of the nation, disgruntled with the autocracy imposed upon them
by the war.

The reaction from that autocracy was a swinging to the other extreme,
and, as if to work into the hands of the revolutionary party, living
costs remained at the maximum. The cry of the revolutionists, to all
enough and to none too much, found a response not only in the anxious
minds of honest workmen, but among an underpaid intelligentsia. Neither
political party offered any relief; the old lines no longer held, and
new lines of cleavage had come. Progressive Republicans and Democrats
had united against reactionary members of both parties. There were no
great leaders, no men of the hour.

The old vicious cycle of empires threatened to repeat itself, the old
story of the many led by the few. Always it had come, autocracy, the too
great power of one man; then anarchy, the overthrow of that power by the
angry mob. Out of that anarchy the gradual restoration of order by
the people themselves, into democracy. And then in time again, by that
steady gravitation of the strong up and the weak down, some one man who
emerged from the mass and crowned himself, or was crowned. And there was
autocracy again, and again the vicious circle.

But such movements had always been, in the last analysis, the work of
the few. It had always been the militant minority which ruled. Always
the great mass of the people had submitted. They had fought, one way
or the other when the time came, but without any deep conviction behind
them. They wanted peace, the right to labor. They warred, to find peace.
Small concern was it, to the peasant plowing his field, whether one man
ruled over him or a dozen. He wanted neither place nor power.

It came to this, then, Willy Cameron argued to himself. This new world
conflict was a struggle between the contented and the discontented. In
Europe, discontent might conquer, but in America, never. There were too
many who owned a field or had the chance to labor. There were too many
ways legitimately to aspire. Those who wanted something for nothing were
but a handful to those who wanted to give that they might receive.

* * * * *

Three days before the election, Willy Cameron received a note from Lily,
sent by hand.

"Father wants to see you to-night," she wrote, "and mother suggests
that as you are busy, you try to come to dinner. We are dining alone. Do
come, Willy. I think it is most imp