f varying and perhaps conflicting elements is constantly being
destroyed by new conditions,--such, for instance, as the gradual
increase before the Civil War of the North as compared to the South in
wealth, population, and industrial efficiency. The effect of this
destruction of the traditional balance was to bring out the
contradiction between the institution of negro slavery and the American
democratic purpose--thereby necessitating an active conflict, and the
triumph of one of these principles over the other. The unionist
democracy conquered, and as the result of that conquest a new balance
was reached between the various ingredients of American national life.
During the past generation, the increased efficiency of organization in
business and politics, the enormous growth of an irresponsible
individual money-power, the much more definite division of the American
people into possibly antagonistic classes, and the pressing practical
need for expert, responsible, and authoritative leadership,--these new
conditions and demands have been by way of upsetting once more the
traditional national balance and of driving new wedges into American
national cohesion. New contradictions have been developed between
various aspects of the American national composition; and if the
American people wish to escape the necessity of regaining their health
by means of another surgical operation, they must consider carefully how
much of a reorganization of traditional institutions, policy, and ideas
are necessary for the achievement of a new and more stable national
balance.

In the case of our own country, however, a balance is not to be struck
merely by the process of compromise in the interest of harmony. Our
forbears tried that method in dealing with the slavery problem from
1820 to 1850, and we all know with what results. American national
cohesion is a matter of national integrity; and national integrity is a
matter of loyalty to the requirements of a democratic ideal. For better
or worse the American people have proclaimed themselves to be a
democracy, and they have proclaimed that democracy means popular
economic, social, and moral emancipation. The only way to regain their
national balance is to remove those obstacles which the economic
development of the country has placed in the path of a better democratic
fulfillment. The economic and social changes of the past generation have
brought out a serious and a glaring contradiction bet