ed institutions. How, then, did these inequalities
come about? How did the Democratic political system of Jefferson and
Jackson issue in undemocratic inequalities? The answer is obviously (and
it is an answer drawn by other reformers) that these inequalities are
the work of wicked and unscrupulous men. Financial or political pirates
of one kind or another have been preying on the guileless public, and by
means of their aggressions have perversely violated the supreme law of
equal rights. These men must be exposed; they must be denounced as
enemies of the people; they must be held up to public execration and
scorn; they must become the objects of a righteous popular vengeance.
Such are the feelings and ideas which possess the followers of Hearst,
and on the basis of which Hearst himself acts and talks. An apparent
justification is reached for a systematic vilification of the trusts,
the "predatory" millionaires and their supporters; and such vilification
has become Hearst's peculiar stock in trade. In effect he treats his
opponents very much as the French revolutionary leaders treated their
opponents, so that in case the conflict should become still more
embittered, his "reformed" democracy may resemble the purified republic
of which Robespierre and St. Just dreamed when they sent Desmoulins and
Danton to the guillotine. When he embodies such ideas and betrays such a
spirit, the disputed point as to Hearst's sincerity sinks into
insignificance. A fanatic sincerely possessed by these ideas is a more
dangerous menace to American national integrity and the Promise of
American democracy than the sheerest demagogue.

The logic of Hearst's agitation is analogous to the logic of the
anti-slavery agitation in 1830, and Hearstism is merely Abolitionism
applied to a new material and translated into rowdy journalism. The
Abolitionists, believing as they did, that the institution of slavery
violated an abstract principle of political justice, felt thereby fully
authorized to vilify the Southern slaveholders as far as the resources
of the English language would permit. They attempted to remedy one
injustice by committing another injustice; and by the violence of their
methods they almost succeeded in tearing apart the good fabric of our
national life. Hearst is headed in precisely the same direction. He is
doing a radical injustice to a large body of respectable American
citizens who, like Hearst himself, have merely shown a certain l