The criticism has often been made of democracy that it permits too much freedom; the reverse of this is nearer the truth. It was de Tocqueville, I think, who first called attention to the "tyranny of the majority" in democratic America. Probably one of the most comprehensive and discriminating studies that have ever been made of the habits and institutions of any nation may be found in the work of this observing young Frenchman who visited our country at the close of its first half century of political independence. De Tocqueville's account of Democracy in America is still good reading, much of it being applicable to the present. This writer was in no sense an unfriendly critic. He praised much that he saw, but even in those days (the period of 1830) he was not taken in by the fiction that, because the American people live under laws of their own making, they are therefore free. Much of the following passages taken here and there from Chapters XIV and XV is as true today as it was when it was written: America is therefore a free country in which, lest anybody be hurt by your remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of private individuals, of the State, or the citizens, or the authorities, of public or private undertakings, in short of anything at all, except perhaps the climate and the soil, and even then Americans will be found ready to defend both as if they had concurred in producing them. The American submits without a murmur to the authority of the pettiest magistrate. This truth prevails even in the trivial details of national life. An American cannot converse--he speaks to you as if he were addressing a meeting. If an American were condemned to confine himself to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one-half of his existence; his wretchedness would be unbearable.... The moral authority of the majority in America is based on the notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a number of men united than in a single individual.... The theory of equality is thus applied to the intellects of men. The French, under the old regime, held it for a maxim that the King could do no wrong. The Americans entertain the same opinion with regard to the majority. In the United States, all parties are willing to recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope at some time to be able to exercise them to their own advantage. The majority therefore in that country exercises a prodigious actual authority and a power of opinion which is nearly as great (as that of the absolute autocrat). No obstacles exist which can impair or even retard its progress so as to make it heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. This state of things is harmful in itself and dangerous for the future.