REVIEW OF WRITINGS OF H. W. SCOTT 165

VIII NATIONAL IDEA ITS PROGRESS AFTER CIVIL WAR

Between the two chief political parties, the main line of de- marcation continued to be the national idea, Mr. Scott fre- quently wrote, when others complained, as in 1904-8, that they could see party distinctions no longer. "The influence of na- tionalism is the mainspring of party action/' he said February 2, 1908, "and must continue to be such. In this national aspect of parties and politics lies the reason why Th'e Oregonian, throughout its whole life, has acted in politics with a view to efficiency in national government. The best exponent of this principle has been the Republican Party." "During fifty years (November 15, 1909) the Republican Party, depending on au- thority and insisting on the use of it, has done everything. It has been strong, because it is the party of national ideas. In many things the Democratic Party has been a helper, doubtless ; but a helper chiefly by its opposition. . . . Most conspicu- ous display of this fact was when it elected Grover Cleveland to the Presidency in 1892. Cleveland was an asserter of high central authority; and, discovering this, his party exclaimed that it had been 'betrayed' and it repudiated him. Ever since it has followed the Bryan standard."

Party was to Mr. Scott a means to an end, not the end itself. He was too broad-minded to think virtue in a mere party name or to follow party as a fetish. The Republican Party was for him the exponent the only one of concentrated and central- ized power, in resistance to local authority and disintegration, and in transformation from a federal to a national republic. "During fifty years (May 30, 1904) the Democratic Party has stood for nothing that the country has desired or could deem useful to it. If anything of constructive policy has come out of the Democratic Party these forty years, one would like to be told what it is. This party of opposition has not been use- less. Its use has been to force the Republican Party at inter- vals to justify its aims and claims."

While the Editor had the statesman's lofty view, he was yet an indifferent politician. He cared little about the "offices" nor would the controlling bosses have permitted him to participate