As We Go | Page 4

WAY CAN A HUSBAND
OPEN HIS WIFE'S LETTERS? A LEISURE CLASS WEATHER
AND CHARACTER BORN WITH AN "EGO" JUVENTUS MUNDI
A BEAUTIFUL OLD AGE THE ATTRACTION OF THE
REPULSIVE GIVING AS A LUXURY CLIMATE AND
HAPPINESS THE NEW FEMININE RESERVE REPOSE IN
ACTIVITY WOMEN--IDEAL AND REAL THE ART OF IDLENESS
IS THERE ANY CONVERSATION THE TALL GIRL THE
DEADLY DIARY THE WHISTLING GIRL BORN OLD AND RICH
THE "OLD SOLDIER" THE ISLAND OF BIMINI JUNE

OUR PRESIDENT
We are so much accustomed to kings and queens and other privileged
persons of that sort in this world that it is only on reflection that we
wonder how they became so. The mystery is not their continuance, but
how did they get a start? We take little help from studying the bees--
originally no one could have been born a queen. There must have been
not only a selection, but an election, not by ballot, but by consent some
way expressed, and the privileged persons got their positions because
they were the strongest, or the wisest, or the most cunning. But the
descendants of these privileged persons hold the same positions when
they are neither strong, nor wise, nor very cunning. This also is a
mystery. The persistence of privilege is an unexplained thing in human
affairs, and the consent of mankind to be led in government and in
fashion by those to whom none of the original conditions of leadership
attach is a philosophical anomaly. How many of the living occupants of
thrones, dukedoms, earldoms, and such high places are in position on
their own merits, or would be put there by common consent? Referring
their origin to some sort of an election, their continuance seems to rest
simply on forbearance. Here in America we are trying a new
experiment; we have adopted the principle of election, but we have
supplemented it with the equally authoritative right of deposition. And
it is interesting to see how it has worked for a hundred years, for it is
human nature to like to be set up, but not to like to be set down. If in
our elections we do not always get the best--perhaps few elections ever
did--we at least do not perpetuate forever in privilege our mistakes or

our good hits.
The celebration in New York, in 1889, of the inauguration of
Washington was an instructive spectacle. How much of privilege had
been gathered and perpetuated in a century? Was it not an occasion that
emphasized our republican democracy? Two things were conspicuous.
One was that we did not honor a family, or a dynasty, or a title, but a
character; and the other was that we did not exalt any living man, but
simply the office of President. It was a demonstration of the power of
the people to create their own royalty, and then to put it aside when
they have done with it. It was difficult to see how greater honors could
have been paid to any man than were given to the President when he
embarked at Elizabethport and advanced, through a harbor crowded
with decorated vessels, to the great city, the wharves and roofs of
which were black with human beings --a holiday city which shook with
the tumult of the popular welcome. Wherever he went he drew the
swarms in the streets as the moon draws the tide. Republican simplicity
need not fear comparison with any royal pageant when the President
was received at the Metropolitan, and, in a scene of beauty and
opulence that might be the flowering of a thousand years instead of a
century, stood upon the steps of the "dais" to greet the devoted
Centennial Quadrille, which passed before him with the courageous
five, 'Imperator, morituri te salutamus'. We had done it--we, the people;
that was our royalty. Nobody had imposed it on us. It was not even
selected out of four hundred. We had taken one of the common people
and set him up there, creating for the moment also a sort of royal
family and a court for a background, in a splendor just as imposing for
the passing hour as an imperial spectacle. We like to show that we can
do it, and we like to show also that we can undo it. For at the banquet,
where the Elected ate his dinner, not only in the presence of, but with,
representatives of all the people of all the States, looked down on by
the acknowledged higher power in American life, there sat also with
him two men who had lately been in his great position, the centre only
a little while ago, as he was at the moment, of every eye in the republic,
now only common citizens without a title, without any insignia of rank,
able