Be Ready for the Roughand Tumble It is not only necessary that a man shall be good and possess the desire to do decent things, but it is also necessary that he shall be courageous, practical, and efficient, if his work is to amount to anything. There is a good deal of rough-and-tumble fighting in Congress, as there is in all our political life, and a man is entirely out of place in it if he does not possess the virile qualities, and if he fails to show himself ready and able to hit back when assailed. Moreover, he must be alert, vigorous, and intelligent if he is going to make his work count.-Ibid. Keep an Eye on your Every man interested in decent government should keep an eye on his Congressman Congress and see how he votes on the question of appropriations for the Commission.-Ibid. man Congress men Should Each Congressman should be made to feel Be Held to that it is his duty to support the law, and that he will be held to account if he fails to support it.-Ibid. Account The Man Who The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.-Ibid. to Reform The opposition to the reform is generally Opposition well led by skilled parliamentarians, and they fight with the vindictiveness natural to men who see a chance of striking at the institution which has baffled their ferocious greed. As a rule, the rank and file are composed of politicians who could not rise in public life because of their attitude on any public question, and who derive most of their power from the skill with which they manipulate the patronage of their districts. These men have a gift at office-mongering, just as other men have a peculiar knack in picking pockets; and they are joined by all the honest dull men who vote wrong out of pure ignorance, and by a very few sincere and intelligent, but wholly misguided people. Ibid. As the people of a State grow more and more intelligent the State itself may be able to play a larger and larger part in the life of the community, while at the same time individual effort may be given a freer and less restricted movement along certain lines; but it is utterly unsafe to give the State more than the minimum of power just so long as it contains masses of men who can be moved by the pleas and denunciations of the average Socialist leader of to-day.-Ibid. The Power of the State No the fact that appointments and removals for political reasons in places where the duties are wholly non-political cannot be defended by any man who looks at public affairs from the proper standpoint.-Ibid. The There are plenty of ugly things about wealth and its possessors in the present age, and I suppose there have been in all ages. There are many rich people who so utterly lack patriotism, or show such sordid and selfish traits of character, or lead such mean and vacuous lives, that all right-minded men must look upon them with angry contempt; but, on the whole, the thrifty are apt to be better citizens than the thriftless; and the worst capitalist cannot harm laboring men as they are harmed by demagogues.—Ibid. Good Laws and Honest Administration Something can be done by good laws; more can be done by honest administration of the laws; but most of all can be done by frowning resolutely upon the preachers of vague discontent; and by upholding the true doctrine of self-reliance, self-help, and selfmastery.-Ibid. The Monroe Doctrine may be briefly defined as forbidding European encroachment on American soil. It is not desirable to define it so rigidly as to prevent our taking into account the varying degrees of national interest in varying cases. The United States has not the slightest wish to establish a universal protectorate over other American States, or to become responsible for their misdeeds. If one of them becomes involved in an ordinary quarrel with a European power, such quarrel must be settled between them by any one of the usual methods. But no European State is to be allowed to aggrandize itself on American soil at the expense of any American State. Furthermore, no transfer of an American colony from one European State to another is to be permitted, if, in the judgment of the United States, such transfer would be hostile to its own interests.-Ibid. No Wish to Establish a Universal Protecto rate No European Powers on Soil The United States ought not to permit any great military powers, which have no foothold on this continent, to establish such American foothold; nor should they permit any aggrandizement of those who already have possessions on the continent. We do not wish to bring ourselves to a position where No Powers on Soil we shall have to emulate the European system European of enormous armies. Every true patriot, American every man of statesman-like habit, should look forward to the day when not a single European power will hold a foot of American soil. At present it is not necessary to take the position that no European power shall hold American territory; but it certainly will become necessary, if the timid and selfish "peace at any price" men have their way, and if the United States fails to check at the outset European aggrandizement on this continent.-Ibid. Love an Love of country is an elemental virtue, like love of home, or like honesty or courage. Ibid. South States to The history of most of the South American republics has been both mean and bloody; but there is at least a chance that they may own Lines develop, after infinite tribulations and suffering, into a civilization quite as high and stable as that of such a European power as Portugal. But there is no such chance for any tropical American colony owned by a Northern European race. It is distinctly in the |