The quadrennial period in American politics, set apart and dedicated to the election of presidents, magnifies these evil features in an otherwise admirable system of government. That the whipper-snappers of the vicinage should indulge their propensities comes as the order of their nature. But the party leaders are not far behind them. Each side construes every occurrence as an argument in its favor, assuring it certain victory. Take, for example, the latest state election anywhere. In point of fact, it foretold nothing. It threw no light upon coming events, not even upon current events. It leaves the future as hazy as before. Yet the managers of either party affect to be equally confident that it presages the triumph of their ticket in the next national election. The wonder is that so many of the voters will believe and be influenced by such transparent subterfuge. Is there any remedy for all this? I much fear that there is not. Government, like all else, is impossible of perfection. It is as man is—good, bad and indifferent; which is but another way of saying we live in a world of cross purposes. We in America prefer republicanism. But would despotism be so demurrable under a wise unselfish despot? III Contemplating the contrasts between foreign life and foreign history with our own one cannot help reflecting upon the yet more startling contrasts of ancient and modern religion and government. I have wandered not a little over Europe at irregular intervals for more than fifty years. Always a devotee to American institutions, I have been strengthened in my beliefs by what I have encountered. The mood in our countrymen has been overmuch to belittle things American. The commercial spirit in the United States, which affects to be nationalistic, is in reality cosmopolitan. Money being its god, French money, English money, anything that calls itself money, is wealth to it. It has no time to waste on theories or to think of generics. “Put money in thy purse” has become its motto. Money constitutes the reason of its being. The organic law of the land is Greek to it, as are those laws of God which obstruct it. It is too busy with its greed and gain to think, or to feel, on any abstract subject. That which does not appeal to it in the concrete is of no interest at all. Just as in the days of Charles V and Philip II, all things yielded to the theologian’s misconception of the spiritual life so in these days of the Billionaires all things spiritual and abstract yield to what they call the progress of the universe and the leading of the times. Under their rule we have had extraordinary movement just as under the lords of the Palatinate and the Escurial—the medieval union of the devils of bigotry and power—Europe, which was but another name for Spain, had extraordinary movement. We know where it ended with Spain. Whither is it leading us? Are we traveling the same road?