Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/867

Rh ests [sic] with the people to say when we shall have such a Congress. It is all a question, as we lately pointed out, of disinterestedness in the exercise of the franchise. Whenever the time comes that the people as a whole, or a preponderant majority of the people, desire good and honest government, and are willing to take a little trouble to secure it, many things will be possible of which at present we can only dream.

is one of the most serious evils of the methods of political discussion current among us that petty, local, and temporary considerations are given predominance, and graver, broader views, looking to the general public welfare and to ultimate results, are very little regarded.

We have a government, according to the well-worn phrase, of the people, for the people, by the people; but what "the people" do not always see is, that the government which they actually call into being is not a government of the people as a whole, for the people as a whole, and by the people as a whole, but a government in which rival interests, class and sectional, more or less check, thwart, haggle with, and corrupt one another, and in which the real interests of the community as a whole are too often lost sight of. The standing difficulty under our system is how to get important interests duly attended to, how to get great questions adequately discussed. Matters of minor importance, particularly such as may become the subject of a "deal," can always secure attention; but, when the wider and more lasting interests of the nation are concerned, our legislative bodies show only too plainly that these are not the matters they care to deal with. The truth is they are not, speaking broadly, the matters they were elected to deal with, each constituent body having regard mainly, in choosing its representative, to local and special interests, not to those of the country as a whole.

The article which we publish in this number from our valued contributor, the Hon. David A. Wells, entitled How can the Federal Government best raise its Revenues? furnishes an admirable example of the manner in which great questions of public policy should be approached and treated.

Mr. Wells indicates what might be done if our statesmen would only deal with the question of taxation disinterestedly, casting aside the mischievous prejudice engendered by partisan rivalries and squabbles, and solely with a view to the public good. He points out that some of his suggestions would involve going counter to certain popular prejudices, but he makes it clear that these prejudices have nothing to do with the public good except to thwart and obstruct it. His appeal is to the reason and patriotism of Congress and of the country at large, and it will so far help, we have no doubt, to raise the tone of political discussion. To this end we cite his article as an example of earnest and thoughtful argument—the kind of argument that is too seldom addressed to popular audiences and too seldom heard in our legislative bodies.

The question of protection and free trade is very slightly if at all touched upon in Mr. Wells's article. But we can not refrain from saying that, in our opinion, this great nation can never be right with itself or with the world so long as the protection sentiment rules the thought of the people. To say that the way to make ourselves prosperous is to shut out the products of the rest of the world, even