If Democracy were dependent upon conscious human effort, we should be moving rapidly and far from the old ideas of independence, of self-reliance, of individuality; we should be hastening toward a re-establishment of the aristocratic ideal of “molly-coddling,” of making the citizen a hot-house plant sheltered under government glass from the rude but invigorating forces of nature--but exposed to withering and denuding paternalism. Everybody who did not do for himself--whether because he would not or because he could not, we should not stop to ask--would be provided with education, ideas, food, clothing, shelter, amusements, baths, in short, everything but self-respect and the power to produce self-respecting progeny. And these things would be provided, not by private philanthropy, not by the rich giving of their surplus, but by taxation. Taxation simply means taking from one part of the community, chiefly from the poor and those of moderate means, and giving to another part, after an army of officials have had their “rake-off” in salaries and perquisites. Taxation, therefore, means levying upon those who have little to spare; it means crippling those who are trying to fight the hard battle of life. There is nothing democratic, nothing economically sound, in these alluring schemes for making men sleek and comfortable and wise by public bounty. They result in coddling incompetents, and in breaking down those who are now just able to get along and who need only the push of additional taxation to send them fairly over the precipice from self-reliance to dependence. A wise man once said: “Most legislation consists of A and B getting together and deciding what C shall do for D.” We mustn’t forget C. He pays the bills. And his name is “the people.” The work that saves is the work of a man, by himself, for himself, work chosen by him, mastered by him, work by which he is sometimes mastered. He must stand or fall on the results of his efforts. This is no programme for the timid or the halting, but it is the programme for all grades of intelligence and opportunity, each doing for himself just as well as he possibly can, under his circumstances.