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Show A SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. That a republic has the essentials of -long life, is the point made by the editor of the Bulletin in the following: fol-lowing: Thomas Alva Edison works by the method of trial and error. When, in one of his Inventions, he is seeking a perfect adjustment, he tries one arrangement, fails; tries another, fails; tries a third, fails; tries, may be a thousand, or even several thousand, and finally succeeds. This was the way with the electric light, with the phonograph, phono-graph, and with the electric storage stor-age battery. Now, the curious aspect as-pect of this method of Edison's is that it Is also nature's method In improving a species or a form of government. When Edison makes a false combination ho knows at once, because It fails to give him tho results he wants. When nature makes a mistake tho mistake dies, whether it be an individual in-dividual Insect, a species, or a form of human society. Only successful creatures and societies survive and perpetuate their kind. If a government rests on a false basis It "may last a long time, but in the end it will be destroyed. As far back as we can look kingdoms and empires have always gone to seed and been extinguished. Warlike nations na-tions of all grades have also, after varying lengths of time, burned themselves to the socket and flickered out. Nations where one class has succeeded in enslaving other classes have always perished. per-ished. . But, as far as history goes, nations with even a spark of democracy in them have shown great tenacity of life. It would be hard to name a nation which remained vigorously democratic up to the year of its downfall. Switzerland has been free through vicissitudes which convulsed con-vulsed Europe; so have been the democratic Scandinavian monarchies; mon-archies; so, it may be predicted, will Franco be. Democracy is the salt that keeps nations from decay. de-cay. It is nature's prize invention in human society, after thousands of years of trial and error. She has picked it for survival and given giv-en notice to mankind that there is no strength in tyranny and in- . justice, but ouly in equality and justice. nn |