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THE DEMOCRATIC STATE
 

suitable office can be found. This majestic victim not infrequently seeks surcease by a sort of running amok. That is to say, he turns what remains of his influence with the mob into a weapon against the nation as a whole, and becomes a chronic maker of trouble. The names of Burr, Clay, Calhoun, Douglas, Blaine, Greeley, Frémont, Roosevelt and Bryan will occur to every attentive student of American history. There have been many similar warlocks on lower levels; they are familiar in the politics of every American county.

Clay, like Bryan after him, was three times a candidate for the Presidency. Defeated in 1824, 1832 and 1840, he turned his back upon democracy, and became the first public agent and attorney for what are now called the Interests. When he died he was the darling of the Mellons, Morgans and Charlie Schwabs of his time. He believed in centralization and in the blessings of a protective tariff. These blessings the American people still enjoy. Calhoun, deprived of the golden plum by an unappreciative country, went even further. He seems to have come to the conclusion that its crime made it deserve capital punishment. At all events, he

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