d pile into a rough heap
may yet serve the purposes of an organizer, and so help toward the
establishment of the dim and vacillating truth, and rid the scene of, at
all events, the worst and most obvious of its present accumulation of
errors.

II

In the case of the American of the multitude that accumulation of errors
is of astounding bulk and consequence. His ideas are not only grossly
misapprehended by all foreigners; they are often misapprehended by his
own countrymen of superior education, and even by himself.

This last, at first blush, may seem a mere effort at paradox, but
its literal truth becomes patent on brief inspection. Ask the
average American what is the salient passion in his emotional
armamentarium--what is the idea that lies at the bottom of all his other
ideas--and it is very probable that, nine times out of ten, he will
nominate his hot and unquenchable rage for liberty. He regards himself,
indeed, as the chief exponent of liberty in the whole world, and all its
other advocates as no more than his followers, half timorous and half
envious. To question his ardour is to insult him as grievously as if one
questioned the honour of the republic or the chastity of his wife. And
yet it must be plain to any dispassionate observer that this ardour, in
the course of a century and a half, has lost a large part of its old
burning reality and descended to the estate of a mere phosphorescent
superstition. The American of today, in fact, probably enjoys less
personal liberty than any other man of Christendom, and even his
political liberty is fast succumbing to the new dogma that certain
theories of government are virtuous and lawful and others abhorrent and
felonious. Laws limiting the radius of his free activity multiply year
by year: it is now practically impossible for him to exhibit anything
describable as genuine individuality, either in action or in thought,
without running afoul of some harsh and unintelligible penalty. It would
surprise no impartial observer if the motto, _In God we trust_, were one
day expunged from the coins of the republic by the Junkers at
Washington, and the far more appropriate word, _Verboten_, substituted.
Nor would it astound any save the most romantic if, at the same time,
the goddess of liberty were taken off the silver dollars to make room
for a bas relief of a policeman in a spiked helmet.

Moreover, this gradual (and, of late, rapidly progressive) decay of
freedom goe