Nationally we have far departed from the mudsill principles of the democratic polity which our founders in their best judgment had framed for us and bespattered the forest paths of the country with their blood to _maintain_ for us--the forest paths not alone of the Atlantic states but also of those vast acquisitions in the West, known in history as the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana purchases, out of which the fathers carved so many imperial states. So far indeed have we departed from those principles, regained from tyranny and maintained for us by the founders and builders of this governmental polity, that their original _intent_ has been lost sight of by many of our people.
As a result of the struggle for subsistence on the one hand and _corrupt political practice_ on the other, we are traveling rapidly toward the old, old way. As the kilted Scots put it, quoting Bulwer Lytton, we are rapidly reaching that view of life which leads men, in the heat of a justified anger, to say “Happy is the man whose father went to the devil;” meaning thereby that our sons _can be happy_ if we manage to steal and loot enough from the government, or from our fellow citizens through _governmental favor and protection_, to build for those sons stone fronts on “Easy street” and leave a bank balance and “vested interests” sufficient to maintain them.
People happy in the enjoyment of unearned wealth seldom make good, safe or dependable judges or lawmakers for people who are unhappy.
There may be, of course, some rare exceptions to that statement. The history of twenty centuries, however--yes, of forty centuries--has shown very few of them. This may appear to some as a digression from my subject. Well, so count it, if you will. I have made it as a “foreword” for three statements I wish to make--statements cogently asserted in support of an assertion made some paragraphs back.
Mr. Hitchcock, in both action and advocacy, has not only been a conspicuous member, as newspapers and other reports show, but a leading factor, in the gang of “influenced” mercenaries and aspiring politicians who sought to “submerge” certain periodicals which for ten or more years _have been telling the people the truth--the truth about crooked corporation practices and about crooked public officials_.