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Between the two chief political parties, the main line of demarcation continued to be the national idea, Mr. Scott frequently wrote, when others complained, as in 1904–8, that they could see party distinctions no longer. "The influence of nationalism 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 The 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 authority 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 conspicuous 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 centralized 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 useless. Its use has been to force the Republican Party at intervals 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