TEE STRUGGLE FOB EQUALITY 541 



In the main, however, the course of events has been so moderate as to 

 attract and not to repel adherents. There is no evidence that the country 

 is growing less radical, or that it is tiring of reform. Probably there 

 has been no decade in the country's history during which humanitarian 

 measures have scored so many victories as during the last ten years. 

 Hypocrisy has been mercilessly unmasked. One stronghold of privilege 

 after another has been assaulted. Conduct once supposed to concern no 

 one but the individual has been seen to have a public aspect, and some 

 of the points at which the self-interest of the individual is inconsistent 

 with the public welfare have been noted and a measure of collective 

 control has been imposed. The public has become more exacting in the 

 demands which it makes upon its servants. There is a quickening in- 

 fluence felt in nearly every direction. The man absorbed in business 

 and the closet philosopher are waking up to the claims of public affairs, 

 and are contesting the supremacy of those who have hitherto run our 

 politics. There is a growing realization that we have had the forms 

 without the substance of a real democracy. It is not so much statutory 

 enactments as the general atmosphere of criticism in which the ordi- 

 nary man lives and works that is making for higher standards of private 

 and public conduct. The discriminating character of the times nowhere 

 appears to better advantage than in the readiness with which sham re- 

 formers and their works are detected and rejected. Most men are pro- 

 gressive in spots and the public is showing the good sense necessary to 

 distinguish between the respects in which those who profess to lead it 

 face the future and those respects in which they face the past. The sub- 

 sidized press has lost much of its influence. It is the critical attitude 

 of the age that is so full of promise for the future. 



A notable change in public opinion has taken place since 1896. At 

 that time the man successful in gaining public office stood primarily 

 for an ultra-individualism and for upholding property rights. The 

 prevailing view was that a man acted in consonance with the public in- 

 terest in securing the kind of a tariff or franchise that he wanted. This 

 idea is to-day discredited. The emphasis has shifted somewhat from 

 business success to the broader interests of mankind. Society has be- 

 come less complacent with unwholesome conditions. It is more gener- 

 ally understood that sweat-shops, unsanitary tenements and unduly 

 long hours of labor threaten the well-being of the public at large as well 

 as that of the victims immediately involved. An awakened people is 

 striving to control its political institutions. Moreover, business and 

 politics are such close bed-fellows that the improvement in the latter 

 reflects the change for the better that has taken place in the former. 



The forward movement of recent years has not won its triumphs 

 without a fight. Nearly every inch of the ground has been contested by 

 skilled and often opulent adversaries. The vested interests affected 



