“Our purpose is to substitute morality for egotism, honesty for honor, principles for customs, duties for proprieties, the empire of reason for the tyranny of habit, contempt of vice for indifference to misfortune, dignity for insolence, nobility for vanity, love of glory for love of money, good people for society, merit for intrigue, genius for intellectual brilliancy, the charm of contentment for the satiety of pleasure, the majesty of man for the high breeding of the great, a magnanimous, powerful and happy people for amiable, frivolous and wretched people; that is to say, every virtue and miracle of the republic in the place of the vices and absurdities of the monarchy.” I submit that is pretty good rhetoric and excellent diction. Though it means absolutely nothing it must have sounded well to the proletariat. The people idolized Robespierre for a while at least, as they always idolize an orator who has great command of indefinite and high-sounding language. Idolizing an idealist they followed him and were led to the extremes of democracy. The whole population of France was transformed into an organized mob, doing everything that a mob can do but, in the main, preserving the forms of law. CHAPTER XXVIII CAPITAL AND LABOR Among the dangers threatening the republic is the warfare which admittedly exists between capital and labor, the manifest tendency of which is in the direction of bolshevism. Some citations are made showing its imminence. One need not to have read the preceding pages to know that the United States is fast approaching a crisis. Industrial and social unrest is everywhere apparent. Capital and labor are at grips in many places, while management, the all-essential factor, seems helpless to accomplish reconciliation. When given free rein, capital enforced unbearable terms. This resulted in legislation forbidding combinations for the purpose of limiting output or advancing prices of the products of labor. Thus far labor has enjoyed express exemptions from anti-trust laws, and it is now making unbearable exactions. I would like to warn labor unions that they are liable to exceed the limits of prudence. Admittedly Congress has the same power to forbid combinations of labor as it had to prohibit combinations of capital. Combinations of every kind are beneficial so long as their purpose is legitimate.