Union flying in the sky. Lincoln saw that the federal principle, if it could be maintained, afforded to the world its largest hope for successful self-government upon an ever expanding scale.

In his speech at Gettysburg, Lincoln did not say: "Let us highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish" from the United States, but "from the earth." His vision circled the globe. His great heart was beating in sympathy with mankind everywhere. But he knew that the surest way to help the world was to cherish our priceless heritage at home. He knew that the greatest service we could render to mankind was the preservation intact of the liberties and institutions that were peculiarly our own.

The federal principle has survived the test of armed rebellion. It is constantly confronted, however, with dangers of a more insidious kind. The federal government tends to encroach more and more upon the just prerogatives of the state. Bureaucracy at Washington is always alert to extend its power. It does not distinguish between those functions which pertain to the federal government and those which under our scheme of government belong exclusively to the state. Hitherto it has found the states jealous of their rights and capable of resisting this tendency. So the bureaucracies now seek to gain by bribes what they failed to gain by other means. During the great war, the federal government, in order to give unity to our efforts, undertook to do many things which the states had formerly done. It intruded into the administration of almost every field of state activity, such as education, employment, and public health. This resulted in a measure in the demoralization of state administrative agencies and therefore a lowering of the vitality of the state. The bureaucracies are now loath to give up this power. They seek to salve

the wounded pride of the states by offers of large federal appropriations. Propaganda is being carried on day by day, under the guise of liberal contributions to the state, which will result in taking from the federal treasury hundreds of millions of dollars for objects which must remain the care of the state if the state is to remain an entity in our national system. The rapid movement toward centralization at Washington must be checked or the value of the federal principle will be dissipated forever.

The rapid expansion of our country under the Constitution has been possible because of the capacity of our people for self-government in their local communities. Wherever a group of men has found itself upon our frontier, some form of civil government has emerged at once. The little community was not content unless it was able to take care of itself. It has been the sturdy reliance of the people upon themselves that has enabled them to form self-governing states. But this self-reliance will be broken down as men come more and more to look to the federal government for aid.

One disturbing form that this lessening of selfreliance takes is the growing inability of the several communities and states to maintain order within their own borders. Successful self-government in even the smallest political unit is the only guaranty of successful selfgovernment in a great country such as ours. There are many evidences that this type of government is breaking down in America. More and more frequently, the village, the town, the city, finds that it cannot maintain order without outside help. This is one of the gravest symptoms of the times. Whenever a town permits the due and orderly processes of government to be interrupted by a mob, that town is no longer an asset, but becomes a liability of the Republic. For multiply that town by a sufficient number and you have a situation in which only the army can rule. And no self-governing country was

ever yet ruled successfully by force of arms. The primary duty of every political division, no matter how small, is to keep its own house in order. Men are too prone, in these days, when disorder threatens, to call for soldiers. Soldiers will always be needed and must be used, if they are the only means to maintain the law. For, at whatever cost, the law must remain supreme. In every nation, there must be someone or something supreme, to whom or to which all must yield obedience. In an empire, it is emperor. In a kingdom, it is king. In a republic, the only majesty is the majesty of the law. Whoever does violence to the law is laying profane hands upon the sovereignty of the people. Let it be remembered, however, that every time outside force is employed in any community, it is a confession of weakness in the very foundations of our institutions. The municipality must learn to govern itself when lawlessness appears.

The framers of the Constitution thus established, not a pure democracy, but a representative federal republic. But they were not content. They went even further and imposed limitations upon the government which they themselves had created. The Constitution proceeds upon the principle that all power originally resides in the people and that government therefore comes from below and not from above. Having in mind the experience of the republics of the past, the Fathers provided that only a part of the sovereign power of the people should be conferred upon the government. This is the great new principle which makes the Constitution of the United States the outstanding political document of time. Under that principle, the people reserved to themselves all of their sovereignty not so conferred upon the government. There were rights so precious that they would not entrust them to a government even of their own creation. Among these rights were the freedom of religious worship, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of the press.

These rights are precious, not alone

because the Constitution declared them so, but because they were seen to be the indispensable condition of any progressive civilization. Liberty-loving men had fought for more than a thousand years to secure these rights. Our forefathers saw that no government, whatever its form or name, could. minister successfully to mankind unless these rights were put forever beyond the power of a majority. They also provided that no person should be "deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law." They knew that no enlightened government could endure unless the life and liberty of the citizen were placed above mere numerical majorities. They knew, too, that, unless government secured to all its citizens the fruit of their toil, whether they were of the minority or the majority, men would cease to labor. So they provided that property should not be taken, even for public use, without just compensation. They knew that the arbitrary exercise of power, whether by one or by many, was equally obnoxious to mankind.

The original Constitution did not contain these express provisions, though its ablest exponents believed that they were implied therein. The very first Congress which met, however, regarded these rights, with others, so essential to our new government, that they submitted to the states amendments to the Constitution, which they believed would fix them forever beyond all question. These amendments are known as our "Bill of Rights." The principles which they announced were not discovered by the framers of the Constitution: they had been slowly and painfully won in a struggle which stretched over centuries.

Among the rights thus guarded is the right of property. I know it is becoming unpopular to speak of property. Men have come to discuss property as though it were a mere inert thing, unconnected with the life of man. Of course, property in itself can have no rights; but surely man can have rights in property, if such rights are essential to the welfare of mankind. Who can doubt

that this is so? There has never been a civilization in the history of the world that did not have its beginning in the recognition of man's right to the product of his own labor, whether of the hand or brain.

There are those who speak of the nationalization of wealth as something new. It is the oldest thing in the history of the world. The savage tribes, in every land and clime, have been communists. Our own Indian tribes for centuries had nationalized their wealth. They enjoyed their lands and almost everything else in common. The prairies, over which they roamed, and which they claimed by tribal titles, remained but hunting grounds. They were able to maintain only a small population, and that population half the time in want. Take the Mississippi Valley, where I was born, and with which I have been familiar all my life. I myself saw much of it as the Indians had left it. The white man came-he came to make a home, which should be his and his children's forever. He came because the instinct of property was as strong in his breast as the instinct of life or liberty itself. In a half-century he has transformed this wilderness and has made it the granary of the world. It is dotted everywhere with happy homes.

From time to time men have dreamed of Utopia and have attempted to set it up. In Illinois at least two attempts were made. A French philanthropist sought to establish an ideal community, which he called Icaria. He selected one of the most beautiful and fruitful regions in the state. The property was to be held in common. The members of the community were supposedly specially fitted for community life. All the circumstances seemed to conspire to make a success of this dream. It failed-because man's perverseness prefers a humble vine and fig tree which he can call his own, to a share in a larger and more opulent community life. Again, at Bishop Hill, other dreamers sought to create an ideal community. They owned the property in common. It was a beautiful dream, but it did not come true.