PERILS. — THE CITY. 193 



many ways to control votes. The liquor power controls 

 thousands of votes in every considerable city. The pres- 

 ident of the Mormon Church casts, say, sixty thousand 

 votes. The Jesuits, it is said, are all under the command 

 of one man in Washington. The Roman Catholic vote is 

 more or less perfectly controlled by the priests. That 

 means that the Pope can dictate some hundreds of thou- 

 sands of votes in the United States. Is there anything 

 unrepublican in all this ? And we must remember that, 

 if present tendencies continue, these figures will be 

 greatly multiplied in the future. And not only is this 

 immense power lodged in the hand of one man, which in 

 itself is perilous, but it is wielded without the slightest 

 reference to any policy or principle of government, 

 solely in the interests of a church or a business, or for 

 personal ends. 



The result of a national election may depend on a 

 single state ; the vote of that state may de]^end on a 

 single city ; the vote of that city may depend on a 

 *' boss," or a capitalist, or a corporation; or tlie election 

 may be decided, and the policy of the government may 

 be reversed, by the socialist, or liquor, or Roman Catho- 

 lic or immigrant vote. 



It matters not by what name we call the man who 

 wields this centralized power — whether king, czar, pope, 

 president, capitalist, or boss. Just so far as it is absolute 

 and irresponsible, it is dangerous. 



3. These several dangerous elements are singularly net- 

 ted together, and serve to strengthen each other. It is 

 not necessary to prove that any 07ie of them is likely to 

 destroy our national life, in order to show that it is imper- 

 iled. A man may die of wounds no one of which is 

 fatal. No sober-minded man can look fairly at tlie facts, 

 and doubt that together these perils constitute an array 

 which will seriously endanger our free institutions, if the 

 tendencies which have been pointed out continue; and 

 especially is this true in view of the fact that these perils 

 peculiarly confront the West, where our defense is weak- 

 est. 



