as come to stay. As
long as that principle keeps its present high position in the hierarchy
of American political ideas, just so long will it afford authority and
countenance to agitators like Hearst. He is not a passing danger, which
will disappear in case the truly Herculean efforts to discredit him
personally continue to be successful. Just as slavery was the ghost in
the House of the American Democracy during the Middle Period, so
Hearstism is and will remain the ghost in the House of Reform. And the
incantation by which it will be permanently exorcised has not yet been
publicly phrased.

VI

THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS A REFORMER

It is fortunate, consequently, that one reformer can be named whose work
has tended to give reform the dignity of a constructive mission. Mr.
Theodore Roosevelt's behavior at least is not dictated by negative
conception of reform. During the course of an extremely active and
varied political career he has, indeed, been all kinds of a reformer.
His first appearance in public life, as a member of the Legislature of
New York, coincided with an outbreak of dissatisfaction over the charter
of New York City; and Mr. Roosevelt's name was identified with the bills
which began the revision of that very much revised instrument. Somewhat
later, as one of the Federal Commissioners, Mr. Roosevelt made a most
useful contribution to the more effective enforcement of the Civil
Service Law. Still later, as Police Commissioner of New York City, he
had his experience of reform by means of unregenerate instruments and
administrative lies. Then, as Governor of the State of New York, he was
instrumental in securing the passage of a law taxing franchises as real
property and thus faced for the first time and in a preliminary way the
many-headed problem of the trusts. Finally, when an accident placed him
in the Presidential chair, he consistently used the power of the Federal
government and his own influence and popularity for the purpose of
regulating the corporations in what he believed to be the public
interest. No other American has had anything like so varied and so
intimate an acquaintance with the practical work of reform as has Mr.
Roosevelt; and when, after more than twenty years of such experience, he
adds to the work of administrative reform the additional task of
political and economic reconstruction, his originality cannot be
considered the result of innocence. Mr. Roosevelt's reconstructive
policy