Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1917 — ANENT DICTATORS [ARTICLE]

ANENT DICTATORS

A perpetual source of wonder and astonishment to the peoples of the Old World is the immense power in the hands of the President of the United States. The central powers endeavor to use it as an argument against the sincerity of our declarations as to the objects of this country, in the world struggle. They point out that our President is more of a dictator than any Hohenzollern or Hapshurg. Even our friends, the British, seem unable to reconcile his great powers with our proud boast of personal liberty. Viewed from an Old World point of'wiew we must confess the problem is a knotty one. From the viewpoint of democracy, however, the solution is very simple. And the one great outstanding principle that governs the situation is that of human volition. Kingly powers are matters of inheritance. Not one of the millions of the kaiser's subjects had the least voice in clothing him with the power he wields over them. Those powers were conferred first by might on his remote ancestors and passed on by might to their present possessors. The question of fitness to exercise those powers has never entered , into the situation. His power for evil is as absolute and unlimited as his power for good. Neither does the question of ability count, as witness the pitiful spectacle of imbecile rulers who have in the past dominated many of the old countries. As a matter of fact, mediocrity of intellect and aj paucity of moral fibre has character-! ized the majority of European nil-! ers as far back as history records. True, among them a really great |

character has developed occasionally, which is the one fact that has in any sense tended to mitigate the evils of the system. Widely different from this is the condition in this country. Here the principle of human volition and individual freedom of choice has full and free expression. Every President of this country has been in the fullest sense of the word the choice of the people. Primarily, he has not one iota of power not enjoyed by the humblest citizen of the republic. His power is a delegated power, and that only for a season and an emergency. At the end of that season or emergency, his power is stripped from him, and he resumes his place as merely one of the millions. t In the matter of personal fitness, too, the Presidents of the United States have in every instance measured up to the highest standard. Not one has ever proven recreant to the high trust imposed in him. All, without exception, have been men of probity and high ideals. As a matter of fact, the manner of their choosing guarantees this unless the people themselves were decadent. From all of which it can be seen that European distatorships are one man dictatorships, while the American brand —if it can be so called, is a dictatorship of the masses—in fact, one hundred million strong.