The President was in doubt, but finally signed the bill.

Thus Hamilton's policies had been successful. His system was complete, and was in operation. Time would ripen the harvest. His funding system had created a class which would stand upon a different footing from all others. It would own a mortgage upon the Government, upon the whole Union. To the extent of this mortgage, it would pay no taxes. On the contrary, it would fatten upon the taxes of others. If to the individual citizen debt is bondage, giving to the creditor moral and legal power over the man who owes him, the public debt, by operation of the same principle, would put the Government under the influence of those who held the mortgage on it. The public debt being thus an immense advantage to the class which owned it, would never be paid. Self-interest would make it permanent, and keep it growing.

Just as, in England, the moneyed class who had bought up the debt, and who sat back at ease living off the taxes paid by the great mass of the people, constituted a money power whose influence with the Government kept the debt unpaid and increased it as far as was safe, so in America, the tree being planted, nothing was necessary but to tend it-the fruit would inevitably be the same. The owners of the public debt, exempted from taxation and enriched by the taxes of others; the man

ufacturers, exempted from foreign competition, at the expense of the nation at large; the national banker, enjoying the vast advantage of controlling the currency of the nation; while, at the same time, American labor was made subject to the competition of the world by liberal immigration laws, and American agriculture made to compete with ryots of India, the fellahs of Egypt, the serfs of Europe, the peons of Mexico, and non-paid labor generally-what better foundation for inequality could be laid?

Wealth might fabulously increase, but there would be no just distribution. Power might amazingly develop, but there would be no equilibrium. Progress might smash all records, but it would not be general.

Everything depends upon the point of view. If it be right to run a government in the interest of a selected class; if it be right to allow the privileged to use the machinery of legislation to plunder the unprivileged; if it be right to make the corruption of trusted agents an incident to the government of the principals, then Alexander Hamilton deserves high rank among statesmen and a loving remembrance with posterity. For it was he who first arranged the coalition between the national treasury and the money power; it was he who committed the Government to the policy of taxing one industry to build up another; he who surrendered to a favored

class the sovereign prerogative of creating a currency; he who first used corrupt practises to secure legislation.

As surely as harvest is due to sower, Alexander Hamilton was the father of plutocracy, the trust, and the lobby.

"The people are a great beast," said the apostle; and one of his disciples exclaimed, "The public be damned!"

The spirit of the two expressions is precisely the same; and the favored, protected, law-exempt railway king who could use with impunity the last expression was the natural product of the system of the statesman who used the first.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE GENET EPISODE

DETERMINED to make our Government resemble the English, it was a darling project with Hamilton, Jay, and other Federalists of that type to bring about friendly relations with Great Britain.

It was no easy task. England was sore over the loss of her colonies. She was aching to revenge herself upon America and upon France. She refused to give up the forts on the Northwest frontier. As Jefferson demonstrated in a masterly state paper, her excuses were flimsy, untenable. She could not answer his argument, and did not try. She simply held on to the forts. From these forts Indians went forth, fired with hatred and whisky, to make war upon American settlements.

She claimed and exercised the right to halt our ships upon the seas, to search them, and to drag from our decks such sailors as her navy might need. Her pretense was the retaking of her own seamen; her practise was to take whom she pleased.

But the Federalists curbed their indignation; from them no loud protest was heard. And when France sent over her minister, Genet, and the time

came when our Government had to show its hand, it suddenly appeared more amiable to our late foe than to our late friend.

Without exception, our historians have treated the Genet episode from the standpoint of the old Federalist party. Therefore, the average American gets an impression so misleading as to be wholly false.

The democracy of France, like the democracy of America, had made war upon a king, and had established a republic. In our struggle, French money and French blood had been poured out in our behalf. It was not the money of the King of France; it was not the blood of the King of France; it was the blood and the money of the people of France. The powerful undertow of sympathy with America which had dragged the French minister off his feet, and made the French alliance imperative, came, not from the torpid King, but from the aroused people. Every time the royal pen was laid to paper in America's behalf it was done under protest.

These people who had rushed to America's aid in the darkest hour of her Revolution had now accomplished a revolution of their own. America's example had encouraged them, inspired them, shown them the way. Now that the French monarchy was down and democracy triumphant, Great Britain had chosen to interfere, had made the King's cause her own, and had consecrated her