256 AMERICAN FARMS. 



A belief in " the ability of the people to correct their 

 own errors " also implies a belief in their ability to see 

 their own errors. This awakening may be the hardest 

 part of reform. If the citizens of the Roman Republic 

 had been able, at some turning-point in its history, 

 to see their own errors in their true light, that civili- 

 zation might have gone on in its own development. We 

 may say the same of the Grecian, or any other of our 

 past civilizations. The lack of a proper realization of 

 error is a continual stumbling-block in itself, and is 

 ceaselessly working the downfall of men. Notwithstand- 

 ing, we have faith in the people of America, not only to 

 eventually see the right, but to act in its behalf. 



When with such vexed social and political problems as 

 the difficulties now existing between labor and capital, 

 the distribution of land, the threatening power of combi- 

 nations of wealth, and reforms in our governing methods, 

 we affirm that we have faith in the people to solve them, 

 we also imply a belief in the sovereignty of the people. 

 Certainly in this we mean not merely a passive sover- 

 eignty, not only in the people being represented here 

 and there through an unpledged and uninstructed 

 leader, but a sovereignty in which the individual citizen 

 acts the part of the true sovereign, and becomes respon- 

 sible for the welfare of his subjects. Therefore, with 

 such as we in America, where the people are empowered 

 to be the chief rulers, safety is always in the timely 

 action of the people, alive to a requisite appreciation of 

 truth, and realizing their responsibilities as sovereigns. 



That portion of the people by whom error should be 

 the more easily recognized is composed of those in whom 

 morality and virtue more largely predominate. It follows 

 that all, be they clergymen, statesmen, judges, teachers, 



