PLATO’S AMERICAN REPUBLIC PLATO’S AMERICAN REPUBLIC Done out of the original by DOUGLAS WOODRUFF [Illustration] “_fidelia vulnera amantis_” New York E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue COPYRIGHT, 1926 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY _All Rights Reserved_ First Printing August, 1926 Second Printing October, 1926 Third Printing January, 1927 Fourth Printing March, 1927 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _TO M. C. HOLLIS AND M. J. MACDONALD_ CONTENTS BOOK PAGE I. WOMEN, CARS, AND MEN 1 II. GOVERNMENT 18 III. PUBLIC OPINION 36 IV. PROHIBITION 53 V. EDUCATION 71 VI. AMERICA AND ENGLAND 93 PLATO’S AMERICAN REPUBLIC BOOK I _Scene: Athens, 1925_ SOCRATES (THE NARRATOR); AGATHON; LYSIS; PHAELON We were sitting on the pavement in our usual way, considering all things, and examining into them one at a time. There were with me Lysis and his younger brother Phaelon, two youths whom I loved for their inquiring dispositions and habit of always asking why. As we were sitting there we suddenly saw Agathon approaching, and called to him to join us. When we had made room for him he turned to me and said: ‘Listen, Socrates, to a strange thing which happened to me to-day as I was going down to the Piræus. For I now work, as you know, in the Government, and to-day a stranger came up to me outside my office, proposing to buy the Parthenon and all the buildings on the Acropolis and remove them to his own land, and re-erect them there.’ ‘Truly a strange way of honouring the Athenians,’ I said.