We stand in the presence of a revolution—­not a bloody revolution, America is not given to the spilling of blood—­but a silent revolution whereby America will insist upon recovering in practise those ideals which she has always professed, upon securing a government devoted to the general interest and not to special interests.

We are upon the eve of a great reconstruction.  It calls for creative statesmanship as no age has done since that great age in which we set up the government under which we live, that government which was the admiration of the world until it suffered wrongs to grow up under it which have made many of our own compatriots question the freedom of our institutions and preach revolution against them.  I do not fear revolution.  I have unshaken faith in the power of America to keep its self-possession.  Revolution will come in peaceful guise, as it came when we put aside the crude government of the Confederation, and created the great Federal Union which governed individuals, not States, and which has been these one hundred and thirty years our vehicle of progress.  Some radical changes we must make in our law and practise.  Some reconstructions we must push forward, which a new age and new circumstances impose upon us.  But we can do it all in calm and sober fashion, like statesmen and patriots.

I do not speak of these things in apprehension, because all is open and above-board.  This is not a day in which great forces rally in secret.  The whole stupendous program must be publicly planned and canvassed.  Good temper, the wisdom that comes of sober counsel, the energy of thoughtful and unselfish men, the habit of cooperation and of compromise which has been bred in us by long years of free government in which reason rather than passion has been made to prevail by the sheer virtue of candid and universal debate, will enable us to win through to still another great age without violence.

THE INCOME TAX IN AMERICA

THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION AMENDED A.D. 1913

JOSEPH A. HILL

During the year 1913 a most amazing event happened.  The United States amended its Constitution by peaceful means.  Indeed the Constitution was twice amended; for, having passed the sixteenth amendment in February, permitting an income tax, the States, just to show what they could do when aroused to it, passed the seventeenth amendment in May, authorizing the direct election of United States senators by the people.