The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1900-10-06

Jealous of the slightest infringeme.t
| on his rights. He did not treat be-
trayals of trust on the part of his
servants as jokes-his sense Of
humor was rudimentary. When his
RESENTMENT was aroused it was re-
lentless.
And yet this Romans descendants
became the abject slaves Of the most
degrading despotism that ever
ground down a civilized people.
"There was a Brutus once that
would have brook'd the eternal
devil to keep his state in Rome. AS
easily as king"
Within two years from the time
when a descendant of that Bru,us
struck the last blow foI republican
liberty Anthony was laying a third
of the Roman world AT the feet of a
harlot queen, and before some of
the children then living were dead
CaliRula was making his horse a
consul.
There was never a more turbulent.
independent democracy than that
of Athens. The people there were
not dependent upon trust-owned
senates. They got together in their
own popular assemblies and made
their own laws. They did not hest
tate to try and execute victorious
generals for slight breaches of Gus
tomary requirements. But the time
came when Athenian philosophers
were the humble iatterers of
Macedonian and Roman rulers, and
when Athens degraded even her
primacy in taste to the point of
giving her highest honors in, music
and poetry to the imperial mounte-
bank Nero.
Who would have thought, to look
at the raving Democracy of the
French Terror, when it was as much
as mans life was worth to call
lady "madame" instead of ssciti-
zeness," that in five years France
would be walking with bowed head
under the rule of military despot7
Nor are we without hints nearer
home of the possibility of radical
changes in the government of peo-
pie. Americans were not always
Republicans. Two years before the
adoption of the Declaration of In
dependence they were protesting
their enthusiastic loyalty to the
crown of Great Britain After the
revolution thousands of the fore
most inhabitants of the colonies,
unable to reconcile themselves to a
Republican government, emigrated
to Canada, where their descendants
are now the most extreme supporters
of monarchiaI rule.
American women, after long
and honorable apprenticeship at the |
washtub, have availed themselves of !
the first smiles of fortune to hold |
and kiss the hand of ROYALTY For
eing noblemen find their titles readily |
into American cash.
Americans like William Waldorf |
Aston and Bradley Martin have ex-
changed their Republican birth
right for the right to call themselves
subjects of the English queen.
Trusts that are working for the re-
election OF William Mckinley would
lust as cheerfully work for the coro-
nation of an emperor if they thought
hat step would promote their inter-
ests.
If visitor from Mars had been
to see Rome at the begin
ling of the first Punic war and then
lad been able to see America to-
lay, which country would he have
more likely to hold on
o its republican institutions?
The republics of the past have
allen from various causes, but one
ule we believe to have been i'm
aria BILE:
No republic has ever governedl
ubject provinces and preserved its
'wn freedom.
Empire abroad has ended in en-
IRE or collapse at home. Il
But do we believe that William
H. roo1o~<ol ,,,;n ~ e. |