The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1881-02-10
Political Organ zatIon

While internal peace and its bless
ings were achieved in medieval
France rs fast as fendal mobiles be-
came subordinate to the king-while
the central power, rs it grew
stronger, put an end to that print
| tive practice of blOOd-reven9e which
wreaked itself on any relative of an
offender, and made the "truce of
God" needful mitigation of the
universal savagery; yet from this
extension of political organization
there presently grew up evils as
| great or Observation-Disclosures of
taxes, forced loans, grOundless con-
fiscations, arbitrary fines, progress
sive debasements of coinage. and a
universal corruption of justice con-
seQuent on the sale of offices; the
results being that many people died
by famine. some committed suicide,
while others, deserving their homes,
led a wandering life. And then,
afterward, when the supreme ruler,
| becoming absolute, controlled social
life in all its details, through an adj
ministrative system vast in extent
and ramificatiOns, with the general
II
ries the indirect taxation alone
Crossed the enormous interval be-
tween eleven millions and three
hundred and eleven millions" there
came the national impoyerishment
| and misery which resulted in the
| great revolution. Even the present
! time supplies kindred evidence in
sundry places. a voyage up the
Nile shows every observer that the
people are better off where they are
remote from the center of govern
ment-where administrative agen-
| cies can not so easily reach them.
Nor is it only under the barbaric
Turk that this happens. Notwith-
standing the boosted beneficence
OF our rule in India. the
ira burden and the complication
of restraints it involves, have
the effect that the people find some
of the adjacent countries preferable.
Not only those who are controlled
suffer from political organization,
evils which greatly deduct from. and
sometimes exceed the benefits,
numerous and rigid governmental
restraints indirectly shackle those
who impose them as well as those
on whom they are imposed. The
successive grades of ruling agents,
severally cOercing grades below, are
themselves cOerced by grades above;
and even the very highest ruling is
enslaved by the system created for
the preservation of his supremacy.
In ancient Egypt the daily life of the
king was minutely regulated alike
as to its hours, its occupations,
its ceremonies so that, nomi-
nally all-pOwerful. he was really
less free than n subject. 1t has
been, and is, the same with
other despOtic monarchs. Till lately
in Japan, where the form of Organi-
cation had become fixed, and where,
from the highest to the lowest. the
actions of life were prescribed in
detail, the exercise OS authority was
so burdensOme that voluntary resig-
nation of it was frequent. Adams
writes: The custom of abdicatiOn
is common among all classes, from
the emperor down to his meanest
subject" European states have ex-
emplitied this reacting tyranny. I'm
INV II Auhtiht liNidN's SAL = NlbDou,
''the emperor was the first slave of
the ceremonies he imposed" Con
corning the tedious court life Of
Louis lie Grand Nine. de Maintenon
remarks: "Savc those only who
ill the highest stations. ! know of
none more unfortunate than those
who envy them. Ii YOU could only
form an idea of what it isr' So thai
while the satisfaction of mems per-
sonal wants is furthered both by
the maintenance of order and by
the formation of aggregates large
enough to permit extensive division
of labor, it is hindered both by de-
duction, often very great, from the
products of their actions, and by the
restraints imposed on their actions,
usually in excess of heneeds. And
political control indirectly entails
evils on those who exercise it as
we'll as on those over whom it is ex-
ercised.