eir children from the necessity of
vigorous, independent, or consistent thinking in political
matters,--that it is the duty of their loyal children to repeat the
sacred words and then await a miraculous consummation of individual and
social prosperity. Accordingly, all the leading reformers begin by
piously reiterating certain phrases about equal rights for all and
special privileges for none, and of government of the people, by the
people, and for the people. Having in this way proved their fundamental
political orthodoxy, they proceed to interpret the phrases according to
their personal, class, local, and partisan preconceptions and interests.
They have never stopped to inquire whether the principle of equal rights
in its actual embodiment in American institutional and political
practice has not been partly responsible for some of the existing
abuses, whether it is either a safe or sufficient platform for a
reforming movement, and whether its continued proclamation as the
fundamental political principle of a democracy will help or hinder the
higher democratic consummation. Their unquestioning orthodoxy in this
respect has made them faithless both to their own personal interest as
reformers and to the cause of reform. Reform exclusively as a moral
protest and awakening is condemned to sterility. Reformers exclusively
as moral protestants and purifiers are condemned to misdirected effort,
to an illiberal puritanism, and to personal self-stultification. Reform
must necessarily mean an intellectual as well as a moral challenge; and
its higher purposes will never be accomplished unless it is accompanied
by a masterful and jubilant intellectual awakening.

All Americans, whether they are professional politicians or reformer,
"predatory" millionaires or common people, political philosophers or
schoolboys, accept the principle of "equal rights for all and special
privileges for none" as the absolutely sufficient rule of an American
democratic political system. The platforms of both parties testify on
its behalf. Corporation lawyers and their clients appear frequently to
believe in it. Tammany offers tribute to it during every local political
campaign in New York. A Democratic Senator, in the intervals between his
votes for increased duties on the products of his state, declares it to
be the summary of all political wisdom. The fact that Mr. Bryan
incorporates it in most of his speeches does not prevent Mr. Hearst from
keeping