IRRIGATION, POLITICS, AND SECTIONALISM 95 



jobs, and kindred iniquities. Neither can 

 it be said that all this is past history. We 

 are now but turning the first page of an era 

 eventful not only for this great country, but 

 for all civilized nations. Vainly do the 

 Western politicians declare that the United 

 States can go forward on her own course, 

 paying no heed to the other great peoples 

 of the world. Nations, like men, cannot 

 stand or fall to themselves. The shrieks 

 which rend our Western welkin are pitiful 

 in their ignorance and narrowness of view. 

 1 We won't do as European nations do ' 

 such is the reiterated scream of the Western 

 demagogue, a small child in a rage 'we 

 won't ! we wont / we wont f Meantime the 

 genuine patriot and statesman reviews the 

 scenes which took place at the Democratic 

 Convention at Chicago, and exclaims in 

 despair : ' But this is mob law !' which it is. 

 The people in these latter days is violently 

 partisan. It regales itself with the illiberal 

 and virulent local, or, at best, strictly Western 

 and one-sided, newspaper. The idea of read- 

 ing the other side never enters its head ; and 

 it is marvellous, for such a wide-awake, in- 



