he existence of that gravel-pit was never discovered
by the enemy. A faith which had been so speedily and unanimously
embraced might perhaps not have been unassailable.

Before leaving this subject it may be well to say a few words on a
recent election in New York which excited, perhaps, more interest in
England than any American political event of late years. The eminence
which Mr. Hearst has won is an entirely deplorable thing, which has been
made possible by the fact, already sufficiently dwelt upon, that
political power in the United States is so largely exerted from the
bottom up. In their comments on the incident after the event, however,
English papers missed some of its significance. Most English writers
spoke of Mr. Hearst's appeal to the forces of discontent as a new
phenomenon and drew therefrom grave inferences as to what would happen
next in the United States. The fact is that the phenomenon is not new in
any way. Mr. Hearst, in but a slightly different form, appealed to
precisely the same passions as Mr. Bryan aroused--the same as every
demagogue has appealed to throughout, at least, the northern and western
sections of the country any time in this generation. Mr. Hearst began
from the East and Mr. Bryan from the West, but in all essentials the
appeal was the same. And Mr. Hearst was not elected. And Mr. Bryan was
not elected. What will happen next will be that the next man who makes
the same appeal will not be elected also.

It is the allegory of the river and its ripples over again. Englishmen
need not despair of the United States, for the great body of the people
is extraordinarily conservative and well-poised. In America, man never
is, but always to be, cursed. Dreadful things are on the eve of
happening, and never happen. There is a great saving fund of
common-sense in the people--a sense which probably rests as much on the
fact that they are as a whole conspicuously well-to-do as on anything
else--which as the last resort shrinks from radicalism. In spite of the
yellow press, in spite of all the Socialist and Anarchist talk, in spite
of corruption and brass bands and torchlight processions, when the
people as a whole is called upon to speak the final word, that word has
never yet been wrong. Perhaps some day it will be, for all peoples go
mad at times; but the nation is normally sound and sane, with a sanity
that is peculiarly like that of the English.

FOOTNOTES:

[264:1] I trust that, because