The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-05-02
WHOLE NO.. 2S3.

tlonal prOvincialism. How hardly can
the great city cOexist with republican
institutions! How well nigh impossi-
BILE is it to maintain in great city a
government that has even the semblance
Of honesty and virtue, to say nothing of
fostering therein sentiment of patriot
ic devotion to the nation at large!
Where in America, or anywhere in
the world, is there great city that
cares for aught but itself? Where is
there one that finds an interest in any
thing but itself or in some other CITY
like itself? The city as it becomes great
departs more and mere from that civil
simplicity which constitutes the essence
Of genuine democracy. There is no
great city in the world that is truly
democratic or genuinely republican.
Every great city is imperial. Nearly
every one is under the dominion of an
emperor, in comparison with whose alb
solutism the rule of the czar, the mi
kado or the shah is model of frantic
liberalism. The great city separates
itself more and more from the country
in which it is located. 1t develops a life
of its own. 1t isolates itself and comes
to look upon all the rest of the world as
the outlying provinces from which it is
to draw its corn and wine,
The American republic has fostered
on its breast a form of municipal life
| that has grown and fattened on the com
mon life Of the country to an alarming
degree. If the process goes on for the
next half century as in the last, the over
whelming preponderance of population
will be found within the corporate lin
its of the cities, and outside of that will
be found only a weak and unambitious
if not servile peasantry, as unlike the
robust democratic farmers and mechan-
les who made us and made this nation
as though they were of another race.
The city is wholly unfavorablo to the
preservation Of "A common civil life in
our country. The German empire of the
middle ages consisted Of subordinate
kingdoms, electorates and free imperial
cities. OF these, Hamburg was the type.
The tendency in America seems to indi-
cate a return to the medieval condition.
1t has been openly suggested i'll the
metropolitan press that in another cen
tury New York will be an independent
imperial municipality, having its own
laws, and I suppose making its own
| treaties
The city does not want community
and diffusion, but desires accumulation
and localized dominion. The city tends
to separation from the common body,
and to independence socially, CONNER
cially and politically. The city instinc-
lively strives to become an entity. 1t
augments it's own life more and more by
the absorption of the life of all things
else soever. The city tends to become at
the last an overgrown social and politi-
cal tumor. 1t becomes proud and more
provincial than any province. 1t organ
ICES its own intellectual life and de-
velops its idiosyncrasies into such We
henent manifestations that the sympa-
thies between it and the country states
are cut off and obliterated. The city OBJ
structs and annoys the Union and threat
ems its perpetuity.
A second fact dangerous to the repub-
lie is the Bond The city and the bond
are in league and amity. The country as
such does not know the bond, but feels
It'll The bond came with our calamity,
and is so well pleased with its reception
as not to return The bond and the
crown go we'll together, but not the
bond and the election. The bond cher
ishes a chronic dislike of all democracy.
If the bond accepts republicanism, it is
only that kind that wears plume and
backs up against an arsenal.
The bonded debt of the United States
was intended to subserve a temporary
! in, md To
away by payment. Nobody wishes to re-
pudiate debt made necessary by the
peril of the nation. What the people
want is payment and what the bond
wants is eternal life! The bond knows
that it has no permanent place among
free institutions. The bond accordingly
interests itself in the latest tactics. 1t
promotes armored ships and 16 inch
rifed cannon. 1t circulates euiogiums of
the English system of finance and Of the
supreme court. AS to the people, the
bond utters the same wish which ono
Of our distinguished financiers in New
York uttered about the public. The bond
says that it is a part Of the national
honor, and that an honorable thing
ought to live forever.
| Inc creation OF permanent 1nId-
holding interest in republic is incon-
sistent with it. The bond is part of
the monarchical apparatus, but to ma
tion of freemen it is thing of i'll omen
Once admitted into the republic, the
bond discovers that the republic is not
strong enough for its purposes. The cou-
pons of perpetual debt become annoy
ing, even to Christians and patriots.
However silently the coupons are clip
ped, and however patriotically they are
paid, the time comes when the payer
wearies little of the semiannual trib-
ute. A true people such as the Ameri-
cans will never shrink from the full dis
charge Of debt that was contracted for
the preservation Of the Union. 1t is only
when the holders of that debt propose to
make it eternal and contrive that it shall
be paid in standard unit worth two
for one, only when the bond is judicious-
~ increased from time to time, only
when the American republic by such
means begins to be manifestly European
lied, only when condition is cautiously
prepared which must be maintained by
standing army and cities full of ar