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Show ROOSEVELT AND "BENEVOLENT DESPOTISM." Colonel Watterson, admittedly a peer among the greatest editorial writers in America, foretells in his paper, "the Courier-Journal," the fall of the republic re-public of the United States. Here is how he is ' quoted by the Literary Digest: ' "If the people are sick and tired of the slow processes of a constitutional procedure; if they want in the White House a President who, disregarding disre-garding the letter of the law, will substitute his own interpretation of its spirit and intention; if they think that the reign of hypocrisy and cant and graft which marks our professional politics may , 1 ; be ended by the absolutism of a ruler who, as Roosevelt himself puts it, 'translates his words into deeds,' and who, charged with the cleansing of the ; Augean stables by an election putting the seal of the popular approval upon conceded excesses in the use of power and bidding him to go forward and apply the same remedies to a disease otherwise incurable, then Theodore Roosevelt fills the bill to perfction, for he comes from the family of the Kings of Men and is .'neal descendant of Caesar and Cromwell." : II' . i. 1 thus called up the dangers or benefits whic' a. follow this striking conjunction of the hour 1 ;l nan, Colonel Watterson tells us that all hL.1 . ry ' i : s agreed that the best of all govern- ' ment .. i.-e and benevolent despotism." He adjures I.: brother editors calmly to consider v hither we are drifting, adding in conclusion: ' ' "Before we get into the acrimonies of party conflict, the Courier-Journal asks its contemporaries throughout ihe country to reflect without passion or levity, and. to answer to themselves, amid the blaze of light which casts an aureole about our wandering wan-dering Ulysses ,whether representative government in America is a failure, and whether the only cure for the evils which are admitted is the one-man power; because they may be sure that the return of Theodore Roosevelt to power will be so construed con-strued by Europe, and that on this account the demonstration de-monstration of monarchism has its chief signifi- ' cance." The ' ' reign of hypocrisy, cant and graft ' ' de-. de-. " " plored by the colonel is here to stay. Conditions must become worse before they begin to improve, j and the improvement will mean the abolition of the republic, the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, or perhaps the "wise and benevolent despotism" des-potism" lauded by the colonel. The Americans of 1 lie future will be fortunate if a military despotism ' . i does not proceed the wise and benevolent govern ment. Let us take a leaf from the contemporary his-1 his-1 tory of Republican France, which is now drifting 1 towards the cataract. During ti e last days of the I empire, from 1SG0 to 1870, the number of civilians I in the government was 250,000. The number now I in the service of the republican government is 900,- I . i ' 000. This represents an expense of some $280,000,- f ! ..' ; 000 a year; this from a total of $820,000,000. How I i long can France stand it. Remember the number I ; ' " ' of these civilian employes is constantly increasing 1 j and must continue to increase. Conditions make I f fr it or the greater the number the greater the ! command of votes. I t How fares it with ourselves. From all quar- I 1 ; lers men are throwing themselves upon the re- ! sources of the government, which knows not how to ; ' dispose of them. The grand total of all the civil- ' ians employed by our government today is 370,000. In 1907 the number was 300,141, or an increase in little, more than two years of 63,924 civilian em- j ployes. These figures are from the government i ; "Blue Book" and are therefore official. These ! men in government employ will run up to 600,000 in i a few years and, by an inexorable law of democratic government, must continue to increase till the burden bur-den becomes insuportable. It must be so; our youth, impetuous, innumerable, ambitious of distinc-, distinc-, tion, and. unfortunately for itself, without restraint, crowd into the. career of public employment. The professions are over-crowded, there are four or five times more candidates for every imaginable profes sion than are needed. In a few more j-ears the 1 "Go West, Young Man" of Horace Greeley will have no meaning. Our high schools, colleges and universities will continue to tnrn out annually hordes of impecunious youth ravenous for office. You cannot point to an office in the United ' States today in which the numbers of persons em- ployed has not tripled or quadrupled within twen- : ty-five years. But, it is said, public business has I j increased, forgetting that men create all this busi- I ness, and that too many interfere with it. I , All, at the same time, ambition power and of- I fice; they forcibly open every door, and compel the creation of new places. Prominent politicians are everlastingly knocking at the doors of cabinet officials of-ficials and grumble if they do not obtain positions for their constituents and, what they consider, their fair share of the spoils. When some notorious looters of the national treasury are jailed, or some financial filibuster sent to the penitentiary, at once petiions are circulated all over the country for their release, and the executive is forced by political pressure, in many instances, to yield. Todaj', owing to our system of universal independence inde-pendence and to the infinite pride that has taken possession of all classes, every man' would judge, protest, administer, govern. There is too much liberty, too much movement, too many wills let loose in the land. We lose ourselves in a whirlwind of affairs. We groan under a crushing weight of laws and statutes. One half of our people is busy governing the other, but without success in their employment. |