[467]
Moreover, the first and indispensable condition of any reform under the federal Executive is the election of a president who is earnestly and thoroughly a reformer.
Until that is done we may expect to see shallow experiments, deceptive shams, and short-lived illusions, but no real or permanent improvement can be attained. ...
A few days later, in reply to a casual correspondent who suggested the nationalization of the railroads, the
Sun expressed itself against the proposition in terms which appear to be quite as sensible to-day as when they were first uttered:
... We cannot imagine anything more absurd, unpatriotic, and dangerous than this scheme.
There is one end which should be constantly pursued by every intelligent American in whatever belongs to legislation and government.
This end is to diminish the power of government, to reduce the number and authority of officeholders, and to abolish as far as possible the interference of political agents in private affairs.
After admitting, during the course of the discussion, that protection and free-trade should receive due attention from the Democrats in the next House, it took care to put itself on the broader and safer platform that their chief and most imperative duty would be “to stand as a unit against free-trade in the people's money and for the protection of the public treasury.”
It followed this by a more elaborate article defining democracy to be “the government of the people for the people and by the people.”
It declared that its life is immortal, and does not depend upon any success of the hour; that elections may be lost and won, that wisdom or folly may prevail, that delusions may overcome the minds of men, and that interest may lead them astray; but when all political sins have been committed, all blunders have been endured and
