Show EFFERSON AND TIMES CHANGE thomas jefferson was distin ached among his bis contemporaries r an uncanny capacity to plumb ae e future bilies without number ie e foresight ore sight of jefferson enabled m to predict the course of 0 his ry and yet it ts Is doubtful it if even 3 prophetic vision could have en led him to imagine the presently offspring of the national gov ament in the creation of which i played so large a part A sturdy individualism was the eal of jefferson his beliefs and ose dose of his party were the doe doc ines of agriculturists and par devoted to their locales their states and their ual rights ant ani liberties the pow of the state in any form was a ing of evil and to be resisted chat countr country Is governed best filch Is governed least aptly sum their code out of such ments there emerged the of the national charter men felt that tile the law swept aund each citizen a wide circle individual rights into which no vern ivern ment state ori or federal could trude except it its peril feared centralization such was the political faith of a hiltry rural in its habits and ought jefferson mistrusted large aters of population and esteemed society composed of planters amers and small email traders as the iward of republican government jefferson may have foreseen thai ie e colonies could not forever re aln essentially ll agricultural in in astry or society but it is doubtful he or the others who labored with in imagined that industry would er so largely predominate the teresta of the united states to cope with this condition the notions of the state have been multiplied and rights and liberties the individual citizen have narrowed to conform a new condition of society these langes the incidence of which is been confined largely to the mrs ars after the civil war have so american government as 0 i make it hardly recognizable as te ie bame fabric that was once so equen lly and plainly marked b by fferson lan ian individualism and op mitlon to centralized authority the difficulties of unemployment id depression multiplied in our rge centers of population and pe illar to an industrialized common y confirm jeffersons apprehend ons as to the evils of urban so ety but homeier the trans transfer bransfor for atlon bation from a rural to an indus lot lal state may be deplored its ro blenis are not to be solved by gretting their existence e the une lange iange has been inevitable and the annles of tile the atlantic coast with beir thirteen million people could of at have been expanded into a na on stretching across the lie continent contant lot id ad populated by one hundred and verity venty millions mahout ab abandon ig the social structure ot of an agri il tural community philosophy justified and tremendous as the llie revola on has been it by no means has the political philosophy f tile the sage of monticello there F need today as there was in 1770 ur at men who esleck tue the igney anty ol of the people freed freedom im ol of and speech local self ule and economy in government go jid it tittle has altered the so BO lal ial structure he believed in it has on firmed his passion tor for hutman berty berly his faith la IR democratic principles his bis program of 0 national nai lonal and has proved him not aly one of the worlds greatest philosophers but one of Luie ricas most practical and sue statesmen it Is seldom in the history ol of uen aen or nations that the same lofty deallum Is combined with the sound realism he brought to bear in th the e consideration of gov government rement affairs when modern statesmanship focuses upon economic problems the intellect and ideals that jefferson directed to the solution of political difficulties the rights of men will acquire a new meaning and industrial society achieve a form more hospitable to human happiness and progress than it has in the past st paul pioneer press |