I. Fraternal Government.
The disposition to give due attention to the spirit of American institutions is one which needs cultivation. Government, looked upon only as machinery, may easily become a means for the accomplishment of ends very different from those intended by its designers. In this connection some recent utterances by Dr. Lyman Abbott are worthy of serious thought:
It is sometimes said that the majority rules in America, and it would be unfortunate if it were true. The French Revolution shows that no despotism of the individual is so cruel as the despotism of the majority. When the decisions of the majority or minority are supported by the whole people that is Americanism. Our democracy is not founded on the idea that our people make mistakes, but that the decision of all the people is better than that of one class, and that all the men are better judges than priests and kings and their instruments. Fraternal government is what we are trying to establish, and whoever strikes against the spirit of fraternalism strikes against the foundation of our government. We can get along with anything bad in our laws and correct it in our progress, but we can never live and prosper with the East arrayed against the West, the North against the South, rich against the poor, and labor against capital.