e, is whether great private
corporations shall control legislatures and city councils, and charge
their own unquestioned prices for such public necessities of life as
light and transit. There is an issue between tyranny and liberty which
is to the point. The future is in the hands of evolution.

Another opprobrious epithet is "paternalism." This is the most
familiar of the titles of reproach. It suggests an idea of government
made pestiferous by old abuse. The most atrocious despotisms both of
king and church have planted themselves _in loco parentis_. The
welfare of the people has been the hoary excuse for the cruelest
outrages of history. Mr. Flower goes a step further and avers that,
with the good of the people for a pretext, tyranny has always been in
exact proportion to power and authority.

Without stopping to query as to this last rather sweeping statement,
it will be enough to check ourselves while the editor leaps to his
induction; namely, that because the monarchical and ecclesiastical
governments have tyrannized in proportion to their power, nothing less
is to be expected if our Republic becomes affected with a greater
sense of governmental responsibility for the welfare of her citizens.
If our nation, it is claimed, allows this specious excuse to commit it
to the doctrine of State interference, we are drifted into the
despotic paternalisms of the old world.

But a paternalism must have a parent, a royal sire, or a priestly
grandmother. In the antique paternalisms there is invariably this
parental personality at the top; down beneath it are the puppet
children. "My soldiers are my children," says Napoleon; and he orders
a charge for their benefit; an hour afterwards the dying address him
as Sire as he walks over the field. "The German people are my
children," says Emperor William; and he issues the edict for the
compulsory life-insurance of workingmen; an undoubted blessing. Both
are instances of paternalism; and the principle in one case is as
obnoxious as in the other. The principle of paternalism is an
irresponsible authority above the people, mastering the people, with
their welfare as a pretext.

But this essential of paternalism must be lacking in the republic.
Whatever powers democracy may assume, it recognizes no authority
outside itself. Democratic government, however socialistic it may
become, is nothing but democracy expressing its own will. If the
individual is led to surrender certain of his