for the people! It must be made real. These silent, thoughtful-looking
workers, hurrying homewards through the darkening streets; these patient,
shrewd-planning housewives casting their shadows on the drawn-down
blinds: it was they who should be shaping the world, not the journalists
to whom all life was but so much "copy." This monstrous conspiracy, once
of the Sword, of the Church, now of the Press, that put all Government
into the hands of a few stuffy old gentlemen, politicians, leader
writers, without sympathy or understanding: it was time that it was swept
away. She would raise a new standard. It should be, not "Listen to me,
oh ye dumb," but, "Speak to me. Tell me your hidden hopes, your fears,
your dreams. Tell me your experience, your thoughts born of knowledge,
of suffering."

She would get into correspondence with them, go among them, talk to them.
The difficulty, at first, would be in getting them to write to her, to
open their minds to her. These voiceless masses that never spoke, but
were always being spoken for by self-appointed "leaders,"
"representatives," who immediately they had climbed into prominence took
their place among the rulers, and then from press and platform shouted to
them what they were to think and feel. It was as if the Drill-Sergeant
were to claim to be the "leader," the "representative" of his squad; or
the sheep-dog to pose as the "delegate" of the sheep. Dealt with always
as if they were mere herds, mere flocks, they had almost lost the power
of individual utterance. One would have to teach them, encourage them.

She remembered a Sunday class she had once conducted; and how for a long
time she had tried in vain to get the children to "come in," to take a
hand. That she might get in touch with them, understand their small
problems, she had urged them to ask questions. And there had fallen such
long silences. Until, at last, one cheeky ragamuffin had piped out:

"Please, Miss, have you got red hair all over you? Or only on your
head?"

For answer she had rolled up her sleeve, and let them examine her arm.
And then, in her turn, had insisted on rolling up his sleeve, revealing
the fact that his arms above the wrists had evidently not too recently
been washed; and the episode had ended in laughter and a babel of shrill
voices. And, at once, they were a party of chums, discussing matters
together.

They were but children, these tired men and women, just released from