cans are so liberal in giving away their wealth. They have no illusions as to the future. The millionaire is no longer noted. If he gives away nothing, there is silent disapproval. As a matter of fact he gives by the million. He takes pleasure in getting, and equal pleasure in giving. Institutions of all kinds receive magnificent gifts that amaze Europe. The love of money is not the hallmark of America. President Hadley well says, "The pursuit of wealth at the present day is not due to avarice, except in very slight degree. It is due to motives of ambition; partly to a desire to win visible evidence of success in a great game, and partly to a wish to secure the power of controlling large industrial forces. And with the best men it is the large motive which really counts."1 Prior to the Rebellion, Europe considered America a nation of shopkeepers without valor. That idea was dispelled by that war. Not since Cæsar's time has there been an army equal to the 60,000 men with which Sherman made his march to the sea. And in the World War the valor of the American troops at Château-Thierry, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel Angle, Argonne Forest, and the cutting of the German line of communication at Sedan warned the world that America is able to defend itself. Senator Pepper of Pennsylvania, in speaking of the American soldiers at Belleau Wood, says, "Each man had behind him the entire past of his free life in America, and, back of that, the entire past of the nation. Washington was there, and Mad Anthony Wayne, and Old Put, and John Paul Jones. Lawrence and Perry were there, and Andrew Jackson, with Daniel Boone, and Davy Crockett. Farragut and Sherman were there, and Sheridan and Meade, and Grant, and Lincoln. With such comrades and leaders our boys could not be fearful and faint-hearted. Encompassed by so great a cloud of witnesses they could not but perform prodigies of valor. And the things which they did in the neighborhood of Belleau have now passed into history, to become in their turn the inspiration of tomorrow. And before we elders pass away and sink into unremembered graves it is our

high privilege to lay our wreaths on graves that can never be forgotten and to make Belleau a partaker of the immortality of our sons." 1 That war showed that American manhood was higher, greater, and infinitely superior to the dollar. And then when America demanded no money or territory but on the contrary contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in food and supplies for the helpless, this country attained a moral influence never surpassed in the history of the world. Every chancellery in Europe and Asia now seeks American approval and support. That approval has become a certificate of character. The war was won at a frightful cost in men and money, but the development of American character and the creation of its moral power was worth it all. It has taught the world that there is something besides money, trade, conquest, and military power.2 Never before has a nation found itself so suddenly the universal and trusted arbiter. Even England sends up the Macedonian cry. Lord Shaw, of the highest English court, in an address before the American Bar Association at San Francisco in August, 1922, urged that the Americans and English "be comrades all, comrades forever" and "that the ancient grudge should go and go forever, and that the ancient comradeship should be renewed and repledged, renewed and repledged forever." Lord Shaw was right.

CHAPTER XXXVI

OFFICE HOLDING

MODERN American books are full of laments, reproaches, and dire predictions because Americans of strength do not accept public office. In the early days of the republic, public office was the goal for ambitious natures. But the times have changed. Office holding is not the only way of rendering public service. Congressmen now are largely clerks to register the public will, and governors are less than senators. The presidency and the senate are still prizes, but their glory is departing as their representative character is increasing. Politics is a poor game, socially, intellectually, and financially. As to the glory it is fading; as to public duty this is not confined to holding office; as to money no man can make money honestly in politics. As Demolins, a brilliant French writer, says, "The Saxon does not care to exercise political power." 1 The American people are suspicious of their politicians and watch them closely; turn them out periodically, only to find the new the same as the old. Office holding means little in American life. Our institutions do not depend on great men holding public office. And there are compensating advantages. Great men are ambitious and restless and wish to make a record. They are fond of innovation. They would expand the powers of government. They are apt to be "sociologists." Changes come better from the slow growth of public opinion and experiment. Great men help to mold that public opinion, and much more safely than if they held public office. Except at crises mediocre men who dare not lead are better. They wait and follow the deliberate judgment of the people. Men like Roosevelt and Wilson lose their balance.

There are hundreds of thousands of men in this country, honest and able to fill public office, but they are engaged in industry and not fond of abuse. Hence we have bad government - federal, state, and local-partly incompetent, partly dishonest. And the people know it, and grope for a remedy. Some experiments have proven futile, such as the initiative, the referendum, the recall, the direct primary. Others are more successful, not in drafting into service the ablest men, but in relieving the public of the burden of deciding an infinite number of questions requiring expert knowledge. They are as follows:

(1) Commissions to regulate public service corporations, such as railroads, street railways, telephone, electric light, telegraph, express and waterworks companies. The rapid growth of these companies presented complicated and multitudinous questions. Abuses ran rampant and were unchecked. The slow and cumbersome machinery of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government broke down. The public had no one to whom to complain with any hope of speedy and inexpensive justice. Hence the commissions, national and state. They work fairly well, at least in relieving democracy from a task which it is incompetent to perform through government.

(2) A commission form of city government, or better still a city manager elected and removable by a city council, a plan now existing in about three hundred and twenty-five American cities. This has its basis in the fact, gradually recognized, that a city government is a business proposition to furnish sanitation, clean streets, schools, police, and a multitude of local conveniences and arrangements. There is nothing essentially political about it. And yet city government has been made the football of politics and politicians. It has been systematically robbed and plundered, incompetently mismanaged, and made a mecca of office seekers. It is the greatest reproach which Europe puts upon us. It cannot be defended and the only answer is that the heart of the people is sound and that a remedy will be found.

At present the manager form of government, by which a competent and honest man is hired to administer city affairs, is the only remedy in sight. It has worked well in some places and in others not. It depends on the inclination of the city and the character of the man employed.

(3) Concentration of power in the state governments. President Lowell of Harvard says, "We are governing a vast and intricate community by methods suited to a small and simple one. The people must realize that they cannot administer so directly as in the past. They must find out the limits of what they can do, and learn to commit other matters to persons or bodies competent to take charge of them, trustworthy, and so far as possible free from political motives. They must learn now to do this without losing control over the general policy to be pursued or abandoning an effective supervision of the administration." 1 Professor Sumner of Yale expressed the same idea when he wrote, "It is no wonder that we have not the political activity of the first half of this century. .. We are more inclined to do here what we should do in any other affair seek for competently trained hands into which to commit the charge. . . . What he [the ordinary voter] wants is good government, honorable and efficient administration, business-like permanence, and exactitude. He recognizes in the short terms and continual elections, not an opportunity for him to control the government, but an opportunity for professional hangers-on of parties to make a living, and a continually recurring opportunity for schemers of various grades to enter and carry out their plans when people are too busy to watch them. The opinion seems to be gaining ground that, for fear of power, we have eliminated both efficiency and responsibility; that if power is united with responsibility, it will be timid and reluctant enough; and that the voter needs only reserve the right of supervision and interference from time to time." 2 New York State voted down a few years ago a proposed constitution which reduced the number of elective officers,