giver is excused, or, at worst, only lightly criticised. These
are but a few common illustrations of class conscience. Any careful
observer will be able to add almost indefinitely to the number.

It would be easy to compile a catalogue of such examples as these from
the history of the past few years sufficient to convince the most
skeptical that class interests do produce a class conscience. Mr. Ghent
aptly expresses a profound truth when he says: "There is a spiritual
alchemy which transmutes the base metal of self-interest into the gold
of conscience; the transmutation is real, and the resulting frame of
mind is not hypocrisy, but conscience. It is a class conscience, and
therefore partial and imperfect, having little to do with absolute
ethics. But partial and imperfect as it is, it is generally
sincere."[125] No better test of the truth of this can be made than by
reading carefully for a few weeks the comments of half a dozen
representative capitalist newspapers, and of an equal number of
representative labor papers, upon current events. The antithetical
nature of their judgments of men and events demonstrates the existence
of a distinct class conscience. It cannot be interpreted in any other
way.

V

A great many people, while admitting the important role class struggles
have played in the history of the race, strenuously deny the existence
of classes in the United States. They freely admit the class divisions
and struggles of the Old World, but deny that a similar class antagonism
exists in this country; they fondly believe the United States to be a
glorious exception to the rule, and regard the claim that classes exist
here as falsehood and treason. The Socialists are forever being accused
of seeking to apply to American life judgments based upon European facts
and conditions. It is easy to visualize the class divisions of
monarchical countries, where there are hereditary ruling classes--even
though these are only nominally the ruling classes in most cases--fixed
by law. But it is not so easy to recognize the fact that, even in these
countries, the power is held by the financial and industrial lords, and
not by the kings and their titular nobility. The absence of a
hereditary, titular ruling class serves to hide from many people the
real class divisions existing in this country.

Nevertheless, there is a perceptible growth of uneasiness and unrest; a
widening and deepening conviction that while we may retai