new epoch. Coming events cast their shadows before. Every government has to give prominent place to social legislation. Public spirit begins to animate the accumulators of riches, public wealth is being restored to the public in the form of free libraries, museums of art and history, and the claims of the whole community to a share of intellectual life are granted in free education. Can we logically stop here? "Man shall not live by bread alone." No, but he must begin with bread. The fire must have fuel; the engine will not go with out steam or electricity. The welfare, the strength of a state, of a community, rests upon the welfare, the strength, the happiness, of every individual of that state or community. Bound in the solidarity of brotherhood and community of interest, in the ideal state the land and the means of production could be the monopoly of none, because the property of all. There could be no fine-drawn distinction of class, no abasement of useful labor, no shirking and shifting of all the hard work upon the shoulders of one order, but each would be ready to do his or her part in the service of humanity; knowing no higher dignity than distinction in such service, whether of brain or hand; untouched by the sordid taint of gold, the greed and the desire for it removed, since it would buy nothing that could not be enjoyed without it in the highest sense by every citizen.

With such corner-stones as these what a social structure might be raised! Upon such a basis, the sense of art and beauty, the wit and invention of man, freed from long hours of exhausting toil and the wear and tear and worry of modern existence, would in happy emulation strive to enrich and ennoble life in every way.

While the necessity of useful work would keep habits simple, and yet make true refinement possible, the greatest art and splendor could be devoted to public buildings and monuments, in which, again, all the arts should be re

united and reinspired, and, penetrated with the spirit of that new religion, that larger faith, the dawn of which we al ready faintly perceive, realize themselves in new and beautiful forms for the joy of emancipated humanity.

Does this seem an idle dream? Nay, it is our plain destiny; we have but to put forth our thoughts and our hands to reach it; we have but to ask what is the progressive factor in humanity. Is it not always the social instinct? Is it not the social instinct which determines

all our relations? Morality, law, religion, all are gradually modified by it in the course of its development through the ages. Did primitive man differ more from his early progenitors in the dim obscurity of the past than modern man differs from him in habit of life, in moral and religious conceptions, in power over nature? Can the world stand still? Having put our hand to the plough, can we look back, except indeed it be to learn the lessons that history teaches?

Times of activity in art, as William Morris has well said, have been times of hope. There is the alternation of night and day in the history of human progress. Each new dayspring lifts the voices of new singers; the reddening lips of the dawn fire the eyes of painters. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings! In the freshness of the morning, in the wonder and delight and anticipation of the new intellectual day, Art is born again; she rises like a new Aphrodite from the dark sea of time, trembling in the rose and gray of the morning, her blue wistful eyes full of visions, her slender hands full of flowers, and straightway there appears a new heaven and a new earth in the sight of men filled with the desire and joy of life, as the husk of the past, the faded chrysalis, shrivels away, and the new-born spirit of the age rises upon the splendor of its painted wings.

Walter Crane.

OUR present political situation is an omalous. Issues do not now make parties, but parties seek for issues. The two great political organizations in this country are survivals of the past, and for some years have not represented the division of our people on the questions of the day. Instead of treating a party as an association of men who think alike on public questions, and who act together in order to secure certain definite results in legislation or administration, men have come to regard the party as the end, and not the means. The primary object of political action is the triumph of the party, and to insure this every voter must be ready to sacrifice his convictions as well as his time and his money. Hence we find in each party men who entertain diametrically opposite views on the tariff, the currency, the reform of the civil service, and every other question of present political importance, but who are alike loyal to the party, whichever side of these questions its leaders see fit to espouse in a particular campaign.

The reason for this condition of public feeling is not far to seek. The natural and permanent political division which must always exist between the progressive and the conservative elements of society was disturbed in this country by the slavery question, which for nearly a quarter of a century dominated our politics. The Republican party, drawn almost equally from Whigs and Democrats, was formed for a single definite purpose, the restriction of slavery. Its success in 1860 was followed by the civil war, in which it represented the patriotism and high purpose of the country. It prosecuted the war, it restored the Union, it abolished slavery; and when reconstruction was complete, and the results of the war had been secured by the

adoption of the constitutional amendments, the reason for its existence ceased. The common purpose of its members was accomplished.

For a while it was needed to maintain its work, but soon the questions which had been displaced by the war again presented themselves, and upon these, inevitably, men differed as before. These differences would naturally have led to the disintegration of the Republican party, and to a reformation of parties on their original lines, but the memory of the civil war was still too fresh. The hopes and fears of that terrible struggle, the passions excited by the contest, the high moral purpose which had inspired it, the veneration which was felt for Lincoln, Sumner, Seward, Andrew, and their associates, combined to make men connect with the name of the Republican party the strongest and highest feelings which they had ever known. They were reluctant to admit that this splendid organization of all that was best in the state had done its work. A party so powerful for good in the past must be powerful for good in the future, and must on no account be suffered to die. So men reasoned, and sought new fields for Republican intelligence and energy. They unconsciously transferred their allegiance from the end to the means, from their object to the instrument by which that object had been accomplished. This feeling kept the party together.

The close of the war found the Democratic party as thoroughly prostrated as the Republican party was powerful. It stood as the supporter of slavery and the opponent of the national cause during the war. Its strength in the North was found among the classes who had resisted the draft in New York and Boston; in the South, among those who

lately had been in rebellion. It was bankrupt in character and without a

cause.

Our political situation between 1868 and 1888 was not unlike the situation in England between 1750 and 1760, when the Whig party "possessed a complete monopoly of political power," of which Lecky says: "At hardly any other period of English history did parliamentary government wear a less attractive aspect, and it is not difficult to discover the causes of the disease. Party government, in the true sense of the word, had for many years been extinct: Toryism had sunk into Jacobitism; Jacobitism had faded into insignificance; and the great divisions of politicians had almost wholly ceased to represent a division of principles or even of tendencies. Two or three times in English history something analogous to this has occurred, and it always brings with it grave political dangers. Such a state of affairs is peculiarly unfavorable to real earnestness in public life. Faction replaces party, personal pretensions acquire an inordinate weight, and there is much reason to fear lest the tone of political honor should be lowered and lest the public spirit of the nation should decline." 1

Such political conditions in our own case proved especially favorable to widespread corruption and to the schemes of political adventurers. While the old leaders of the Republican party were gradually retiring, and its earnest members were feeling the inevitable reaction after the long strain of the struggle against slavery, there was nothing to prevent unscrupulous politicians from obtaining control of the machinery, and using the prestige and the organization of the Republican party to advance their personal fortunes. Any tendency among the voters to resist such leaders was met

1 Lecky's England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 505. The curious in historical parallels will be interested by this author's ac

by impassioned declamation about the glorious past of the grand old party, by pointing out the vicious character of its rival, and by gloomy pictures of the disaster which would certainly follow Democratic success. Had there been a strong opposition which the public trusted, the decay of the Republican party might have been arrested at the outset by its prompt defeat. Such an opposition, however, was wanting, and the progress downward was unchecked.

A very short review of our history since 1865 will sustain these propositions, and make it clear that since the war the parties have not divided on great questions. From 1865 to 1868 the principal contest was between a Republican President and a Republican Congress in regard to the policy of reconstruction. This conflict culminated in the impeachment of President Johnson, and ended with the inauguration of President Grant. The only real difference between the Republican and the Democratic party in the campaign of 1868 was that the former commended, and the latter denounced, the reconstruction policy of Congress, but this issue disappeared when the campaign closed.

The election of General Grant placed the Republican party in undisputed possession of the government. No party in our history was ever more powerful; no President was ever more popular. Starting with the avowed purpose of ignoring the politicians, General Grant soon fell under the influence of the worst men in the party. During his first administration Mr. Sumner denounced his nepotism, while General Butler and men of his character dominated the party councils. Three years of Grant led to a conference of dissatisfied Republicans at Cincinnati, which almost founded a new party, but accomplished only the nomination of Horace Greeley by the Demo

count of the causes which led to this condition of public feeling.

crats upon a platform which was almost identical with that of the Republicans. The contest of 1872 should have been a battle against corruption in office, but the union between Horace Greeley and the Democratic party was so unnatural that the people almost unanimously refused to treat it as serious.

There followed four years of corrup tion without example in our history. The Credit Mobilier affair, the Whiskey Ring, the Sanborn contracts, the scandals in the Interior Department, Robeson's career in the Navy Department, the safe burglary conspiracy, the impeachment of Belknap, affecting men holding the highest positions in the country, led to a popular uprising, which in 1874 gave the Democratic party, for the first time since 1861, a majority in the House of Representatives. The election which produced this result turned on no clear issue. The people simply recorded a vigorous protest against dishonesty.

It was of this period that Senator Hoar spoke, in May, 1876, when, urging the impeachment of a cabinet minister, he said: "My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant one, extending little beyond the duration of a single term of senatorial office, but in that brief period I have seen five judges of a high court of the United States driven from office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration. I have heard the taunt from friendliest lips that, when the United States presented herself in the East to take part with the civilized world in generous competition in the arts of life, the only product of her institutions in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her corruption."

During this period the passions excited by the war had been subsiding. As the centennial anniversaries approached, the recollections of earlier contests in which the whole country had been united softened the memories of recent divi

sion, and in 1875 the breach was healing rapidly. Then it was that Mr. Blaine acted upon the idea embodied in the remark, "There is another presidency in the bloody shirt;" and, by stirring up Mr. Hill, of Georgia, in the House of Representatives, succeeded in reawakening sectional hatred. The real issue before the country then was not between Republicans and Democrats, but between honesty and dishonesty. This issue, upon which the Republican leaders could not face the country, was pushed aside, and a false issue was raised by the tactics of Mr. Blaine.

In the campaign of 1876 the Republicans appealed to sectional feeling and the memories of the war, while the Democrats pointed to the scandals of Republican rule. It was a contest between two organizations for power, but no question of principle was involved. The electoral commission gave the presidency to Mr. Hayes, whose administration raised the whole tone of public life, though under him was secretly growing the infamous Star Route conspiracy. His four years of able and honest administration arrested the disintegration of the party, and it went into the campaign of 1880 substantially united.

A comparison of the Republican and Democratic platforms of that year discloses, however, no real question between the parties. The Democrats demanded a tariff for revenue only, while the Republicans contented themselves with saying that the revenue must be largely derived from duties on imports, "which should so discriminate as to favor American labor." The tariff, however, was not a burning issue in this campaign. The Republicans prevailed mainly by pointing to the record of the two parties during the war, and by urging the country to "let well alone." The Democratic party, with a bad record and no cause, still failed to command the public confidence.

President Garfield's administration was

marked by the unseemly contests over patronage which led Mr. Conkling to resign his seat in the Senate, and by various scandals which it is unnecessary to recall. But these gave an impulse to the cause of civil service reform, and upon this issue more than any other the Democrats carried the congressional elections of 1882, immediately after which the civil service reform law was passed by a House of Representatives which, six months before, had jeered at the reform.

The next two years were filled with the intrigues which resulted in the nomination of Mr. Blaine and the memorable campaign of 1884. The situation then was admirably stated in the address published by the Independent Conference at New York, which began:

"The paramount issue of the presidential election of this year is moral rather than political. It concerns the national honor and character and honesty of administration rather than the general policies of government, upon which the platforms of the two parties do not essentially differ. No position taken by one platform is seriously traversed by the other. Both evidently contemplate a general agreement of public opinion upon subjects which have been long in controversy, and indicate an unwillingness to declare upon other and cardinal questions views which, in the present condition of public opinion, might seriously disturb the parties within themselves. Parties indeed now cohere mainly by habit and tradition; and since the great issues which have divided them have been largely settled, the most vital political activity has been the endeavor of good citizens in both parties to adjust them to living issues, and to make them effective agencies of political progress and reform."

1 The most amusing evidence of the fact that the Republican party, at least, represents no common purpose of its members is the attempt made some months ago in Massachusetts by a

Upon the moral issue President Cleveland was elected. Under his leadership the Democratic party definitely espoused the cause of tariff reform, and upon this issue was fought the campaign of 1888. The Republican party took the opposite side, apparently, not from any settled conviction on the part of its leaders, far less on the part of its members, that the existing tariff should be increased, but rather because it was necessary for the party to oppose the Democrats, and it hoped, by appealing to the manufacturers and playing upon the fears of the working classes, to win another presidency. Success placed the Republicans in a position where they were compelled to adopt a course against which the party was committed by its record and the counsels of its great leaders in the past. They were forced to increase the burden of taxation imposed during the war. Their action has brought the country at last face to face with a real question, upon which the battle must continue until taxation is reduced. The issue is here, and it divides the country.

But still the division is not complete. There are many Republicans who do not at all believe in the policy to which their party is committed, but who are still so busy in doing the work accomplished twenty years ago that they have no time to consider the questions of to-day.1 There are many Democrats who favor protection. The old traditions of the parties are still so strong that men vote for a name against their convictions. Not only are there many in each party who, upon the real issue between them, belong to the other, but the conscienceless political warfare of twenty years has separated a large class of voters from both parties. The scandals of General Grant's administration led many Republicans to vote for Mr. Tilden.

The

Republican organization to ascertain upon what issues, in the opinion of the voters, the coming state campaign should be fought.