ed the same abundant records of
their activity?

The more careful the study of Godkin's utterances, the less will be the
irritation felt by men who love and believe in their country. It is
evident that he was a born critic, and his private correspondence is
full of expressions showing that if he had been conducting a journal in
England, his criticism of certain phases of English policy would have
been as severe as those which he indulged in weekly at the expense of
this country. "How Ireland sits heavy on your soul!" he wrote to James
Bryce. "Salisbury was an utterly discredited Foreign Secretary when you
brought up Home Rule. Now he is one of the wisest of men. Balfour and
Chamberlain have all been lifted into eminence by opposition to Home
Rule simply." To Professor Norton: "Chamberlain is a capital specimen of
the rise of an unscrupulous politician." Again: "The fall of England
into the hands of a creature like Chamberlain recalls the capture of
Rome by Alaric." To another friend: "I do not like to talk about the
Boer War, it is too painful.... When I do speak of the war my language
becomes unfit for publication." On seeing the Queen and the Prince of
Wales driving through the gardens at Windsor, his comment was "Fat,
useless royalty;" and in 1897 he wrote from England to Arthur Sedgwick,
"There are many things here which reconcile me to America."[208]

In truth, much of his criticism of America is only an elaboration of his
criticism of democracy. In common with many Europeans born at about the
same time, who began their political life as radicals, he shows his keen
disappointment that democracy has not regenerated mankind. "There is not
a country in the world, living under parliamentary government," he
wrote, "which has not begun to complain of the decline in the quality of
its legislators. More and more, it is said, the work of government is
falling into the hands of men to whom even small pay is important, and
who are suspected of adding to their income by corruption. The
withdrawal of the more intelligent class from legislative duties is more
and more lamented, and the complaint is somewhat justified by the mass
of crude, hasty, incoherent, and unnecessary laws which are poured on
the world at every session."[209]

I have thus far spoken only of the political influence of _The Nation_,
but its literary department was equally important. Associated with
Godkin from the beginning was Wendell P. Garrison, who beca