University of Virginia Library

Positive Party

The Democratic party has been
the party of the positive state for
barely forty years — only since the
New Deal. Before that, the burden
of bringing national power to bear
in behalf of prosperity had been
born by the Federalists, Whigs and
Republicans, usually with
Democrats tugging them
backwards; by Hamilton in spite of
Jefferson; Biddle. Clay and Webster
in spite of Jackson; Lincoln in spite
of Douglas; McKinley despite
Bryan; the Republican Roosevelt
and Hughes against Wilson. Only in
the New Deal — thanks to
Republican myopia — were the
roles switched. And today we are
still left with two Republican
parties, one wanting to perform its
historic role; the other, the
neo-Jeffersonian.

It is, however, to the amazement
of historians and to the eternal
credit of Democrats that the party
(until the New Deal) always used its
meagre resources well. The party
which was for so long the dung
heap of racists and bosses always
nominated the flowers which
sprouted from it: not Champ Clark,
but Wilson; not Al Smith, but FDR;
not Lyndon Johnson, but John
Kennedy; not merely liberals but
men of clear stature, men not from
barren but rich backgrounds, of not
modest but bountiful education,
and perhaps prepared for public
service by generations; men who
in sum, bring depth and breadth
of education and experience to their
judgments.