and four-square, tapering upward to its final apex.  A sane and wholesome society begins with the family—­natural or artificial—­which has original jurisdiction over a far greater series of rights and privileges than it now commands.  From the family certain powers are delegated to the next higher social unit, the village or communal group, which in its turn concedes certain of its inherent rights to the organic group of communities, or states, and finally the states commit to the last and general authority, the national government, some of the elements of authority that have been delegated to them.  The principle of this delegation from one organism to another, is common interest and welfare; only those functions which can be performed with more even justice and with greater effectiveness, by the community for example, than by the family, are so delegated.  In the same way the several groups commit to their common government only so much as they cannot perform with due justice and equity to the others in the same group.  In the end the national government exists only that it may provide for a limited number of national necessities, as for example, defence against extra-national aggression, the conduct of diplomatic relations with foreign powers, the maintaining of a national currency and a national postal service, the provision of courts of last resort, and the raising of revenue for the support of these few and explicit functions.

The first step, it seems to me, towards governmental reform, is decentralization, with a return to the States, the civic communities and the individual citizens of nine-tenths of the powers and the prerogatives that have been taken from them in defiance of abstract justice, of the principles of free government and of the theory of the workable unit of human scale.  In a word we must abandon imperialism and all its works and go back to the Federal Republic.

The second cause of our troubles lies, I believe, in the institution of universal suffrage founded on the theory (or dogma) that the electoral franchise is an inalienable right.  This doctrine is of recent invention, only coming into force during the “reconstruction period” following the War between the States, when it was brought forward by certain leaders of the Republican party to justify their enfranchisement of the negroes in the hope that by this act they could fix their party in power to perpetuity.  In any case, the plan itself has worked badly, both for the community and for many of the voters.  It is of course impossible for me to argue the case in detail; I can do hardly more than state my own personal belief, and this is that the question is wholly one of expediency, and that the question of abstract justice and the rights of man does not enter into the consideration.  I submit that the electoral franchise should again be accepted as a privilege involving a duty, and not as a right inherent in every adult person of twenty-one years or over and not lunatic or in jail.  This privilege, which in itself should confer honour, should be granted to those who demonstrate their capacity to use it honestly and intelligently, and taken away for cause.