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Show POLITICAL PARTIES AND I REPRESENTATIVE GOV. The great men who framed the American Constitution intended to establish, and did establish, not a dl-i rect democracy hut a representative republic. They knew that a people sufficiently intelligent to be capable; of self government were also sufflcl-j ently intelligent to understand that' the people generally had not th6i time, the disposition or the means to acquaint themselves with the details of legislation or particular measures ; of government. In order that thisj Work might he wisely and well done! the founders of this government nr-j ranged that the people might choose j agents to make their laws, just as they would choose agents to make j their shoes or their coats rather than botch the job bv letting averybody tnke a whack at it. Thepe agents they made responsible to the people, re-j re-j quiring thm to return periodically to the people for renewal of their au- i thority. , The tendency to abandon our rep- , resentative republic and substitute i for it the system of direct democratic government advocated generally by Ithe European radicals, has resulted in some changes in our governmental scheme and the suggestion of many more all leading away from the representative rep-resentative system in the government of political parties has been destroyed destroy-ed by legislation prohibiting parties i from nominating candidates other-; other-; wise than through direct primaries j which in many states may be domin ated by voters out of sympathy with the party thus controlled by hostile votes. The value of any system must be judged by its results. Whatever may be said theoretically, either by the remagogue or the doctrinaire, in favor fa-vor of overthrowing the representative representa-tive method of party government, the fact remains that the result has been to break down party authority and party responsibility. Not only are the people not satisfied with the outcome but they complain loudly that political poli-tical parties fail to meet their responsibilities, res-ponsibilities, through the power of a political party to do anything has been nigh destroyed. The abandonment of the American system of two great responsible political poli-tical parties in favor of the European Euro-pean system of blocs representing the immediate purposes of a limited group, may look like progress to all those who look upon politics and pub lie life only as a means of personal exploitation. But to those who are interested in-terested in government frjm the broad patriotic motives, the destruction destruc-tion of political parties brought about ab-out by legislation prohibiting jarties jfrom operating on the representative system, precipitating the present chaos in government, is alarming rather than encouraging. Bloc government, class government, govern-ment, group government, leads inevitably ine-vitably to personal government, and personal government means tyranny. Nearly all tyrannies are established in the name of the people-. Any step from the American to the European theory of government is a backward one. It is not progress, but reaction. The theory of representative representa-tive government is as far in advance of the doctrine of dtirect democracy as Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson and their contemporaries were ahead, morally and intellectually intellectual-ly of the demagogues and theorists, deluded by European conceptions of government, who today flout the representative rep-resentative republican idea, j |