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THE ATL ANTI AN
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intelligence, or the greed of those who are intelligent and want
to absorb everything for themselves.
If we do not mend our ways we shall deserve the reproach which
will be heaped upon our memories by our children and our chil
dren’s children.
One other fact for your consideration. In Denmark if one has
ten per cent, of the purchase price of a farm or home, he can borrow
the remaining ninety per cent, from the State bank, or the Co-
Operatives banks on fifty years time by the annual payment of four
per cent, of the amount borrowed which in fifty years pays the
debt with interest. Thus if a farmer wanted to buy a $2,000 farm
and had $200 he could borrow $1,800 on terms of $72 a year for
fifty years and the debt would be paid.
BERNARD SUTTLER.’’
Woodrow Wilson
and His Critics.
By Bernard Suttler.
PREFACE:— * * * There are many things in the United States
of which we can not boast. The one thing of which we can boast
least of all is our political campaigns. Our politicians have found
the people gullible for so long that they have concluded that any lie,
cr trick, which they can perpetrate to carry their own ends, and to
name their own men, is not only permissible, but will be upheld by a
set of blind partisans who will vote for anything that has the party
label. It has so happened, however, that of late years there has
sprung up a school of independent voters, men whose reason and
whose conscience must be reached, and these men are now suffi
ciently numerous to hold the balance of power. It is always the aim
of the politicians to mak^, in both the great political organizations
of the country, nominations of such a character which—while en
tirely acceptable to the politicians—will leave the Independent
practically no choice, and compel him to cast his vote for what he
conceives to be the least of evils.
In the campaign now being waged, it is the aim of the Republi
can politicians, who control the machine, to nominate Taft, and the
Democratic politicians to nominate anybody but Wilson.
All of our political evils grow out of the fact that we have allowed
office-holding to become a vocation—whereas, it ought to be merely
an incident in the life of a good citizen, like jury duty or military
service. No congressman ought to be kept in Washington more
than four years. No senator should be elected to succeed himself.
No judge should hold the position for a term of more than six years.
If these were established principles, we would see much of the politi
cal evils which affect us disappear.
Republican politicians want Taft because they know they can
use him. Democratic politicians will take anybody in preference to
Wilson, because they know they can not use him.
*■.****##*#*
With this preliminary word, I propose to discuss here, as briefly
as may be possible, some of the arguments advanced by these politi
cal exploiters in opposing Governor Wilson. The charge is made that
he is a Federalist—as if this was the greatest crime in the calendar
of crime, and in itself sufficient to condemn him as a Democratic
candidate. The charge, in the sense in which the word Federal is
used by these people, is not true. But let us discuss, for a little,,
this question and see what a Federalist is. Webster’s Unabridged
Dictionary gives the meaning of Federalist: “An advocate of con
federation.” He then goes further and explains that “in American
history it meant a friend of the Constitution of the United States
at its foundation and adoption;” and, thirdly, “a member of the
political party which favored the administration of President Wash
ington.” The Encyclopedic Dictionary gives, as the meaning of
the word Federalist, “pertaining to treaty, league or contract'Ll.
“derived from, founded on, an agreement or contract between par
ties which become united in or under a Federacy;” third, “favorable
to the preservation of Federal government.”
In 1787 the very loose union of the colonies which had existed
from 1775 became unbearable, and practically every wise man in the
country had come to the conclusion that a confederation was neces
sary; in other words, they were all Federalists; they made a com
pact which was called the Constitution, and which, after lengthy
debate, was accepted by each one of the thirteen colonies, and the
United States of America came into being.
Two parties developed—one led by Hamilton, who was at heart
a Monarchist, and who wanted a strong central government; the
other, led by Jefferson, who wanted to adhere to the letter of the
contract and give to the Federal power no more than had been grant
ed by the letter of the contract. The Jeffersonian theory prevailed
for many years, though there were outbreaks of dissatisfaction at
times. An organized movement in favor of the abrogation of the
contract did not take concrete shape until 1860. Even then the
leaders of the secession movement proclaimed their love for the
Union, their loyalty to it and their adherence to the Constitution—
but insisted that the other partv wanted to trench upon their rights
beyond the letter of the Constitution.
In other words, everybody was in favor of the Confederation;
everybody was a Federalist in the proper sense, and the question at
issue was one of construing the contract. .
As a result of the war the. Hamiltonian theory prevailed, and the
new theory was formulated in the phrase that ours is “an indissolu
ble union of indestructible States.” That has been accepted as the
final word, and from the moment that was accepted every man in
the United States has been a Federalist. In that sense, and in no
other sense, is Governor Wilson a Federalist. The silly and childish
charge that he is a Federalist in the Hamiltonian sense, which means
that he would like to see all power centered in the Federal govern
ment and state lines wiped out, is hardly worthy of reply. Governor
Wilson is so BIG and so BROAD a man that,he recognizes, as all
big men do, that in a country of our vast territorial extent the State
governments fill a niche in our governmental structure which makes
it absolutely impracticable to destroy them. *
The next charge made against Governor Wilson is that he favors
the initiative, the referendum and the recall, Twenty-two years ago
I first investigated this proposition, and came to the conclusion then
that in it was not only the very essence of Democracy, but the germ
of what would save Democratic institutions in America against the
control which we have since se$a come about through a combination
of narrow, prejudiced and partisan political bosses and great mon
eyed interests. Each succeeding year has strengthened my convic
tion. It is not at all to Governor Wilson’s discredit that, at the first
glance, he was disposed to fear these propositions, and it took study