MEN rack 2-17-32 INTRODUCTORY. one. THE national will finds expression for the twenty-eighth time in the presidential election of 1896. The last event is no less momentous than the first, or any intermediate Considered as a spectacle it is the most imposing of all, for everything that enters into it is on a stupendous scale. An empire of forty-five states, breasting the two great oceans of the globe, chooses by common consent its executive guardian for four years. Thirteen million voters meet in national tribunal to determine their quadrennial policy. Never before has earth yielded areas of such magnitude to popular government. History nowhere records the voluntary, peaceful judgment of so many freemen, spoken at an agreed upon time, and, as it were, with a single breath. But the recurrence of a national election in this great republic is far other than a mere spectacle. It is preëminently suggestive of the inner meaning of popular empire, and eloquently expressive of the underlying forces that make empire possible and permanent. It is the opened mouth of sovereignty, whose voice is heard on hilltop and in valley, by river and lake, and whose speech is, for the time, the irresistible edict. And what a meaning the word sovereignty has in a republic like ours, as compared with other forms of empire! It was never a part of any feudal government to (5) recognize sovereignty as in the people. Yet it is doubtful if there was ever a time in the history of any nation when the people did not feel that sovereignty was in themselves. Many learned writers who recognize organic sovereignty as in the people, call it sovereignty only when it takes the tangible shape of government or law. But in the United States sovereignty is the undoubted birthright of the individual. He gives it majesty and moving, visible effect when he writes it with the same right in others, acting along the same plane of thought and desire. As it takes many soldiers to make an army, so individual sovereignty assumes imposing and effective force when it bubbles forth from a set of men, a society, a community, a people, a nation, and embodies an aggregate or joint will, the election providing the opportunity for, and the ballot being the medium of, expression. In the individual it may be as a still small voice in a wilderness of men, but joined with other voices, in the same key of affirmation or protest, it becomes as Jove's voice thundering a verdict from Olympian heights. It is then that it speaks into existence legislators, laws, governors, presidents, policies, constitutions, states, empires. And, in hours of great public grievance, incendiary thought or violent partisan outburst, it may mean defiance of all law, official dethronement, smashing of constitutions, upheaval of states, crashing of empires. So then the inner, vital, inspiring force of republican empire which makes so omnipotently for weal, if rightly directed, may make equally for woe, if wrongly directed. The responsibility of proper direction is at the source of the force-in the individual voter. In the lower forms of government, individual instinct, that is, nature's education, is a sufficient directive energy. In higher forms of government intelligence must supplement instinct. In the highest form of government, as in our own republic, where there is scarcely a gap between the source of the governing force and its outward expression or even active application, intelligence ought to be the supreme qualifi cation. Therein alone lies national stability and safety; therein only exists hope for the benefit of healthy, pure, responsive government, and for the glory of free institutions. Therefore the awful responsibility of a vote is commensurate with the mighty right to vote. Both are exalted with the magnitude, importance or complexity of the problems seeking solution. Public questions do not grow fewer with the years, nor become less momentous. On the contrary they by right expand in number and importance just as territory grows, industries increase, commerce multiplies, and all social and economic interests amplify. Even should there come exceptional times when issues are narrow in number and complexity, it will be found that like finer metals they weigh all the more, and involve quite as much, as when they are many or less simple. The situation of this very hour may not be, comparatively speaking, complicated as to national issues, but who has ever seen the time in our political history when they concerned so intimately the pocket, food, raiment, shelter, health and happiness of the toiling masses, or were regarded so nervously by the farmer, manufacturer, merchant, banker and creditor? However careless the American voter may have hitherto been about preparation to cast a satisfactory ballot, or however much he may have striven to exercise an intelligent will at the polls, it cannot at this juncture escape him that it is encumbent on him to do all in his power to make his exercise of personal sovereignty as clear and decisive as possible. This work has been prepared with a view to helping him. If it should be accepted as his preparatory hand-book, he can readily prime himself for the election occasion and form a judgment which he can defend in the forum of conscience and before the world. One thing he can be sure of to start with, and that is that he will be unhampered by any attempt on the part of the author to sway his feelings or influence his inclinations. As partisanship is not a proper part of free education, and as every fountain of knowledge should be of unadulterated liquid, so the information offered in this volume is neither speculative nor biased, but only such as the historic verities warrant. The problems of the times are most serious, the issues broad. Voters are in no humor to “ go it blind for the sake of party. The spirit of this work meets their spirit. It presents the living questions, the issues that burn for solution, not as seen by partisan or party, not in any narrow, controversial view, but as the intelligent, independent voter would have them, and had best have them, so that he can see them from all sides and form for himself an estimate of their worth. The constant aim of the author has been to steer clear of the narrowness, selfishness, partisanship and perishability of the ordinary campaign book, and to present the problems involved in the national election in all their phases, so that both, or all, sides may be studied, and so that their study may not be for to-day only, but for all the time the problems may be uppermost. In no other form could a work touching on political questions, and issued during a period of political controversy, prove as high a compliment to the intelligence and independence of the reader. In no other form could it deserve or find |