“Well, the Romans didn’t bleed themselves to death; they were practical fellows, with a business man’s point of view. They turned their deadly short swords against other races; and when they had conquered somebody, they put him to work for the glory of the Grand Old Party. They were ‘hard-boiled,’ as we say; our big business men of the rougher type--old P. D. Armour, and Pullman, and ‘Jesse James’ Hill, and Harriman, and the elder Morgan, and Judge Gary. This banker in Chicago that the Republican party has just put over on us as vice-president, General ‘Helen Maria’ Dawes--he commanded an army against the Germans, and having conquered them, he goes back to put them under bond, to set them at work for long hours, and drain the milk out of the mothers’ breasts, and feed it to the international bankers, instead of to the German infants. That was a perfect Roman job, and General Helen Maria would have been the boy after the Romans’ own heart; they would have made him a prefect over the whole of Asia Minor, or Northern Africa, or Spain, and he would have come home a millionaire--but never so rich as the head of one of the Morgan banks in Chicago!” “I shouldn’t think you’d get much art out of people like that,” says Mrs. Ogi. “But go ahead and tell us the story.” CHAPTER XXII THE SLAVE EMPIRE Rome, like all other nations, was founded by stern, determined men, who believed in themselves and in their tribal gods. They conquered the peninsula of Italy, and built mighty cities, and a net-work of military roads, and aqueducts which endure even today. All that time their state was a republic; in fact, they made the word for us--res publicæ mean public affairs, and all Roman citizens took part in them, discussed and voted, passed laws and enforced the laws. They raised armies, and built fleets of ships, and conquered Carthage, and ultimately the whole Mediterranean world. But, according to the custom of the time, they enslaved their prisoners in war; and so, in the course of six or eight centuries, Rome provided the classic demonstration of what slavery does to civilization. Emerson has said that wherever you find a chain fastened to the wrist of a slave, you find the other end fastened to the wrist of a master. It is possible for a slave-holder to be a virtuous man, but it is impossible for him to raise virtuous children. Slaves are tricky and dishonest, full of suppressions and secret vices; even where they mean well, they debauch the young by waiting upon them and depriving them of initiative. Why should a young aristocrat work, when he knows he will grow up to inherit papa’s money? In a few generations he is too effeminate even to fight. Why should he risk his precious life, when he can hire common soldiers?