Parkman, for instance, once gravely put it in "The North American
Review,"--"The real issue is this: Is the object of government the good of
the governed, or is it not?" Taken in a general sense, there is probably no
disposition to discuss this conundrum, for the simple reason that nobody
dissents from it. But the important point is: What does "the good of the
governed" mean? Does it merely mean better street cleaning, or something
more essential?

There is nothing new in the distinction. Ever since De Tocqueville wrote
his "Democracy in America," forty years ago, this precise point has been
under active discussion. That acute writer himself recurs to it again and
again. Every government, he points out, nominally seeks the good of the
people, and rests on their will at last. But there is this difference: A
monarchy organizes better, does its work better, cleans the streets better.
Nevertheless De Tocqueville, a monarchist, sees this advantage in a
republic, that when all this is done by the people for themselves, although
the work done may be less perfect, yet the people themselves are more
enlightened, better satisfied, and, in the end, their good is better
served. Thus in one place he quotes "a writer of talent" who complains of
the want of administrative perfection in the United States, and says, "We
are indebted to centralization, that admirable invention of a great man,
for the uniform order and method which prevails alike in all the municipal
budgets (of France) from the largest town to the humblest commune." But,
says De Tocqueville,--

"Whatever may be my admiration of this result, when I see the
communes (municipalities) of France, with their excellent system of
accounts, plunged in the grossest ignorance of their true interests,
and abandoned to so incorrigible an apathy that they seem to
vegetate rather than to live; when, on the other hand, I observe the