Page:The American Magazine volume LXIII.djvu/36

22 hopes of him as silly as the fears of the fool rich.

Mr. Opper's idea of "the Common People"

And Mr. Hearst appeals to classes, he himself. He says that when he speaks of the people he thinks of Mr. Opper's caricature of "the Common People," the thin little, worried man with the glasses. "The commuter is about it," he says. Vet he defends the proposition to have labor send to Congress working men who shall represent, not their fellow citizens the American people, but labor. True, he would have farmers go to Congress, too, but they also are to represent their special, not the common interest. And, thinking thus to achieve democracy, Mr. Hearst throws his columns wide open to the denunciation of the abuses of the power of Capital the while he is silent on the abuses of the power of Labor.

This is not the spirit of the American people, and it never was. They are, above all, fair. See them settle strikes, now for the employers, another time for the men. Feel them come to the rescue of a man, like Rockefeller, if they think he has had enough. And see how patient and fair they have been to the men and the interests that have discredited them- and the government and American business. There is not enough anti-trust feeling in the country to win an election; there is no hatred of the rich, no jealousy of success worth appealing to. Any editor knows that he can increase his circulation by describing the up-building of a trust or of a fortune like the Vanderbilts', or a success like Harriman's. The American people admire these things generously, too generously, but one reason is that such "stories "give a sense of the freedom and the opportunities of the country. And even now, when it is discovered that the freedom has been abused and that the "good chances" are monopolized, there is do feeling of hate against either the monopolists or the monopolies. Ask the man on the street. He will tell you that what has aroused him is to find that the men he looked up to as models haven't been playing fair and that the successes which gave him hope for his children, have been won not by a "square deal" but by "setting up the deck." The disposition is to change all this. Reluctantly, carefully, slowly, the evils are to be tackled and righted. Nobody knows how. But no class is going to be punished very hard because we know, we the people, that it was all our fault. We are going to do some of the things Mr. Hearst proposes, but we aren't going to do them ruthlessly, nor in anger, nor in hate, nor to get back the stolen money, nor to have cheaper food and clothes. These his "economic" arguments are as base as the prosperity plea of the "stand-patters." No, it is because they are wrong that we are going to change things—wisely, surely, in a spirit of determined humility. No, Mr. Hearst does not personify the new American spirit.