roads in the States referred to have cost many hundred millions of dollars; they have rendered, and do render, invaluable service, and are entitled to fair compensation for that service. If, however, the "honest yeomanry" of the States seek, through their representatives, to secure that service gratis, and thereby to rob the owners of the roads, the national government should interfere to prevent the robbery. The government should protect its citizens from domestic as well as from foreign wrong, and while not permitting the roads to oppress the people, it should compel fair play for the roads at the hands of the people.

Talk about corruption with the roads under national control! The average artless bucolic legislator is of all vessels the most consuming, and it costs the railroads a world of money every year to stave off the blackmail legislation which comes up, in many of the States, with painful annual regularity. Does any one suppose that if the railways were under government control and the supervision of a national commission, such a state of things would continue to exist?

There can be no doubt as to what would be the result if the changes that have been suggested could be brought about. Upon the slightest indication that the government would assume control of the railroads, the value of our railway securities would immediately and materially advance in all the markets of the world. After the government had assumed such control, those railway stocks which are now regarded as mere gambling chips would double in price, while the better class of stocks would come to be in steadiness and character like the shares of the national banks.

Were the railways under national control the confusion among them, the pulling and hauling, the everlasting wars between them, the undue prominence that so long has attached to everything connected with them, and of which the public has long since been so wearied, all these would come to an end. There would be peace and order among the roads, with uniformity and stability of rates, and so smoothly and quietly would the railway system work for the public good that in a few short years it would be difficult for any one to realize that there had ever existed the state of things which we suffer to-day.

That some of the railway managers would object to any at

tempt by the government to control them, is to be expected; but the value of such objection may be estimated by recalling, in the light of the present, the predictions that were put forth, while the Inter-state Commerce Bill was under consideration, as to the disastrous results sure to follow passage of the act. It is believed, however, that the managers of many of the best railways would not only approve of, but would hail with delight, any movement looking toward uniform law for the roads, and stability of rates among them.

This railway question is a serious one, and it is daily forcing itself more and more upon the country's attention. It must one day be met. The existing condition of things is unworthy of us as a nation. It should not, it cannot, go on forever. Why not then meet the question now? Are we not great enough and big enough to do what is right and best for the country's good, even though in so doing we make a new departure, and go back upon time-worn theories as to the rights of the States and the functions of the national government? That those theories were right fifty years ago and adapted to our then condition, is no reason why they should be necessarily right to-day and adapted to our present condition. We may have outgrown them as the man outgrows the clothes of the child. Are we wiser than our fathers? We ought to be, else we have not profited by their and our own experience. And if we are wiser than they were, why should we hesitate to put the railways under national control, if by so doing we should make them of the greatest service to the people, and their securities safe investments for the people's money?

Unless something of this kind shall be done the outlook is blue indeed; blue for the country, that it must continue to suffer what it has suffered so long, and blue for the holders of railway securities, which, by reason of continued unnecessary competition, adverse legislation, and dishonest financiering, will be likely to "grow smaller by degrees and beautifully less " in value with each succeeding year. But if the government should assume control of the railways our system would be the best on the globe, our people would be hundreds of millions richer, our position before the world would be improved, and the country would be better to live in.

FREDERIC TAYLOR.

CHURCH AND STATE IN UTAH.

Books and magazine articles without number have been written about the Mormons. Most of the writers have gained their knowledge of the subject at Salt Lake City, among the ruling class, and have seen little of the real Mormondom in its true strongholds, the village communities. To the distant observer the most conspicuous feature of this remarkable people is the profession and practice of polygamy. To those who know the framework and structure of Mormon society, polygamy is a mere incident and a minor circumstance. I have nothing to say upon that subject. Its moral, social, and civil aspects are plain enough, and every thinking man has made up his mind about it. What is of immeasurably greater importance to the American people at large is the Mormon polity. This is but little understood. Its significance is great, its prospects serious, and altogether it is fraught with questions which are going to be more troublesome and more difficult to solve than most people are in the habit of believing. Those who argue that the increase of population and wealth, of comfort and luxury, of education and culture, bringing with them the milliner, the modiste, and the French boot-maker, will in no long time put an end to polygamy, and thus obliterate all distinction between Mormon and Gentile, have little knowledge of the subject. Emissaries of that people are now before Congress, pleading for the admission of Utah as a State. They offer to abandon polygamy and to provide the strongest possible guarantees of good faith. Why should not their prayers be granted, and the Mormon question solved by the formal renunciation of polygamy on the part of those who have practiced it? Because polygamy is the smallest part of the Mormon question.

This people form a compact, thoroughly organized, and welldisciplined society, living under a government which is about

as far removed from the republican form guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States as it is possible to conceive. We are accustomed to speak of autocracy as the antithesis of democracy. But there is a form of government as far removed from autocracy as autocracy is from democracy, and that is government by a hierarchy. Such is the real government under which the Mormon dwells. The foundation of democracy is civil liberty. The Mormon has no civil liberty, as we understand it. He may indeed assume it, but if he does so he ceases to be a Mormon. The democrat elects his own rulers and officers. The supreme rulers of the Mormons are a self-constituted and self-perpetuating body, by which all subordinate officials who are of any real importance are appointed, and the layman or the "elder" has no voice or weight in the matter. Human history and human experience have taught all free peoples two great fundamental truths in respect to governments. The first is, that governments should exist for the benefit of the governed. The Mormon exists for the benefit of the church which governs him. The second is, that church and state had better let each other alone. The Mormon church and state are one and indivisible. Democracy denies the divine right of rulers. The Mormon priesthood bases its authority upon divine right exclusively, and scorns any other. All secular governments proceed upon fixed principles formulated in statutes. The Mormon hierarchy proceeds arbitrarily, with no other warrant than "Thus saith the Lord." We might go on indefinitely pointing out contrasts between a constitutional civil government and a hierarchy. The two forms are the two extremes. In order to see how great the contrast is, it is well to look at some of the salient features of the economic and social condition of this people.

Utah is mainly a desert. Several mountain ranges and a series of lofty plateaus catch the rains and snows and give rise to a few small rivers, which redeem the region from utter sterility. Agriculture is possible only by irrigation. The amount of land which can be made to yield a crop of any kind is, therefore, limited by the amount of running water; and if all the running water in Utah were applied to irrigation, it would suf

fice for the culture of no more than three per cent. of the area of the Territory. The remaining land which is not mountainous is given over to the sage brush. A very scanty pasturage for a few cattle and sheep was afforded some years ago by the wild grasses, but the herds multiplied so rapidly that it was quickly destroyed by overfeeding, and the pastoral industry of the Territory may be left out of the account. In order to utilize, as completely as possible, the running waters, it is necessary to group the population into towns and villages of some notable size. A stream large enough to irrigate several thousand acres needs a concentrated population to use it. Dams and canals must be constructed at considerable expense, and irrigation is so laborious that a farmer cannot, by the labor of himself and family alone, cultivate nearly so many acres as in the moister countries. But, on the other hand, there are some compensating advantages. Irrigated land usually requires no expensive fertilizers, for the irrigating waters not only bring the moisture, but also bring in solution the nitrogenous, phosphatic, and alkaline elements of fertility. The engineering conditions require that the farms deriving their water from the same canal shall be situated in as compact an area as possible; thus making the length of canal, feeders, sluices, ditches, and rills as small as possible, and saving the loss of water by leakage and evaporation. Finally, this compactness of the farms allows the communal use of agricultural implements and the interchange of services among the farmers. For instance, a dozen or twenty farmers will take the same set of agricultural machinery, and, as a single body of laborers, will, in due season, plow, plant, cultivate, harvest, thresh, and cart away each other's crops. It is plain, too, that the irrigating canals must be common property, and every member of the community must have a right to a fair share of the water, without which his crop must perish.

The significance of all this is far deeper than might at first appear. The conditions practically enforce a social organization having much in common with the ancient village communities of Europe, or the existing village communities of southern Russia or of India. A village is necessary in order to use the water effectively and economically. The ownership and