5 o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Whatever power may be needed beyond the conscience of men 

 to control their conduct will be that of rational public opinion. 

 As a matter of fact, it is the only power at any stage of social 

 progress that has validity or efficacy. Without it neither the auto- 

 crat nor the democrat can command the slightest allegiance. ^ But 

 no truth is more persistently and disastrously ignored. Although 

 public opinion can make dissent from a Hebrew myth or from a 

 rule of evening dress more culpable than the deception of a cus- 

 toms collector or a tax official, modern social reformers put their 

 faith in a power that has no authority without it. Instead of ap- 

 pealing to Caesar himself, who alone wields the scepter, they appeal 

 to Caesar's slaves, who obey his will and incline to his vices. But 

 every act of a legislator that abridges a right or confers a privi- 

 lege twists the convictions and perverts the morals of every per- 

 son affected. As this despotism grows, no matter what name it 

 bears, public opinion becomes more depraved and less fitted to be 

 the arbiter of social welfare. It sets up false standards of belief 

 and conduct.* In the end it will justify bribery and plunder, as 

 during the degradation of the Swiss, f and even assassination, as 



excludes from such institutions, as in Kansas, the professors that oppose populism ; that 

 requires an official history of the civil war to be taught in the public schools. Should wheat 

 production and distribution become a function of the Government, I doubt not that pre- 

 scribed or " official " views in regard to it would spring up, as in regard to the tariff and the 

 currency, and that instruction in them in all State institutions would be demanded. Still 

 another amazing example of intolerance is to be found in an article from the Democrat and 

 Chronicle (July 2, 1897) of Rochester, N. Y., the largest and most influential Republican 

 newspaper in the State outside of New York city. " A college president," it says, exhib- 

 iting the same spirit as that of the measure before the Prussian Diet to suppress critics of 

 the Government or of Prussian institutions, " ought to have full power to drive out by force 

 and arms, if need be, college professors who belittle American history and cast reflections 

 upon our system of government. In recent years some of the colleges have become teach- 

 ers of pessimism in history and politics, sending out narrow-minded critics of American 

 institutions. A correspondent of the Sun, E. A. Scribner, a graduate of Bowdoin, suggests 

 a chair of ' American Patriotism ' in every college. There is need of such a chair in sev- 

 eral institutions." 



* How far public opinion has been perverted in the United States by this influence may 

 be gathered from an address of Dr. Rainsford before the Woman's Auxiliary to the Civil 

 Service Reform Association, reported in the Evening Post, May 6, 1897. " Dr. Rams- 

 ford," it says, " administered a scathing rebuke to those who excuse corrupt practices on 

 the part of politicians and others in power on the ground of expediency. Educated men 

 who accepted such things as necessary evils were the most to blame, and committed the 

 greatest crime against democratic institutions. He thought that the distrust manifested in 

 some quarters arose from the fact that the country was honeycombed with the idea that 

 4 pulls,' ' deals,' buying of legislation, and similar practices is the only way to get things 

 through. Continuing, ' I heard a member of the City Club declare that it was legitimate 

 to buy legislation at Albany.' " I, too, have heard respectable men express the same 

 opinion. 



j- " La corruption par 1'or etranger penetra chez les deputes aux dietes federates : 1'as- 

 sentiment des peuples dans les cantons fut obtenu par des dons annuels decores du nom des 

 pensions." (Morin, Histoire politique de la Suisse, vol. i, p. 101.) 



