emselves, whose aim is the well-being of all the
members. The extension of municipal control over all natural
monopolies may be decades off. No matter; there is no use in being
hot-headed because hearts are hot at the miseries of the poor.
Municipalization ought to precede nationalization. The members of the
community must learn to trust each other before the East and the West
will trust one another. It must be proved in American cities, as it
has been already in English cities, that the extension of municipal
powers is itself a force to drive out corruption and purify politics,
before the nation as a whole will deem it safe to make great
enlargements of the civil service.

As that day approaches, it will be found that nationalism is a much
simpler thing than it now seems. Nationalism does not begin in a paper
constitution and work downwards. During the upheavals of the French
Revolution Abbe Sieges is always coming forward with a new
constitution. But in America institutions are rather an evolution. The
last numbers on the social programme may safely be left blank.
Nationalism is neither a city let down, of a sudden, four-square from
heaven, nor are its working plans yet to be found in any architect's
office on earth. We certainly want no nationalism which is not an
orderly development. We may agree with Mr. Spencer that the course of
political evolution is full of surprises. It is quite possible that
the nationalism which seems so full of menace as a military despotism
may turn out to be but a simple federation of industrial and
commercial interests which find they require a single head.

In other words, it seems to me, nationalism is only a prophecy. It is
too distant to be certainly detailed. Present day accounts of it will
one day be, as Horace Greeley said of something else, "mighty
interesting reading." We may be inspired by it as the end towards
which present movements are tending. But each age solves its own
problems; and the passage into that promised land is the issue for
another generation. A nearer view alone can determine where the
passage is, and whether the land is truly desirable. We may justly put
some faith in the common sense, as well as in the political ingenuity
of those who come after us. If military socialism, whatever it is,
should ever be the issue, this American people can be trusted to vote
against it if it is undesirable. Meantime, what our people must vote
upon in the present year of grac