Part 11 (1/2)
No DCVI
JANUARY 4, 1907
CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY--IX
BY MARK TWAIN
[_Dictated Dece American monarchy
It was before the Secretary of State had been heard from that the chairman of the banquet said:
”In this tireat satisfaction that such a man as you, Mr Root, is chief adviser of the President”
Mr Root then got up and in the most quiet and orderly manner touched off the successor to the San Francisco earthquake As a result, the several State governments ell shaken up and considerably weakened
Mr Root was prophesying He was prophesying, and it see has been done in this country for a good many years
He did not say, in so , in a steady march, toward eventual and unavoidable replacement of the republic by monarchy; but I suppose he are that that is the case He notes the several steps, the custoes have led to the consolidation of loose and scattered governmental forces into formidable centralizations of authority; but he stops there, and doesn't add up the sum He is not unaware that heretofore the suures can fairly be depended upon to furnish the sa as human nature shall re, since any one can do it; neither would it have been gracious in hied conditions which in the course of time have ton governatives which have been betrayed and neglected by the several States, he does not attribute those changes and the vast results which are to flow froht-out policy of any party or of any body of dreahtly attributes them to that stupendous power--_Circuardless of parties and policies, and whose decrees are final, and must be obeyed by all--and will be The railway is a Circuraph is a Circus; and to the whole world, the wise and the foolish alike, they were entirely trivial, wholly inconsequential; indeed silly, coht-out policy said, ”Behold, ill build railways and stearaphs, and presently you will see the condition and way of life of every inable changes of law and custo that anybody can do to prevent it”
The changed conditions have co, and will follow So does Mr Root His language is not unclear, it is crystal:
”Our whole life has swung away fro about national centres”
”The old barriers which kept the States as separate coht”
”That [State] power of regulation and control is gradually passing into the hands of the national government”
”Sometimes by an assertion of the inter-State co power, the national govern up the perfored conditions the separate States are no longer capable of adequately perfor forward in a development of business and social life which tends more and more to the obliteration of State lines and the decrease of State power as compared with national power”
”It is useless for the advocates of State rights to inveigh againstthe extension of national authority in the fields of necessary control where the States themselves fail in the perfor a policy; he is not forecasting what a party of planners will bring about; he iswhat the people will require and compel And he could have added--which would be perfectly true--that the people will not be , but by _Circumstance_--that pohich arbitrarily cohtest control
_”The end is not yet”_
It is a true word We are on thestarted
If the States continue to fail to do their duty as required by the people--
”_constructions of the Constitution will be found_ to vest the pohere it will be exercised--in the national govern or not, and so I will not enlarge upon it lest I should chance to be in the wrong It sounds like shi+p-ain, but itwhat it is, I suppose we must expect to drift into ht, but we cannot change our nature: we are all alike, we hus; and in our blood and bone, and ineradicable, we carry the seeds out of which auds, titles, distinctions, power
We have to worshi+p these things and their possessors, we are all born so, and we cannot help it We have to be despised by soard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worshi+p and envy, or we cannot be content In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after thehter Soood man and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyhether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or -descended offal And e get him the whole nation publicly chaffs and scoffs--and privately envies; and also is proud of the honor which has been conferred upon us We run over our list of titled purchases every now and then, in the newspapers, and discuss them and caress them, and are thankful and happy