ne would develop one's own
powers. Participation means love, hate, devotion and sacrifice, and only
when all these powers of the soul are brought into play, together with
the judgment, is the character strengthened and life more abundantly
obtained.

It must be evident to any one who has carefully followed this analysis
that hardly any of the adult male voters in our modern democracies have
the qualifications of good citizens. How, then, is good government
achieved? It is not achieved. We have very bad government. Everywhere
there is waste and inefficiency. Wealth is unjustly divided; great
corporations seize public utilities and exploit them for private gain;
enormous sums are squandered on unnecessary and dangerous battle-ships
and soldiers; in building a single State Capitol, $3,500,000 was
recently stolen, not only wasting public wealth, but corrupting public
morals; in some parts of our land little children still drive the wheels
of industry; and it is everywhere cheaper to scrap-heap men and women
than machines; most of our cities are ugly and badly ruled; drunkenness,
gambling and prostitution are common; life is not always secure from
lawless attack; and the machinery of justice is clogged and moves
slowly. Part of our intelligent adult population has no direct share in
the government under which it must live. We have just such a government
as we should expect where incompetent people decide such vast issues of
life.

But, on the other hand, we are vastly better off than any great people
has ever been before us. The mistakes are our own; they are made by us
who participate in government, and we are learning from them. Those who
exploit us may be called to account; and frequently they are caught and
punished. Of those who stole the millions in Harrisburg, nearly a score
have died disgraced, or are in prison or exile; and $1,300,000 has been
returned to the treasury of the State. Even when those who betray us are
not caught red-handed we learn to distrust and then to despise them.
They pass their last years in exile, and when their statues are erected
in our State Houses they are memorials of shame. Thus we learn the art
of living, we who participate in political action.

The whole business of a modern democracy is to educate itself through
doing, and we are all at school. If the bills are heavy, they are our
bills; and we are steadily learning how to make them less. In the past
no one learned. "The Bourbons le