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ples and habits of English constitutional history. Our tasks of construction are not done. We have not simply to conduct, but also to preserve and freshly adjust our government. Europe has sent her habits to us, and she has sent also her political philosophy, a philosophy which has never been purged by the cold bath of practical politics. The communion which we did not have at first with her heated and mistaken ambitions, with her radical, speculative habit in politics, with her readiness to experiment in forms of government, we may possibly have to enter into now that we are receiving her populations. Not only printing and steam and electricity have gotten hold of us to expand our English civilization, but also those general, and yet to us alien, forces of democracy of which mention has already been made; and these are apt to tell disastrously upon our Saxon habits in government.

IV

It is thus that we are brought to our fourth and last point. We have noted (1) the general forces of democracy which have been sapping old forms of government in all parts of the world; (2) the error of supposing ourselves indebted to those forces for the creation of our government, or in any way connected with them in our origins; and (3) the effect they have

nevertheless had upon us as parts of the general influences of the age, as well as by reason of our vast immigration from Europe. What, now, are the new problems which have been prepared for our solution by reason of our growth and of the effects of immigration? They may require as much political capacity for their proper solution as any that confronted the architects of our government.

These problems are chiefly problems of organization and leadership. Were the nation homogeneous, were it composed simply of later generations of the same stock by which our institutions were planted, few adjustments of the old machinery of our politics would, perhaps, be necessary to meet the exigencies of growth. But every added element of variety, particularly every added element of foreign variety, complicates even the simpler questions of politics. The dangers attending that variety which is heterogeneity in so vast an organism as ours are, of course, the dangers of disintegration-nothing less; and it is unwise to think these dangers remote and merely contingent because they are not as yet very menacing. We are conscious of oneness as a nation, of vitality, of strength, of progress; but are we often conscious of common thought in the concrete things of national policy? Does not our legislation wear the features of a vast conglomerate? Are we

finds the modern popular state organized for giving and hearing counsel in such a way that those who give it must be careful that it is such counsel as will wear well. Those who hear it handle and examine it enough to test its wearing qualities to the utmost. All this, however, when looked at from another point of view, but illustrates an infinite difficulty of achieving energy and organization. There is a certain peril almost of disintegration attending such phenomena.

Every one now knows familiarly enough how we accomplished the wide aggregations of selfgovernment characteristic of the modern time, how we have articulated governments as vast and yet as whole as continents like our own. The instrumentality has been representation, of which the ancient world knew nothing, and lacking which it always lacked national integration. Because of representation and the railroads to carry representatives to distant capitals, we have been able to rear colossal structures like the government of the United States as easily as the ancients gave political organization to a city; and our great building is as stout as was their little one.

But not until recently have we been able to see the full effects of thus sending men to legislate for us at capitals distant the breadth of a continent. It makes the leaders of our politics,

nevertheless had upon us as parts of the general influences of the age, as well as by reason of our vast immigration from Europe. What, now, are the new problems which have been prepared for our solution by reason of our growth and of the effects of immigration? They may require as much political capacity for their proper solution as any that confronted the architects of our government.

These problems are chiefly problems of organization and leadership. Were the nation homogeneous, were it composed simply of later generations of the same stock by which our institutions were planted, few adjustments of the old machinery of our politics would, perhaps, be necessary to meet the exigencies of growth. But every added element of variety, particularly every added element of foreign variety, complicates even the simpler questions of politics. The dangers attending that variety which is heterogeneity in so vast an organism as ours are, of course, the dangers of disintegrationnothing less; and it is unwise to think these dangers remote and merely contingent because they are not as yet very menacing. We are conscious of oneness as a nation, of vitality, of strength, of progress; but are we often conscious of common thought in the concrete things of licy? Does not our legislation wear s of a vast conglomerate? Are we

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