The Single Mind in Government
In the issue of Harper’s Weekly of Dec. 30, 1899, there is an article by one of the regular staff of the Weekly’s writers, advocating a one-man power in the government of the United States: advocated not as a theory, nor in the mere form of a proposition for discussion; but as a present “essential,” demanded by “a course of national progression.” There is much said in favor of this in the article,—too much to quote here,—but the substance of it all is in the following ominous words:— The fact is that the power to make treaties, if we are to enter into a course of national progression, or retrogression,—call it what you will, but involving those close mutual relations which Jefferson described as “entangling alliances,”—must include the power to make conventions quickly and secretly, and the power to abide by them. Moreover, it is essential that the single mind with which our government deals, must be met by a single mind on our side.
It is true that this is advocated only in the matter of treaty-making, just now; but when a one-man power shall be exercised only that far, it is only a question of time and circumstances when it will be exercised in anything else that “the single mind” may choose. And the first steps toward this have already been taken. Repudiation of the principles of a republic by this nation, is going on as steadily as is the ticking of the clock. And that means that it is going on very rapidly.