Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-12-01
GROWTH OF THE ONE-MAN
POWER.

OnUleul, anu
are coming more and more under the |
influence of this one-man power. The |
divinity that doth hedge a king was
never so real as 1t is today, says Mr.. |
Edward Dicey in The Empire Review
Uondon). He writes apropos OF
King Edwards recent visit to Fried
richshof and expresses his opinion
that "the belief in the early disappear
ance of monarchies and the reduction
of monarchs to subordinate position
has been absolutely falsified by the
events of the last half-century." He
enlarges upon this point as follows:
"The politicians of the Bright and
Golden era were right in supposing
that before the nineteenth century had
passed away the democracy would
have come to the front; they were
wrong in assuming that the democra-
cy would necessarily become more
and more enamored of parliamentary
institutions. The contrary has prov
ed to be the case. In the Old World,
at any rate, the ideal of the democra-
cy has shown itself to be one-man
government, and in all manarchial
countries the one man, more often
than not, is the monarch In Eng
land, In Germany, in Belgium, in Hol-
land, in Spain, in Portugal, in Italy,
in Austria, in Sweden and Norway, in
ROumania, and even in the Balkan
States the reigning sovereign holds
personal influence and authority SUI
perior to that of his ministers or his
parnaments. Russia and Turkey are
both one-man governments. But no
one conversant with either of these
two countries can doubt that the Sui
tan, Abdul Hamid, is regarded by his
people as the viceregent of God on
earth; and that the Gear, Nicholas H.
however uncertain his tenure of pow
err may be, is still the more effective
err may be, is still the most effective
personally in the Slav empire"
Even in France the question of the
"one-man government" can not yet
be called settled, he declares. France
has not yet outgrown the age of re-
volutions or reservations, and Bou
langism, the Man on Horseback, is
still phantom lurking on the horizon
of French political life AS this writer
remarks:
Somehow it has become the fash
ion in England especially since the en-
tente cordiale, to assume as an article
OF faith that under the Third Republic
IdnCe HAS ClOSeu une era OF reVOlu-
lions. | doubt however, whether this
faith Is shared on the Continent of
Europe. Happily the French republi-
can party hitherto has been bound
over to keep the peace by we'll
founded conviction that, If France
were to go to war, defeat would in
volve her partition, while victory
would prove fatal to the existence of
the republic. The manifest reluctance
of the republic to allow any officer who
has attracted any notorety, as po-
tential competitor for public favor, to
remain on active service in France
speak for ITSELF. The plain truth, as
l take 1t, is that throughout Europe the
faith in political self-government.
which was so universal fifty odd years
ago, has lost its hold on the artisans
and the peasantry of every Continent
al country. Collectivism in one form
or another is the sole form of govern
ment which appeals to the multitude
Possibly some day or other the rule
of the mob may be carried by accla-
nation, but so far the only net results
of the socialist propaganda has been
to advance the preference for one-man
rule. Literary Digest