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Lord Methuen, felled in a trifling engagement in the Boer war by one of those flesh wounds that are most painful but not serious, telegraphed home, “This is the bloodiest battle in history.” His point of view was rather too personal. And somewhat so must it have been with the Bishop when he concluded his survey of the encompassing plutocracy with this wild, despairing cry:

“The whole people are corrupted and corrupting! Moloch is god and his shrine is in almost every household in the republic!”

Fifth avenue and Wall street are not all of Manhattan Island: Manhattan Island is not all of New York City; New York City is not the only city in America; and outside the cities in every direction stretch vast areas of American soil not without its population. The plutocracy is a phase, not the whole. If the distinguished Bishop were as competent to speak of the American people as he is of the plutocracy, we might well feel that it is all over with the republic—that we Americans have bartered our birthright for a few handfuls of yellow earth and richly deserve our fate of social, political and industrial serfdom.