rom this point of view we can easily see the weakness and strength of
current criticism of extension of the ballot. It is the business of a
modern government to see to it, first, that the number of ignorant
within its bounds is reduced to the very smallest number. Again, it is
the duty of every such government to extend as quickly as possible the
number of persons of mature age who can vote. Such possible voters must
be regarded, not as sharers of a limited treasure, but as sources of new
national wisdom and strength.

The addition of the new wisdom, the new points of view, and the new
interests must, of course, be from time to time bewildering and
confusing. Today those who have a voice in the body politic have
expressed their wishes and sufferings. The result has been a smaller or
greater balancing of their conflicting interests. The appearance of new
interests and complaints means disarrangement and confusion to the older
equilibrium. It is, of course, the inevitable preliminary step to that
larger equilibrium in which the interests of no human soul will be
neglected. These interests will not, surely, be all fully realized, but
they will be recognized and given as full weight as the conflicting
interests will allow. The problem of government thereafter would be to
reduce the necessary conflict of human interests to the minimum.

From such a point of view one easily sees the strength of the demand for
the ballot on the part of certain disfranchised classes. When women ask
for the ballot, they are asking, not for a privilege, but for a
necessity. You may not see the necessity, you may easily argue that
women do not need to vote. Indeed, the women themselves in considerable
numbers may agree with you. Nevertheless, women do need the ballot. They
need it to right the balance of a world sadly awry because of its brutal
neglect of the rights of women and children. With the best will and
knowledge, no man can know women's wants as well as women themselves. To
disfranchise women is deliberately to turn from knowledge and grope in
ignorance.

So, too, with American Negroes: the South continually insists that a
benevolent guardianship of whites over blacks is the ideal thing. They
assume that white people not only know better what Negroes need than
Negroes themselves, but that they are anxious to supply these needs. As
a result they grope in ignorance and helplessness. They cannot
"understand" the Negro; they cannot protect