We have before us an every-day spectacle of eager aggregations of capital putting aside scruples as visionary and impractical, and hence "un-American," in order to compass success, and at the other side of the counter the so-called representatives of the people, solemn in their verbiage but susceptible to occult and disgraceful influences. The two parties to the intercourse are discreet and business-like, and there is little risk of tangible disclosure. Practically aloof from them, except for a few moments on election day, stand the mass of American citizens busy with their own money-getting or problem-solving, and only too ready to believe that their representatives are admirable. They pause to vote as they pause to snatch a sandwich at a railroad station. "Five minutes for refreshments!" Five minutes for political obligations! Individually there are thousands of strictly honest and noble-hearted men in the United States. Who doubts it? The originality and strength of the American character is being constantly manifested in every field of life. But there we speak of individuals; here we are concerned with majorities and the question of average morality and choice. For though we have an aspiring and enlightened van of citizens to point the way, you must remember that emigration and natural growth has given us tens of thousands of ignorant, prejudiced, and sometimes unscrupulous citizens, each of whose votes counts one. Perhaps it is true--and here is my grain of consolation or hope--that the average voter is so easy-going, so long-suffering, so indisposed to find fault, so selfishly busy with his own affairs, so proud of our institutions and himself, so afraid of hurting other people's feelings, and so generally indifferent as to public matters, provided his own are serene, that he chooses to wink at bribery if it be not in plain view, and likes to deceive himself into believing that there is nothing wrong. The long and short of it seems to be that the average American citizen is a good fellow, and in his capacity of good fellow cannot afford to be too critical and particular. He leaves that to the reformer, the literary man, the dude, the college professor, the mug-wump, the philosopher, and other impractical and un-American people. If so, what has become of that heritage of his forefathers, the stern Puritan conscience? Swept away in the great wave of material progress which has centred all his energies on what he calls success, and given to the power of money a luring importance which is apt to make the scruples of the spirit seem unsubstantial and bothersome. An easy-going, trouble-detesting, self-absorbed democracy between the buffers of rapacity and rascality.