Long before a projected bit of legislation comes to a head, the interests affected know where every congressman stands, and take steps accordingly. I here use the word "interests" not in the offensive sense of something mysterious and powerfully inimical to the popular interest, bent upon extracting some substantial preference from Congress, but rather as being made up of all of us, according to our business associations. There is no corruption in all this, and very little secrecy. There is a bill before Congress, which reflects the fear of elected legislators of the growing power of the unofficial lawmakers, to require the members of the third house, the occupational representation house, to register themselves as lobbyists; but there would appear to be little need of formally registering men who frankly and proudly tag themselves.

The paid lobbyist of a single great coal corporation, or even of the United States Steel Corporation, would not get far in these days. A man would be ashamed to say that he was working as a lobbyist for a single corporation, but he takes pride in being a representative of the National Coal Association or the American Iron and Steel Institute or the Chemical Foundation or the Petroleum Institute or the Railway Executives. He would be ashamed to say that he was a paid lobbyist for Armour, but he is proud

to represent the Institute of American Meat Packers. He does not work in the dark, at least not ostensibly. He proclaims himself for what he is. This is a business country; business is the people, and he as an authorized representative of business speaks to the formal legislative body the legislative will of the district of coal or the constituency of steel or the state of copper. Congressmen being chosen as representatives of so many political noses inclosed by imaginary boundary-lines are archaic, if not obsolete, in his view, when the noses necessarily have become industrial in an industrial community. Therefore the necessity of a third house, which represents actuality instead of tradition, as a means of guiding the two houses that must, in conformity to the Constitution, cast the deciding votes.

There is no conflict between this view and the frequent complaint of business men, jealous of their independence, that the Government is too much occupying itself with curbing and hobbling regulations and restrictions of business. On the contrary, if the coal-mine operators or the packers or the railways find themselves in the meshes of strangling laws, it simply means that other business has obtained control of the law-making agency and is using it to protect itself from what it esteems the encroachment of the penalized business in its own field. The repression of the packers means that the business of agriculture has been more successful than that of packing in advancing its interests through legislation, and is also a reaction from a time when the unorganized agricultural group was at the mercy of the packers. The rout of the Plumb plan for "demo

cratic operation" of the railways means that the business of owning the railways is more potent in Congress than the business of working on them. Business is in control of government now in a bushwhacking and guerilla way. Many independent bands overrun and harry the Government, but as yet they are without a common control.

Hence, although government has become economic, it is without a fixed policy, but oscillates like a weathervane according to the group control of the day. At one moment organized labor is on top, at another time manufacturing, then agriculture, and so on. Business has not yet reached that stage of evolution of its power when the various occupational states that compose it have attained the point corresponding to the time in our political evolution when the thirteen colonies were willing to sacrifice some of their cherished powers and some of their commercial advantages for the general welfare of the federation.

Business men do not appear in great numbers in the House or the Senate, but industry finds a way to make the laws. The college of electors was designed to be a body of wise, elder statesmen who would confer without prejudice or passion, and in cool judgment select the most suitable supermen for President and VicePresident of the United States. In fact the electors are nothing but human tickets who count themselves according to the names of the candidates with which they are tagged, and thus give us the President and VicePresident chosen by popular vote, a state of affairs that would make Hamilton turn in his grave. The Supreme Court was intended to be severely

and exclusively juridical, but it has turned out to be a supreme legislative body, it and not Congress being the interpreter of what Congress says.

§ 5

The British monarchy was, in fact, impotent long before historians perceived that Parliament was supreme. The old form survives its loss of potency, and "George Rex" is still stenciled on physical instrumentalities of the British Empire throughout the world, though the king and emperor as a person is merely a symbol, an heirloom of a forgotten age and system.

The British monarch as an executive had virtually ceased to be before our Revolution, but so powerful is appearance and form that our constitution-makers thought they were copying in republican form the balanced legislative, judicial, and executive functions of the British political system, though Parliament already had largely absorbed all three. Profound changes in the substance of institutions and morals have often come unpromoted and unheralded while the form and customs have remained unchanged. Such a submerged revolution may be going on now to meet the insistent requirements of a national life that has become industrial rather than political.

So far the third house is not united. The representatives of the groups that compose it have championed the particular causes of their groups and have fought against one another, with the result that some very powerful ones, such as the meat-packers and the coaloperators, have nothing to show for their intense and intensive activity in shaping legislation. It remains for

moved to say:

It is by no means impossible that they will yet endeavor to unite and, instead of quarreling with one another, seek to shape all legislation with an economic bearing for the common good. The regulation of the business of the country by the War Industries Board during the war was a lesson in the possibilities of the reconciliation of particular interests for the good of all. It opened the eyes of business men to the fact that the attainment of a common good is often of more value than that of a particular good. Mr. Baruch, as industrial dictator, showed them the huge interdependence of business, and gave them unforgotten lessons in group control and discipline. Now that business in some form is aggressive in directing Congress rather than in electing it, it is not inconceivable that it may recall its war experience, frankly declare that the Government is now economic, and strive to unite its forces in a great legislative committee that will become in a very real sense a third and dominating house. Something of that sort would now seem to be the only way out of a condition in which all legislation of economic importance merely represents victory or defeat for some special interests. To-day Congress seeks to legislate while being torn by a pack of ravening wolves, which consume it and one another. Indeed, the plight of Congress is that of the nation. So distracting and so destructive of the common good has become this bloodless war of the interests, each intent on its own objective,

During the last twenty-five years we have seen the extraordinary growth of great national associations, covering our entire country, representing the special economic interests of different classes, of the banks, the merchants, the employers, the workmen, the farmers. If these powerful national organizations are to expand their claims for special favor in the community into a great conflict, then the whole fabric of our national life has gone by the board. If, on the other hand, there is developed a practical step in coöperation between these great groups, we will have laid the foundation of a new economic era, we will have solved our economic ills of the last century in the only fashion that democracy can solve its troubles, by the initiative of the individual and by the sense of service to the country as a whole.

What does this mean if it is not a recognition of a present anarchic domination of the occupations and a plea for order through their union? And if this union of all the occupations, which in the end will mean an economic union of all of us, is once effected, it will, of course, be irresistible. Government as constituted will be an inanimate mechanism which the occupational groups may continue to use, though they will be the real government. In that event Congress may continue to be selected by a count of noses, geographically divided, but what it will do will be determined by business and not by politics. Laws will be for and of business, in the broadest sense,-agriculture, labor, manufacturers, the professions, commerce, transportation, mines,-and business, become the nation, will consciously direct its destinies.

that, the Bonnie Maggie Ann came round the Windy Scaup five hours back. Even wi' a big catch he 'd be through by this time." Jeannie's Sally flung this back over her shoulder into the darkening room without any suggestion of expecting an answer, and continued to watch through the cottage window, carefully sheltering behind the geraniums lest the neighbors should even suspect that Shiny Dan's movements were of any interest to her. At her remark the click of steel needles from the arm-chair in the shadows stopped for a second and then went on again.

"Aye, it 's him, and he 's heading this way. Get out the griddle, Mither. I'll be makin' scones when he comes. There's nothing makes a lone man hanker for a woman like the sight o' her makin' scones."

The needles stopped, and a thin, bent figure hoisted itself and hobbled obediently toward the griddle without a word.

It was Jeannie, the mother of Jeannie's Sally. The neighbors held it against Jeannie's Sally that her mother spoke so little. They whispered the words "domineering limmer," and sometimes they called Jeannie "puir auld Jeannie," but not when Jeannie's Sally was around. They had to admit, although grudgingly, that no daughter

better goffered mutches or brawer wincey petticoats than did Jeannie's Sally. "Mither!"

It was a sharp cry of reproof. Jeannie, bracing herself with her head against the mantel to lift the griddle up to the crane, almost dropped the griddle into the glowing peats beneath as she guiltily drew back her head, with its snowy starched mutch, from the soot-stained mantel. She looked across at her angry daughter and faltered apologetically:

"I dinna think I 've spoiled it, lass. I aye forget." Then, justifying her carelessness in soiling her mutch, she added, "It 's no' easy to lift the griddle without leanin' a'gin' the mantel."

"Easier than to stand for hours gofferin' mutches, I 'm thinkin'."

Jeannie's Sally slammed the chimney on the oil-lamp she had been lighting as she tossed this taunt. The light steadied down, showing her round, high-cheek-boned, rosy face and smooth, black hair sedately parted in the middle. Her black eyes, glinting with anger, gave color to the neighbors' whispered "domineering." She was a bonnie enough lass, however, and buxom, and could mend nets better than any guidwife in Rosarty. And for gutting herring she was paid sixpence a day more than any other

lass during herring season. But for all that she had turned six and thirty and had n't landed her man yet, although she'd been setting her cap at Shiny Dan ever since his wife Maggie Ann died, twelve years back.

Before Shiny Dan had married her, they had called her "feckless Maggie Ann" in the herring yard, because she had n't the strength to wheel her barrel of herring aside when it was full, and had needed to call upon some man to help her. Jeannie's Sally had pointed out this failing of Maggie Ann's to Shiny Dan one day when showing off her own prowess with a full barrel. She expected him to laugh at "feckless Maggie Ann," as the other men did, and was sore puzzled to see him cross the yard and wheel Maggie Ann's barrel aside for her, and more than puzzled when day after day Dan made a point of moving Maggie Ann's barrels. Exasperated, Jeannie's Sally confided to her mother: "And he never knew the little snippet was on earth till I pointed out her fecklessness ti him; noo he 's dancin' round, waitin' on her hand and foot. He'd be the laughing-stock o' the yard were it not that he 's over-broad in the shoulders to be laughed at."

And Jeannie's Sally was n't the only one who gasped amazed that winter when Danny, braw, strong fisherman that he was, owning his own boat, chose to "wed wi' a white-faced bit slip o' a lass like feckless Maggie Ann." Maggie Ann herself was astonished when Danny, wheeling her barrel aside at the end of the day, said with grave concern:

"Ye 're over-light for work like this, Maggie Ann, and I 'd be easier in my mind if ye 'd wed me. I'm no' exactin'; I 'd mend the nets mysel'."

And Maggie Ann, wise with woman's wisdom, knew that this was love, and she raised her brown eyes, moist with the wonder of it, and cried:

"But how can ye love me, Danny? I'm sae useless-like and dependent!"

"Maybe that's why, lass," said Danny, speaking with more truth than he knew. "There are whiles ye mind me o' a birdie wi' its wing broken."

And the next herring season the gossips, prompted by Jeannie's Sally, told with shrugs and headshakes how Dan was up at four of a morning mending his nets, when any bairn could tell you that a man that stood his watch by the nets for forty-eight hours had sore need o' his sleepin' time. And what was a fisherman's wife for, they would like to know, if no' to mend the nets while her guidman was sleeping?

But, for all their tongue-wagging, Danny and Maggie Ann were foolishly happy. In the evenings she would sit on his knee, run caressing fingers over his ruddy, long-lipped face and through his upstanding thatch of wavy, black hair, and croon adoring nonsense into his ear at a time when any right-thinking guidwife would have had her needles clicking their way through a new jersey for her man.

Danny never abandoned himself to this love-making; a shamefaced reticence kept him pretending that he only tolerated it because such foolishness seemed to make her happy. But he never reproached her for the things she neglected while doing this. Sometimes, to try him, she would sit off in the chair at the opposite side of the fire, and fall to mending a shirt with great industry, watching him slyly the while.

He would glance across at her from