n of the republic as well as a
member of the church and must _practice_ his religion. I have not time
to speak of our government in detail; it is rather my purpose at this
time to call attention to the gift of popular government as we find it
in the nation.

Let us begin, then, with a presidential election. I shall not yield to
the strong temptation to describe a presidential election; suffice
to say that our campaigns begin with the election of delegates to a
National Convention (I hope they will some day begin with the nomination
of presidential candidates at primaries held by all the parties, in all
the states, on the same day). The campaigns last long enough to make the
candidates so weary that they gladly resign themselves to any result if
they can only live to election day.

The campaigns increase in intensity week after week and expire, or
explode, in a blaze of glory the night before election, at which time
the committees of the leading parties set forth the reasons that make
each side certain of success. On election day a hush spreads over the
land and the voters wend their way to the polling places, where each
voter is permitted to register a sovereign's will. Usually by midnight
the wires flash out the name of one who is to be added to the list of
Presidents. We give him a few weeks to rest and get ready and then, on a
certain day in March and at a certain hour, he goes to the White House
door and knocks. The occupant opens the door, and with a wearied look
upon his face, and yet a smile, says, "I was expecting you just at this
moment." Then the man on the inside of the White House goes out and
becomes a private citizen again, while the man on the outside goes in,
takes the oath of office and is clothed with authority such as no other
human being, but a President, ever exercised.

He writes an order and ships go out to sea with their big-mouthed guns;
he writes another order and the ships return. At his command armies
assemble and march and fight, and men die; at his word armies dissolve
and soldiers become citizens again. This goes on for just so many years
and months and weeks and days--for just so many hours and minutes and
seconds, and then there is another knock on the White House door and
another man comes with a new commission from the people.

Is it not a great thing to live in a land like this where the people
can, at the polls, select one of their number and lift him to this
pinnacle of power? A