ty with the genius of republican
institutions that the people express their will directly by ballot
rather than through the votes of municipal councils, as in France, or
of legislatures, as in the United States. I cannot see that the
difference of terms, that of French senators being nine years, and of
American six, is of practical consequence. While both republics are
at one as to the necessity of a second chamber, providing thus a check
to hasty and unconsidered legislation, many thinkers in both countries
agree that some change is necessary to make it possible for others
than millionaires to be elected senators.

If I were a Frenchman and had the power, I should get every newspaper
throughout the land, and every public man and influential citizen, to
enter upon a crusade for the purpose of impressing upon the minds of
the whole people the following extract from the Constitution of the
United States:

Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

In France, there are constantly continuous and unseemly clashes
between church and state. No matter what complications may exist as
results of the past, surely it would be better for all concerned to
leave the churches to be sustained by the voluntary contributions of
the people. In the United States churches seem to live and thrive
under this system of noninterference by the state in religious
matters, and voluntary support. The more than eighty thousand
clergymen are provided for. In the French Republic one reads
everywhere, on the walls of churches and of schools, the words
"_Liberte, fraternite, egalite_," while there seems to be a serious
disagreement between Clericals, on the one side, and Radicals, on the
other, as to the meaning of these words. To effectually put an end to
this strife, the adoption of the clause I have quoted would be
sufficient.

In writing thus freely of the French Republic I am free, I trust, from
the spirit of the carping critic delighting in comparisons to the
advantage of his own country. I appreciate the splendid literature,
the brilliant art, the advanced civilization of the France of to-day.
I recognize with gratitude the debt which the United States owes the
gallant Gallic people for sympathy and material aid in her struggle
for independence. It is now only necessary to be in France on the
Fourth of July to realize the reality and depth of the friendship
which