“And you think your Nihilism better suited for the American people than a republic, such as that which was supplanted by the present Monarchy?” said Professor Dean, who had been an attentive listener and who now for the first time joined in the conversation. “Ah, sir, I have heard you refer with striking disparagement to that Republic. I would gladly have you give some reasons for these views!”
“Bah!” exclaimed the High President contemptuously, “the old-time Republic, eh! Could anything more evil, corrupt, hypocritical, farcical and criminal exist under the sun than that old-time Republic of yours? All modern thinkers, writers and sociologists are agreed as to that. You have heard me say that of the two the present monarchy was the better institution, and I spoke advisedly.”
“What—what!” stammered the Professor, fairly taken aback at the directness and violence of the attack. “Your reasons, sir—your reasons!”
“Reasons?” repeated the High President. “They will not be hard to give. To-day we have only one King. He is great and rich and powerful, so much so that he need seek no further self-advantages but may rest content with all that which is his. He need have an eye only to the welfare of his nation and his people. We have an aristocracy, too; also great and rich, so much so that they can well afford to lay self-interest aside and seek public life with a view solely to the greater glory of their country. There are exceptions to this, of course, but I speak of our aristocracy as a class. Then, too, our aristocrats of to-day have been aristocrats for a sufficient time to be at least free from the shortcomings, the arrogance and the vices which have ever marked the parvenu. Now let us look at the old-time Republic!”
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed the Professor, bending forward in his eagerness.
“The old-time Republic,” continued the High President, “had not one king but many. You had not a monarch—serene and majestic, clothed in the royal purple, bearing the sceptre and crown and surrounded by the glitter and the glory of an imperial court. Instead, the land was divided up among a parcel of little rulers—men mostly of low origin and ignoble ideals—who really exercised kingly power. Take your proud Empire State of New York—a state as broad, as rich and as populous as some of the great empires of Europe. Two little kings reigned there—the one, a small, shrivelled, old man who divided his time between the handling of parcels and the pulling of political wires; the other a beetle-browed, sullen ruler, whose brutal hands, reeking with crime and corruption, were ever stretched forth to grasp further plunder.”
“By heaven!” exclaimed Mortimer, “was it really as bad as that!”
“I am quoting to you almost literally from the chronicles of the times,” replied the High President. “These two little kings absolutely ruled the state between them. It was at their royal behest that governors were nominated and elected, legislators selected and judges put upon the bench. When any opposition to their respective rules appeared to threaten them, they promptly joined forces, fought shoulder to shoulder and, under prearranged agreement, divided the subsequent plunder. Behind them was an armed banditti of many thousand men, known as a police force and supposed to be organized for the protection and enforcement of law and order. As a matter of fact, this force was nothing less than an organized body of ravishers and despoilers, preying upon the people and levying tribute right and left. It is safe to say that the operations of all the banditti since the beginning of the Christian era, nor any invading army, ever equaled in the amount of loot secured the operations of the force I speak of which stood behind these two kings.”
“Well, well,” exclaimed Mortimer; “things must have been pretty bad in your Republic, Professor!”
Dean lowered his eyes as one who is ashamed.