ack of
scruple in taking advantage of the opportunities which the American
political and economic system offers, and who have been distinguished
rather by peculiar ability and energy than by peculiar selfishness. On a
rigid interpretation of the principle of equal rights he may be
justified in holding them up to public execration, just as the
Abolitionists, on the principle that the right to freedom was a Divine
law, might be justified in vilifying the Southerners. But as a matter of
fact we know that personally neither the millionaire nor the
slave-holder deserves such denunciation; and we ought to know that the
prejudices and passions provoked by language of this kind violate the
essential principle both of nationality and democracy. The foundation of
nationality is mutual confidence and fair dealing, and the aim of
democracy is a better quality of human nature effected by a higher type
of human association. Hearstism, like Abolitionism, is the work of
unbalanced and vindictive men, and increases enormously the difficulty
of the wise and effective cure of the contemporary evils.

Yet Hearst, as little as the millionaires he denounces, is not entirely
responsible for himself. Such a responsibility would be too heavy for
the shoulders of one man. He has been given to the American people for
their sins in politics and economics. His opponents may scold him as
much as they please. They may call him a demagogue and a charlatan; they
may accuse him of corrupting the public mind and pandering to degrading
passions; they may declare that his abusive attacks on the late Mr.
McKinley were at least indirectly the cause of that gentleman's
assassination; they may, in short, behave and talk as if he were a much
more dangerous public enemy than the most "tainted" millionaire or the
most corrupt politician. Nevertheless they cannot deprive him or his
imitators of the standing to be obtained from the proclamation of a
rigorous interpretation of the principle of equal rights. Hearst has
understood that principle better than the other reformers, or the
conservatives who claim its authority. He has exhibited its
disintegrating and revolutionary implications; and he has convinced a
large, though fluctuating, following that he is only fighting for
justice. He personally may or may not have run his course, but it is
manifest that his peculiar application of the principle of equal rights
to our contemporary economic and political problems h