It is often said that governments reflect the character of the people. If that were so in this country, as our people are conceded to be one of the most intelligent in the world, we would have one of its best working governments; instead of which we have one of the most wasteful, corrupt and inefficient. Our inferiority in this respect has been universally recognized both in this country and abroad for the last fifty years or more; it is a common-place of conversation; and has caused numberless Americans to feel rage and indignation at home and to suffer shame and humiliation abroad. It has been the subject of innumerable books, pamphlets, sermons and lectures; it has inspired denunciation, satire and invective in pulpit, and on platform; the press has reeked with the disgusting details of the corruption, ignorance and incompetence of our office holders. Everywhere in the United States is to be found great popular dissatisfaction with the operations of our government, profound distrust of its methods and spirit, and conviction that there has been a failure to reach the standards and to realize the hopes of the Fathers of the Republic. This dissatisfaction and distrust, this conviction of failure is not confined to any class; it pervades all classes; it is widespread; it is to be heard freely expressed day by day and hour by hour alike in the business office and in the bar-room, in the private dwelling and on the street; by the mechanic, banker, tradesman, laborer and lawyer. In short it is a matter of common knowledge that for about eighty years past the United States and each of them has been in many important respects badly, corruptly and inefficiently governed. Read for instance this statement recently published by an able American student and writer, and say whether it does not indicate a state of things fruitful with danger to the Republic, in two principal ways; one, that of its decay by corruption, the other by furnishing material for scandal and propaganda to its enemies.