three new prop
ositions for which / ask consideration.
/. A national peace-way running
into every State, wide enough to ac-
commodate both passengers and
freight, and permanent, so that it will
be lasting tie binding together the
forty-eight commonwealths. 1t will be
memorial to the soldiers and to all
others who took part in the war, and
Il monument in commemoration of
peace restored.
1t not only will be an expression Of
patriotism, but it will be educational
as well as useful. 1t will bring the
word peace into the thought and con-
versation of our people for centuries.
eve need, above all other things
Just now, a national bulletin-not a
newspaper, but a bulletin--under BIZ
partisan control, furnished to all who
desire it at a nominal costa bulletin
which will present to the people the is
sues upon which they must act, with
editorials presenting the arguments
- hn
so that every citizen may intelligently
exercise the duties OF citizenship and
give to his government the benefit Of
his judgment and his conscience. The
avenues of information are at present
in private hands and the editors, be-
ing human, have a bias which makes
it impossible for them to present both
sides fairly; and, to make the situa-
ton worse, the great predatory in this
are in position to influence many news
papers in addition to those which they
absolutely control. If there is any
thing for which a government like
ours can afford to spend money, it is
to inform those upon whose will the
government rests.
"3. The initiative and the refer
endum are not new. For a quarter of
a century the idea has been growing
and spreading. Since the reform has |
been in operation in States like Ohio, |
Illinois, Missouri and Massachusetts,, !
it has ceased to be a thing ridiculed. |
Instead, it now eXcites the determined |
opposition of those who are not will
ing that the people shall be the men,
bers Of their own destiny through
government entirely within their con-
troll.
1.-THE progress that democracy is /
making throughout the world ought to
encourage our party 10 make the adop-
ton of the principles of the initiative
and referedum its next great reform,
q reform entirely in harmony with the
election of Senators by the people and
the primary.
"The people are the source of au-
thority and any machinery which OBJ
structs the popular will and puts into |
the hands of the minority the right to !
determine the course of the govern
ment is antagonistic to our institu-
tons and must give way before the
progress of popular government.
"We have become the worlds teach
er in the science of government and
we must not hesitate to express in
practice our own faith in the princi-
pies that we proclaim. Our party |
must respond to the call that comes
from every State and from across the J
sea to apply to every problem the
principles of democracy. Faith in the
in their capacity for
self-government, as we'll as in their
right to self-government, must be our
party's policy now and always"