I introduce this brief but suggestive list as intimating how far a
democratic people have gone in doing for themselves what Louis XIV at
Versailles in the "fulness of power" and out of "certain knowledge" did
for the trustful habitants of Montreal, who were "ignorant of their true
interest."
And, of course, with that increased paternalism has come of necessity an
army of public servants--governors and policemen, street cleaners and
judges, teachers and factory inspectors, till, as I have estimated, in
some communities one adult in every thirty is a paid servant of the
public.
Such paternalism is not peculiar to that valley. I remember, years ago,
when I was following the legislation of an eastern State, that a bill was
introduced fixing the depth of a strawberry box, and another obliging the
vender of huckleberries to put on the boxes a label in letters of certain
height indicating that they were picked in a certain way. And this
paternalism is even more marked in the old-age pension provision in
England, where the "mother of parliaments," as one has expressed it, has
been put on the level of the newest western State in its parental
solicitude.
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