The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-08
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

The dispatches bring an interesting &C.
count of a children's colony which was
founded two months ago at Freeville, NY,
by w. r. George. This phiIanthropist
picked up 800 children from the slums OF
New Y ork, settled them in the community
of Freeville, and after instructing them
concerning the principles of republican
form of government turned them loose.
OF course he must have had hand in the
organization which they perfected, but
according to the dispatches they organized
and now control the government of
their colony. 1t is announced that
the children, for the most part, although
tn ey could neither read nor write, and of
course knew nothing of the principles upon
which our Government is founded, have
organized and are successfully conducting
a republican government of their own. To
this end they have constituted president,
congress, local municipalities and courts,
with jails, schemes of punishment for
wrongdoing and the hundred other Incl
dentals of republican government, in
Guiding, of course, the right OF all the
members of the colony to vote.
Not long ago very amusing English
humorist of the minor order, Mr.. Jerome
K. Jerome, aired some very witty opinions
concerning the general idea of republican
government. He dragged forth, as many
an American has done, the hoary stories
concerning the failure of the great repub-
lies of history, including those of Carthage
Athens and Rome. He argued, as many
another has argued, that wherever repub-
licanism has been submitted to the test of
time it has proved failure and that
there is something within us, evil
denced particularly by our belief in
the everything power of an omniscient
and omnipotent being, which makes it in
stlnctive to look up to king and depend
upon superior force for guidance.
Unhappily for all arguments of the kind
they depend too much on history and too
little on analysis and analogy. All the
lower gregarious beings have govern
ment which is either purely communistic
or monarchical, with a ruler who has de-
termined his leadership by his superior
fighting ability. In the latter case the
leader is always a male, and when he has
become too old to retain his leadership by
force, he is cast out by the next best fighter
that presents himself.
The existing human monarchies of the
world had their beginning in identically
the principle which makes the biggest and
strongest and most ferocious bull the king
OF the buffalo herd. A very different order Of
government is observable in the cases of
bees and ants, which represent pure COM
munism. Between these two extremes
stands the republican principle of human
government.
Every species of animal is designed by
nature to have government suited to it's
kind. 1t remains for the highest order of
creatures, the human family. to determine
what kind of government it prefers.
In arriving at any conclusion we cannot
permit ourselves to say that the scheme
of the buffalo is either above or below that
of the ant. We are not analogous to either
of those tribes, but claim the special
advantage of being able to determine
whether we shall be buffaloes or ants, or
whether we shall be neither, but free
agents, possessed of higher attributes than
those enjoyed by buffaloes and ants and
able TO determine our scheme of govern
ment to suit ourselves, our needs, our
ambitions and our hopes. Europe prefers
the buffalo plan.
1t is wonderful how even children,
when thrown together in community, in
cline to the republican idea-which is dis
tinctively human and utterly different
from that of the buffalo and the ant. The
republican idea, which is the idea of indi-
vidual responsibility has been accepted
entirely in the schools and colleges of this
country, where each pupil is put on his
honor as an individual, and where per-
sonal merit is the standard of excellence
and promotion. 1t may sound boastful to
declare that the stamping out of the buffalo
idea in America by the great revolution
was splendid achievement, but when we
reflect that republicanism is an idea of gov
eminent peculiar to the human species and
is an ideal conception OF individual ac-
countability-an idea uncomfortable to buff
faloes, ants and monarchies-it seems that
we have at least something to ponder, and
perhaps to respect.
-
Chief Justice Fuller says that as q rule when
Supreme Court Justice retires from the
bench he lives but short time. 1t is one of
the traditions of the Justices that if they want
to live to green old age they must remain in