Volume 2 — EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

THE LATE ELECTION.

There are two lessons, taught by the late contention, that the people will be slow to learn until coming events force them to a knowledge.

The first is, that our government has passed from the political fabric built us by the fathers to a financial concern in which private interests dominate public affairs.

The second is, that no public man, let his honesty and influence be what they may, can menace the moneyed power of our land and remain in public life.

We are so accustomed to being fed on phrases that we lose in their use the object for which they were framed. Our fathers sought the shores of America to escape oppression at home. The sum total of the despotism was found in the fact that while they who produced all enjoyed nothing, they who produced nothing enjoyed all. In framing certain legal enactments, in the shape of a constitution that was supposed to be good against such inequality and injustice, the fathers thought to eliminate privileged classes by wiping out the laws of primogeniture and entail. They took no account, for they could not know, of the corporation, that has all the powers and privileges of the born aristocracy, and renders all the guarantees of the constitution of no avail.

Under the power of the corporation we have a hundred and fifty thousand miles of operating railway that has passed to the control and into the virtual ownership of less than sixty families. To this combination has gone an attribute of sovereignty found in the power to tax the people. As Senators Sherman, Conkling, and Windom said, in their famous report to the Senate, this railroad power can tax all the products of the country in a way Congress dare not attempt. This iron network of rails enters every man's business and pleasure, and is the taxation without representation that brought on the Revolution and gave birth to our government. The people lose through fraud all that they gained through violence; and, sad to say, generally with their own consent.

We have the telegraph, so necessary to our business, which science gave as the poor man's post, for it consists of a wire, a pole, a battery, and a boy, that is openly owned and operated as a luxury by one man.

The currency, the life-blood of trade, is farmed out to something over two thousand corporations, that, acting as one, contract or expand it to suit their own greed.

We are cursed with a system, called a tax, but which is in fact an extortion, that, under the plea of favoring certain moneyed interests, not only forces the consumer to support the burthens of a government kept upon a war footing nearly a quarter of a century after the war closed, but enables less than a million out of sixty millions to accumulate means until our rich men are marvels to mankind. The great Republic, through this process, has entered the avenues of private enterprise, and with its crushing weight reduces labor to starvation wages.

All these combined form trusts, as they are called, which, limiting production, shut out competition, and accumulate for the favored few while the masses suffer.

All then, united, make our government; for government is that power from which there is no appeal, upon which we depend for a recognition of our rights. This power elects our Congress, selects our Presidents, and intimidates our courts.

To meet it we have a government of parties. It is a cast-iron, immovable, insensitive concern, farther removed from popular control than any government on earth. The party once in power can perpetuate that power under the best of circumstances; but when backed by the monopolized wealth of the continent it cannot be displaced. History tells us that it called for bayonets and bloodshed to displace the Democratic party in '61, and we fear history will repeat itself when a long-suffering and outraged people come to recognize the source of their wrongs and the cause of their sufferings.

In addition to this, there is an ugly rock on which we once were nearly shipwrecked, upon which we are again driving. The sectional differences of '61 have been steadily cultivated for selfish partisan ends, and to-day the North is united, as far as a majority can unite, against a solid South. While recognizing the fact that it is only through a careful and jealous guardianship of the home governments found in the States that this wide continent can be held under one control as a nation, we have the dominant party fatally bent on a centralization of power in the political structure at Washington. The negro is the Chinaman of the South, and while Congress excludes through legal enactment the Mongolian from our midst, that same Congress presses the ignorant, vicious African upon the South. This means not only a subversion of political rights, but a social revolution that will make a San Domingo and an Ireland of half our territorial limits. The South cannot submit to this and live. The South has given a bloody pledge to its intent in this direction, that it would be well for us to remember. The North can welcome negroes to its firesides, may return them to office because of their color, for this means votes, and nothing more. But at the South it signifies a great deal more: it means the subjugation of the white race politically and socially to the domination of the most degraded and ignorant class known to humanity.

This election has settled the fact that no public man can raise his hand or voice against the moneyed interests above enumerated and remain in public life. Had President Cleveland been content with the mere routine of office; had he, in addition, used the offices under him as a reward for personal services; he would have stood a good chance of re-election. He is not of that sort; and when he sought to reduce taxation on the poor man's clothes and blankets he aroused the wrath of the great national combine, and his fate was sealed.

There is not a man of average intellect in the whole length and breadth of the continent but knows that our elections are mere questions of money. From the first move of the Republican party to the last, there was nothing but assessments and expenditures in this direction. Senator Ingalls struck the key-note when he advised the selection as a candidate for Vice-President of "some fellow like Phelps, who could tap Wall Street." Senator Plumb continued the cry when he called for a squeeze of the fat manufacturers, the only class, he said, benefited by the tariff; and he added truthfully, that if he had his way he would put them on a gridiron and fry the fat out of them. This was unblushingly embodied in a printed circular. Colonel Dudley followed, in his advice to State committees to schedule the floaters and buy them by the half-dozen, assuring the instructed that means would not be wanting to carry on the corruption. What this corruption was, one word tells with more emphasis than volumes. That word is Blaine. He nominated that figure-head Harrison, and planned and openly carried on the campaign of abomination to the end.

It would be a waste of space and ink for us to recapitulate the career and character of this man. The platform which he has built under himself and which has been accepted by his party is a pillory of public contempt and condemnation. Perhaps the eloquent Governor Stevenson, himself a Republican, put it all in one sentence when he said of James G. Blaine, as presiding officer of the House, that "more property passed under the gavel of the Speaker than was knocked down by all the auctioneers' hammers of the United States."

We waste much valuable indignation in denouncing individual wrongdoers instead of attacking the system that makes such criminals possible. In no other civilized community on earth than ours would such a man as James G. Blaine be tolerated for a day. The Ingallses, Plumbs, Dudleys, and that sort are leaders only under the great Republic.

We are defeated and well-nigh disheartened. We have to remember, however, that the war is on, and that it is a campaign and not a battle. We must suffer many defeats, and we hope to enjoy many triumphs. Our people are patient under abuse, but they are intelligent, and when once aroused to a knowledge of not only their wrongs, but the source of such wrong-doing, are terrible in their wrath. The hour seems dark, but it may be the hour before dawn. We remember the millions that in casting their votes were counted for free trade and all reform. Aided by the suffering that comes of abuse we will yet win.

In all the gloom of disaster and defeat it is a comfort to know that our President stands higher in his loss of office than the incoming nonentity in his success. He leaves the Executive Mansion with the respect of a people, and will go down to history as the one President who dared offend his own party in the high discharge of his great office. The intellect and honesty of the land follow him in admiration to his retirement. No cause is wholly lost that is supported by such a statesman and such a following.

THE BALANCE OF TRADE.

There is no phrase in our political discussions so little understood and so generally employed as the above. Its use and abuse serve to illustrate the strange ignorance of political leaders and pretentious journalists. When a Senator at Washington, of the length and solemnity of the Hon. John Sherman, lifts a warning voice while calling attention to the "balance of trade" against us in our trade with the Canadas, we are enabled to measure the density of the fog-bank called the Senate, and why it is that fog-horns have taken the place of the persuasive oratory that awoke musical echoes in the days of Webster.

As we reserve a corner of our magazine to the better instruction of Senators in political economy ($2.50 per year, invariably in advance: now is the time to subscribe), we requested our accomplished friend John McClung to put in brief a clear, concise, and correct definition of the phrase "balance of trade." We begged our able contributor to treat the subject as if he were preparing a lesson for the use of schools—say children of tender years—so that our Solons at the national capital might comprehend without too great a strain upon their Senatorial brains.

Here is Mr. McClung's effort at instruction, and we commend it to our law-makers and the gentlemen of the journalistic pen as an easy lesson on a subject that it is not of any great credit to comprehend, but utterly disgraceful to be ignorant of.

THE SO-CALLED "BALANCE OF TRADE."

That it is good for a country to have its exports exceed its imports is a notion that has been widely accepted among us. We have usually been in that position, and the fact has been accepted as proof that we were doing well under a policy of protection. England, on the other hand, has had an excess of imports over exports, and England is free trade; the English excess of imports has been accepted as proof of the mistaken nature of a free-trade policy.

The idea that it is a good thing to have the imports less than the exports, to have the balance of trade "in your favor," as the phrase goes, is a relic of that "Mercantile Theory" overturned by Adam Smith. That theory was briefly, that wealth consists in the precious metals, and that for a country to remain wealthy, it is necessary to keep bullion from going out of the country. It followed from this principle that everything should be done to discourage imports, for it was thought that imports must, of course, be paid for by bullion. Modern political science teaches that wealth does not consist in gold and silver, but that these are commodities, like any other commodities, except that they happen to possess a special fitness to be a medium of exchange. It discards the old notion that imports are paid for by specie, and asserts that they are paid for by commodities. It teaches that it is not a bad thing to have the imports exceed the exports, that this excess is not "unfavorable," and that in fact there is no such thing as "a balance of trade." The old "Mercantile Theory," with its corollaries, has indeed long been abandoned, but many people still consider it matter to congratulate ourselves upon that our exports exceed our imports.

It is Bastiat who has given the most lively account of this subject. He complains in an amusing manner that the doctrine of the "balance of trade" should exhibit such practical vitality, when it is admitted that it has so long been theoretically dead. He observes that the protectionists are perfectly willing to leave him the victory in books, provided always that their idea is paramount in practice. He finds but one man, Lestiboudois, who has the courage of his convictions, and who says that, because France imports 200,000,000 francs' worth of goods a year more than she exports, she is that much in debt to foreign countries. Others are not so candid; they accept the free-trade principle, but their conclusion is protection. Bastiat is not content with obtaining the theoretical victory, but wishes to meet his opponent in the domain of business. He undertakes to prove from the books of his friend, Mr. T. of Havre, that the idea of a "balance of trade" is wrong in practice, and to this end gives sketches of two of this gentleman's enterprises.

In one of these transactions Mr. T. despatches from Havre a vessel freighted for the United States with French merchandise valued at 200,000 francs. It was at this figure that Mr. T. entered his export in the Havre custom-house. The cargo on its arrival in New Orleans had paid ten per cent expenses, and was charged thirty per cent duties. Its value was accordingly 280,000 francs. It was sold at 20 per cent profit on its original value; this, being 40,000 francs, brought the value of the cargo to 320,000 francs. This sum the assignee converted into cotton; the cotton had to pay expense of transportation, insurance, commission, etc., of 10 per cent. The return cargo, therefore, on arriving at Havre was worth 352,000 francs. This cargo Mr. T. sold at a profit of 20 per cent and made 70,000 francs. The cotton was thus sold for 432,000 francs. Bastiat offers to send the protectionist author an extract from Mr. T.'s books in which he sets down as gained two sums: one of 40,000 francs, the other of 70,000 francs. Bastiat adds that Mr. T. is perfectly convinced that he made this money. Mr. Lestiboudois, however, would have found at the custom-house that France had an export of 200,000 francs and imported 352,000 francs, and would have concluded that she had squandered on foreign nations 152,000 francs.

About the same time Mr. T. despatched another vessel, freighted also with a cargo worth 200,000 francs. But this vessel went down and never reached New Orleans at all. Mr. Lestiboudois would find at the custom-house that 200,000 francs' worth of goods had been exported, and that there was no importation to balance this entry. France has therefore in this transaction a clear profit of 200,000 francs.

So much for his friend T. Mr. T.'s case, Bastiat continues, is exactly that of the French nation. If France imports more than she exports, she does not lose the excess any more than Mr. T. did. Bastiat invites his opponents to carry his theory to its farthest limits. Let it be supposed that France only imports and does not export at all; in other words, gets everything for nothing: he still defies them to prove that France would be the poorer.

It was that very able and convincing writer, Augustus Mongredien, who showed, perhaps more clearly than anyone else, in his treatise on free trade, that where a country imports more than she exports, it is impossible that the excess should be paid in specie. Debts owed by one country to another can be paid to but a limited extent in specie. The French indemnity was paid largely in commodities. So have been paid the great sums of money which England has from time to time lent foreign countries. The French indemnity was paid largely in bills of exchange. The excess of imports over exports must be paid by commodities, for there is no other way in which to pay it. This excess in England is yearly, we will say, £70,000,000. It is out of the question that such a sum can be paid in specie, for there is not the specie to be had. The amount of specie in a country never exceeds to any considerable extent what is necessary for circulation. It is impossible that a country can retain an amount of specie much greater than that. The specie which remains after the demands of circulation have been satisfied lowers interest and raises prices, and attracts merchandise from without; it thus very quickly finds its way abroad. On the other hand, when specie is sent abroad to such an extent as to trench upon the requirements of circulation, this raises interest and lowers prices; the specie is thus quickly recalled. The action of the Bank of England familiarly illustrates this law. When it is wanted to attract gold, the rate of interest is raised and the gold quickly appears; when there is too much gold, the interest falls and the gold quickly disappears. It takes only a small sum, say £4,000,000, to produce this effect. How then is it possible that a yearly excess of £70,000,000 could be paid in specie? The payment of such balances for two years would take out of the country not only all the coin, but all the gold cups and silver pencil-cases and earrings it contains. It is computed that all the circulation, taken together with the articles of ornament and utility in Great Britain, the plate, watches, and trinkets, barely comes to £140,000,000. And yet at the end of a long period, in which there has been a steady yearly excess of imports over exports, the country still has plenty of money.

If this excess is not paid for in specie, neither is it obtained on credit. Merchants nowadays do not give and take the long credits that were formerly the custom. There are certain imports, indeed, that are paid for before the goods come to hand. A cargo of wheat from California, for instance, takes from four to five months to reach England. But it is paid for by drafts on England at 60 days sight, which, sent forward by rail and steam, mature a month or more before the arrival of the wheat in England. It is probable, indeed, that the whole excess is paid for before it is received. The excess is certainly not a debt owed by England; it is rather the payment of a debt owed to England. It is sent in payment of interest and dividends on English money invested abroad.

Mongredien shows that so far from its being an indication of debt when the imports of a country exceed the exports, it is an indication of wealth. Such a condition is a matter for congratulation. But many people still cling to the early notion. While all are agreed that foreign commerce is a good thing, and while the world is unanimous in thinking that it is well to have the exports as large as possible, many people still cherish a dislike to large imports. It is forgotten that you must have imports to pay for the exports, and that, if you limit the imports, you of necessity limit the exports. The exports must be paid for by importing commodities and not by importing specie. The case has been supposed of a protectionist Paradise, in which goods only were exported and nothing but bullion received in return. Would a country be richer for such a state of things? It would certainly not be richer, for there would be an over supply of bullion, and it would fall in value in comparison with other commodities. The workingman might receive twice his former wages, but he would have to pay twice as much for everything he consumed. Indeed, prices would rise much more rapidly than he could induce his employers, by remonstrances and by strikes, to raise his wages. Bullion would thus become very cheap. It would be worth about half its price in foreign countries. The result would therefore be that those holding it would send it abroad. But it would of course be sold for goods, since the only other thing for which they could exchange it would be bullion. The country would at once cease to receive nothing but bullion. There would be great exports of bullion and great imports of goods. Protected interests would be ruined, and everything would be upside down, until the superfluous bullion would be worked off. Of course a country which imported nothing but bullion and exported nothing but goods would be impossible, since no prohibitory measures can prevent the transfer of specie from the country in which it was worth less to that in which it is worth more. But the hypothesis may serve to show that such a condition of things would be productive, not of good, but of harm.

The volume of "Commerce and Navigation" for 1877 shows that our total exports for that year were $703,022,923, while our total imports were $692,319,768. The countries to which we exported more than we received from them were England, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Peru, etc., while the countries to which we exported less than we received from them were Brazil, Germany, France, Switzerland, Mexico, Cuba, Japan, Venezuela, Roumania, etc. It does not appear that the countries having the balance of trade "in their favor" as regards ourselves are more fortunately situated than we. It will be seen that, regarding our whole foreign commerce, the balance "in our favor" is something like $10,000,000. These figures, it may be remarked, are by no means exhaustive and exact. The freight is largely carried in British vessels, and this great sum goes to England. Large sums are sent out from this country to Americans living in Europe. These people, of whom there are many thousands, must live, and they live upon money sent out from here. Then no account is taken of the great quantities of stuff brought to this country by travelling Americans. These are, of course, not put down among our imports. The returns of the United States and England are no doubt more exact than those of other countries. Before 1854 the value of the imports of England was given in the official valuation, supposed to represent the prices of different articles in 1699, but of course having no kind of relation to their recent value. From 1854 to 1871 the value of imports was estimated upon the average prices of goods as reported by the brokers and the various Chambers of Commerce. Since 1871 it has been the habit to trust completely to the values as given by the merchants themselves. The exports from the beginning of the century have been reckoned upon the values entered by the exporters at the custom-house. The returns of imports and exports are of course less trustworthy in other European countries than in England. It is far easier to smuggle across a frontier than to smuggle in ships, and it is difficult for governments to watch the traffic of railways. It does not appear that there is much to be learned from an examination of the custom-house returns of Continental countries.

Of course few persons could now be found to defend the ancient superstitions of the "Mercantile Theory." But there yet remain among us many who have a dislike to large imports, and who think an excess of exports a fortunate condition and one which furnishes evidence of the advantage of a protective policy. The considerations set forth in this paper, which have been more elaborately represented in the writings of Bastiat, Mongredien, and Leone Levi, show clearly that an excess of imports is not paid for in specie, but in goods; that it does not represent a debt owed by the country, but the payment of a debt to it; that instead of being a bad condition, it is a good one, because it is good both for individuals and for countries that debts owing to them should be paid; and that in fact there is no such thing as the once famous "balance of trade."

A PLEA FOR THE PARENT.

It is somewhat strange that while our social structure trembles with affright at the bare mention of communism, one of the most popular institutions in our midst is as pure an instance of communism as ever human ingenuity devised. We refer to our common-school system. It was invented not only to give the State control of the children, but so arranged, the authors thought and its supporters teach, to force the rich through taxation to educate the children of the poor.

To put it in a more homely fashion, it is a process through which Jacob Thomas, being with or without children, but viciously possessed of property, shall be made to educate the children of John Smith, who has virtuously a large family of children, and is poor.

It is claimed that wealth owes this to the government for the protection which popular education gives to property: and so the government robs in one direction to prevent robbery in another.

There are, however, two well-known truths that make this conclusion erroneous. The first is, that it is not property that pays taxes or, indeed, aught else, but labor. It is through labor that all values are developed. The other truth, not so generally recognized, but yet a truth, is that education does not make property more secure. On the contrary, it adds to the insecurity complained of.

Instead, then, of having the rich pay for the education of the poor, the wage-worker not only pays for the so-called education of his own children, but that of his more fortunate neighbor. This is so evident, when once seen, that it is not necessary for us to offer any argument in its support. Law-makers have, for a thousand years, been elaborating laws through which capital in lands, tenements, and other forms of fixed values shall be made pay its share of the public burthen. They are no nearer the desired end than when they began. It is a vain attempt to reverse the pyramid and make the base stand on the apex.

The other error is not so patent. It comes of confounding intelligence with the popular process of education. If the mass of men could, through any process, be made more intelligent, we are prepared to admit that there would be a moral gain. The gain, however, would not be so positive or so great as many believe. Intelligence is not necessarily moral, nor is morality necessarily intelligent. The rules that govern moral conduct are few and simple, and, after all, it is more a matter of training and habit, more the result of kindly feeling and religious belief, than any intellectual process based on an accumulation of facts.

This grows plainer as we look more carefully into this thing called popular education and realize its constituent parts. The true definition of education is, that exercise and development of the intellectual faculties which teaches and trains the mind to think. This presupposes intellectual faculties. They are not general. The inequality, in this respect, of the human family is well marked and universally recognized. Through all the avocations of life, we find here and there at long intervals men so blessed in this respect that the masses look up to them, select them to be teachers and leaders. It is the foundation of our hero-worship, and formulates the habits on which we live socially and politically.

The popular idea of the common school is not this. It is based on a proposition that the masses can be educated; that is, taught to think. This conclusion is got at through a most ludicrous process. The mind is reduced to a memory. Facts are crowded into the pupil, and as the facts accumulate the education is supposed to proceed, and in possession of these facts the graduate comes forth the superior of Plato, Bacon, or Herbert Spencer.

This is simply an idiotic exercise of the memory, and as the memory grows perfect the intellectual faculties weaken and disappear. It is now recognized by the more thoughtful that an abnormal memory is evidence of idiocy. The net result, then, of all the labor is to graduate a learned ass.

The proof of what we assert is found in the result after the pedagogues have completed their work. The millions are considered taught; the masses take the level of unthinking multitudes, and look about among themselves for their teachers and leaders. The schoolmasters have held all to a dead level; but once out in the world, and nature asserts her rights, and the truly educated, the strong minds that have taught themselves to think, move to the front and take command.

If this thing were harmless, we could be content to let the popular craze wear itself out. But it is not harmless. In our insane desire to have this monstrous system prevail, let the cost be what it may, we lose sight of the grave fact that, while we cannot educate the people, we can train the people up to that moral condition so necessary to a safe and healthy condition of a Christian community.

In our idiotic belief that in a cultivation of the memory we are elevating and purifying the mind, we make our schools not only godless but positively immoral, for the untrained mind is trained in iniquity. And this pernicious result is strengthened by another crotchet of the popular mind—the habit we have fallen into of regarding the human race as a continuous whole instead of being the individual. We fail to realize that when one is born the world begins, and when one dies the world ends. We are like the notes of the piano: each key has its own separate and distinct sound, and while they may be made to harmonize with each other, the melody that melts through a flute or flows in endless eddies from a violin can never be reached. That government approaches human perfection which cares for the citizen and not the majority; and that moral religious training given us by our Saviour is the watchful care of the one soul. To this end the Church was organized: to this end was marriage instituted and made sacred. This means the home—the only school, public or private, that has an unalloyed good in its composition.

The wrong being done our people cannot be overestimated. The child in being put to school has been expelled from home. The parent is taught that the State has intervened and relieved God's responsible agent of all responsibility. This strikes a death-blow at the agency for good found in the parent. We all recognize the fact that from the home comes all that is sound in the State. By the hearth-stone grow, not only moral impulse, but true religion and all the patriotism that gives a love of country, and stability and power to the State. Anything, then, that saps the foundations of the household takes from under us the solid earth. This, we maintain, is what our common-school system as now organized and controlled is doing.

We trust our readers will be patient with us. We know that we are touching on a tender subject. There is a religious feeling injected into the craze that makes many men wild and unreasonable the moment the system is criticised. We appreciate and partake of the sentiment born in us through many generations of a struggle against the tyranny ever found in a union of Church and State. Our blessed Saviour saw this when He laid down that line of demarcation between the two when he said: "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's; and to God the things that are God's." We not only say that we are opposed to governmental interference with religion, but we go a step farther, and, to make the line between Church and State yet more distinct, we assert that government has nothing to do with the morals of its people. Government is an expression of justice, as seen and felt in restraining through punishment the overt act of injustice. Morality and religion are so interwoven that they cannot well be separated, and the man who claims the political machine to be a great moral engine gives away all that our Christ commanded and our patriotic fathers sought to establish in framing our Constitution.

We hold that the morality of a people, like their religion, may be safely left to the Church and the home. When, therefore, the socialistic belief that the child belongs to the State and not to the parent prevails, not only the barriers but the very foundations of our social and political existence are broken down and in a fair way to be destroyed.

When we assert that the State rests upon the home, we say that which all men save communists heartily indorse. Now, the home is founded mainly on the mother's love. It is the strongest feeling given to animated life. We share it with the brute. It is the law of our being, and the source of all that is good. From the mother's care and training come our physical and moral health. This is not sentiment, it is solid fact. It is not that poets have sung and sages taught this great truth, but there is not a reader of this who cannot trace back to his early home and his mother's love not only all that has held him or her to moral conduct, but much that makes life worth living. This, that makes home what it is or should be, cannot be replaced by the State. The great infidel Robert Ingersoll retains his hold on certain thoughtless classes, not by his wit, which is keen, nor his eloquence, which is unquestioned, but because he preaches a sort of religion of home, and claims to be the only man, par excellence, who loves his wife and children.

The writer of this, when a judge, was remonstrated with for giving a child to a mother whom he had divorced from her husband on the ground of her infidelity. He made reply that the wife might be a bad woman and yet a good mother. Certainly there was no one to take her place. The court could not give the custody of the child to a man who thought so little of its welfare as to come into court and ask for a decree of divorce. The law had to be obeyed, and the divorce granted; but the custody of the child was left to the discretion of the court, and the court considered it merciful to leave the child with the mother rather than give it to a father who, in asking for a divorce, served notice that he would marry again and give this unfortunate to the care of a stepmother, to torture it with the taint of its origin, and a conflict with the natural affection for the newly found household and offspring.

The New England system of common schools recognizes the communistic theory of right, in the State, to the child. It reduces this theory to practice by supplanting the parent by the pedagogue. It teaches that to instruct the child is to make it moral, and its instruction means, as we have said, an abnormal development of the memory. A belief in this has come to be a popular fetish. The man who ventures to comment on it, or offers to amend or improve it, is hooted down as an enemy to his country and an infidel to its perfection. Pulpits resound with thanks to God for the blessings of free education, the press is filled with praise, while on the stump eloquent orators assure applauding crowds that our common-school system is the corner-stone of not only the great Republic, but of our social existence.

And yet, where are we? From all this senseless noise let us turn to the actual situation and consult the cold, naked facts. The increase of crime and insanity in the United States within the last half-century is something appalling. They have not only kept pace with our much-vaunted prosperity, but have been, and are, forging ahead at a rate that fills all thoughtful minds with alarm.

We cannot extend our space and burthen our brief comment with the statistics necessary to prove this fact, already patent to the more intelligent. Let the reader consult them for himself. He will find that the increase of criminals and the increase of insanity, set forth in cold figures, are not to be disputed or misunderstood. But it does not follow that these grave evils are to be laid to the communism of the New England common-school system. Perhaps not; but how much has this wonderful system done to arrest those evils? According to preachers, poets, editors, and stump orators, we are safe in leaving all to its care and keeping. It has certainly accomplished little in behalf of the Republic. Penitentiaries and asylums for the insane are increasing at a fearful rate; divorces follow fast upon the heels of marriage; and it may safely be said that not a single trust-fund has been left untouched by the hand of fraud throughout the entire country.

A further investigation, however, will lead us to yet another conclusion. The communism of the common school accompanies the evils. In those parts of our country where it is most rigidly enforced crime and madness have increased. In those sections yet new to the system these ills are less; and as there must be a cause for the difference, is it not safe to attribute it to this usurpation of the State, this insidious assault on the parent, and through both a weakening of religious faith and moral conduct?

We are well aware that, in the bigotry of belief that hedges about this system, there is no toleration for comment or criticism, and no room for amendment. To add to this, immense sums of money are involved; for while the State is keenly alive to the education of the people, and furnishes, with the greatest liberality, school-houses and pedagogues, it is strangely oblivious to the demand for books and stationery. In this supply lies two-thirds of the vociferous praise and vindictive support of the system. As the late Colonel Sellers was wont to say, "There's millions in it."

ABOUT THE BALLOT.

We have a growing number of earnest reformers who seek to better the machinery of elections by throwing about the ballot-box certain precautions, legally enacted, that will make the purchase of votes and the intimidation of voters more difficult. The trouble, however, is not in the vote, but the voter. If the one is corrupt, there is no legal process known to law-makers that will purify the other. If a man holds his vote in the light of property and knows of a purchaser possessed of means, it is extremely difficult to keep the parties apart or prevent the sale.

This, however, does not apply to that well-known evil of undue influence on the part of party leaders, or "strikers," as they are called. Those partisans are reinforced by men who have others in their employ dependent on such employers for a living, and of course possessed of an influence calculated to control the vote of the dependent, whether such voting is in accordance with the wishes or conscience of the voter or not.

We know, for example, that in the late canvass every capitalist with his investment depending for its profit on the success of the Republicans took pains to inform his workmen that unless Harrison were elected the works could not continue, and they, the laborers, would be discharged and left to starve. He was animated in this only by the highest philanthropic motives, not by any wish to influence the votes of his laborers.

Now, the operatives were intelligent enough to laugh at this, but they were well aware of what he meant, and that was to inform them of his wishes; and as he had it in his power to know how each voted, it was as much as each man's place was worth to vote the Democratic ticket. That there might be no mistake about this, the few who ventured to disobey this champion boss were soon disposed of. It is scarcely necessary to say that the smoke continued to pour up and out of the chimneys until an unfortunate wheat deal at Chicago sent the head centre of the attempted corner to the penitentiary, and made this capitalist who thus sought to intimidate his laborers quite fit for the same locality.

If some process of voting, whether Australian or not, could be devised to end this "bulldozing," as it is popularly called, it would be an excellent reform. It would also go far towards weakening the blind adhesion to political organizations. Many men are held to this more by association and that lack of independence necessary to a severance of old ties. This denies the voter the right to scratch his ticket when he finds a name on it that he knows to be that of a man he cannot approve and ought not to vote for. To keep abreast of his party he must vote "the ticket, the whole ticket, and nothing but the ticket." The leaders and their lieutenants, as the machine stands, have it in their power to spot and expose anyone venturing to break over the line and obey his own will.

This is the power, well recognized, which makes the nominating caucus the government. The right to vote carries with it to each voter a right to a candidate of his own selection. As the matter stands, in fact, he comes to the polls and has presented to him generally two tickets. It is claimed that he can vote one or the other, or, as it is called, vote in the air. The fact is he has no such choice. The despotic power of party discipline holds him firmly to the ticket his party has put in nomination. Our ballot, that is claimed to be secret, is open as the day. Every vote is counted and every voter known, and to make assurance doubly sure the polls are guarded by both parties, and the noble citizen runs the gauntlet through double lines of detestable township or ward politicians, potent for mischief in their sneers and jeers, and, if need be, ready with dirty fists or clubs, sometimes revolvers, to back the edict of the party.

Through this process a majority is supposed to govern. The practical fact is that a small minority, and that made up of the worst element, holds sway. The nominating caucus is composed of men who work for pay, and put in nomination the political aspirants corrupt enough to purchase their positions. The more decent class of our citizens avoid the primaries. They well know that to control them means a corrupt use of money, or a fight wherein victory is as fatal as defeat. In the rural districts the farmer is called to leave his plough and ride from one to three miles, and lose a day's work, for the privilege of being controlled by a small political bunco-steerer to the support of some aspirant to office who has the fellow in his pay. If the farmer differs from Mary's little lamb in not being white as snow, he resembles that poetic pet in his amiable docility. The caucus is composed of a mere corporal's guard from the army of voters. In the towns and cities the element is so brutal, impudent, and active that decency shrinks from a mere contact, let alone a contest in which decency will have its hat mashed over its eyes, its nose bloodied, and its body bruised. In ward and township these able manipulators are not the majority, as we have said, and yet they rule with a despotic brutality that makes the kingdom of Dahomey a liberal government in comparison.

Now, as we have said, if some legalized process could be devised through which the ballot could be made safe and secret, a deadly blow would be given to the caucus. As it is, the managers buy a few and intimidate the many. The basis of such reform, however, rests on the entire machine being paid for by the government. Tickets should be printed and furnished free on the demand of any ten men claiming to be a party with candidates to be voted for. Economy in this direction has costly results. On the plea of legitimate expenditures large sums are collected, and the people debauched. Any use of money other than that by the government should not only work a forfeiture of office, but open the penitentiary to the voter.

The truth is, however, that to make this reform effectual it must be thorough and radical. The one great evil in our way is in our frequent elections. The insane effort to apply the ballot to every office has so multiplied elections that it is impossible for a man to give attention to one-half, and follow his business so as to support his family. The average citizen is forced to leave the filling of office to the professionals, vulgarly called "bummers" in town, and "gutter-snipes" in the country. We have not only cheapened the suffrage and thereby cheapened office for the representative who represents, but we have degraded the civil service until it is more of a disgrace than an honor to be an official.

That sort of reform which compromises with wrong is worse than none. To be effective, reform must be radical. Chucking a boulder in a rut of a bad road makes the highway the more impassable. The rut itself must be eliminated before repairs can be said to have a foundation.