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"This you see on every hand. It matters not which way you look. Nowhere is it more noticeable than in Washington official society where the mania for imitating monarchal customs and usages is even more striking than the reactionary overt acts in the government. There is at the present time in the national capital and among the plutocracy of New York and other centers of wealth a veritable craze for aping the aristocracy of England, and at the same time dust is being thrown in the eyes of the people by representing England as democratic. I have no patience with this talk about Great Britain being virtually a democracy. It is in essence and fact a monarchy, cursed with caste-distinction. Talk of England being a democracy merely under the guise of a constitutional monarchy, where one in every six of her citizens is a pauper; where the king and the royal family and the hereditary aristocracy are all sitting on the backs of the people; where the citizens are compelled to educate their children in schools under the supervision of the state church or are taxed for the maintenance of these schools, even though a large proportion of the people repudiate the religion thus forced upon the young; where the iron caste-distinctions of feudalism have come down even unto the present day, not merely intact but monstrously exaggerated; where snobbishness is not only part of the statute law, but deeply imbedded in the vastly more potent customary law, and is even incorporated in religious ceremonials, being read from the pulpits every Sunday and piously echoed by the congregations! Now this reactionary, caste-bound, pauper-burdened monarchal country is everywhere being held up as an ideal for us, and in Washington and among the parvenue plutocracy that yearns to become an aristocracy in the New World, England is being taken as a model.

"Why, it is not only at the White House and in political and social Washington that this new bondage born of reaction is in evidence: it is perhaps nowhere more

marked than in the domestic establishments of the plutocracy that aspires to become an aristocracy. In Europe, as I have on one occasion observed, the upper-class and its servants are born to their lofty stations, but here the upper-class is manufactured, largely out of watered stocks and bonds and stolen franchises, and its servants are imported.

"When rich Americans first began to go abroad the servility of English servants offended. But custom soon changed that. Servility is insidious. The Americans, longing to feel themselves the equal of the complacent and secure upper-class in England, and realizing that they could never hope to get deferential respect from their fellow countrymen-even from those willing to go into domestic service-began to import servants. 'The English servants are so much better, you know; understand their business and their place.' But the English servant's 'place' in the social hierarchy is dependent upon his master's place. Whoever seeks to lower the master in the social scale seeks to lower the servant. On the other hand, whatever raises the master socially raises the servant. Your Englishman who is a servant born and bred is even more incapable of understanding and warming up to Democracy than his king would be. He loathes Democracy-does it not lower him in the social scale by putting all men on the same level; does it not take away his dear gods of rank and birth and leave him godless and adrift? He wants none of it. It may be good enough for foreigners, but not for an Englishman.

"Thus we see, from the White House, where nothing short of a reactionary revolution has taken place, where we find a democratic president with the ceremonial of a king-‘a ceremonial more rigid than that of the court of the Czar,' according to the wife of one of the ambassadors— down through the servants' world of the plutocracy, a new social order as insidious as it is progressive in character and as congenial to monarchal rule as it is fatal to democratic government. Privileged

wealth has become the dominating power in official America; that is to say, its servants are the masters of the people and privileged wealth has set its heart on an aristocratic instead of a democratic government."

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"Has not this ascendency of privileged interests," we ventured to observe, the dominance of the commercial despotism already resulted in overthrowing for the time being at least the ideals and concepts that made the republic of other days the moral democratic leader the world over, and has it not resulted in a condition which, if continued, will automatically and inevitably result in autocratic classrule or a despotism of plutocracy more sordid, oppressive and destructive to equality of opportunities and of rights than the constitutional monarchies of Europe?"

"Certainly. Who can doubt the presence of a powerful, determined, autocratic plutocracy that is steadily growing more and more arrogant and arbitrary. Look at the courts; notice the steady encroachments of the judiciary-a judiciary made up chiefly of corporation attorneys; note that the extension of the injunction power is now being complemented by a new engine of despotism,-so-called 'constructive contempt'; look at the steady and rapid centralization of government, the assumptions of new and undreamed of powers by the president, the usurpation of legislative and judicial functions by the bureaux or departments; look at the present autocratic character of the once great educational forum and popular legislative department of government, the House of Representatives. It is to-day the creature of the Speaker and the Committee on Rules. And a glance at the personnel of the Senate will reveal to the most cursory optimist the real power behind the throne. The Senate is to-day the creature of plutocracy and perhaps the most powerful engine in the nation for defeating the true interests of the people on all vital measures that affect corporate wealth. Unpleasant as the fact

may be, it is nevertheless true that the real power in government to-day is privileged wealth acting systematically and often corruptly through the agencies of the party-boss, the controlled machine and its minions in official life."

"Do you believe," we asked, "that the wealth of privileged interests united with the controlled machines, under the political bosses, will be powerful enough to maintain this practical usurpation of power which is destroying democratic institutions?"

"Things will be worse before they are better," replied the novelist.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because the plutocracy to-day controls in a large degree the articulate class of the republic. The leaders are theirs. Not all, of course, but the great majority, and more will be bought over; some by money bribes; more by the lust for power and the still more effective social bribe. This last is the most subtile, insidious and, I think, powerful weapon in the hands of plutocracy. Here, for example, is a Congressman or a United States Senator who has come from a free and sound community. He is a man of idealism and would spurn the money-bribe, and, indeed, for himself he would unhesitatingly decline power or place if they involved the sacrifice of mental integrity or fidelity to the interests of his constituents. his ambitious wife and daughters find themselves outside the charmed circle. They are eager to get into the social swim, but the gates are closed against them. He naturally enough desires to meet their wishes; often at first he is taken completely off guard, and before he realizes the fact he has slipped the rope and left the old moorings. Now the plutocracy or privileged class is every day winning over by some of its agencies more and more of the articulate class or those who influence the public mind. The lawyers are largely its hirelings, and they become judges, secretaries and senators.

But

"The colleges in most European lands are the hotbeds of freedom and democracy;

with us their voice is being quietly but effectively silenced by bribes and the hope of bribes. The patronage of plutocracy is corrupting and morally and mentally degrading. And what is true of the college and university is equally true of the church.

“Again, men that are useful are paidwell paid-by the triumphant, dollarworshiping class, but they must be subservient. They sacrifice their manhood, they become the virtual lackeys of the privileged class, its mouthpieces and defenders. The old democracy is thus undermined, and what is more, the children of such men also swiftly become dependents in habits of thought; they are no longer free, thinking, liberty-loving democrats, and every man thus won over to the plutocracy strengthens its power and weakens the forces of democracy.

“Moreover, the plutocracy, which ever seeks to exalt its own, is not slow to drive when possible the incorruptible leaders into retirement. Its weapons are numerous and it uses them without hesitation. "So I believe that for some years to come the buying up of the articulate class will continue. The war against democracy will be steadily and aggressively waged; despotic and undemocratic precedents will be everywhere established. But though the king is on the throne; though plutocracy is rampant in politics, in business, in society; though its ascendency is undeniable in the republic to-day; and though I believe it is so firmly entrenched that it will increase in power and arrogance for a few years to come, there are forces at work that will ultimately bring about its inevitable overthrow."

“On what do you base your belief in the final triumph of democracy?" we asked.

the helpless victims of monopolistic extortion and oppression. Their condition, in a country where there is as much education and general discussion as with us, is in the long run fatal to privilege. The people are slow to think and very slow to act. They are naturally conservative; they love peace; they are longsuffering; but the economic argument in the form of diminished opportunities and diminished incomes is very effective.

"Second, outside of our great centers of wealth only a few of the great multitude of intelligent people have come in a marked degree under the influence of reactionary and undemocratic ideals, and there are counter-currents at work that will erelong appeal strongly and compellingly to this host of people who at heart hate graft and the sordid ideals of the plutocracy.

“Third, our popular and free education is the veritable dynamo of democracy. Our free schools are not yet what they ought to be, but they are giving the children the training that renders it possible for the brain to quickly grasp a truth, and multitudinous agencies are at work which tend to stimulate reason. The true function of education in a democracy is to teach the young to think for themselves, to reason freely and independently on all questions, and despite the reactionary influences in the colleges, the common schools, where the millions are instructed, are opening the doors of the mind to the voice of reason.

“Fourth, immigration."

"Immigration," we ventured to remark, "is the black beast' of many of our friends who staunchly oppose plutocracy. Only a day or two ago a gentleman was deploring the coming of immigrants as being destructive to democracy. We assured him that we feared the masses, who were fleeing from despotic and caste

"There are several reasons. Here are cursed lands to enjoy the freedom of desome of them:

"First, the mass of the people are not prosperous. Wealth is becoming more and more concentrated, and with that concentration the people are becoming

mocracy, far less than our cynical 'safe and sane' grafters who pose as pillars of society while robbing widows and orphans, exploiting the multitudes, acquiring unearned wealth, and systematically cor

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rupting the people's representatives." from within has been overturned by mis'No," replied Mr. Phillips, "the im- rule; never by the unruly. migrant who comes to us from the terrible oppression of militarism and of autocratic and aristocratic despotisms, the age-long victim of class-rule and oppression, quickly becomes a passionate lover of democracy."

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"Ah," replied the novelist, his candid face lighting up with a very winning smile, "nothing is more amusing than this talk of the 'unruly class,' especially when it comes, as it almost always does, from the respectable anarchists of wealth whose lawlessness and unjust acts constitute the greatest crimes as well as the most serious perils of the hour. Now let me repeat what I have often had occasion to observe. This phrase, 'unruly class,' is glibly used to designate some vague element in the masses that is naturally turbulent and ever looking about for an excuse to 'rise' and 'burn, slay, kill.'

"You may search through history page by page, line by line, and you will find no trace of the doings of this alleged 'unruly class.' The more you read the more you will be struck by the universal and most tenacious love of quiet and order in the masses of mankind. You will see them robbed, oppressed, murdered wholesale upon mere caprice, the victims of all manner of misery. Your cheeks will burn and your blood run hot as you read. And you will note with wonder that they endured with seemingly limitless patience until they were eating grass by the wayside. Then, once in a while, but only once in a while, they 'rose.' All the machinery of law and order was in the hands of the oppressors, so they were compelled to resort to violence. But even then they established new machinery or patched up the old as quickly as possible.

"Every society that has been overturned

"No; the real 'unruly classes' are these 'respectabilities' with the 'pulls,' and these governmental officers who are 'pulled'; they violate the laws; they purchase or enact or enforce unjust legislation; they abuse the confidence and tolerant good nature of the people; they misuse the machinery of justice.”

"You were in Europe last summer, Mr. Phillips. What facts most impressed you?"

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Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon in Europe to-day is the steady growth of social-democratic ideals among the people. One hears very little of this in the press, even of Europe, and practically nothing of it in this country. But to the close observer of political, social and economic conditions nothing is more astounding than the rapid spread of Socialism throughout France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and to a less degree in other European countries."

"You have no special admiration for the English government. What was your feeling in regard to France?"

"France is under the compulsion of the democratic ideal. The marching orders of civilization, given in the slogan 'Liberty, Justice and Equality,' has become the master-ideal in France. True, after ages of despotism, ignorance and servitude-after centuries of slavery to the throne, the church and the aristocracy, it could not be expected that the nation could successfully ward off the continued assaults of the old monarchal party, the imperial adherents of the First Empire and the reactionary church. After Napoleon Bonaparte the old monarchal party climbed to power. Then came the coup d'état under Napoleon III., and thirdly the reactionary church stealthily advanced to control. Here the three great agencies of reactionary despotism-political, economic and intellectual slavery-successively found the people off guard and gained ascendency. But so deep and firmly grounded are the ideals of the Revolution,

so firmly implanted is the democratic principle, that in every instance the moment the people found the opportunity to overthrow the reactionary and undemocratic power, they were prompt to act.

France is democratic at heart and is moving from political independence to economic independence.' DAVID GRAHham Phillips.

New York City.

ECONOMY.

BY STUYVESANT FISH,

President Illinois Central Railroad, Vice-President National Park Bank of New York.

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N ORDER that we may clearly understand each other, permit me to define the word Economy. The Century Dictionary derives it from the Greek word "oikonomia," which meant "the management of a household or family, or of the state, the public revenue"; and in turn derives "oikonomia" from two oikonomia" from two other Greek words, "oikos," a house, and "neomein," to deal out, distribute, manage. Economy also means "the internal, and especially the pecuniary, management of any undertaking, corporation, State, or the like"; and "the system of rules and regulations by which anything is managed"; and it is only latterly that the word has acquired the meaning of "thrifty and frugal housekeeping; management without loss or waste, frugality in expenditure; prudence and disposition to save." Webster's Dictionary gives the following synonyms:

Economy avoids all waste and extravagance, and applies money to the best advantage; frugality cuts off all indulgences, and proceeds on a system of rigid and habitual saving; parsimony is frugality carried to an extreme, involving meanness of spirit, and a sordid mode of living. Economy is a virtue, and parsimony a vice. Frugality may lean to one or the other, according to the motives from which it springs.

The sense in which I shall use the word Economy is well defined in Edmund

Burke's "Letters to a Noble Lord," written in 1796, where he says:

"It may be new to his Grace, but I beg leave to tell him that mere parsimony is not economy. It is separable in theory from it; and in fact it may not be a part of economy, according to circumstances. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part of true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and an higher economy. Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists, not in saving, but in selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no power of combination, no comparison, no judgment. Mere instinct, and that not an instinct of the noblest kind, may produce the false economy in perfection. The other economy has larger views. It demands a discriminatory judgment and a firm, sagacious mind. It shuts one door to impudent importunity, only to open another, and a wider, to unpresuming merit."

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