the demand felt so strongly by labor men--“Thou shalt not take thy neighbor’s job”--or whether workingmen are becoming so afraid to take striker’s places that these places must at last be given to men who have come from such remote parts of the country that “they do not know enough to be afraid.” The unions themselves could take no accounting of their real strength because of the terrorism which had become thrust into the situation. And yet all that the stock-yards workers were demanding through this long and disastrous strike, was the minimum wage which has been guaranteed by conservative governments elsewhere, and is recognized even in the United States in much governmental work under the contracts of civil or Federal authorities. So timid are American cities, however, in dealing with this perfectly reasonable subject of wages in its relation to municipal employees, that when they do prescribe a minimum wage for city contract work, they allow it to fall into the hands of the petty politician and to become part of a political game, making no effort to give it a dignified treatment in relation to the cost of living and to the margin of leisure. In this the English cities have anticipated us, both as to time and legitimate procedure. Have Americans formed a sort of “imperialism of virtue,” holding on to preconceived ideals of government and insisting that they must fit all the people who come to our shores, even though they crush the most promising bits of self-expression in the process? Is the American attitude toward self-government like that of the Anglo-Saxon towards civilization, save that he goes forth to rule all the nations of the earth by one pattern, while we remain at home and bid them to rule themselves by one pattern? We firmly decline not only to consider matters of industry and commerce as germane to government, but we also decline to bring men together upon that most natural and inevitable of all foundations, their industrial needs. The government which refuses to consider matters of this sort, or at least waits until their neglect becomes a scandal before it consents to deal with them, as a result of this caution forces the most patriotic citizens to ignore the Government and to embody their scruples and hopes of progress in voluntary organizations. To be afraid to extend the functions of government may be to lose what we have. A government has always received feeble support from its constituents as soon as its demands appeared childish or remote. Citizens inevitably neglect or abandon civic duty, when their government no longer embodies their genuine desires. It is useless to hypnotize ourselves by unreal talk of colonial ideas, and of our patriotic duty towards immigrants as though the situation was one demanding the passage of a set of resolutions when we fail to realize that the nation can be saved only by patriots who are possessed of a contemporaneous knowledge.