s up into a
sort of revivalist frenzy, an emotional state which, if the truth were
told, was thoroughly immoral, unreasonable and hypocritical: like all
frenzies, as a matter of course it died down after the campaign was over.
Moreover, the American people had shown that they were unwilling to make
any sacrifices for the permanent betterment of conditions, and as soon as
their incomes began to fall off they turned again to the bosses and
capitalists like an abject flock of sheep.

He went on to explain that he wasn't referring now to that part of the
electorate known as the labour element, the men who worked with their
hands in mills, factories, etc. They had their faults, yet they possessed
at least the virtue of solidarity, a willingness to undergo sacrifices in
order to advance the standard of conditions; they too had a tenacity of
purpose and a plan, such as it was, which the small business men, the
clerks lacked....

We must wake up to the fact that we shouldn't get Utopia by turning out
Mr. Jason and the highly efficient gentlemen who hired and financed him.
It wasn't so simple as that. Utopia was not an achievement after all, but
an undertaking, a state of mind, the continued overcoming of resistance
by a progressive education and effort. And all this talk of political and
financial "wickedness" was rubbish; the wickedness they complained of did
not reside merely in individuals it was a social disorder, or rather an
order that no longer suited social conditions. If the so-called good
citizens would take the trouble to educate themselves, to think instead
of allowing their thinking to be done for them they would see that the
"evils" which had been published broadcast were merely the symptoms of
that disease which had come upon the social body through their collective
neglect and indifference. They held up their hands in horror at the
spectacle of a commercial, licensed prostitution, they shunned the
prostitute and the criminal; but there was none of us, if honest, who
would not exclaim when he saw them, "there, but for the Grace of God, go
I!" What we still called "sin" was largely the result of lack of
opportunity, and the active principle of society as at present organized
tended more and more to restrict opportunity. Lack of opportunity, lack
of proper nutrition,--these made sinners by the wholesale; made, too,
nine-tenths of the inefficient of whom we self-righteously complained. We
had a national philosophy