i68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



who can not has no right to go. Of all forms of greed, the 

 greed for free lunches, the desire to get something for noth- 

 ing, is the most demoralizing, and in the long run most dan- 

 gerous. The flag of freedom has never floated over a nation of 

 deadheads. 



Then, again, education must take the form of real patriotism 

 of public interest and of civic virtue. If a republic be not 

 wisely managed, it will fail as any other corporation would ; it 

 will only succeed as it deserves success. 



The problems of government are questions of right and wrong, 

 they can be settled only in one way. They must be settled right. 

 Whatever is settled wrong comes up for settlement again, and 

 this when we least expect it. It comes up under harder condi- 

 tions, and compound interest is charged on every wrong decision. 

 The slavery question, you remember, was settled over and over 

 again by each generation of compromisers. When they led John 

 Brown to the scaffold his last words were : " You had better all 

 you people at the South prepare yourselves for a settlement of 

 this question, that must come up for settlement again sooner 

 than you are prepared for it. You may dispose of me now very 

 easily," he said ; " I am nearly disposed of now ; but this question 

 is still to be settled this negro question, I mean ; the end of that 

 is not yet." 



This, John Brown said, and they settled the problem for the 

 time by hanging him. But the question rose again. It was never 

 settled until at last it was " blown hellward from the cannon's 

 mouth." Then it was found that for every drop of negro blood 

 drawn by the lash, a thousand drops of Saxon blood had been 

 drawn by the sword. 



Thus it is with every national question, large or small. Thus 

 it will be with the tariff, with finance, with the civil service. 

 Each question must be settled right, and we must pay for its set- 

 tlement. It is said that fifteen per cent of the laws on the statute 

 books of the States of the Union stand there in defiance of ac- 

 knowledged laws of social and economic science. Every such 

 statute is blood poison in the body politic. Around every such 

 law will gather a festering sore. Every attempt to heal this 

 sore will be resisted by the full force of the timeservers. Such 

 statutes are steadily increasing in number, concessions by short- 

 sighted legislatures to the arrogant monopolist, the ignorant dem- 

 agogue, or the reckless agitator. This must stop, " They en- 

 slave their children's children who make compromise with sin," 

 or with ignorance, or with recklessness. " The gods," said Mar- 

 cus Aurelius, " are at the head of the administration, and will 

 have nothing but the best." 



