The Days of a Man 1898 



Democracy Nevertheless, the dangers indicated in my ad- 

 turned^ im- ^ Tess after Dewey's victory proved to be very real. 

 The country was flooded with arguments for "ex- 

 pansion," and the once-abhorred word ''imperial- 

 ism" was received with great enthusiasm by the 

 press and a majority of our citizens as a glorious 

 slogan. It was then that my own mind began to 

 turn more directly to matters of government 

 national, international, and municipal. My con- 

 ception of democracy had always implied self-gov- 

 ernment, but more and more I now came to realize 

 the truth of Lincoln's words, so easily forgotten 

 under political temptation: "No people is good 

 enough to govern another against its will." l 

 Eugenic During this period, also, I first began to study 

 studies seriously the effect of war on the human breed, 

 the constant elimination of the strong and brave, 

 as well as of the bully and the soldier of fortune, 

 a matter only briefly indicated by Darwin and 

 Spencer, although the actual fact of the reversal 

 of human selection through militarism and war 

 was most tersely stated by the former in 1871 in 

 "The Descent of Man": 



Darwin In every country in which a standing army is kept up, the 



on war fairest young men are taken to the conscription camp and 



selection ^^ & enlisted. They are thus exposed to early death during 



war and are often tempted into vice and are prevented from 



marrying during the prime of life. On the other hand, the shorter 



and feebler men with poor constitutions are left at home and 



consequently have a better chance of marrying and propagating 



their kind. 



1 "Imperial Democracy," published in 1899, contains six of my addresses 

 of that and the previous year: "Lest We Forget," "A Blind Man's Holiday,^ 

 "The Captain Sleeps," "Colonial Lessons of Alaska," "A Continuing City," 

 and "The Last of the Puritans." 



C 618 3 



