make it seem so? I am not quarreling with the possibilities of love, generosity, self-sacrifice, public and private. We all hope for them, do we not? In various minor ways at least, and even in some public and large ways, they exist. But how about self-interest, cold, savage and yet constructive if feverish self-interest? Has that been abrogated? Indeed, ought not we Americans, of all people, learn, and learn quickly, that autocracy in whatever form you find it--absolute or otherwise--is never real autocracy, not absolute, and that on the other hand so-called democracy is never real democracy but always something tempered by private autocracy in a thousand--nay, in a million--forms? For after all, who tells such people as Rockefeller and Woolworth, to say nothing of kings and emperors--fallible and seeking souls, all--how, what, why, they must do?--how far they may go? What to interest themselves in? Consider the fall of the French kings, Charles I., the late Czar. They deal with the mass, and therefore to a certain extent they must respect it. They cannot escape it. It is their fate. At the same time, in attempting so to do, to whom do they not listen really for sound advice?--often to the least of their subjects or hirelings. The stockholders in any modern corporation--are they any more as to voice and weight in that which their money makes possible than the people out in the street of a republic or a kingdom with their ultimate veto power? They elect a board of directors as we elect a senate, or a monarchy, a legislature. And this leadership perpetuates itself, or at any rate holds things together, as does officialdom at Washington, until a leader appears. A weak king or emperor is run by strong men, a weak President is dictated to by a strong Senate or House. When the Roman Senate was strong the dictators were weak, and vice versa. In calm, peaceful days leadership is not necessary. It is or may be a disturbing factor. But when changes are coming, when Nature is brewing a storm--then. So life, with its endless brewing of storms and leaders, ought to give a hint to republics or democracies or corporate organizations. And, having said so much, is it not plain that room must be made always for the leader, the passing autocrat, if you will? Must he not be given--if he have brains--the right of initiative and power, for after all is he not also a slave to life, chance, labor, the time-spirit? It is to be assumed, of course, that men shall demand first that he command their admiration and loyalty, as he certainly will if he is a real leader. Rome admired her Cæsar, France her Napoleon; Germany evidently liked her Kaiser, France her Clemenceau, England her Lloyd George. They thought them, apparently, necessary and great leaders. In our contest with Germany we perhaps, for one nation, were fighting to make her dislike something which she craved and needed, could not probably very well do without.