k
certain things wrong, cruel, base, unjust, and disgusting; whether they
will think certain pleas and demands reasonable; whether they will
regard certain projects as sensible, ridiculous, or fantastic, and will
give attention to certain topics, depends on the convictions and
feelings which at the time are dominant in the mores. No one can predict
with confidence what the response will be to any stimulus which may be
applied. The fact that certain American products of protected industries
are sold abroad cheaper than at home, so that the protective tariff
taxes us to make presents to foreigners, has been published scores of
times. It might be expected to produce a storm of popular indignation.
It does not do so. The abuses of the pension system have been exposed
again and again. There is no popular response in condemnation of the
abuse, or demand for reform. The error and folly of protection have been
very fully exposed, but the free-trade agitation has not won ground. In
truth, however, that agitation has never been carried on sincerely and
persistently. Many of those who have taken part in it have not aimed to
put an end to the steal, but to be taken into it. The notion of "making
something out of the government" in one way or another has got into the
mores. It is the vice of modern representative government. Civil-service
reform has won but little popular support because the masses have
learned that the successful party has a right to distribute the offices
amongst its members. That has become accepted doctrine in the mores. A
local boss said: "There is but one issue in the Fifth Maryland district.
It is this, Can any man get more from Uncle Sam for the hard-working
Republicans of the district than I can?"[162] This sentiment wins wide
sympathy. Prohibitory legislation accords with the mores of the rural,
but not of the urban, population. It therefore produces in cities deceit
and blackmail, and we meet with the strange phenomenon, in a
constitutional state, that publicists argue that administrative officers
in cities ought to ignore the law. Antipolygamy is in the mores;
antidivorce is not. Any injustice or arbitrary action against polygamy
is possible. Reform of divorce legislation is slow and difficult. We are
told that "respect for law" is in our mores, but the frequency of
lynching disproves it. Let those who believe in the psychology of crowds
write for us a logic of crowds and tell how the corporate mind operat