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Croly, Herbert David, 1869-1930

"The Promise of American Life"

The fact that Mr. Bryan
incorporates it in most of his speeches does not prevent Mr. Hearst from
keeping it standing in type for the purpose of showing how very American
the _American_ can be. The fact that Mr. Hearst has appropriated it with
the American flag as belonging peculiarly to himself has not prevented
Mr. Roosevelt from explaining the whole of his policy of reform as at
the bottom an attempt to restore a "Square Deal"--that is, a condition
of equal rights and non-existing privileges. More radical reformers find
the same principle equally useful for their own purposes. Mr. Frederic
C. Howe, in his "Hope of Democracy," bases an elaborate scheme of
municipal socialism exclusively upon it. Mr. William Smythe, in his
"Constructive Democracy," finds warrant in the same principle for the
immediate purchase by the central government of the railway and "trust"
franchises. Mr. Henry George, Jr., in his "Menace of Privilege," asserts
that the plain American citizen can never enjoy equality of rights as
long as land, mines, railroad rights of way and terminals, and the like
remain in the hands of private owners.


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