McKinley and Protectionism, Cleveland, Carlisle and Free Trade—how far
away they seem!
With the passing of the old issues that divided parties new issues have
come upon the scene. The alignment of the future will turn upon these.
But underlying all issues of all time are fundamental ideas which live
forever and aye, and may not be forgotten or ignored.
It used to be claimed by the followers of Jefferson that Democracy was
a fixed quantity, rising out of the bedrock of the Constitution, while
Federalism, Whiggism and Republicanism were but the chimeras of some
prevailing fancy drawing their sustenance rather from temporizing
expediency and current sentiment than from basic principles and
profound conviction. To make haste slowly, to look before leaping, to
take counsel of experience—were Democratic axioms. Thus the fathers of
Democracy, while fully conceiving the imperfections of government and
meeting as events required the need alike of movement and reform, put
the visionary and experimental behind them to aim at things visible,
attainable, tangible, the written Constitution the one safe precedent,
the morning star and the evening star of their faith and hope.
What havoc the parties and the politicians have made of all these lofty
pretenses! Where must an old-line Democrat go to find himself? Two
issues, however, have come upon the scene which for the time being are
paramount and which seem organic. They are set for the determination of
the twentieth century: The sex question and the drink question.
I wonder if it be possible to consider them in a catholic spirit from a
philosophic standpoint. I can truly say that the enactment of
prohibition laws, state or national, is personally nothing to me. I
long ago reached an age when the convivialism of life ceased to cut any
figure in the equation of my desires and habits. It is the
never-failing recourse of the intolerant, however, to ascribe an
individual, and, of course, an unworthy, motive to contrariwise
opinions, and I have not escaped that kind of criticism.
The challenge underlying prohibition is twofold: Does prohibition
prohibit, and, if it does, may it not generate evils peculiarly its
own?
The question hinges on what are called “sumptuary laws”; that is,
statutes regulating the food and drink, the habits and apparel of the
individual citizen. This in turn harks back to the issue of paternal
government. That, once admitted and established, becomes in time
all-embracing.
Bigotry is a disease. The bigot pursuing his narrow round is like the
bedridden possessed by his disordered fancy. Bigotry sees nothing but
itself, which it mistakes for wisdom and virtue. But Bigotry begets
hypocrisy. When this spreads over a sufficient area and counts a voting
majority it sends its agents abroad, and thus we acquire canting
apostles and legislators at once corrupt and despotic.
They are now largely in evidence in the national capital and in the
various state capitals, where the poor-dog, professional politicians
most do congregate and disport themselves.
The worst of it is that there seems nowhere any popular
realization—certainly any popular outcry. Do the people grow
degenerate? Are they willfully dense?