it to others under the law except what is necessary [to protect others in the same enjoyment. It is in the human heart that democracy has erected her temple; it is from the human heart that the voice of democracy, whether in grief or joy, whether subdued or victorious, ever speaks and will speak forever.

But to emphasize the rights of the common people, as if democracy was concerned alone with them, is an erroneous and pernicious course. Democracy concerns itself with no class. It demands that the poor man shall have and enjoy his own; that he shall worship and speak and act as he pleases up to the limit of the same right as every other man. Whoever by diligence has acquired wealth shall also enjoy and keep what he has gained. Children, even, shall inherit idleness from him who earned it. The end of democracy is not the rule of the common people. The end of democracy is the development of the individual in intellect and morals and usefulness, in a sense of justice, in the virtues of the heart, and to that end democracy demands liberty, and to obtain liberty it reposes the government in the whole people. If there be failure, which is minimized by popular rule, it is by the same token guaranteed a speedy and comprehensive amendment. Democracy believes in wealth for all who can by industry and intelligence obtain it. It will not permit trespass or confiscation. Nor will it by special privilege from the state suffer a part to acquire wealth at the expense of the many. Such a course impugns the principle of man's equality, which is the first clause in its creed.

Democracy demands freedom of conscience. It was

won by the most painful struggle in the history of man. Nor is it in these days of unsettled ideals very generally assailed. While Charles V reasoned that there was but one religion and one salvation, and that to punish heresy was to serve God and man, no one now fails to smile at this quaint sophistry. It passed away long ago where a great deal else that still lingers to hamper mankind should have gone.

As a principle of government democracy demands the least government consistent with public order and the general welfare. It limits its interference to trespasses. Whenever a hand is uplifted or a plot concocted to assail equal rights, democracy enters its effectual protest. And in the observance of this simple rule is a great reward to the people as a whole. Under its benign influence there are no boards to intermeddle in private affairs; there is no corrupt officialism; there is little chance for powerful machines; there is frugality in administration; there are no useless and costly navies; there are no standing armies; there is no extravagant flummery; there is no grabbing of a scrubby island, and then of other islands to protect the first; there are no subsidies, no protective tariffs, no system of finance which favors a part of the people; no public debt, and, in short, none of the numberless devices which are foisted upon the people whether they will or no, upon pretenses good or bad, inventions of the Medicis and the Machiavellians of history who worked the incantations of power and glory in benighted times. But they are worked today, for one of the strange paradoxes in the political thought of the masses is the pride and satisfaction

which they manifest in granting to a central body far away the very power by which their rights are admittedly infringed.

It follows from what has been said that the components of democracy are the free city, the free township, the free county and the free state, co-operating in a synthetic process to the national government. This is the ideal of democracy. There can be no republic without it. Our fathers learned the lesson from the free cities of Italy and the Netherlands, and the truth of local self-government is so obvious that the very statement of the proposition exhausts explanation and comment. And in good report and ill, in spite of falsehood and sophistry, the democracy has adhered to this principle. There never was a time when democratic leaders were not in favor of a nation, although there was honest difference of opinion as to the powers of the nation. But the process to which democracy was ever and ever will be a remorseless foe is the accumulation of all power in the hands of a few men, which was the hobby of Hamilton and which in our day has almost come to pass.

And as inclusive of all that has been defined democratic government extends to the enforcement of the law of equal freedom. It is a simple policy. It does not abound in promises of favors; it only insures justice. It does not appeal to the vision in glorious pageants; it convinces the intellect by its logic; it warms the heart by its humanity. It does not symbolize itself in serried ranks of armed men, through which the ruler rides amidst the plaudits of those who claw the cap from the peaked head, while women weep and

strong men faint with emotion at the sight of Godgiven power. It parades no squadron of battleships before the blurred eyes of sycophants and sentimentalists. It cares nothing for tinsel and finery, for black robes and wigs, for that mummery and pretense which is practiced to overawe the sentiments of those who are in the humble walks of life and convince them that its functions are intrusted to the anointed, and that those who are predestined to service and labor must obey implicitly and pay entirely.

But what is the symbol of democracy? It is the carpenter, the mechanic, the boatman, the shoemaker, the farmer, the tradesman, the banker, the lawyer, the philosopher, each in his way of life doing the world's work, protected by his own government in his rightful liberty, and in the aggregate mass of robust justice and honorable strength reserving a power for perpetuation which only internal corruption can destroy. Its apparel is that of Lincoln, and its surroundings are the books and the hospitality of Jefferson-things which do not cloud the eyes or enslave the feelings, but which in their simple majesty and merit are the enduring and beneficent pictures of history.

It follows that what is the strength of democracy is its weakness. It does not promise something for nothing; it does not argue that to take from one part and add to the other part increases the bulk of the whole; that to tax the many for the few enriches all; that to subsidize a private enterprise is profitable to those who are interested only in paying the subsidy; that wealth can be created by taxation; that to pay interest on a large and growing public debt is bene

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ficial to the people; that a surplus locked up in the treasury drawn by taxation is a sign of prosperitynone of those things does it pretend, promise or preach. It offers nothing but equal freedom to all. To those who want more democracy is not attractive; upon those who are deceived into taking less its warnings are lost. For the malevolent side of life shadows every virtue with a fault. And no question can be so fairly, so clearly stated that ingenious sophistry will not give it an evil aspect.

To instance this let us take a few examples from history. Those who opposed and oppose the tariff are in favor of pauper labor; they are inimical to American industry; they believe in a cheap man and a cheap coat; those who struggle against centralization in government are loose in their morals; they are not in favor of order and law; those who decry the subjugation of feeble peoples and the taking of their country are cowards; they are weaklings; they are behind the times; they are disloyal, unpatriotic; they are rebels at heart, the offshoots of impotent treason in days 7 past. Groundless as are these charges, aimless and foolish as they are, they are preferred on a deep and astute principle, viz., that men must rely for their guidance on what is said by men who talk and editors who write, that the majority of men cannot personally investigate these questions and that reiteration of these calumnies will instill a spirit of skepticism of the best motives and the purest professions. This course is as old as the discussion of public questions. It is the warfare of vile debate, through which humanity drags