AMERICANS AND MONARCHY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

AMERICANS AND MONARCHY.

"Human nature being what it is," says Mark Twain, m the North American Review, "I suppose we must expect to drift into monarchy by-and-by. It is a saddening thought, but we cannot change our nature; we are all alike, we human beings ; and m our blood and bone, arid ineradicable, we carry the seeds out of Which monarchies and* aristocracies are grown ; worship of gauds, titles, distinctions, power. . . We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy ; we have to have somebody to worship and envy,, or we cannot be content.

"In America we manifest this m all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker, after them, aud when we get a chance we buy' them for cash and a daughter. times we get a good man, and worth his j price; but we are ready to take him any way, whether he be ripe or rotten 5 whether he be clean or decent, or merely a basket of noble and sacred and longdescended ofittl. And when we 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 m the newspapers, and discuss them and caress them, and are thankful .ud happy. -.;. , ''In a monarchy the people willingly and rejoicingly revere and take pride m their nobilities, and are not humilated by the reflection that this humble and hearty homage gets no return but contempt. Contempt does not shame them; they are used to it, and they recognise that it is their proper due. We are all made like that. In Europe we easily and quickly learn to take that attitude towards tne sovereigns and the aristocracies; moreover it has been observed that when we get the attitude we go on and exaggerate it, presently becoming more servile than the natives, and vainer of it. The next step is to rail and scoff at republics aud democracies. All of which is natural, for we have not ceased to be human beings by becoming Americans, and the human race was always intended to be governed by kingship, not by popular vote.