The element of justice in the charge does not need to be pointed out. Bernard Shaw has warned us against doing unto others as we would have them do unto us for fear they may not like it. But for members of a gregarious species some tolerance of ministration seems unavoidable. Within the labor movement itself those with a margin of time and energy are constantly acting in the interest of those who have none. We all begin life with several years of sheer dependence on the altruism of our elders and if we live long enough come again to some form of dependence. As we look back on the slow mitigation of man’s inhumanity to man there seems at least good ground for putting the burden of proof on those who scorn all benevolent interference. We have already noticed that what passes in one generation for special interest in the fortunes of others seems to a later time plain obligation. “Almost every law on the statute books,” says a historian, in reference to protective legislation, “was forced upon the legislature by the disconcerting zeal of a few enthusiasts. We marvel at the slight concessions to humanity which satisfied them, we should rather admire the originality which led them to denounce cruel and oppressive conditions which had satisfied the legislature and against which their victims had not always turned.”[61] There is the crux of the matter--the victims will not, cannot always turn. In the palmy days of utilitarianism when the opposition to doing for others was felt with the mighty impact of which the present vague distrust is the last faint ripple fading across the public mind, Mill himself will be found writing that although it can be stated as a general rule “that most persons take a juster and more intelligent view of their own interest, and of the means of promoting it, than can either be prescribed to them by a general enactment of the legislature, or pointed out in the particular case by a public functionary” nevertheless “there is no difficulty in perceiving some very large and conspicuous exceptions to it.”[62] And among these exceptions he proceeds to enumerate protection of persons incapable of judging or acting for themselves whether from defective intelligence or immaturity, and the protection offered by labor legislation and by public charity. Elsewhere he also remarks, “Those who most need to be made wiser and better commonly desire it least, and if they desired it would be incapable of finding the way to it by their own lights.”[63] It could probably be shown that the great bulk of social work acts in the interest of people unable to speak for themselves or vaguely wanting something they cannot find “the way to by their own lights.” But victimization and helplessness are entirely relative matters and social work is prepared boldly to extend benefits wherever they are wanted.