It may seem that I have made out a pretty bad indictment of corruption against our politics and that the view of the cynic is correct that American politics are desperately wicked and there is no health in them. But the moral forces which are operating in the world are fortunately not dependent upon the changeable methods or the selfish objects of men. It is here in America, perhaps more than anywhere else, that the natural laws of social development have fullest play. It is here that the evolution of politics is working itself out freely, untrammelled by tradition or custom. It is here that the ultimate ideal of politics will first be reached. When the framers of the Declaration of Independence formulated their proposition that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, a step in the right direction was taken—a step that was in accordance with our old Saxon traditions, yet for the first time in the world’s history made on an extended scale, to base human government on the principles of natural law. And through all the vicissitudes of our country, its struggle for independence, its war for the liberation of its commerce, its civil conflict which would have dismembered any other nation, or would have left one section the subjugated serfs of the other, through a disputed presidential election which strained the written constitution to its utmost, the great moral force of natural law has been working, now through one party, now through another, gathering impetus as it goes and giving promise always of better times to come. It is in this broad view that all the petty thieveries and striving for place and power sink into utter insignificance. The people do still rule. They may sleep for a time but are sure, sooner or later, to assert their rights in accordance with the instincts of the human mind, which are good and not bad. As long as the suffrage shall exist it is reasonably certain that this American government, “of the people, by the people, for the people,” shall not perish from the earth. If the wealthy monopolists could control the suffrage, the prospects might be different. The freedom of the voter has been impaired to a certain extent but the American people with quick instincts have awakened to the danger. The Australian system of voting, which secures secrecy and freedom from intimidation and almost extinguishes bribery is now becoming very popular. Fifteen of the states have adopted it and the other twenty-nine will, no doubt, follow their example in a few years. But the introduction of measures for its establishment presented the curious anomaly of being opposed by democrats in some localities and by republicans in others, both for partisan reasons, constitutional and high moral pretexts being of course advanced. When it becomes the general law, it will do more than anything else to purify electoral methods.