oo busy making money to attend to the public weal; among
scholars buried alive in their books, with no interest in any question
that is not musty; among men of leisure, aping old world aristocracy,
and out of touch with democracy; among those who _say_ that all men
are equal and are afraid they _will_ be,--never among the people.

The plainer men are the greater is their political interest. Our
naturalized citizens, shut out in their native land from all
participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here,
are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during
the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is
it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where
they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are
torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a
normal school, the people's college.

It is often said that, judged by its power to govern great cities,
universal suffrage is a failure. This is true. The failure, however,
is due to local causes. It does not come from the inherent incapacity
of the masses, but is the spawn of accidental and removable evils.
Chief among these is the corner grog-shop. This is the blazing
lighthouse of hell. Here it is that morals and manners are debauched.
It is over this counter that what an old poet calls "liquid damnation"
is dealt out. If the _quid-nuncs_, instead of railing at universal
suffrage, would combine to help shut that door, republicanism would
speedily lose its reproach. The constituency of the grog seller is the
ready made tool of the demagogue. A true democracy can only exist on
the basis of sobriety. A drunken people cannot be trusted with the
dearest rights and most vital possessions of freemen. Better the
merciless tyranny of the Czar, or the military despotism of the
Kaiser, far better the class rule of England, than the staggering,
hiccoughing, bedevilled government of the groggery!

Aside from the great centres of population, the common people are more
trustworthy than the corporations, the colleges, or the newspapers.
The selfishness, the preoccupation, the anti-republicanism of these,
are proverbial. We know that editors are echoes, not leaders, printing
what will sell, not what is true. Landor declared that there is a
spice of the scoundrel in most literary men. Everybody understands
that a corporation's gospel is a good fat dividend. Who would exchang