rsooth they have ceased to be cattle. "The damned
wantlessness of the poor," about which Oscar Wilde complained, the cry
for a little more fodder, gives way to an insistence upon the chance to
be interested in life.

To shut the door in the face of such a current of feeling because it is
occasionally exasperated into violence would be as futile as locking up
children because they get into mischief. The mind which rejects
syndicalism entirely because of the by-products of its despair has had
pearls cast before it in vain. I know that syndicalism means a revision
of some of our plans--that it is an intrusion upon many a glib prejudice.
But a human impulse is more important than any existing theory. We must
not throw an unexpected guest out of the window because no place is set
for him at table. For we lose not only the charm of his company: he may
in anger wreck the house.

* * * * *

Yet the whole nation can't sit at one table: the politician will object
that all human interests can't be embodied in a party program. That is
true, truer than most politicians would admit in public. No party can
represent a whole nation, although, with the exception of the socialists,
all of them pretend to do just that. The reason is very simple: a
platform is a list of performances that are possible within a few years.
It is concerned with more or less immediate proposals, and in a nation
split up by class, sectional and racial interests, these proposals are
sure to arouse hostility. No definite industrial and political platform,
for example, can satisfy rich and poor, black and white, Eastern creditor
and Western farmer. A party that tried to answer every conflicting
interest would stand still because people were pulling in so many
different directions. It would arouse the anger of every group and the
approval of its framers. It would have no dynamic power because the
forces would neutralize each other.

One comprehensive party platform fusing every interest is impossible and
undesirable. What is both possible and desirable is that every group
interest should be represented in public life--that it should have
spokesmen and influence in public affairs. This is almost impossible
to-day. Our blundering political system is pachydermic in its
irresponsiveness. The methods of securing representation are unfit
instruments for any flexible use. But the United States is evidently not
exceptional in this respect.