The Project Gutenberg eBook ofVanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward BolshevismThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Vanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward BolshevismAuthor: Leslie M. ShawRelease date: July 23, 2014 [eBook #46380]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Fred Salzer and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net fromimages generously made available by The Internet Archive(http://archive.org/).*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANISHING LANDMARKS: THE TREND TOWARD BOLSHEVISM ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Vanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward BolshevismAuthor: Leslie M. ShawRelease date: July 23, 2014 [eBook #46380]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Fred Salzer and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net fromimages generously made available by The Internet Archive(http://archive.org/).
Title: Vanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward Bolshevism
Author: Leslie M. Shaw
Author: Leslie M. Shaw
Release date: July 23, 2014 [eBook #46380]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Fred Salzer and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net fromimages generously made available by The Internet Archive(http://archive.org/).
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANISHING LANDMARKS: THE TREND TOWARD BOLSHEVISM ***
VANISHING LANDMARKS
“When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather and on an unknown sea he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course.”
Webster
“Have you lately observed any encroachment upon the just liberties of the people?”
Franklin
Frontispiece
VANISHING LANDMARKSThe Trend Toward Bolshevism
ByLeslie M. ShawFormer Secretary of the TreasuryEx-Governor of Iowa
ByLeslie M. ShawFormer Secretary of the TreasuryEx-Governor of Iowa
By
Leslie M. Shaw
Former Secretary of the Treasury
Ex-Governor of Iowa
colophon
Laird & Lee, Inc.Chicago
Laird & Lee, Inc.Chicago
Laird & Lee, Inc.
Chicago
Copyright, 1919ByLaird & Lee, Inc.Vanishing Landmarks
Copyright, 1919ByLaird & Lee, Inc.Vanishing Landmarks
Copyright, 1919
By
Laird & Lee, Inc.
Vanishing Landmarks
IN JUSTIFICATION
There are several types of intellect, with innumerable variations and combinations. Some see but do not observe. They note effects but look upon them as facts and never seek a cause. Tides lift and rock their boats but they ask not why. They stand at Niagara and view with some outward evidence of delight a stream of water and an awful abyss, but they lift neither their thoughts nor their eyes towards the invisible current of equal volume passing from Nature’s great evaporator, over Nature’s incomprehensible transportation system, back to the mountains, that the rivers may continue to flow to the sea and yet the sea be not full. That class will find little in this volume to commend, and much to criticise.
A man is not a pessimist who, when he hears the roar and sees the funnel-shaped cloud, directs his children to the pathway leading to the cyclone cellar. He is not a pessimist who, after noting forty years of boastful planning, realizes that war is inevitable, and urges preparedness. Butthe man is worse than a pessimist—he is a fool—who stands in front of a cyclone, rejoicing in the manifestation of the forces of nature, or faces a world war, expatiating on the greatness of his country and the patriotism and prowess of his countrymen.
It is commonly believed that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Conceding that he did, it was relatively innocent folly compared to the way many Americans fiddled, and fiddled, and fiddled, and fiddled, until Germany was well on the way to world domination. Coming in at fabulous cost and incalculable waste, and saving the situation at the sixtieth minute of the eleventh hour, we not only claim a full day’s pay but seem to resent that those who toiled longer, with no more at stake, are asking that honors be divided.
We are now facing a far worse danger than the armed hosts of the Central Powers—a frenzied mob each day extending its influence, and multiplying its adherents. Shall we again fiddle and fiddle, and fiddle and fiddle, or shall we both think and act?
For six thousand years the human race has experimented in governments and only China boasts of its antiquity. During this period almost every possible form of government wastried but nothing stood the test of the ages. The few surviving pages of the uncertain history of nations that have existed and are no more, give ample proof that the task of self-government is the severest that God in his wisdom has ever placed upon His children.
When this government was launched the world said it would not endure. It has both existed and prospered for more than a century and a quarter, but there is no thinking man between the seas, and no thinking man beyond the seas, who does not recognize that representative government, in the great republic, is still in its experimental stage. Even Washington declared he dared not hope that what had been accomplished or anything he might say would prevent our Nation from “running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations.”
It is said that when Galusha Grow entered Congress he carried a letter of introduction to Thomas Benton, then just concluding his thirty years of distinguished service. Naturally, Senator Benton was pleased with the brilliant Pennsylvanian, for he said to him: “Young man, you have come too late. All the great problems have been solved.” Ah! they had not been. Mr. Grow lived to help solve some; others have since been solved; more confront us now than ever before in ourhistory, and the sky is lurid with their coming. If we are to continue a great self-governing and self-governed nation, we must spend some time in the study of statecraft, the most involved, the most complex, and, barring human redemption, the most important subject that ever engaged the attention of thinking men.
About the only subject which vitally affects all, and yet to which few give serious thought, is the science of government. Our farms and our factories, our mills and our mines, together with current news, much of it frivolous, and little of it thought-inspiring, engage our attention, but statecraft, as distinguished from partisan politics, is accorded scant consideration. In the first place we are too busy, and, secondly, we do not improve even our available time. A young New Englander was asked how his people spent their long winter evenings. “Oh,” said he, “sometimes we sit by the fire and think, and sometimes we sit by the fire.” It is the hope of the author that the following pages will invite attention to some problems that in his humble judgment must be thought out at the fireside, and must be wisely solved, if we expect to keep our country on the map, and our flag in the sky until the Heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll.
Recent years have demonstrated the abidingpatriotism of the American people and their faith in the ever-increasing greatness of America. Few there be who would not gladly die for their country. The only thing they are not willing to do is to think, and then hold their conduct in obedience to their judgment. The future of our blessed land rests with those who can think, who will think, who can and will grasp a major premise, a minor premise and drawing a conclusion therefrom, never desert it.
It has become painfully commonplace to say that the American people can be trusted. While their good intentions can be relied upon, no nation will long exist on good intentions. The nations that have gone from the map have perished in spite of good intentions. The future of America rests not in the purity of motives, nor upon the intelligence, but in the wisdom of its citizens. In the realm of statecraft some of the most dangerous characters in history have been intelligent, pious souls, and some of the safest and wisest have been unlearned.
Socrates taught by asking questions. So far as possible he who is interested enough to read this volume will be expected to draw his own conclusions. The facts stated are historically correct. What deductions I may have drawn therefrom is relatively immaterial. The question of primaryimportance to you will be, and is, what conclusions you draw. And even your conclusions will be worthless to you and to your country unless your conduct as a citizen is in some degree influenced and controlled thereby.
From the monument that a grateful people had erected to a worthy son I read this extract from a speech he had made in the United States Senate: “He who saves his country, saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved bless him; while he who lets his country perish, dies himself, lets all things die, and all things dying curse him!”
Leslie M. Shaw.
Washington, D.C., March, 1919.
CONTENTS
VANISHING LANDMARKS
CHAPTER IREPUBLIC VERSUS DEMOCRACY
Representative government and direct government compared.
The Fathers created a republic and not a democracy. Before you dismiss the thought, examine your dictionaries again and settle once and forever that a republic is a government where the sovereignty resides in the citizens, and is exercised through representatives chosen by the citizens; while a democracy is a government where the sovereignty also resides in the citizens but is exercised directly, without the intervention of representatives.
Franklin Henry Giddings, Professor of Sociology of Columbia University, differentiates between democracy as a form of government, democracy as a form of the state, and democracy as a form of society. He says: “Democracy as a form of government is the actual decision of every question of legal and executive detail, no less than of every question of right and policy, by a directpopular vote.” He also says: “Democracy as a form of the state is popular sovereignty. The state is democratic when all its people, without distinction of birth, class or rank, participate in the making of legal authority. Society is democratic only when all people, without distinction of rank or class, participate in the making of public opinion and of moral authority.”
The distinction, briefly and concisely stated, is this: One is direct government, the other representative government. Under a democratic form of government, the people rule, while in a republic they choose their rulers. In democracies, the people legislate; in republics, they choose legislators. In democracies, the people administer the laws; in republics, they select executives. In democracies, judicial questions are decided by popular vote; in republics, judges are selected, and they, and they only, interpret and construe laws and render judgments and decrees. I might add that in republics the people do not instruct their judges, by referendum or otherwise, how to decide cases. Unless the citizens respect both the forms of law and likewise judicial decisions, there is nothing in a republic worth mentioning.
When we speak of individuals and communities as being democratic, we correctly use the term. My father’s family, for instance, like allNew England homes of that period, was very democratic. It was so democratic that the school teacher, the hired man and the hired girl ate with the family. We sat at a common fireside and joined in conversation and discussed all questions that arose. It was a very democratic family; but it was not a democracy. My father managed that household.
In very recent years we have been using the word “democracy” when we have meant “republic.” This flippant and unscientific manner of speaking tends to lax thinking, and is fraught with danger. A good illustration of careless diction is found in the old story that Noah Webster was once overtaken by his wife while kissing the maid. She exclaimed: “I am surprised!” Whereupon the great lexicographer rebuked her thus: “My dear Mrs. Webster, when will you learn to use the English language correctly? You are astonished. I’m surprised.”
It is a well known fact that the meaning of words change with usage. Some recent editions of even the best dictionaries give democracy substantially the same definition as republic. They define a republic as a “representative democracy” and a democracy as a government in which the people rule through elected representatives. This gradual change in the meaning of the wordwould be perfectly harmless if our theory of government did not also change. Probably our change of conception of representative government is largely responsible for the evolution in the popular use of the word democracy.
A far more important reason why the term “democracy” should not be used improperly lies in the fact that every bolshevist in Russia and America, every member of the I. W. W., in the United States, as well as socialists everywhere, clamor for democracy. All of these people, many of them good-intentioned but misguided, understand exactly what they mean by the term. They seek no less a democratic form of government as Professor Giddings defines it, than a democratic society as he defines that, and likewise financial and industrial democracy. They want not only equality before the law, but equality of environment and equality of rewards. Only socialists, near-socialists, anarchists and bolsheviki clamor for “democracy.” Every true American is satisfied with representative government, and that is exactly what the term republic means.
EQUALITY
The expression, “All men are created equal,” does not signify equality of eyesight, or equality of physical strength or of personal comeliness.Neither does it imply equal aptitude for music, art or mechanics, equal business foresight or executive sagacity or statesmanship. Equality before the law is the only practicable or possible equality.
Why educate, if equality in results is to be the goal? Why practice thrift, or study efficiency, if rewards are to be shared independent of merit? Those who clamor most loudly for equality of opportunity, have in mind equality of results, which can be attained only by denying equality of opportunity. Equal opportunity in a foot race is secured when the start is even, the track kept clear and no one is permitted to foul his neighbor. But equality of results is impossible between contestants of unequal aptitude when all are given equality of opportunity.
The kind of “democracy” which the socialist and the anarchist demand, confessedly hobbles the fleet, hamstrings the athletic and removes all incentive to efficiency. The keystone of representative government is rewards according to merit, and the buttresses that support the arch are freedom of action on the one side, and justice according to law on the other.
Republics keep a one-price store. Whoever pays the price, gets the goods. Democracy, on the contrary, expects voluntary toil, popular sacrificesand then proposes to distribute the resultant good eitherpro rataor indiscriminately. No one can read socialistic literature without recognizing that political, social, industrial and financial democracy is the goal of its endeavor. When the supreme conflict comes between organized government, organized liberty, organized justice and bolshevism under whatsoever garb it may choose to masquerade, I do not intend anyone shall “shake his gory head” at me and say that I helped popularize their universal slogan and international shibboleth. Unless we speedily give heed we shall be fighting to make Americaunsafefor democracy. Then we may have difficulty in explaining that we have meant all these years a very different thing than our language has expressed.