it standing in type for the purpose of showing how very American
the _American_ can be. The fact that Mr. Hearst has appropriated it with
the American flag as belonging peculiarly to himself has not prevented
Mr. Roosevelt from explaining the whole of his policy of reform as at
the bottom an attempt to restore a "Square Deal"--that is, a condition
of equal rights and non-existing privileges. More radical reformers find
the same principle equally useful for their own purposes. Mr. Frederic
C. Howe, in his "Hope of Democracy," bases an elaborate scheme of
municipal socialism exclusively upon it. Mr. William Smythe, in his
"Constructive Democracy," finds warrant in the same principle for the
immediate purchase by the central government of the railway and "trust"
franchises. Mr. Henry George, Jr., in his "Menace of Privilege," asserts
that the plain American citizen can never enjoy equality of rights as
long as land, mines, railroad rights of way and terminals, and the like
remain in the hands of private owners. The collectivist socialists are
no less certain that the institution of private property necessarily
gives some men an unjust advantage over others. There is no extreme of
radicalism or conservatism, of individualism or socialism, of
Republicanism or Democracy, which does not rest its argument on this one
consummate principle.

In this respect, the good American finds himself in a situation similar
to that with which he was confronted before the Civil War. At that time,
also, Abolitionist and slave-holder, Republican and pioneer Democrat,
each of them declared himself to be the interpreter of the true
democratic doctrine; and no substantial progress could be made towards
the settlement of the question, until public opinion had been instructed
as to the real meaning of democracy in relation to the double-headed
problem of slavery and states' rights. It required the utmost
intellectual courage and ability to emancipate the conception of
democracy from the illusions and confusions of thought which enabled
Davis, Douglas, and Garrison all to pose as impeccable democrats; and at
the present time reformers need to devote as much ability and more
courage to the task of framing a fitting creed for a reformed and
reforming American democracy.

The political lessons of the anti-slavery and states' rights discussions
may not be of much obvious assistance in thinking out such a creed; but
they should at least help the reforme