This evil breeds another: fickleness in the people means demagoguery in the leader, inevitably. We have said to our public men--not in words, but by the far more impressive language of our conduct--"get money, power, success, and we will give you more money, power and success, and not ask you how you got them nor what ends you serve in using them." That so many have refused the bribe is to their credit, not ours; we have done what we could to corrupt them. Finally, we are the most irreverent people in the world. We believe in youth, we scorn age. We have splendid enthusiasm, we do not know what wisdom means. One hears college presidents say--half jokingly, of course--that there is no use appointing a man over thirty to the faculty these days. So one hears Christian ministers, in those denominations where the minister is called by the particular church, say there is no use trying to get another call after one is fifty! Of course, it is not true, but it is true enough to be a serious criticism upon us. For what other vocation is there where the mellowness that comes only from time and long experience, from presiding at weddings and standing beside open graves, sharing the joys and sorrows of innumerable persons, is so indispensable, as in the pastor, the physician of the spirit? Still, we will turn out some wise, shy, mellow old man, just ripened to the point of being the true minister to the souls of others, and replace him with a recent graduate of a theological school, because the latter can talk the language of the higher criticism or whatever else happens to interest us for the moment. Obviously, we pay the price, but think what it indicates of our civilization. XVII THE DILEMMA OF DEMOCRACY We have seen that the gravest menaces of democracy are the faults in mind and character in the multitude. Selfishness, fickleness, ignorance, irreverence in the people, with demagoguery in the leader-- these are the menaces of American democracy. How then can the people be trusted, since democracy depends upon trusting them? This is an old indictment, searching to the very heart of democracy. Plato made it of ancient Athens, while, more recently and trenchantly, Ibsen has made it for all modern society. The argument runs thus: democracy means the rule of the majority. Well, there are more fools than wise men in the world, more ignorant than intelligent. Thus the rule of the majority must mean the rule of the fools over the wise men, of the ignorant over the intelligent. Such is the significant indictment, and we are compelled to admit that our political life is filled with illustrations that would seem to substantiate it. The ward bosses, the demagogues and grafters who are given power by the multitude, one campaign after another, would seem to justify the pessimism of Plato and Ibsen.