everywhere, and so
just as not to excite fear anywhere. This proud feeling of citizenship is
a substantial part of a man's enjoyment of life; and there is a certain
compensation for hardships, for privations, for self-sacrifice, in the
glory of one's own country. It is not a delusion that one can afford to
die for it. But what in the last analysis is the object of a government?
What is the essential thing, without which even the glory of a nation
passes into shame, and the vastness of empire becomes a mockery? I will
not say that it is the well-being of every individual, because the term
well-being--the 'bien etre' of the philosophers of the eighteenth
century--has mainly a materialistic interpretation, and may be attained
by a compromise of the higher life to comfort, and even of patriotism to
selfish enjoyment.

That is the best government in which the people, and all the people, get
the most out of life; for the object of being in this world is not
primarily to build up a government, a monarchy, an aristocracy, a
democracy, or a republic, or to make a nation, but to live the best sort
of life that can be lived.

We think that our form of government is the one best calculated to attain
this end. It is of all others yet tried in this world the one least felt
by the people, least felt as an interference in the affairs of private
life, in opinion, in conscience, in our freedom to attain position, to
make money, to move from place to place, and to follow any career that is
open to our ability. In order to maintain this freedom of action, this
non-interference, we are bound to resist centralization of power; for a
central power in a republic, grasped and administered by bosses, is no
more tolerable than central power in a despotism, grasped and
administered by a hereditary aristocrat. Let us not be deceived by names.
Government by the consent of the people is the best government, but it is
not government by the people when it is in the hands of political bosses,
who juggle with the theory of majority rule. What republics have most to
fear is the rule of the boss, who is a tyrant without responsibility. He
makes the nominations, he dickers and trades for the elections, and at
the end he divides the spoils. The operation is more uncertain than a
horse race, which is not decided by the speed of the horses, but by the
state of the wagers and the manipulation of the jockeys. We strike
directly at his power for mischief when w