overnment is futile and mischievous unless supported by the
mass of the people; with the undeniable fact that business has corrupted
public officials--I have no complaint. What I object to is the emphasis
which shifts the blame for our troubles from the shoulders of the people
to those of the "corrupting interests." For this seems to me nothing but
the resuscitation of the devil: when things go wrong it is somebody
else's fault. We are peculiarly open to this kind of vanity in America.
If some wise law is passed we say it is the will of the people showing
its power of self-government. But if that will is so weak and timid that
a great evil like child labor persists to our shame we turn the
responsibility over to the devil personified as a "special interest." It
is an old habit of the race which seems to have begun with the serpent in
the Garden of Eden.

The word demagogue has been frightfully maltreated in late years, but
surely here is its real meaning--to flatter the people by telling them
that their failures are somebody else's fault. For if a nation declares
it has reached its majority by instituting self-government, then it
cannot shirk responsibility.

These "special interests"--big business, a corrupt press, crooked
politics--grew up within the country, were promoted by American citizens,
admired by millions of them, and acquiesced in by almost all of them.
Whoever thinks that business corruption is the work of a few inhumanly
cunning individuals with monstrous morals is self-righteous without
excuse. Capitalists did not violate the public conscience of America;
they expressed it. That conscience was inadequate and unintelligent. We
are being pinched by the acts it nourished. A great outcry has arisen and
a number of perfectly conventional men like Lorimer suffer an undeserved
humiliation. We say it is a "moral awakening." That is another dodge by
which we pretend that we were always wise and just, though a trifle
sleepy. In reality we are witnessing a change of conscience, initiated by
cranks and fanatics, sustained for a long time by minorities, which has
at last infected the mass of the people.

The danger I spoke of arises just here: the desire to infect at once the
whole mass crowds out the courage of the innovator. No man can do his
best work if he bows at every step to the public conscience of his age.
The real service to democracy is the fullest, freest expression of
talent. The best servants of the pe