slavery are confronting the United States to-day. One of the greatest of these is engendered by the inevitable tendency of our political life to become sordid and, in a low sense, professional; devoid of any moral life, without high ideals, or inspiring aims. It is quite natural that it should be so under the powerful material influences which present conditions, not only in the United States but in the world at large, create in modern society. With us on this side of the Atlantic these influences are intensified. The predominating ambition among us is the creation and the accumulation of wealth. A virgin soil, the material improvements of the age to which the inventive genius of our people has so largely contributed, all put us in the forefront of the world's wealth-getters. This tendency is so strong, that, in the fierce competition which exists, ethical considerations are apt to be forgotten. The higher problems of statesmanship and the finer interests of human progress drop out of sight. The very desire to ponder, to comprehend these problems, and to solve them, either dies in men's minds, or the moral atmosphere through which they regard them becomes tinged with the prevailing materialism. What is likely to result from such conditions? The final issue, it would seem, unless some practical remedy be found, must inevitably be a lapse to precisely that state of autocratic power-the reverse of the democratic ideal-which the Fathers of the Republic sought to escape from, to gain emancipation from which they made such heroic sacrifices. The machinery of government has become with us, whether we consider its workings in our great cities-New York, Chicago, Philadelphia-or whether in the national sphere, largely controlled by corporate commercial demands or the varied forms of individual self-interest. If the tendency be not checked by some counterbalancing force, that can be readily harnessed to effect its purpose and placed within the easy reach of the public at large, then the democratic ideal toward which the moral struggle of past centuries seems to have been tending, cannot be attained. Instead of the citizen-intelligent, instructed, moral, existing as the unit of power, and acting through all executives and all legislative representatives for his own protection and benefit, and for the

general good of mankind-instead of realizing this noble and beautiful ideal which has been the bright dream of our greatest statesmen, thinkers, poets, and philosophers, and which the most liberal and advanced minds of other nations have trusted that we would attain, we find ourselves moving toward a very different issue. Instead of the citizen, endowed with the most absolute freedom consistent with law, being the unit of power, a blind and immoral aggregation of wealth will be that unit. It will be a unit of power irresponsible to public sentiment and disobedient to all laws that it does not find convenient to obey. It will be a unit of power tending to make all political organizations and all instruments of government, whether military or civil, obedient to its will. Any protest against its desires upon the part of an individual citizen, any free expression of opinion, the right to which is now guaranteed by the Constitution, it will regard as one of the most serious of offenses and will punish accordingly. If the center of political authority ever completely shifts from the individual citizen, where with us it has so long rested and where theoretically it still belongs, to some form of organized wealth acting through corrupt political organizations, it can no more afford to permit free speech and a free press than could an absolute monarch permit these primary necessities of a democracy. But the tendency of affairs moves in that direction now, indifferent though many of us be to the truth, and long though the journey may be before the tendency be a consummated fact.

What, then, is the remedy? What is the line of reform to be adopted, if the United States is to move steadily forward toward a realization of the free democratic ideals in which the citizen is in reality a sovereign and the unit of power? The answer, in theory, is quite simple. The difficulties, in a way, are those of a purely practical nature. The citizen must use his citizenship. This function, like those in the physical body, atrophies through disuse. That is all. His old-fashioned, high ideals are attainable if he has a mind to attain them. He must magnify his office. He must think on great public subjects, and state boldly to his fellow citizens and to his political representatives his conclusions when he has duly reached

them. He must write, and speak, and act with a strong conviction that what he says through these natural channels for the communication of thought and belief, and what he does, will have their proper weight and influence. His word will not return to him void. It will do so less in this country and this latter time than ever before in the history of the world. His influence for good will, in some ways, be stronger for the very reason that he holds no official position-that he is a simple citizen. If he feels deeply, if he speaks sincerely, if he really aims to strengthen what is true and right, to befriend the weak, and ignorant, and helpless, to advance the general good, in a word, to be a true citizen, it will not be long before his fellows will understand and respect his motives, and his efforts shall achieve a reasonable measure of success. No one will more respect the unofficial worker for the public good than does the official worker for personal ends, however much he may try to misrepresent the unofficial citizen's motives, or to thwart his efforts. This official, who would like permanently to usurp the place of the sovereign citizen and to rob him of his authority, knows well that the citizen holds it by an inborn right.

Those who have had almost a quarter of a century's experience in organized, voluntary, and gratuitous work of a nature partly philanthropic and partly political-a work in which the force employed to produce results is solely that of public sentiment-feel hopeful and strong, rather than discouraged, as they look back over past years. They have seen all welldirected efforts reach a measure of success; every frank appeal to the public conscience, based on a clear statement of facts in each particular case and of the reasons for such action as was advocated by them, meets with a cordial response. In each instance, when the citizen has so appealed to his free fellow citizens, power has been evolved, and that power has had its legitimate effect in providing a remedy for a wrong or in pushing through some good work that halted or stumbled for the lack of a helping hand.

But such work as that done by citizens' leagues and reform associations, or the Indian Rights Association, needs to be indefinitely multiplied. The rich privilege, the great duty of

American citizenship needs to be intellectually apprehended, morally grasped, by each one of us. And then each must make an honest, brave use of our stewardship. The forces which threaten our democracy were never so powerful nor so threatening as they are to-day, but the converse is also true, the forces at our disposal to meet and to overcome the danger were never greater or readier to our hand. It is a great time in which to live, for never did the individual man have at his disposal for the moral and intellectual battle of his life a more formidable armory than that with which the American citizen is equipped. What is required is that our people should be awakened to a clear view of the situation and to a sense of individual power and personal responsibility.

THE CITIZEN IN HIS RELATION TO

OFFICE-HOLDERS

Political Dishonesty

By HENRY WARD BEECHER

OLITICAL dishonesty breeds dishonesty of every kind. It is possible for good men to permit single sins to coexist with general integrity, where the evil is indulged through ignorance. Once, undoubted Christians were slave-traders. They might be, while unenlightened; but not in our times. A state of mind which will intend one fraud will, upon occasions, intend a thousand. He that upon one emergency will lie, will be supplied with emergencies. He that will perjure himself to save a friend will do it, in a desperate juncture, to save himself. The highest Wisdom has informed us that he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. Circumstances may withdraw a politician from temptation to any but political dishonesty; but, under temptation, a dishonest politician would be a dishonest cashier-would be dishonest anywhere-in anything. The fury which destroys an opponent's character would stop at nothing, if barriers were thrown down. That which is true of the leaders in politics is true of subordinates. Political dishonesty in voters runs into general dishonesty, as the rotten speck taints the whole apple. A community whose politics is conducted by a perpetual breach of honesty on both sides, will be tainted by immorality throughout. Men will play the same game in their private affairs that they have learned to play in public matters. The guile, the crafty vigilance, the dishonest advantage, the cunning sharpness, the tricks and traps and sly evasions, the equivocal promises, and