Excerpt from The Cost of Our National Government: A Study in Political PathologyThis volume contains the substance of lectures deliv ered on the George Blumenthal Foundation at Columbia University in the fall and winter of 1909. The lectures were delivered from briefs, and in preparing them for publication, some documentary material cited during the argument has been transferred to foot-notes and appen dices, while in other cases matter referred to but not fully quoted in the course of oral exposition, has been incorporated in the text. Oral use of statistical data is cumbersome and inconvenient, and in delivering the lec tures, I referred my hearers to the forthcoming publica tion of them for the detailed evidence of some of my statements. The result is an inequality in the length of the lectures in their published form, but it is believed that the convenience of the reader is promoted.I had to do with a situation that was changing while it was under consideration, and in revising the lectures I have incorporated references to pertinent events that have taken place since, when they seemed to be illustrative of the tendencies examined in the course of the lectures. The issues considered are now so acute in our politics as to make the work timely, and I hope that it will be useful in clarifying public Opinion.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.