This, then, is the kind of man the protective system as we practise it encourages: a man unwilling to take his chances in a free world-struggle; a man whose sense of propriety and loyalty has been so perverted that he is willing to treat the Congress of the United States as an adjunct to his business; one who regards freedom of speech as a menace and the quality of his product of less importance than the quantity; one whose whole duty toward his working-man is covered by a pay envelope. This man at every point is a contradiction to the democratic ideal of manhood. The sturdy self-reliance, the quick response to the ideals of free self-government, the unwillingness to restrain the other man, to hamper his opportunity or sap his resources, all of these fine things have gone out of him. He is an unsound democratic product, a very good type of the creature that privilege has always produced. _But this man would be impossible were it not that he has the backing of politicians and law-makers._ Behind and allied with every successful high tariff group is a political group. That is, under our operation of the protective doctrine we have developed a politician who encourages the most dangerous kind of citizenship a democracy can know—the panicky, grasping, idealless kind. This is the most serious charge that can be made against the man who holds or seeks office, that he injures the quality of the citizen. The man who is a candidate for Congress in any district, city or country, has two courses open to him: He can appeal to greed or to the ideal. He has the opportunity to discuss with his constituents the questions and measures of his day and to win them by the enthusiasm he awakens for ideals. He has equally the opportunity to win them by the promises he makes—the promises of individual local benefits, like pensions and public buildings, or the promise of securing protection for local industries. Take the case of “Pig Iron,” Kelley—a man who clung to protection with the passionate faith of a fanatic, who saw in it the great panacea for the country’s poverty, who believed himself an incorruptible man, and yet who allowed the protectionists of both parties in his own Philadelphia district to return him without effort on his part, because they knew he would get for them what they wanted. Mr. Kelley, honest man as he thought himself to be, educated his constituents in the pernicious notion that a Congressman’s first business is to look after their business. The hopelessly sordid mental and moral attitude of Pennsylvania toward politics is due chiefly to the training in selfishness which for sixty years her Congressmen have given her. Throughout this period those who sought her suffrage have held up the promise of protecting taxes. Vote for us and we will take care of you. One of the most immoral of the many immoral trades which belong to the period of our Civil War was the bargain the state made with the