the supposed leaders. The
American people are what the circumstances, the traditional leadership,
and the interests of American life have made them. They cannot be
expected to be any better than they are, until they have been
sufficiently shown the way; and they cannot be blamed for being as bad
as they are, until it is proved that they have deliberately rejected
better leadership. No such proof has ever been offered.

Some disgruntled Americans talk as if in a democracy the path of the
aspiring individual should be made peculiarly safe and easy. As soon as
any young man appears whose ideals are perched a little higher than
those of his neighbors, and who has acquired some knack of performance,
he should apparently be immediately taken at his own valuation and
loaded with rewards and opportunities. The public should take off its
hat and ask him humbly to step into the limelight and show himself off
for the popular edification. He should not be obliged to make himself
interesting to the public. They should immediately make themselves
interested in him, and bolt whatever he chooses to offer them as the
very meat and wine of the mind. But surely one does not need to urge
very emphatically that popularity won upon such easy terms would be
demoralizing to any but very highly gifted and very cool-headed men. The
American people are absolutely right in insisting that an aspirant for
popular eminence shall be compelled to make himself interesting to them,
and shall not be welcomed as a fountain of excellence and enlightenment
until he has found some means of forcing his meat and his wine down
their reluctant throats. And if the aspiring individual accepts this
condition as tantamount to an order that he must haul down the flag of
his own individual purpose in order to obtain popular appreciation and
reward, it is he who is unworthy to lead, not they who are unworthy of
being led. The problem and business of his life is precisely that of
keeping his flag flying at any personal cost or sacrifice; and if his
own particular purpose demands that his flying flag shall be loyally
saluted, it is his own business also to see that his flag is well worthy
of a popular salutation. In occasional instances these two aspects of a
special performer's business may prove to be incompatible. Every real
adventure must be attended by risks. Every real battle involves a
certain number of casualties. But better the risk and the wounded and
the dead