ng part in this work, for with the decadence
of the church it has become the only truly catholic organization in the
land. Its task is essentially to carry out programs of service, to add
and build and increase the facilities of life. Repression is an
insignificant part of its work; the use of the club can never be
applauded, though it may be tolerated _faute de mieux_. Its use is a
confession of ignorance.

A sensitively representative machinery will probably serve such
statesmanship best. For the easy expression of public opinion in
government is a clue to what services are needed and a test of their
success. It keeps the processes of politics well ventilated and reminds
politicians of their excuse for existence.

In that kind of statesmanship there will be a premium on inventiveness,
on the ingenuity to devise and plan. There will be much less use for
lawyers and a great deal more for scientists. The work requires
industrial organizers, engineers, architects, educators, sanitists to
achieve what leadership brings into the program of politics.

This leadership is the distinctive fact about politics. The statesman
acts in part as an intermediary between the experts and his constituency.
He makes social movements conscious of themselves, expresses their needs,
gathers their power and then thrusts them behind the inventor and the
technician in the task of actual achievement. What Roosevelt did in the
conservation movement was typical of the statesman's work. He recognized
the need of attention to natural resources, made it public, crystallized
its force and delegated the technical accomplishment to Pinchot and his
subordinates.

* * * * *

But creative statesmanship requires a culture to support it. It can
neither be taught by rule nor produced out of a vacuum. A community that
clatters along with its rusty habits of thought unquestioned, making no
distinction between instruments and idols, with a dull consumption of
machine-made romantic fiction, no criticism, an empty pulpit and an
unreliable press, will find itself faithfully mirrored in public affairs.
The one thing that no democrat may assume is that the people are dear
good souls, fully competent for their task. The most valuable leaders
never assume that. No one, for example, would accuse Karl Marx of
disloyalty to workingmen. Yet in 1850 he could write at the demagogues
among his friends: "While we draw the attention of the Ger