Car 3aUa Atonting Xtb$ The News, oldest business institution in Texas, was established in 1842 while Texas was a Republic Editorial Page Jim Wright, Editorial Director SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 1979 .6 • Jefferson Revisited IN HIS inaugural address, Gov. William P. Clements suc- cinctly set forth his political . philosophy. "Condensed to its most basic form," said Clements, "my phi- losophy is this: The proper function of government is not to guarantee prosperity for its citizens; but, rather, it is to guarantee them the opportu- nity to achieve prosperity." He could hardly have said any- thing more heartening had he talked the rest of the day. It is not that such senti- ments are unknown on the lips of Texas governors, a breed tra- ditionally distrustful of levi- athan government. Nor is it that Texans need reminding of what Mr. Jefferson called "the blessings of liberty." What is worth remarking about Clements' affirmation is that it comes at a time when more and more non-Texans are coming to think seriously about just such principles as his. We might call it the rediscovery of Jeffersonian- ism. It was Jefferson's view that government governs best when it governs least; when it lets its citizens alone to pursue their own affairs, free of pater- nalistic interference. The whole tendency of 20th- century government has been to repudiate Jeffersonian tenets. Into its capacious arms, government has scooped up one responsibility after anoth- er, until there are almost liter- ally no provinces of life which government does not touch. To be sure, no one of any sense asserts that government as such should be abolished and men left free to their own devices. We know enough of human nature to recognize that man's baser impulses need restraining; we know likewise that government is often able to organize basic services in such a way as to benefit the community. Yet so large and powerful has government grown in the past 45 years (the start of the New Deal is a good landmark from which to measure), that it has become an overbearing partner in the affairs of man. Government takes and spends about 2 dollars of every five that we earn. It hamstrings the workings of the free market- place. It tells us whom we may hire and how we shall make the things we create for sale. It tells us, sometimes, how much we may pay for those things. And on and on. Why does it do these things? For our own good — or so we are told. Government-as-the- guarantor-of-prosperity is an idea that came to maturity dur- ing the New Deal and has afflicted us ever since. What kind of prosperity, though? A high-tax prosperity. A high-inflation prosperity. An ever-more-unfree prosperity. The government takes, even as it gives. And disgusted at this reality are increasing numbers of Americans, as their pro- nouncements and their votes make clear. Support grows for a constitutional amendment that would make the federal gov- ernment balance its budget. The attack on federal overregu- lation already is under way and has borne fruit in Congress' vote to free up the interstate airline industry. No one is likely to cheer on the Jeffersonian revival more heartily than Gov. Clements. The chance to prosper: That is what he wants for his people. It is what Americans want from coast to coast. To Thomas Jefferson's agrarian society, mostly free of government, there clearly is no going back. Yet back we need to go — at least a little distance, for the sake of stooping and picking up something we dropped: Our commitment to opportunity, our faith in freedom.