"But if we became involved in a serious war trouble the energy of our people would be directed to an attempt to secure increased efficiency. We would become closely organized again. I don't think we'd lose the benefit of what has been done in the past years, but we would come to a turn in the road. "I suppose it would bring us all together, if we got into this war, and I suppose we'd get some good out of it. "You see, the people who formerly directed our Government haven't had much power for several years. Now they are valuable people. And they will come back into power again, but with greatly modified conditions. "I don't think that a new set of people are going to manage the affairs of the nation. I think that the affairs of the nation will be managed by the people who managed them before. But these people will be much more under control than they were before, and they will be subject to new laws. "How much good government by commission is going to do I don't know. We have not as yet had good enough men to enter into this important work, and the best of those who have entered have not stayed in this employment. So the development of experts in government has not come along as well as people hoped it would." The genial philosopher smiled quizzically and rose from his chair. "I'm afraid I'm getting too political," he said, pacing slowly up and down the room. "Let's get back to snobs and snobbery. "You asked me a few minutes ago why the snob had become so inconspicuous a figure in our modern society. Well, I know one reason for this altered condition of affairs. Woman has abolished the snob. Woman has changed man." "And what changed woman?" I asked. "Many things; the development of machinery, for instance," he replied. "Woman has not changed so much as the conditions of life have changed. "The development of machinery has caused changes that impress me deeply. It has produced immense alterations in the conditions of life and in the relations between people. "War has been changed in a striking manner by this development of machinery. Never in the history of warfare was machinery so prominent and important as to-day. In fact, I think I am justified in speaking of this war as a machine-bore! "Machinery really has had a great deal to do with changing the condition and activities of woman, and has been a powerful influence in bringing about the modern movement for women's suffrage. Machinery has changed the employment of women and forced them into kinds of work which are not domestic. "The typewriter and the telephone have revolutionized our methods of doing business. The typewriter and the telephone have filled our offices with women. They are doing work which twenty years ago would have been considered most unfeminine.