onalize the American railway system. His
advocacy of public ownership was the most courageous act of his
political career; but he soon showed that he was prepared neither to
insist upon such a policy nor even to carry it to a logical conclusion.
Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he became horrified
at his own audacity and sought to mitigate its effects. He admitted that
the centralization of so much power was dangerous, and he sought to make
these dangers less by proposing that the states appropriate the
railroads operating within the boundaries of one state, and the central
government, only the large inter-state systems. But this qualification
destroyed the effect of his Federalist audacity. The inter-state
railroads constitute such an enormous percentage of the total mileage of
the country that if centralized governmental control was dangerous for
all the railroads of the country, it would be almost equally dangerous
for that proportion of the railway mileage operated as part of
inter-state systems. In the one and the same speech, that is, Mr. Bryan
placed himself on record as a radical centralizer of economic and
political power and as a man who was on general principles afraid of
centralization and opposed to it. No wonder public opinion did not take
his proposal seriously, and no wonder he himself has gradually dropped
it out of his practical programme.

The confusion and inconsistency of Mr. Bryan's own thinking is merely
the reflection of the confusion and inconsistency resident in the creed
of his party. It is particularly conspicuous in his case, because he is,
as I have intimated, a sincere and within limits a candid thinker; but
Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Democrats alike have always distrusted and
condemned the means whereby alone the underlying purposes of democracy
can be fulfilled. Mr. Bryan is in no respect more genuinely Democratic
than in his incoherence. The remedial policy which he proposes for the
ills of the American political body are meaningless, unless sustained by
faith in the ability of the national political organization to promote
the national welfare. His needs for the success and integrity of his own
policy a conviction which his traditions prevent him from entertaining.
He is possessed by the time-honored Democratic dislike of organization
and of the faith in expert skill, in specialized training, and in large
personal opportunities and responsibilities which are implied b