Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/133

120 gets his degree. As he puzzles at the Latin diploma, he asks, "If I had come home poor, I wonder how long it would have taken the 'Alma Mater' to find out that I was ever a ’good scholar,' and now 'merited an honorary-degree'—facts which I never knew before!" In politics, money has more influence than in Turkey, Austria, Russia, England, or Spain. For in our politics the interest of property is preferred before all others. National legislation almost invariably favours capital, and not the labouring hand. The Federalists feared that riches would not be safe in America—the many would plunder the wealthy few. It was a groundless fear. In an industrial commonwealth, property is sure of popular protection. Where all own hayricks no one scatters fire-brands. Nowhere in the world is property so secure or so much respected; for it rests on a more natural basis than elsewhere. Nowhere is wealth so powerful, in Church, Society, and State. In Kentucky and elsewhere, it can take the murderer's neck out of the halter. It can make the foolish "wise;" the dull man "eloquent;" the mean man "honourable, one of our most prominent citizens;" the heretic "sound orthodox;" the ugly "fair;" the old man a "desirable young bridegroom." Nay, vice itself becomes virtue, and man-stealing is Christianity! Here, nothing but the voter's naked ballot holds money in check: there are no great families with their historic tradition, as in all Europe; no bodies of literary or scientific men to oppose their genius to mere material gold. The Church is no barrier, only its servant, for when the minister depends on the wealth of his parish for support, you know the common consequence. Lying rides on obligation's back. The minister respects the hand that feeds him: "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib." Yet now and then a minister looks starvation in the face, and continues his unpopular service of God. No political institutions check the authority of wealth; it can bribe, and buy the venal; the brave it sometimes can intimidate arid starve. Money can often carry a bill through the legislature—state or national. The majority as hardly strong enough to check this pecuniary sway.

In the "most democratic" States, gold is most powerful. Thus, in fifteen States of America, three hundred thousand