er
the republic fell under the rule of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob.
In either case, when once loyalty to a class had been substituted for
loyalty to the republic, the end of the republic was at hand. There is
no greater need to-day than the need to keep ever in mind the fact
that the cleavage between right and wrong, between good citizenship
and bad citizenship, runs at right angles to, and not parallel with,
the lines of cleavage between class and class, between occupation and
occupation. Ruin looks us in the face if we judge a man by his
position instead of judging him by his conduct in that position.

In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity of
conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of conviction. Wide
differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social
belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be
stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Bitter internecine
hatreds, based on such differences, are signs, not of earnestness of
belief, but of that fanaticism which, whether religious or
anti-religious, democratic or anti-democratic, is itself but a
manifestation of the gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in
the downfall of so many, many nations.

Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a
republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to
support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the
republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or
another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It
makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class
interest, to religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes
such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of
furthering his own interest. The very last thing that an intelligent
and self-respecting member of a democratic community should do is to
reward any public man because that public man says he will get the
private citizen something to which this private citizen is not
entitled, or will gratify some emotion or animosity which this
private citizen ought not to possess. Let me illustrate this by one
anecdote from my own experience. A number of years ago I was engaged
in cattle-ranching on the great plains of the western United States.
There were no fences. The cattle wandered free, the ownership of each
being determined by the brand; the calves we