Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/623

Rh to keep his children at home for any purpose, no truant officer is indiscreet enough to trouble him; if, however, a poor woman, just made a widow, wishes to have her oldest son work in disregard of the statute, in order to keep her and her younger children out of the poorhouse, his official zeal is above criticism. Politics poisons even the fountains of justice. Criminals that have sufficient political influence can escape prosecution or obtain pardon after conviction. Prosecuting officers are importuned incessantly, even by "leading citizens," to abandon prosecution of them or to "let them off easily." In the appointment of receivers and referees, judges are much more inclined to give preference to political friends than to political enemies. Finally, if political exigencies require it, there is no hesitation to invoke the latent savagery of a nation. In proof, recall the Venezuelan message of Mr. Cleveland, which "dished" the Republican jingoes, and the German emperor's assault upon Hayti and China to secure the adoption of his naval bill. To make the record complete, I ought to add that for a purpose more odious—namely, the increase of sales—newspapers, always the ready recipients of political patronage, commit the same atrocious crime against civilization.

Since politics is a form of civil war, involving aggressions upon person and property, any extension of its field of operation must be attended by precisely the same moral and economic effects that attend the pursuit of civil war itself. No concession of suffrage to women, nor any legal machinery, however ingenious, that may be invented, will alter that fact. Already we are confronted with alarming manifestations of the decadence of society that have always accompanied civil strife. The public burdens are becoming so great, equaling the per capita rate prevailing at the outbreak of the French Revolution, that people in cities as well as in the country are being driven from their homes by the sale of their property for unpaid taxes. Both classes are joining the ranks of "the disinherited," just as similar classes joined the brigands in France and Italy, and are clamoring for the trial of the thousand absurd schemes for social ills known as populism and socialism, all meaning an increase of the functions of government, still further aggressions upon persons and property, and an aggravation of the evils already complained of. At the same time the moral tone of society is rapidly sinking to a low level. "It is a melancholy reflection," says the report of the New York State tax commission, dwelling upon the desperate efforts of people to escape the aggressions committed on them and disclosing the observance of a code of ethics committed in every walk in life, "that in this Christian age neither the memory of early moral training, nor present religious profession, hopes or fears for the hereafter, the penalties of the law, nor any other possible considerations are