On the other hand, no reasonable precaution should be left untaken. Our position is hardly yet so perilous that we need seek the mountains, deserts or swamps for safety. Other protective measures however should be sought. First among these, is organization, which, however is only worthful when there is real community of interest and feeling. These it will be hard to secure without neighborhood and common business dealings. By such means too, we shall better come under the protection of the common law, with its broad mantle spread over all contractual relations. It is hard to get justice wholesale, harder still when one cannot offer the market price. The earlier resolutions leading up to the 15th Amendment forbade restriction of the franchise on account of creed, ignorance or poverty. These additions were laid aside before the passage of the bill. The Civil Rights bill in its earlier stages required equality in the public schools and the jury service. These failed first. The best help—this cannot be said too often—is self-help. Self-dependence will not only strengthen our own defenses, but it has a value yet higher—it strengthens the Republic. Appealing as we now do to central authority, embodied in the Republican party, we help unconsciously to build up centralized power. This disadvantage of our faithful adherence to that party must be confessed. By striving to obtain land and independent businesses, and towards municipal political privileges, we will increase our responsibilities, our interest in good government and our stake in the democracy of America,—and by so doing become sturdier defenders of the Republic. To the man _who works_, the man who _wants and consumes_, in short to every man belong the common benefits and privileges due to his common humanity; but if we mean to secure these heights which in the United States only have yet been won, we must win firm ground to stand on. The law is not grounded in such principles, he who would fight for the rights of men, must be _more_ than a mere man to get standing in her courts.