AN APOSTATE DEMOCRACY. 661 



industrialism, the railroads of tlie country, had fallen into the hands 

 of incompetent knaves to be used to plunder and impoverish their 

 patrons, a powerful commission has been mercifully provided to 

 avert the disaster. So slight is the confidence to be placed in the 

 integrity of the men of genius intrusted with the solution of the 

 difficult and complicated problems of transportation that they are 

 denied the freedom to make the needful agreements to forestall the 

 ruin of cutthroat competition. With the faith of idolaters in a 

 state supervision that has been pronounced a failure, the apostates 

 propose that the Government shall depart still further from its 

 legitimate functions, and assume itself the ownership of the railroads, 

 thus adding billions to the spoils to be fought for in caucus and con- 

 vention. Enamored of the dubious success of the Postal Depart- 

 ment, whose wretched management has furnished a deficit for sixty 

 years, they demand that it shall saddle itself with a telegraph serv- 

 ice and a savings attachment. A postmaster general has so far 

 taken leave of his senses as to suggest that the savings shall be de- 

 voted to the construction of public buildings, which would neces- 

 sitate the taxation of the depositors to meet the interest paid to them, 

 and make it impossible to provide ready money in case of a run. 

 But it is not alone in the regulation of the great interests of life like 

 agriculture and transportation that the Federal Government has 

 favored the American people with its paternal care and superior 

 wisdom. Descending to more personal matters, it has begun to 

 look after their food and drink. I have mentioned the legislation 

 against the chemical substitutes for butter and cheese. Other legis- 

 lation, equally violative of personal freedom, seeks to rescue the 

 country from the degradation due to the cheaper grades of tea. 

 Thanks to enlightened statesmen, it must be over a brew of the 

 leaf that has met the official test that the assassins of character will 

 continue the pursuit of their favorite diversion. 



The loss of freedom involved in the thousand restraints upon 

 activities that have no kinship with crime is not, however, the most 

 odious product of the civil war. That distinction belongs to the 

 spirit of proscription that now animates the American people — the 

 spirit that formerly took, and still takes to some extent, in the mili- 

 tant countries of Europe, the hideous form of a barbarous persecu- 

 tion of the Jewish race. For three quarters of a century they 

 boasted that the United States were the refuge of the oppressed 

 and unfortunate of all countries. Heartily did they welcome every 

 immigrant, not a pauper or criminal, that was willing to work, no 

 matter whether ignorant or literate, yellow or white. They even 

 sent agents abroad to seduce with stories of freedom and plenty the 

 impoverished victims of military despotisms. With their vast re- 



