American democracy has always been afraid of leadership. Our constitutions of the eighteenth century provided no one department to lead, no one man in the legislature to lead. Therefore, as we must have leadership, there has been much undefined, irresponsible leadership. This has often meant corruption and abuse, bad enough, but worse still it has meant the creation of machinery for the perpetuation of corruption, the encouragement of abuse. Under machine politics we choose for our leaders the men who are most popular for the moment or who have worked out the most thorough system of patronage, or rather of course we do not choose at all. We have two kinds of leaders under our party system, both the wrong kind: we have our actual leaders, the bosses, and our official leaders who have tended to be men who could be managed by the party. Our officials in their campaign speeches say that they are the “servants of the people.” But we do not want “servants” any more than we want bosses; we want genuine leaders. Now that more and more direct power is being given to the people it is especially necessary that we should not be led by machine bosses, but that we should evolve the kind of leadership which will serve a true democracy, which will be the expression of a true democracy, and will guide it to democratic ends by democratic methods. We hope through local group organization to evolve real leaders. There should be in a democracy some sort of regular and ceaseless process by which ability of all sorts should come to the top, and flexibility in our forms so that new ability can always find its greatest point of usefulness, and so that service which is no longer useful can be replaced by that which is. In neighborhood groups where we have different alignments on different questions, there will be a tendency for those to lead at any particular moment who are most competent to lead in the particular matter in hand. Thus a mechanical leadership will give place to a vital leadership. Suppose the subject is sanitation. The man who is most interested, who has the clearest view of the need and who is its most insistent champion, will naturally step forth as the leader in that. The man who knows most about educational matters will lead in those, will be chosen eventually for the school committee or for the educational committee of the state legislature. Thus the different leaders of a democracy appear. Here in the neighborhood group leaders are born. Democracy is the breeding-ground of aristocracy. You have all the chance the world gives. In your neighborhood group show the clearness of your mind, the strength of your grip, your power to elicit and to guide coöperative action, and you emerge as the leader of men.