AN APOSTATE DEMOCRACY. 66 9 



" it is not every citizen of every age, sex, and condition that is quali- 

 fied for every calling and position. It is the prerogative of the legis- 

 lator," he added, framing a rule that would apply to every form of 

 human activity from that of a cook to that of a statesman, " to pre- 

 scribe regulations founded upon Nature, reason, and experience for 

 the due admission of qualified persons to professions and callings 

 demanding special skill and confidence." * Going a step further 

 in the assertion of this power of a paternal despotism, Judge Napton, 

 of the highest court of Missouri, has declared that " the State 

 legislatures have the power, unless there be something in their own 

 Constitution to prohibit it, of entirely abolishing or placing under 

 restrictions any trade or profession which they may think expedient." 

 Imagine what Jefferson would think of such a doctrine, one that 

 would have obliged him to hunt for a licensed blacksmith to shoe 

 the horse that he rode to the capital to deliver his famous address! 

 Imagine what John Adams would say at the discovery of a law that 

 would not have permitted him to build a drain to his own house, or to 

 buy of a jobber the pipes and faucets needed to repair his plumbing! 

 Would they not be moved to issue a new Declaration, and to fight 

 another War of Independence? 



]STo class of people has suffered more from despotism or has a 

 greater interest in freedom than wage-earners. Civilization made 

 its longest stride when they ceased to be slaves or serfs, and gained 

 the right to go wherever work was to be had and to make with 

 their employers such agreements as they pleased. Still, no class 

 has more completely falsified the praise of Sir Henry Maine, the 

 highest that can be paid to a free democracy. " The American peo- 

 ple," he wrote scarcely more than a decade ago, " are still of the 

 opinion that more is to be got for human happiness by private energy 

 than by public legislation." To-day it is upon the State rather than 

 public opinion on the one hand, and industry and frugality upon 

 the other, that toilers have come to rely for the redress of grievances 

 and the procurement of abundance. Guilty themselves of every act 

 of aggression they complain of, they have had enacted the most 

 despotic and discriminating legislation to be found in the statute 

 books. f Besides the well-known laws in regulation of the work of 

 women and children, there is a multitude of other laws still more 

 destructive of freedom. I have mentioned those that require rail- 



* Quoted by Tiedeman. Limitations of the Police Power, p. 202. 



t According to Mr. F. J. Stimson, the labor laws enacted during the past ten years num- 

 ber sixteen hundred and tbirty-nine. Of these, one hundred and fourteen have been de- 

 clared unconstitutional, which explains the hostility of labor to the courts, and its prepos- 

 terous demand that when laws have once been enacted they shall stand until repealed. 

 (Atlantic Monthly, November, 1897, p. 606.) 



