| Show SPLENDID SELFDECEPTION President HARRISON has recently been presenting some pretty theories of monarchial mon-archial government as if they were the true doctrine for republics to follow A contemporary summarizes the captivating rhetoric of the President on this question as follows That we are great and rich that the wealth produced by our labor belongs properly pro-perly to the government that by its judici expenditure commodious harbors and noble waterways maybe constructed that fleets of battleships and merchantmen carrying our commodities to every clime and exhibiting our glorious flag in every I quarter may ne evoked as by the wand of an enchanter and that the overflow of the federal treasury under this truly benevolent benevo-lent and purely national policy would fertilize fer-tilize tho south not less than the north and sdiffuse prosperity impartially through the landithis in few words hardly less extravagant travagant than the Presidents is the rosa ate vision which he opens to the eyes of his fellowcitizens All of which sounds well enough in tho ory but the practice is somewhat different As exhibited in this country it means federal fed-eral control of elections with a bayonet behind every ballot so that the party in power may be enabled to do its own registration reg-istration counting and certification It means that the rights and liberties of the people shall be trampled under foot at their very homes by the armed emissaries of the federal power that thus amuses and dazzles the people while it plunders them It means the expenditure of a round billion of dollars in one term of Congress leaving a deficiency where there had been a surplus lin the national na-tional treasury It means the taxation taxa-tion of industry to the same appalling extent ex-tent for every cent paid in taxes to makeup make-up this billion comes from the productive industry of the people It means the taxation taxa-tion of the working classes for the benefit of the rich of the farmer for the benefit of the trust shareholder It is a constant menace to the safety of the people that the government should be intrusted with the vast sums necessary for carrying into effect ef-fect these gigantic enterprises It would make the government absolute in its power with the money wrung from the earnings of the people Such a policy would place in the hands of the federal government the power that the framers of the constitution were careful expressly to deny to it and would constitute a reversal of the traditional tradi-tional aims of this republic and of the ever expanding sentiment of the times against absolute power In the language of one of the greatest historians of our day it Is the duty and will be the peculiar event of our time to acknowledge that all power whether intellectual in-tellectual or temporal whether belonging to governments or people to philosopher or ministers in whatever cause it may bi e exercisedthat all human power bean within itself a natural vice a principle o I feebleness and abuse which renders it necessary ne-cessary that it should be limited But least of all is unlimited power in the hands of governmenont durable and any pplicy that has even a tendency to that end is destructive of the liberty guaranteed by republican institutions The theory of a splendid and allpowerful government whose strength shall bo so great that it may in turn enrich the people or certain portions of them is a mockery of the people peo-ple who are taxed to make it so |
