Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-13

example. In lS48 a pure democracy was
established there. During a short time
there was reason to expect q general
%spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new
partition of the soil, a maximum of
prices, a ruinous load of taxation
laid on the rich for the purpose
of supporting the poor in idIeness.
Such a system would, in twenty
years, have made France as poor and
barbarous as the France of the CaFlovIn-
gians. Happily, the danger was ayerted;
and now there is q despotism, a silent
tribune, an ensiaved press. Liberty is
gone, but civilization has been saved.
l nave not the smallest doubt that if W.
had a purely democratic government
here the effect would be the same.
Either the poor would plumber the rich,
and civilization would perish; eor order
and prosperity would be saved by a
strong military government, and liberty
would perish. You may think that your
country ENJOYS In exemption from these
evils. 1 will frankly own to you that 1
am of a very different opinion. Your
fate | believe to be certain, though it is
deferred by "a physical cause. AS long
as you have bound1ess extent of fertile
n unoccupied land your laboring pop
ulation will be far more at ease than the
laboring population of the Old World,
and, While hat is the. case, the Jefferson
politics may continue to exist with
out causing any fatal calamity. But
the time will come when New Eng
LAND will be as thickly peopled as old
England. Wages Will be as low and
Will 1uctuate as much with you as with
lis. You will have your M~anchesters and
Birminghams, II in those MaucheSters
and B~irminghams hundreds of thousands
of artisans will assuredly be sometimes,
out of work. Then your institutions will
be fairly brought to the test. Distress
everywhere makes the laborer mutiEous
and DISCONTINUED, and inclines him to
listen with eagernesS to agitatOrs who
tell him that it is q monstrous i~niquity
that one man should have a million,
while another cannot get q full meal. In
bad years there is plenty of gTumbling
here, and sometimes a little riotlng. But
ii matters little. For here the sufferers
are not the rulers. The supreme power
is in the and of a class, numerous in
deed, but select; of an educated class,
of a class which is, and knows itself to
be, deeply interested in the security of
property and the maintenance of
order. Accordingly the malcon-
tents are firmly yet gently re-
strained. The bad time is got over with
out robbing the wealthy to relieve the
INDECENT. The springs of national pros
perity soon begins to flow again; work is
plentiful wages rise aud all is tranquility
and c~heerfulness. l ave seen England
pass three or four times through such
critical seasons as l have described.
Through such seasons the United States
will nave to pass in the course OF the
next century, if not of this. How will
you pass through them? [ heartily wish
you q good deliverance. But my reason
n my wishes are at war, and l cannot
help forboding the worst. II is quite
plain that your government will never be
able to restrain a distressed and discOn-
tented majority. For with you the ma
jority is the government, and has the
rich, who are always a minority, abs0-
1utely at its mercy. The day will come
when in the state OF New York a multi
tude of people, none of whom has had
more than half a breakfast, or expects
to have more than half a dinner,
will choose a legislature. Is it possible
to doubt what sort of a legislature will
be chosen? On one side is q statesman
preaching patience, respect for vested
rights, strict observance of public faith.
On the other side is a demagOgue rant
ing about the tyranny of capitalists and
usurers, aud asking why anybody should
be permitted to drink champagne and to
ride in a carriage, while thousands of
honest folks are in want of necessaries.
Which of the two candidates is likely to
be preferred by a working man, who
hears his children crying for more bread?
l seriously apprehend that you will in
some such season of adversely as l have
described, do things which will prevent
prosperity from returning; that you will
act like people who should, in a year OF
scarcity, devour all the seed corn, and
thus make the next year a year not of
scarcity, but of absolute famine.
There will be, 1 fear, spoliation,
The spoliation will increase the
distress. The distress will produce fresh
spoliation. There is nothing to stop you.
Your constitution is all SAIL and no an
Choir. AS I said before, when a society
has entered on this downward progress,
either civilization or liberty must perish.
Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize
the reins of government with a strong
hand, or your republic will be as fear
fully plundered and laid waste by barba-
rians in the Twentieth century as the
Roman empire was in the Fifth; with
this difference, that the Huns and Van
dals who ravaged the Roman empire
came from without and that your Huns
and Vandals will nave been e~ngendered
within your own country by your own
ms titutions.'
Now, 1 nave never shared Mr.. Macau-
lays gloomy forebodings; and have not
read this extract on the supposition that
any of you would share them. But a
century is only a span in the life of gov
ernments, and because we have pros
pered and at the end of a hundred years
find our government still sound and still
true, in theory at least, to the purposes
of its creation, is no reason why re
should not heed the voice of warning
from whatever source it nay come.
However false Mr.. Macaulay's premises
may be; however unsound mis- conclu-
sions; discarding whatever weight might
attach to his name as the foremost his
torian of the current century, yet these
utterances must at this day challenge
the serious thought OF every patriotic
citizen.
Upon what is this government founded?
Upon the hereditary rights of an ancient
dynasty? No. Upon hoarY and time
houorad ;nsfitut1ops2 No TTDOn yastad |