of peace, requires but little tact and skill
compared with former times, when such commander often had to act
independently and at his own risk, whereas now there is scarcely any
branch of business which does not require more talent for its proper
management than the command of a company or a regiment. It is therefore
not on account of superior merits, but on account of old fogy notions
and prejudices that the bureaucracy, military and civil, consider
themselves to be of such immeasurable importance. My experience in life
has taught me that individually men do not count for much in the world;
that no man amounts to a great deal by himself; and that the highest as
well as the lowest is dependent largely upon his fellows.

What has been said about the military officers applies, in many cases,
equally well to the civil officers, or rather, to a class of men holding
life tenure offices in the civil service. Just now civil service reform
is the question in American politics, and it means that officers in the
civil service shall be appointed for life. I have always, for my part,
doubted the wisdom of this reform, because I have seen so much evil
growing out of that system in Sweden, England and India. To be sure,
there would be much good springing from it, but it is very questionable
whether the evil results would not be still greater.

We Americans hold that all power of government emanates from the people
(as it certainly does with us), and that the officers of the government,
from the president down to the village constable, are merely the
servants of the people, whose duty it is to enforce the laws and
preserve good order. In the other countries named it is still, to a
certain extent, supposed that God in his wisdom appoints the ruler, that
all power lies in him, and that whatever privileges the people receive
come as favors from the ruler. The influence and effect of these two
ideas are as different in all the ramifications of the system as the
ideas themselves are irreconcilable.

In America the humblest citizen goes to a local, state, or United States
official with head erect and demands that such and such things be done,
according to the law. In the other countries the lowly and even the
average individual comes before the magistrate cringing and supplicating
for his rights as for a favor. Of course such a false and absurd system,
practiced for hundreds of years, can not fail to leave a strong
impression both upon t