ted the use of righteous force, when
malignant evil in the form of self-seeking sought domination, either
intellectual or physical, for its own selfish gain and aggrandizement,
is clearly evidenced by many of his own sayings and his own acts.

So within the nation during this great reconstruction period, these are
times that call for heroic men and women. In a Democracy or in any
representative form of government an alert citizenship is its only
safety. With a vastly increased voting population, in that many millions
of women citizens are now admitted to full citizenship, the need for
intelligent action and attention to matters of government was never so
great. Great numbers will be herded and voted by organizations as well
as by machines. As these will comprise the most ignorant and therefore
the herdable ones, it is especially incumbent upon the great rank and
file of intelligent women to see that they take and maintain an active
interest in public affairs.

Politics is something that we cannot evade except to the detriment of
our country and thereby to our own detriment. Politics is but another
word for government. And in a sense we the individual voter are the
government and unless we make matters of government our own concern,
there are organizations and there are groups of designing men who will
steal in and get possession for their own selfish aggrandizement and
gain. This takes sometimes the form of power, to be traded for other
power, or concessions; but always if you will trace far enough, eventual
money gain. Or again it takes the form of graft and even direct loot.
The losses that are sustained through a lowered citizenship, through
inefficient service, through a general debauchery of public
institutions, through increased taxation to make up for the amounts that
are drawn off in graft and loot are well nigh incalculable--and for the
sole reason that you and I, average citizens, do not take the active
personal interest in our own matters of government that we should take.

Clericalism, Tammanyism, Bolshevism, Syndicalism--and all in the guise
of interest in the people--get their holds and their profits in this
way. It is essential that we be locally wise and history wise. Any class
or section or organization that is less than the nation itself must be
watched and be made to keep its own place, or it becomes a menace to the
free and larger life of the nation. Even in the case of a great national
crisis a su