OCR Text |
Show the like, the former claim the sole right to regulate salaries, to recall delegates and annul their doings by a referendum vote, if not satisfactory satis-factory to the people. Now to the question, "Is the spirit of democracy dying out?" I answer unhesitatingly, iSo. While it has received some heavy blows of late from the hands of its enemies, ene-mies, yet it has successfully resisted resist-ed every attack, and we dare prophesy pro-phesy that it will survive all its defamers and emerge from the con-flict con-flict brighter and sublimer than ever. Democracy will never die; but the democratic party is doomed to die, and that, too, before many more winters. Excuse me, Sam, I really meant to break the news gently, for I have all due regard for your feelings as a democrat, but it is too late now to sugar-coat the bitter pill, so I may just as well repeat the cruel words: the democratic demo-cratic party will go out of business it will go to make room for something grander and more useful, use-ful, and that "something" will be Socialism a true and genuine democracy, a government by the people indeed, and not in words only. The fact is becoming clearer to us year by year that we cannot expect ex-pect to have the democratic party with us much longer; but when the time comes that we shall be called upon to mourn the loss of our time-honored friend, let the fact console us that in death there is peace, and let us as patriots take comfort in the thought that the world is not going backward but always onward, because the science of government is progressive and civilization is an irrosistible movement move-ment towards an ultimate triumph. c. P. AN OPEN LETTER. No. I. MY DEAR SAM: Your long and interesting letter came to hand yesterday. I am free to confess that it proved the longest letter, with the shortest signature to it that I have yet received during dur-ing my sojourn in the valleys. I am pleased to soe that you have deigned to honor the new world-movement world-movement called Socialism with your notice. That augurs well for you, Sam; wise men take notice of the signs of the times fools don't. It appears from your letter that some friend has sent you a copy of the Manti paper and that our Socialist So-cialist column therein attracted your attention. Our Local here feels proud of this, for be it said with all due modesty, great is the power of the press, especially that of the "Free Tress" of Manti. And now the very fact, Sam, that you have omitted to furnish your address, ad-dress, leads me to attempt an answer an-swer to your forty-nine questions about Socialism and its aim, through the same valuable paper. I understand from your letter that you are a democrat in politics and devoted to your party; it is therefore very natural that you should ask the question as you do: "Do Socialists believe that democracy democ-racy is dying''" Now, my friend, there is more involved in that one little query than either you or I are aware of, and before we proceed to answer it let us take Webster's definition of the word democracy; it reads thus: "Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is in the hands of the people, and directly exercised by them." Here then we find the essence of the whole; it does not mean a government by the democratic party; it does not mean a condition where the people are sovereign only one day in four years, and a few corrupt politicians hold sway the rest of the time, making laws in their own interest only and fixing their salaries to suit themselves. But democracy means a direct rule by the whole people, where the xtirercignti never passes out of the hands of the voters vo-ters and is never delegated to representatives; rep-resentatives; and while the people may choose to send their delegates to frame laws, pass resolutions and |