The Pilgrim, and the American of Today | Page 5

it. This you must make
yourselves.
We have finished the outline sketch of a magnificent nation. The
territory is ample; it includes every variety of climate, in the changing
seasons, every variety of physical conformation, every kind of
production suited to the wants, almost everything desired in the
imagination, of man. It comes nearer than any empire in history to
being self- sufficient, physically independent of the rest of the globe.
That is to say, if it were shut off from the rest of the world, it has in
itself the material for great comfort and civilization. And it has the
elements of motion, of agitation, of life, because the vast territory is
filling up with a rapidity unexampled in history. I am not saying that
isolated it could attain the highest civilization, or that if it did touch a
high one it could long hold it in a living growth, cut off from the rest of
the world. I do not believe it. For no state, however large, is sufficient
unto itself. No state is really alive in the highest sense whose
receptivity is not equal to its power to contribute to the world with

which its destiny is bound up. It is only at its best when it is a part of
the vital current of movement, of sympathy, of hope, of enthusiasm of
the world at large. There is no doctrine so belittling, so withering to our
national life, as that which conceives our destiny to be a life of
exclusion of the affairs and interests of the whole globe, hemmed in to
the selfish development of our material wealth and strength, surrounded
by a Chinese wall built of strata of prejudice on the outside and of
ignorance on the inside. Fortunately it is a conception impossible to be
realized.
There is something captivating to the imagination in being a citizen of a
great nation, one powerful enough to command respect everywhere,
and so just as not to excite fear anywhere. This proud feeling of
citizenship is a substantial part of a man's enjoyment of life; and there
is a certain compensation for hardships, for privations, for self-sacrifice,
in the glory of one's own country. It is not a delusion that one can
afford to die for it. But what in the last analysis is the object of a
government? What is the essential thing, without which even the glory
of a nation passes into shame, and the vastness of empire becomes a
mockery? I will not say that it is the well-being of every individual,
because the term well-being--the 'bien etre' of the philosophers of the
eighteenth century--has mainly a materialistic interpretation, and may
be attained by a compromise of the higher life to comfort, and even of
patriotism to selfish enjoyment.
That is the best government in which the people, and all the people, get
the most out of life; for the object of being in this world is not primarily
to build up a government, a monarchy, an aristocracy, a democracy, or
a republic, or to make a nation, but to live the best sort of life that can
be lived.
We think that our form of government is the one best calculated to
attain this end. It is of all others yet tried in this world the one least felt
by the people, least felt as an interference in the affairs of private life,
in opinion, in conscience, in our freedom to attain position, to make
money, to move from place to place, and to follow any career that is
open to our ability. In order to maintain this freedom of action, this

non-interference, we are bound to resist centralization of power; for a
central power in a republic, grasped and administered by bosses, is no
more tolerable than central power in a despotism, grasped and
administered by a hereditary aristocrat. Let us not be deceived by
names. Government by the consent of the people is the best
government, but it is not government by the people when it is in the
hands of political bosses, who juggle with the theory of majority rule.
What republics have most to fear is the rule of the boss, who is a tyrant
without responsibility. He makes the nominations, he dickers and
trades for the elections, and at the end he divides the spoils. The
operation is more uncertain than a horse race, which is not decided by
the speed of the horses, but by the state of the wagers and the
manipulation of the jockeys. We strike directly at his power for
mischief when we organize the entire civil service of the nation and of
the States on capacity, integrity, experience, and not on political power.
And if we look further, considering the danger of concentration of