-wnrrwM W l"l'llliWqPHWB'W
ft
K
'
I
2 .
war with Mexico limn rlMioiruiB Clorwin, and cvon
Abraham Lincoln repeatedly .added his protest
against that war, and yet the names of Corwin
and Lincoln are among the illustrious of America's
dead.
TJio dillorenco between a monarchy and a re
public is that in a monarchy the people must
aoquicso in the monarch's will, but in a republic
the public ollicers are supposed to acquieso in the
people's will. "The king can do no wrong" so
long as he does exactly as he pleases. The pub
lic oflicer in a republic can do no wrong so long
as he adheres to the Constitution and the law.
When he violates that Constitution and when ho
trangresses that law, he is in error, and it is just
as much the people's duty to criticize him then as
it is their duty to commend him when he sustains
the Constitution and upholds the law.
Men who insist that this nation, in its deal
ings with its new dependencies, shall be governed
.by the same principle which the founders of this
Government claimed for themselves; men who in
sist that the Declaration of Independence was
written for all time and provides a rule by which
all men should bo guided; men who insist that
the prohibitions in the Constitution must pro
hibit, that the limitations in the Constitution
must limit, and that public ollicers and public
bodies whoso existence doponds upon that Con
Btitution cannot ignore it and assume authority
and power not given by it; men who insist that
this Government is too great and too strong to
outer upon an era of oppression to the weak and
tho helpless; men who insist that honesty is the
best policy for nations as well as individuals; men
who insist that liberty was designed for the brown
man as well as for the white man and tho black
man theso men are not made of tho stuff of
which traitors are constructed.
No government has anything to fear from cit
izens who adhere to the principles upon which tho
government was founded and through which it
.has prospered. No .nation has anything to fear
From citizons who insist that tho nation must bo
true to its own traditions and faithful to its own
professions. No nation has anything to fear from
citizens who are willing to go down to political
lofeat in defense of what they believe to bo the
truth. No nation has anything to fear from chi
tons who can bring to the support of their cause
tho Declaration of Independence, the Constitu
tion of tho United States, and the declarations of.
every great American in every great political
party from the period of Washington to the pres
ent day.
Hazing Finds a Defender.
The Chicago Inter-Ocean rises, or rather sinks,
to the defense of hazing. It says:
Now this is the sort of discipline many young
men entering n new environment greatly need, and
which in various ways they everywhere receive. Tho
newcomer in schools, in clubs, in lodges, in churches,
in offices, in factories, in every place where men must
live and work together, if ho show an overweening
tenso of his own importance, receives just this kind
&f lessons. If administered in the proper spirit such
fessons are valuable to the learner. They show him
ust what he is worth in the eyes of those by whose
judgment he must stand or full. They are means of
liscipline which make the social machine work
bore smoothly.
Excuses must be scarce indeed when a news-
The Commoner
paper is compelled to liken hazing to initiation
into a lodge or to one's experience in joining a
church.
if tho Inter-Ocean can discover an instance
where soap or tobasco sauce was administered
by a lodge to a new member, or where a list fight
was made compulsory in any religious organiza
tion it has only to point it out and it will have
the satisfaction of seeing how publicity will put
an end to the practice or to the organization.
W
Trial by Jury Denied.
The President, in his instructions to the
Philippine commissioners, is careful to exclude
trial by jury from the blessing conferred upon
the Nation's oriental subjects. The omission is
the more noticeable because the sixth amendment
to the Constitution is quoted entire with the ex
ception of tho clause guaranteeing, trial "by an
impartial jury of .the state and district wherein
the crime shall have been committed, which dis
trict shall have been previously ascertained by
law."
Below will bo found, in parallel columns, tho
sixth amendment and the instruction taken from it:
The President's Instruction.
In all criminal prose
cutions the accused shall
enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial;
to be informed of the
nature and cause of the
accusation; to be con
fronted with witnesses
against him; to have
compulsory process for
obtaining witnesses in
his favor and to have the
assistance of counsel for
his defense.
The Sixth Amendment.
In all criminal prosecu
tions the accused shall en
joy the right to a speedy
and public trial, nv an
IMPAKTIAI, .1UUY 01? TIIK
STATE AND YHST1UCT
W1IKKKIN TIIK CIUME SHALL
1IAVK 11KEN' COMMITTED,
WHICH DISTIUCT SHALL
HAVE HEEN PREVIOUSLY
ASCERTAINED BY LAW, and
to be informed of the
nature and cause of the
accusation; to be con
fronted with tho witness
es against him; to have -
compulsory process for
obtaining witnesses in
his favor, and to havo
the assistance of counsel
for his defense.
Ono by one tho safe-guards of the Constitu
tion arc being abandoned; bno by ono the doc
trines of imperialism are being adopted. There
is not a vital principle of government, heretofore
considered sacred, which must not ultimately be
abandoned if this Nation continues to tax sub
jects without representation and govern them,
without the consent of the governed.
The Presidential Term.
The suggestion made by Ex-President Cleve
land, to the effect that the presidential term should
be extended to six years and the president made
ineligible for re-election, has excited discussion.
The latter part of the proposition has mot with
the more cordial reception. There seems to be a
wide-spread opinion that a president should be
limited to one term in order to prevent his usino
the first term to secure a re-nomination.
President Jackson suggested this limitation in
his first inaugural message.
Mr. TIayes in 1870, in his letter accepting the
republican nomination, said:
The declaration of principles by the Cincinnati
convention makes no announcement in favor of a sin
gle presidential term. I do not assume to add to that
declaration, but believing that tho restoration of the
civil service to the system established by Washington
and followed by the early presidents can be best ac
complished by an executive officer who is under no
temptation to use the patronage of his office to pro
mote his own re-election, T desire to perforin what t
regard as a duty in stating now my inflexible purpose,
if elected, not to be a candidate for election to a'sec-.
ond term.
Mr. Cleveland in his first letter of acceptance?
stated, in even stronger language, the objections to
a second term, saying: -'
When an election to office shall be the selection
by the voters of one of their number to assume for a
time a public trust instead of his dedication to the"
profession of politics; when the holders of the ballot,
quickened by a sense of duty, shall avenge truth be
trayed and pledges broken, and when the suffrage
shall be altogether free and uncorrupted, the full
realization of a government by the people will be at
hand. And of the means to this end, no one would,
in my judgment, be more effective than an amend
ment to the Constitution disqualifying the president
from re-election.
When we consider the patronage of this great'
office, the allurements of power, the temptation to re
tain public place once gained, and, more than all, the.
availability a party finds in an incumbent whom a
horde of office holders, with zeal born of benefits re
ceived and fostered by the hope of favors yet to come,
stand ready to aid with money and trained political
service, wo recognize in the eligibility, of the presi
dent for re-election a most serious danger to that calm,
deliberate and intelligent political action which must
characterize a government by the people.
Human nature is as yet too frail to' withstand
the temptation to use for selfish purposes tho
great patronage of the executive.
If it is argued that a nation might be in such
a crisis that it could ill afford a change in' the
administration, it may be said in reply, first, that
the same argument could be made at the close of
a second term and, second, that when the nation
reaches a condition where only one man out of
the whole population is able to assume and 'prop
erly discharge the duties of the executive it ,wiir4V
scarcely be worth saving.
As to the lengthening of the term considera
te difference of opinion has developecl. The
principal affirmative argument is that business
interests are disturbed by a presidential election.
If this argument is to have a controlling influ
ence we might as well choose the executive, for
life, or, in order to reduce the disturbance to a
minimum, establish an hereditary succession.
There arc. political reasons in favor of the present
length which outweigh any business considera
tions. Jefferson was an advocate of frequent elec
tions. In a letter written . to Samuel Adams, in
1800, he said:
A government by representatives, elected by tho
people at short periods, was our object; and our max
im at that day was, 'where annual election ends, tyr-
anny begins;' nor have our departures from it been
sanctioned by the happiness of their effects. . -.
Sixteen years later he said:
The rights of the people to the exercise and
fruits of their own industry can never be protected
against the selfishness of rulers, not subject to their
control at short periods.
The fact that commercial reasons are deemed.
sufficient with some to. justify the surrender of a
principle absolutely necessary for the protection
of the public shows the dangerous pre-eminence
given to money and money making.
To lengthen tho presidential term is simply to
enlarge the stake for which great interests play.
The trusts could increase their campaign contribu
tions fifty per cent, if they could secure control
of an administration for six years instead of
four.
Short terms are necessary not only to proteot
fi
...''I
4
m
- K
' I1 I
1 I
U I
fl
W-JijjVy. ,jfcj ..m.. .jJlf
h-.ut ffiifrtn fftlTntf"!!
kUW
