I. III. \ IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. Contents WHEN OUR CENTRAL GOVERNMENT WAS WEAK HOW THE PUBLIC LANDS OF THE STATES MADE PURPOSIVE GOVERNMENT POSSIBLE and InevitABLE How OUR PURPOSIVE GOVERNMENTS HAVE BUILT AND AIDED INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS How OUR PURPOSIVE GOVERNMENTS HAVE DE- THE PATENT OFFICE AND THE PUBLIC PRINTING OFFICE AS NOVEL PURPOSIve Agencies HOW THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND THE 210 218 THE GROWTH OF PURPOSIVE GOVERNMENT IN HOW WRONG GovernmentAL BUSINESS METHODS DEBAUCHED A Nation's Habit oF THOUGHT 227 THE ADVANTAGES OF CONSTITUTIONAL CHECKS AND COUNTERCHECKS IN GOVERNMENT BY THE CHANGES IN THE FUNCTIONS OF THE EXECUTIVE WROUGHT BY THE GROWTH OF PURPOSIVE CHANGES IN The Functions of the Legislature WROUGHT BY THE GROWTH OF PURPOSIVE CHANGES IN THE FUNCTIONS OF THE JUDICIARY I OUR ANSWER TO THE WORLD IN ITS T DILEMMA O-DAY a large part of the world stands at the parting of the ways, asking where it may find safety and happiness for its sorely tried people; how it may promote their general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to them and to their posterity. After five years of murder and rapine spent upon the road of Prussian Autocracy, this part of the world finds itself compelled to choose between the highway on the right hand marked " Democracy" and a dark and threatening wood path on the left called "Marxian Socialism." Strong influences advocate turning to the left and some have actually started on that journey; but the rest, still hesitating, look to us in despair and ask for proof that they should turn to the right and keep right ahead. They know that one hundred and fifty years ago we blazed out a wilderness trail which has become the Liberty Highway of the world; but because they cannot afford to make any mistakes, they demand absolute proof that at this time the democratic highway is the only one that can lead them safely to their goal and that it will be a fatal mistake to turn to Marxian Socialism. In its terrible exigency the world has no time to decide a quarrel or even an argument between Marxism and Democracy. The actual facts concerning the path and the highway and the conditions through which and to which they respectively lead must be stated plainly, completely and without delay, and in such a fashion that "wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." Yet when the world begs us to prove the case for democracy to that it will convince any honest and openminded man, we are dumb. We have never adequately answered these questions to ourselves and hence we cannot answer them to others. We offer the world volumes upon our constitutional history, but it tells us that the answer is not there. As a constitution is a means to an end, and not the end itself, our constitution may not work in Europe as it has in America. We offer other volumes as to how we have conducted our government, and again the world turns away, for it knows that the operating of a government is only a means, and varies with each country and from year to year in each country. Once more, the world begs us to tell it the end for which our people have striven during one hundred and fifty years; the purposes which held us firm; the star which beckoned us on; the thing which differentiates our history from all others; and, as well, the pitfalls and other obstacles which other peoples must meet if they travel our democratic road, and which we should have charted as we blazed the way through the wilderness into which every people emerges after a revolution. The world beseeches us to discover and lay bare the life force of Democracy, its radio-active power, which has always been working toward the development and new ideals and growth of American Democracy. This force was in its infancy in 1776. To-day it is in the strength of its young manhood. The full development of its matured powers still lies ahead. Possibly the world knows more than we do about our fourteen years of wandering in the wilderness (17751789), and about our early discouragements and setbacks, and how, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Washington, Madison and many of our greatest men almost despaired at the crude theories and fantasies and the turmoil and internal strife into which the country was plunged, and how they doubted whether the whole experiment was not to end in failure. History remembers, though we may have forgotten, that after the close of the Revolutionary War we had at least six years of strife and chaos, and of moral, financial and political bankruptcy, and that from that time on our history and our constant upward progress have been marred with national and local crises-crises that have grown out of repudiation of public and private debts, oppression of the Indians, human slavery, civil war, the crime of the Reconstruction Period in the South and the anarchy of the Ku Klux Klan, wild frontier and miningcamp days, the Spoils System, political and municipal corruption, wildcat banking, polygamy, legalized disenfranchisement of millions of colored voters, Wall Street gambling, panics and frenzied finance, thefts of billions of dollars of public properties and monies, oppressive trusts and monopolies, political assassinations, Marxism, and attempted anarchy and industrial and social revolutions. And now the world, in its welter of political and social chaos, cries out to know what has been the real secret of our wonderful ability to overcome similar obstacles and to effect the safety and happiness of our people. It is our duty to state the facts without delay, plainly, completely, and in such a form that they prove themselves. This secret is not found chiefly in our constitutional or operative history, but rather in our wonderful concep |