I came to man’s estate thoroughly believing that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest chart of liberty ever penned by man; and nothing that I have seen, nothing that I have heard, and nothing that has transpired in all my mature life has shaken my faith.

I think I must have been born an optimist. From earliest recollection I have liked the rooster that crows in the morning better than the owl that hoots in the nighttime. And what is best of all, the surroundings of my childhood and youth were exceedingly hopeful. I have seen few hours of discouragement and none of despondency. Despising the pessimist, I have resolved, and am resolved, that nothing shall dim my hope or weaken my confidence either in my country or in the American people, and yet in spite of myself I sometimes feel a very unwelcome impulse.

I observe the teachings of Jefferson forsaken and instead of the minimum of government and the maximum of liberty, more and more of government and less and less of liberty. I see ignored the warnings of Washington against weakening the energy of our governmental system by making changes in the Constitution. I mark the trend away from representative government towards direct government, a policy that has wrought ruin whenever and wherever it has been tried. I note the growing disrespect for authority in the home, in the school and on the street, coupled with certain slurs at the forms of law, as well as for judgments and decrees rendered in harmony therewith, emphasized by bald and naked threats to undermine and, if possible, overthrow our entire judicial system. I overhear the subtle suggestion to our youth that they need give no thought for the morrow, for the government will soon insure employment; that it is folly to make themselves efficient, for the government will sooner or later guarantee wages regardless of merit; that they need not practice thrift, for the government will ultimately pension their old age regardless of profligate habits or vicious living. I discover a growing recognition of capitalistic, industrial and even servant classes, with attempts at class legislation, all subversive of republican ideas, republican traditions and republican institutions. When I realize that all this is as yet only a verdant growth from socialistic, not to say anarchistic seed sown broadcast with scarcely a protest, and knowing that a harvest must yet be garnered, I am at times apprehensive.

But I am reminded that this is the people’s government. If they want it this way it is their business and not mine. If they make a mistake they are abundantly able to respond in consequences. All of which is true, but the fact that it is true, and awfully true, only emphasizes the importance of alert men in the watch towers.

Recognizing the existence of the greatest crisis of all time, a crisis wherein all that we call Christian civilization is imperiled, and being unable to hold my peace I have produced what I hope shall be considered an argument. I have tried to prove scientifically that the fathers were wise beyond their generation. Nothing is scientific that will not stand the test of application. I consider the unschooled George Stevenson a scientist of the first order. He thought out, and worked out, a safety lamp for the protection of coal miners, who during every hour of their toil stood in imminent danger of explosions. Then to prove that he was scientifically correct he had himself lowered into the mine in the nighttime, and, standing there alone, thrust his lighted lamp into the escaping gas. The achievements of the past afford proof positive that our form of government, our policy and our purpose of government were scientifically correct. It cannot be exploded or overthrown. Its only danger is from those of its own household, the children of its own institutions, who may undermine it.

Even the most casual reader must have discovered that in a very marked degree we have departed from the teachings of the Fathers. This we have done first in our form of government, and secondly in our purpose of government, both of which tend strongly to bolshevism, sometimes called socialism, and sometimes called “pure democracy.” It might as well be called Rousseauism. The name is immaterial. The thing itself is the same old snake that first charms, then strangles, covers its victim with ooze and swallows at leisure.

There is little in the book except what the writer considers has direct bearing upon one or the other of two major proposition. First: Representative government was the correct principle when established, and therefore is correct now and will be correct to the end of time. Second: The government was originally correct in granting liberty of action to the citizens and in limiting its own activities to strictly governmental functions. Third: Each and every departure from correct principles or wise policies has led by one pathway or another in the direction of bolshevism.

No people will ever outgrow correct principles of government any more than they will correct principles of agriculture. The fact that times have changed, that inventions have revolutionized industry and that improved methods of transportation have annihilated space, do not in the slightest degree make erroneous a correct principle of government any more than they render false a principle of nature. If the law of gravitation were a provision of the Federal Constitution, there were many in the United States who would have sought to amend it when the “Titanic” went down. They would have argued that when the principle was promulgated by the Great Law Giver, there were neither icebergs nor steamships.

The argument that the people are wiser now than they were is false. The Constitutional Convention contained a larger proportion of college graduates than any convention that has since assembled anywhere, and some of the wisest, and safest and most experienced were not college men. The people who came to America prior to 1787 came for motives as lofty as have actuated those of recent years, and in character, breadth of purpose and intelligence they compare favorably with immigrants of today. In addition, they had many advantages which we do not possess. They had time to think, the prime essential of greatness. They had neither the inclination nor the opportunity to read news items from all over the globe in three or four editions of a metropolitan newspaper, which professedly prints only news, but prints it several times each day. Meditation is necessary for a statesman whether he be required to discharge his responsibility in the halls of legislation or permitted to do so at the polls.

In defending our form of government, I have submitted a brief argument for an independent judiciary. This should be unnecessary in any country enjoying and professing adherence to Anglican liberty. In justification I plead the growing disrespect for, and the multiplied attacks upon, our whole judicial system.

I have also sought to show by the record, as well as by some reference and analysis of human aspirations and emotions, that the governmental policy pursued for many years was correct, and therefore is and will be correct forever. If I have failed to make it clear that for more than one hundred years the government fostered every industry and fathered none, I have made poor use of the material at hand. I have sought to show that the government merely safeguarded the liberties of the people, while her citizens pursued their happiness and won it in achievement, which, in regular sequence, made the nation great. If the argument has any force, it should lead irresistibly to the conclusion that if America expects to make further advancement, the only sure way is to return to these fundamental principles.

I have referred to and briefly discussed bolshevist or socialist doctrines, including confiscation of property, only because they are all involved in the departure from the policy of the fathers. When the Republic changed its course little by little away from granting liberty and affording opportunity and began to restrict and to absorb what the citizen had formerly enjoyed, the way was opened for all the elements of revolution. To understand the gravity of the situation one must study the logical effect, and to comprehend the effect some reference to similar movements in France and Russia is necessary.

I have sought to strengthen the argument against governmental interference in purely secular affairs by showing the unavoidable handicap the government is under when it enters the field of business. This has occasioned some analysis of the Civil Service system, with illustrations of its actual operations.

That my country will return to its original form and purpose, I am more than hopeful; yea, I am confident. It must be that the United States will revert to representative government in its original simplicity. It cannot be otherwise than that a wise citizenship will again select their representatives because of aptitude and will retain them in positions of responsibility until they shall have acquired efficiency through experience, gauging their worth, the while, by results rather than by subservient obedience. An ambitious people, resourceful and hopeful, virile and expectant will certainly take their government out of business, and confine its operations to the legitimate functions of government. All the traditions of the past, all the teachings of the Fathers, all the warnings of history are against paternalism. No government ever made or will make a people great except as it guarantees liberty whereby the people shall make themselves great. No people ever have made or will make themselves great by relying upon their government to do for them the things which the Almighty intended—yea decreed—that they should do for themselves.