10
Monday, November 6, 1972
University Daily Kansan
Democrat Party Has Long History Of Appealing to Working Masses
Editor's Note: This article is part of a series of stories on the background of American literature.
By BILL SCHEELE Kansan Staff Writer
"We are the party of the people, the party of progress, the movers and shakers of society." Democrats often are heard to assert.
If not all these things, the Democratic party at least is the oldest political party in the world's oldest party system, that of the United States. It was founded in 1791, when Virginia Thomas Jefferson and James Madison adlected with Gov. George Clinton of New York to oppose Alexander Hamilton's plan for a national bank. Thus, the party's first North-South alliance was struck. This alliance has proved to be both the party's strength and weakness.
In the beginning, the party was called Anti-Federalist because it opposed Hamilton's Federalistic policies. The name was changed to Democratic-Republicans, and the party became Jackson-Jackson, to Democrats, the party of rule by the people of the common man.
Campaign Aide Killed in Crash
ASHLAND (AP)—A campaign aide to Morris Kay, Republican candidate for governor, and a prominent Hinwatha, Kan, banker have been killed where their light plane crashed near this southwestern Kansas community.
The victims were the pilot, Wayne Starr, 50, president of the Citizens State Bank and Trust Co. of Hawaia since 1962, and Sharon Janet Fitzpatrick, 28, of Topeka Pitzpatrick was director of campaign funds for the Kay For Kansas Committee.
Clark County authorities said the plane was returning to Topeka after distributing campaign materials at several southwest points when it crashed Saturday night.
Starr had flown his private plane for a number of years helping GOP candidates.
ITS FIRST PRINCIPLES, formulated by Jefferson, were for a strong Congress, a strict interpretation of the Constitution, states' rights and agrarian and labor interests. It firmly believed in the inherent goodness and possible perfection of the common man. The party was the antithesis of the strong executive controlled central government, to the business-oriented Federalists, who distracted the importance of the commonser.
These initial principles have shifted with time. Some have been reversed. Today the Democrats lean toward a strong president whose interpretation of the Constitution has changed.
The party's power base has changed and grown steadily throughout its history.
In the formative years of Jefferson and Madison, the party drew support from small farmers, producers and traders. In 1818, the party became the nation's first political entity for two decades. Although the presidency of James Monroe, 1817-1825, was labeled "The Era of Good Feeling," its political strife with factional strife within the party.
After the potaman of the mid-19th century, a flood of Irish immigrants found a haven in the cities and in the Democratic party. These and late 19th-century Jewish, Polish, Slavic and Italian immigrants were dominated in their urban ghettoes by the big city machines, like Tammany Hall of New York.
AS WESTWARD expansion developed, the westerners called for a common leader of the common people. Their demand was answered in the election of Andrew Jackson. Jackson appealed to the rule of the majority of the people and brought many interest groups together—farmers, slaveowners, business groups and some urban referents working man's groups. It was a party of the nation, not of the Northeast.
The progressive movement of the early 1900s lured the small business and middle-class groups into the Democratic party. Political reformers, wage-earners and sprouting union organizations also joined the party. Remnants of William Jennings
Brvan's farm supporters also were taken in.
Bryan's farm supporters also were taken in. THESE GROUPS combined with the solid South and some large business groups to reestablish the Democratic power which had been sapped by the Civil War and the Republican reconstruction.
During Franklin D. Roosevelt era, the Democrats lost the support of business and other conservative groups. But the sweeping gains made in union labor, immigrant, Negro, Catholic and middle-class politics have pushed the party to the loss. This massive ethnic movement has solidified the party's position as the party of the masses. There are more than one and a half times as many Democrats as Republicans in the United States today. For them, the Democrats also have a lower voting rate than de Republicans.
Why is a Democrat a Democrat? Perhaps it's because the average American wants to feel as if he's just one of the group, one of the working masses, one of the unarmed masses. He doesn't help him, he reasons. They've always helped the common man in the past.
BECAUSE The Democrats usually have favored the ethnic groups, the underprivileged and the disenfranchised, perhaps more people want to be a part of that generous spirit of humanity. They also want the lavish benefits the Democrats so offer. Rosewoods New Deal and Kennedy's charisma have won their support.
Clinton Rissiter, in "Parties and Politics in America," said that Republicans looked like Rotarians at the speakers' table—falsely hearty, a bit stiff, correct, conscious of eminence—while the Democrats looked more aggressive. MoreRotarian dinner—more relaxed, more casually dressed, more earthy, rowdy and boisterous.
Paid for by Collister for County Attorney Committee; Dean Radcliffe, chairman
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In an age of indecision and confusion, one thing is for sure, Pooch has launched a new era in clothing for man and woman alike, the baggie, the shrink top, the argle sweater, the leather coat and much, much more. So when considering a new body covering, don't be indecise, get on the launching pad and lace it up, Pooch.
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