in that connection, it is that the misery falls most acutely upon the poor people. It is for their interest above all to have their monetary standard as stable as possible; and for that very reason one of the traditional policies of the Democratic party had been Hard Money." But these facts went for nothing in the outbreak that now occurred.

Year after year campaign orators had laid great stress on the great prosperity of the country under the Republican party; but the mass of people felt, and rightly so, that somehow that prosperity had been very unevenly distributed. A wave of commercial development had occurred after the Civil War, and evidences of great increase of wealth were visible on every hand; but everywhere arose also the cry of dissatisfaction.

In truth the full results of the protective tariff upon the country were now beginning to be appreciated; it had been the means of founding among us a new form of one of the outworn systems of government, —a commercial aristocracy,—the most greedy, domineering, unscrupulous, least admirable form of aristocracy the world has ever seen. First came the tariff beneficiaries the manufacturers of iron and steel and other protected industries; then those who had studied the results of protection and had seen the pecuniary advantages of artificial monopoly-to the monopolizers. These had deliberately set about to make the general public pay tribute to the privileged few, exploiting with this intent our railroads and other public utilities, and even the manufacture and distribution of many of the necessaries of life. Thus had arisen that privileged class of millionaire and billionaire aristocrats who throng our summer and winter resorts and the steamers to Europe, whose luxurious palaces affront the eye and whose money and bad manners corrupt our social life at every turn.

In so far as the Democratic outbreak of 1896 was a revolt against existing conditions it was justified; in so far as it was a protest against the betrayal of the party

by their leaders in the matter of tariff reform it was justified; and it was perhaps only natural that they should hold the national administration responsible for all the faults of its predecessor as well as its own. Nevertheless the remedy proposed was wrong. It would have been worse than the disease; and the violence of the movement defeated its own ends. A large number of Democrats, many of them men of the highest character and influence, were driven from the party; the victory went to the Republicans on the issue of the gold standard; then the Republicans proceeded to show the utmost bad faith by a further increase in the tariff; and later embarked the country on a serious and dangerous experiment in imperialism.

The election of 1900 should have turned on the question of the Philippines — that was the burning issue. But unfortunately the Democratic party was still split asunder, most of those who had left it in 1896 refusing to return while the party still proclaimed the dangerous financial doctrines of four years before. Moreover the absurdity of trying to awaken enthusiasm over a fight against imperialism, with a candidate who was himself partly responsible for the ratification of the Philippines treaty, was patent to every one, and gave a hollowness to the campaign which was only emphasized by the readiness of the party orators to vary the leading issue according to the locality of their speeches. The campaign ended in another Democratic defeat.

In 1904 there came a reaction in the Democratic party, and control of the organization passed into the hands of the socalled "safe and sane" who had opposed the radicals, yet remained in the party. But the candidate selected failed to receive the support of the radical element, which showed its displeasure by remaining away from the polls, or voting for the Republican candidate, whose remarkable popularity blinded them to the fact that he represented nearly everything that as Democrats they ought to detest.

IV

leaders adequately to back up President Cleveland in his fight for reform, and its

the Democratic party a future?

If that question is asked in a broad sense there can be but one answer. To doubt of a Democratic party of the future would be to despair of the Republic; to believe that we have come to the end of the forward movement, that Democracy has reached its limit, would be to close our ears to the lessons of the past, and our eyes to all the signs of the present. There can be no backward step in the world's progress.

Until every man receives justice at the hands of his fellow men; until our cities. are purged of corruption and our states are guided by righteous intelligence; until every child is saved from want and misery, and every man and woman gains that equal chance which the great Declaration holds is their right; until these things and many others are brought about the work of the Democrat is not finished.

But progress in a democracy is slow, for the whole mass must be leavened. We have to unlearn many lessons from the old world, and some we have learned in the new. Other systems may show fairer superficial results, but the future is ours. We are the true heirs of all the ages, for we hold the secret of successful human government; and we have only to remain true to ourselves and trust in our sacred mission. As Gladstone so nobly said in relation to Ireland, "It is liberty alone that fits men for liberty;" so we may truly say that the remedy for the evils of democracy is more democracy.

Some progressive party, then, we must have in the future. Will the present Democratic organization be that party? There are many signs that point one way, and many that point the other.

There is no disguising the fact that there is still throughout the North a deepseated distrust of the Democratic party, founded on its pro-slavery record, its perverse and blundering conduct during the Civil War and since, the failure of its

gods. This has forced many young voters into the other party, depriving the Democrats of that new blood which is so essential to party health.

The party is still further weakened by the direct loss which it sustained in 1896, and which has not yet been made good. It is true that some of those who left the party at that time were in reality conservatives and had no proper place in the Democratic ranks; it is also true that many returned in 1900, and many more in 1904. But there still remain a large number who are no longer regular members of the Democratic organization. No party can suffer such a loss without being crippled for years afterwards; and the loss in character is even more serious than the loss in numbers, for that forfeits the confidence and respect of the general public, which is the strongest asset a party can have.

As a direct consequence of the weakness of the party, the character of its leadership in some of the most important states is a heavy burden upon it. To mention the words "political principles in connection with some of the men who control the party organization at present brings to the mind a picture that would be irresistibly comic if it were not so tragically serious. For the destinies of thousands of our fellow creatures, the future of democracy itself, hang in some measure upon the action of these corrupt, ignorant, and unscrupulous men who thrust themselves forward as the guardians and exponents of Democratic principles. As only one instance of the result upon party fortunes, the New York governorship was lost in 1906 by a most shocking combination of corrupt and improper methods in the election of delegates and conduct of the state convention, resulting in an utterly unprincipled indorsement of the candidates of another party. The chief beneficiary of the infamous deal was repudiated by Demo

crats at the polls, but the men who were responsible for it still control the state machinery of the party, and the outlook for "harmony" while this situation lasts is not altogether bright.

One might turn also to Massachusetts, where unseemly wrangling has lost the Democratic party its place upon the official ballot, and ask what chance there is in that state for a party led as the Democratic party there has been led of recent years; or to Illinois where the party is still under the same control that was so eloquently assailed even on the floor of the National Convention four years ago—a not very hopeful augury of immediate party success.

There is also a deplorable tendency among Democrats, similar to that which has reached such serious proportions among Republicans, to make of a single leader the "boss," trusting the party fortunes exclusively to him, abiding by his sole judgment, and accepting meekly his dictation. This introduction of paternalism into party councils is undemocratic and undesirable; for a political party is strong in direct proportion to its number of wise, upright, and trusted leaders.

But, most unfortunate of all, there has arisen this unhappy condition in the Democratic party, that if the judgment of one section of the party is followed as to platform and candidate, the other section will not support the ticket; and if their judgment is not followed then they in turn will not support the ticket. Unless there can be found some common ground, therefore, it seems as if this seesaw might keep on forever; and the party be kept from flying because its two wings are not willing to flap in unison.

These are all reasons for doubting of the future of the Democratic party; but looking at it from the other side there was never a brighter outlook for a true party of progress; for dissatisfaction with existing conditions is widespread, and party ties never sat so loosely. The old and fallacious argument that the tariff

produces prosperity, while tariff revision or discussion is alone responsible for panics and hard times, has been hopelessly damaged by the recent money strain and the present financial conditions. We shall not hear from Republican orators in the near future quite so much twaddle as we have in the past about "Republican prosperity," and the "full dinnerpail; " nor have quite so much credit taken for good harvests, with the implied suggestion that the Almighty is in political partnership with the "Grand Old Party."

Moreover, the people are looking with growing dislike and suspicion upon the commercial aristocracy bred by the tariff and other forms of special privilege; state regulation of public utilities is under way, and that is well; but the party of progress should force the fighting until the tariff, that stronghold of intrenched greed and selfishness, is reached and mastered.

The fight against imperialism is more difficult, for that danger is a very subtle one and its immediate iniquities are so many thousand miles away. Yet the proposition laid down by Lincoln, that this nation could not endure half slave and half free, was not more true than the proposition that a democracy cannot continue to play the rôle of a tyrant masternation owning subject dependencies, — even although we disguise the word "slave" under the high-sounding phrase,

'wards of the nation." But the way of the transgressor is hard; and the situation will react upon us more and more fatally every moment that we keep on denying to the Filipinos the rights we long since secured for ourselves, and have always claimed for other people, - the right to decide our own affairs according to our own judgment, good or bad, be the issue what it may.

We cannot undo the past. We cannot bring the dead to life, or erase from the pages of history those pages of our deep dishonor; but we can give to the people of the islands our friendship and protec

tion and their freedom, not grudgingly and at a date generations hence (which would mean never), but at once and forever. Against this miserable bastard imperialism the party of progress should fight to the end.

And there is one other thing on which the party of progress should place its mark of disapproval. It is nothing against the American people that they crave leadership: true leaders are even more necessary in a democracy than in any other form of government; but we are too prone to idolize our leaders,—not merely to overlook their faults, but to be absolutely blind to them. There is something inspiring, but pathetic as well, in the American people's devotion to the ideal. But is it quite wise to fool ourselves into believing that any living man is a god? Especially when we remember how often we have thrown our broken idols aside, when we have become tired of playing with them! What is the moral of this? That such indiscriminating adulation will sooner or later have a violent recoil. We must restrain ourselves from undue devotion to our heroes lest we find ourselves deceived. There is something better than a splendid theory, and that is the Truth. The party of progress should revere its heroes, cherish its statesmen, and respect its leaders, and the more it has of these the better; but it should not tie up to any one man, no matter how good or how great he may be,or how well he talks. In a multitude of counselors, there is safety.

The Democratic party has often shown

wonderful powers of recuperation, and can again. Many times it has suffered disastrous defeat only to turn defeat into victory. Progress can be made with much less waste of energy and expenditure of labor under an old organization than under a new; but will the party rise to the occasion? That is the question which will soon be answered. If the leaders of the party would forget their quarrels and unite in strong and vigorous protest against resisting abuses, if they would put aside their personal ambitions and act only for the best interests of the party, does any Democrat doubt of the result?

Or if we grant that while such action would be magnificent it would not be politics, as it is played nowadays, let us come back to the people. For everything in a democracy does come back sooner or later to the people. If Democrats remain indifferent and discouraged how can they hope to succeed? But if they will arouse themselves to the struggle; realize their responsibilities; forget former defeats and divisions and think only of the future

of the chance to make their party once more what it was formed to be, has been, and can be made, the great party of progress, the party of democracy; if they will do this, not only can they again place their President in the White House, to occupy the chair of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland, but they can start a new wave of genuine and orderly progress which will uplift the people of this democratic republic to a higher place than has ever yet been reached.

I

MANY events in history show the inherent weakness of absolutism, but none in modern times more vividly than the eclipse of Prussia and the destruction of the old German Empire by Napoleon.

Frederick the Great had taken his father's army (all save "The Tall Grenadiers"), his father's treasury, his father's principles of administration, had developed and used all these with genius; but there was in his whole work just one fully developed man, - himself. He thought out the problems, laid the plans, pushed on work, baffled adversaries; and, despite sundry errors and absurdities, he did all this with genius.

At his command, the nobility marched to death or glory; the middle class manufactured and merchandized to fill his treasury; the peasantry laid down their lives as his soldiers or as serfs in illrequited toil, the individual was nothing; the state, everything.

In the upper stratum of the population stood the army officers, high civil officials, clergy, and men of letters. The army officers had inherited stern ideas of duty, honor, and discipline from the days of the Great Elector and his still greater grandson, but their system and training were outworn; during the last years of the eighteenth and first years of the nineteenth century, they had "learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Many of them were valuable, some of them admirable, but very few were of use in great affairs; their power to originate, to direct, to take responsibility, had been gradually superseded by unreasoning obedience. The clergy had some exceptional men, but in general had become dull, heavy, stupefied by the Pro

testant orthodoxy and intolerance which set in after the death of Luther. The great German thinkers of the modern epoch were already at work, and powerfully; but as yet they had not taken full hold upon the German mind and heart; Kant and Schiller had spoken, but their full strength was yet to be revealed.

In the towns remained the mediaval medley of corporations, guilds, classes more or less privileged, but with the old Teutonic spirit of independence long since taken out of them.

Beneath absolutism and various intermediate strata, there remained the lowest and largest stratum of all, two-thirds of the whole population, and virtually the whole rural population, subject to mediæval exactions and restrictions, and including a widespread body of serfs.

Even during the lifetime of the great Frederick there had come warnings of approaching European trouble. The French philosophers had begun their

work. Voltaire had set in motion currents of thought sure to bring storms; Rousseau had spread new ideas of right very dangerous to despotism, not merely in France, but in all countries; yet Frederick steered his ship of state steadily in spite of these ideas; sometimes, indeed, by means of them.

But in 1786 he died, and the times demanded that his successor be as great as he, or greater. To adjust the old state to the new ideas, there was needed not only a great ruler, but a great reformer, a genius hardly less than miraculous; and, at this time, of all times, Frederick the Great was succeeded by Frederick William the Fat.

He was the most worthless of the