n that cannot be molded,
changed, or even abolished. Upon this theory modern society is held
together. It is a belief so firmly rooted in the popular mind that,
although everything goes against the people, they peacefully submit. So
firmly established, indeed, is this tradition that even the most irate
admit that where wrong exists the chief fault lies with the people
themselves.

Whatever may be said concerning its limitations and its perversions,
this, then, is an age of democracy, founded upon a widespread faith in
majority rule. Whether it be true or not, the conviction is almost
universal that the majority can, through its political power, accomplish
any and every change, no matter how revolutionary. Our whole Western
civilization has had bred into it the belief that those who are
dissatisfied with things as they are can agitate to change them, are
even free to organize for the purpose of changing them, and can, in
fact, change them whenever the majority is won over to stand with them.
This, again, is the theory, although there is no one of us, of course,
but will admit that a thousand ways are found to defeat the will of the
majority. There are bribery, fraudulent elections, and an infinite
variety of corrupting methods. There is the control of parliaments, of
courts, and of political parties by special privilege. There are
oppressive and unjust laws obtained through trickery. There is the
overwhelming power exercised by the wealthy through their control of the
press and of nearly all means of enlightenment. Through their power and
the means they have to corrupt, the majority is indeed so constantly
deceived that, when one dwells only on this side of our political life,
it is easy to arrive at the conviction that democracy is a myth and
that, in fact, the end may never come of this power of the few to divert
and pervert the institutions for expressing the popular will.

But there is no way of achieving democracy in any form except through
democracy, and we have found that he who rejects political action finds
himself irresistibly drawn into the use of means that are both
indefensible and abortive. Curiously enough, in this use of methods, as
in other ways, extremes meet. Both the despot and the terrorist are
anti-democrats. Neither the anarchist of Bakounin's type nor the
anarchist of the Wall Street type trusts the people. With their cliques
and inner circles plotting their conspiracies, they are forced to trave