The Evolution of the State. 103 



number of men in both political parties, and any reason- 

 ably well-informed politician of either party would be com- 

 petent to make up a list of less than fifty " wheel-horses " 

 in politics, whose favor would insure his elevation to any 

 office in the municipality. These constitute a political 

 oligarchy, who furnish us with as poor a government as 

 they dare to do. 



Such is party municipal government, which is rightly 

 said by Mr. Stickney, in his latest volume on '' The Political 

 Problem," to mean, " Government by organized bodies of 

 professional electioneering agents, who betake themselves 

 to the work of carrying elections because it pays ; who are 

 compelled by the force of circumstances to make it pay, 

 and who will continue so to do just so long as the work is 

 so vast, so regular and has such large prizes." 



What then are we to conclude ? That in an age when 

 rapid advances are being made in all departments of human 

 endeavor, when science and invention and all forms of 

 achievement are striding rapidly forward, the State is lag- 

 ging in the race ? Quite possibly this is true. Having 

 delegated our right of choice, as has been suggested, to the 

 politicians, we have reached an epoch in the evolution of 

 the State when the art and science of government are left 

 in abeyance, and the best thought and effort of our time 

 are given to other pursuits. 



One evidence of this is to be found, as it seems to me, 

 in the observation that, among civilized peoples, the rights 

 of person and property, which are essential tests of govern- 

 mental efficiency, are not largely affected by particular 

 forms of government. At any rate, an unprejudiced view 

 of the conditions of society as determined by institutional 

 forms in England and the United States would not, as I 

 think, disclose such serious discrepancies as might be sup- 

 posed to exist. It may well be doubted whether the citizen 

 of Toronto, Canada, is not quite as comfortably governed as 

 the citizen of Brooklyn ; and among civilized communities, 

 the advantages of discoveries and inventions in science and 

 art have been quite as efficiently availed of in one as in 

 another form of liberal government. "Obedience is what 

 makes government," says Edmund Burke, and "not the 

 names by which it is called." Even in the ideal govern- 

 ments, many limitations were set up which this enlight- 

 ened age would instantly disallow. In More's Utopia, it 



