PRACTICAL AGITATION _By the Same Author_ EMERSON AND OTHER ESSAYS. $1.25. CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. $1.25. PRACTICAL AGITATION BY JOHN JAY CHAPMAN NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1900 _Copyright, 1900_, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS. UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. DEDICATED TO The Memory OF THEODORE BACON PREFACE This book is an attempt to follow the track of personal influence across society. The first three chapters are taken up with discussions of political reform, the fourth chapter with contemporary journalism. The results of these discussions are then summarized in the chapters called “Principles.” I know that there are as many ways of stating the main idea of the book as there are minds in the world. That idea is, that we can always do more for mankind by following the good in a straight line than we can by making concessions to evil. The illusion that it is wise or necessary to suppress our instinctive love of truth comes from an imperfect understanding of what that instinctive love of truth represents, and of what damage happens both to ourselves and to others when we suppress it. The more closely we look at the facts, the more serious does this damage appear. And on the other hand, the more closely we look at the facts, the more trifling, inconsequent, and absurd do all those reasons appear which strive to make us accept, and thereby sanctify and preserve, some portion of the conceded evil in the world. J. J. C. NEW YORK, February 5, 1900. CONTENTS PAGE I. ELECTION TIME 1 II. BETWEEN ELECTIONS 34 III. THE MASSES 67 IV. LITERATURE 83 V. PRINCIPLES 104 VI. PRINCIPLES (_continued_) 126 VII. CONCLUSION 135 PRACTICAL AGITATION I ELECTION TIME It is the ambition of the agitator to use the machinery of government to make men more unselfish. In so far as he succeeds in this, he is creating a living church, the only sort of State church that would be entirely at one with our system, because it would be merely a representation in the formal government of a spirit abroad among the people.