The Topeka state journal., 1922-03-04
NEW YORK TO Topeka
Two Distinct Types of American Theocracy Is All That
Makes Life Worth Living Says '"The Freeman"

not only because they were different
but because they were tolerant. Hence
they prosecuted the Quakers insane
ly; they drove them from the colony,
and when they returned. they flogged
them and threw them into Jail and
even put them to death. The scandal
of it reached England and drew from
Sir Richard SaltonstalI, himself a. de-
vout Puritan, a Mortified protest ad-
dressed to Cotton Mather:
It doth not a little grieve my spirit what
sad things are reported dayly of your
tyranny and persecution in New England.
very lowe in the hearts Of the saynts-
do assure you that L have heard them
pray in the pubique assemblies that the
spirits, not to stryve so much for uniform
ity as to keepe the unity of the Spirit in
Sir Richard went on to warn them
" not to practice in a wilderness those
very courses which you went so farre
to escape" To this Cotton Mather
replied that they coerced no one; they
merely insisted on obedience to Godi
True; religious toleration of a sort
did finally emerge and even a certain
amount of heterodoXy. BY the time
of the Revolutionary war. some of the
French heresies had become popular.
but in the main, the population rolling
westward across the continent has all
ways struggled to carry aloft the spirit
of the Massa chusetts colony; they
have struggled to be good themselves
and, in any event and at all costs. to
keep others from being bad. When
the English historian, Lord Acton Wis
tied this country in 1858, just after
the state of Maine had adopted pro-
hibition, he wrote in his diary:
1t appears that the temperance societies
do great harm in America They have met
with enthusiastic support. In Maine. the
legislature has passed a law forbidding
liquor to be sold, SO that the most
TO prevent it. The people of Maine have
earned the name of maniaes in conse-
quence This specimen of bureaucratic in
terference appears strange in such free
country.
AS for the bad men" of pioneering
days in the west surely there was
nothing of the Puritan about them.
On the contrary. beneath the blue
flannel shirts in Roaring Camp beat
hearts warm with all the orthodox
ventions-except one or two. Did
not Mr.. Roosevelt, Puritan of the
Puritans find the west as innocuous
as the east and a trifle more conven-
,tional into the bargain?
In short, the United States started
as a theocracy, and thus far has
never strayed far from type. 1t is
unthinkabl that a Disraeli. for ex-
ample, could ever be president We
may not be averse to a little fizz and
sparkle for ourselves. but we demand
rigid conformity in our political
leaders We started, then, as a theoc-
racy. and now we have become a plu-
tocratic theocracy. There are signs.
here and there, say the discerning.
that here is another entente that is
going TO smash. 1t seems that our
plutocracy is becoming a little bit
weary of our Puritanisn. The neal er
New York approaches Topeka. KAN
sas, in all that makes life worth liv--
ing, the more outspoken becomes the
q -scontent in certain influential quar-
ters- 1t seems to US quite likely that
the next decade or two may see some
revolt of the sheep against the snep-
herds