The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-07-12

f1anked by religion and the school house,
Will be thwarted; and yet it is possible
to conceive that United States democra
cy, when the country becomes old, over
| populated and exhausted, may, like the
mastodon and Dodo, find itself on tacl
| for which there is no goal but eXtinc'
| ton. Rome thought herself invincible at
ter a thousand years. United States
must not be too sure after a hundred.
For Industrial democracy, as conser-
vator of civil liberty, equity, freedom
and right, but there is one straight and
narrow path to immortality, while inti-
mite paths lead to failure; it would be
| remarkable if this first experiment
should find the one out of innumerable
paths, and should not ultimately, as
most nations have done, go down and
become a historic warning to later eX-
periments. Certain it is, the ship of
state is headed toward breakers and the
spoilsnen are crowding on all steam to-
ward their goal.
| The spokesman assumes that govern
| ment exists chiefly to cater to the
wealth. power and position of the offlce-
holder, and from his standpoint is logl-
cal in filling all positions possible with
blood relations.
Let us follow John Mallory, spoils-
man, into office.
If he becomes justice of the peace IN a.
small town, he Immediately forms mill
with a grand juror and constable for the
purpose, not of grinding out justice, but
for grinding in fees. Johns great basic
assumption is that the judicial ermine,
with him inside, exists chiefly for busl-
ness purposes, second to Whlch Jusllce
may tag as best she may
John becomes a school commissioner.
There is a 1900 vacancy In the teaching
force of the primary department.. In the
room in question one hundred children
are taught. These one hundred children
represent one hundred families In the
district and are destined to become male
and female heads Of a hundred other
families and their branches. Now John,
you have $1,000 to spend on these chill
dren, and the situation demands that
YOU get the best teacher to be had for
the money. But John says no! The
teacher must be New Haven girl, no
matter if three times better one APP
plies from Hartford or New York.
There is my cousin with a foreign name
Mike Magnns-who has daughter
who wants the $1,000 and incidentally
the chance to teach; besides Mike is a
power in the ward andw orked hard for
me. Well, John narrows down the
rights of the hundred families in his
district and the chances in life of hun
bred human beings to what $1,000 can
do for them in New Haven, and then to
what it can do for them among his polit-
ical henchmen, and finally to his politi-
cal henchmen of the same blood and
family tree. The teacher in question
may be lazy, incompetent and stupid,
and woe to the poor child who happens
to hit it the same way from primary de-
partment to graduation, he or she goes
into life relatively crippled intellectually
by poor teaching, or by poorer teaching
than might have been.
John becomes mayor, and then the
buying and selling, trading, promising
and betraying, briefering and sugaring;
the wheels within wheels, become cor
respondingly complex and best known
to those most intimately concerned.
Perhaps John can become governor
and finally president, if he can lncar-
nate in himself enough Of the spells sys-
tenn to satisfy the politicians and I'M
load, when he gets there, ten thousand
or more offices into the spoilsman's
camp.
(To be contnued)
GEO NJ. WALLACE.