544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



lightened the burdens of those who toil has been supplied by organized 

 labor. "I see no reason why the rule of the majority should be the rule 

 of ignorance, unless they are not only ignorant but fools/' remarks 

 Professor Cooley. 5 



The sentiments of justice, liberty, truth and patriotism are especially 

 strong among the masses. The spirit of brotherhood manifested in acts 

 of kindness and service to those in need is more prevalent among the 

 poor than among the rich. It was the common people in New England 

 who carried through the Revolution. The men of wealth and standing 

 were largely against it. 6 The Tories everywhere consisted chiefly of men 

 of property. The masses in England "upheld abolition in the colonies 

 and sympathized with the North in the American Struggle." 7 If we 

 are to have a narrow suffrage, to what portion of society shall it be re- 

 stricted ? Shall we entrust our currency solely to the bankers or the po- 

 litical economists ? There is no class whose mental horizon and sympa- 

 thies are broad enough to control the destinies of the state. In the 

 opinion of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, there has never been a period 

 since the American people gained their independence when control of 

 the nation by its highly educated men alone would not have been a 

 calamity. 8 So unfriendly a critic of democracy as Lecky remarks : 



It lias been the opinion of some of the ablest and most successful politicians 

 of our time that, by adopting a very low suffrage, it would be possible to pene- 

 trate below the region where crochets and experiments and crude Utopias and 

 habitual restlessness prevail, and to reach the strong, settled habits, the enduring 

 tendencies, the deep conservative instincts of the nation. 9 



Universal suffrage in practise has worked much better than many of 

 its opponents have predicted. The dire predictions of Macaulay in 

 1857 are a striking example. 10 Our "fertile and unoccupied land" is 

 practically gone. Parts of New England are " as thickly peopled as old 

 England." We have our " Manchesters and Birminghams." Periods 

 of economic distress have come and gone. At times a multitude of 

 people "has not had more than half a breakfast" or expected "more 

 than half a dinner," but the poor have not plundered the rich, nor has 

 civilization been saved at the price of liberty. The demagogue has asked 

 " why anybody should be permitted to drink Champagne and to ride in 

 a carriage, while thousands of honest folks are in want of necessaries," 

 and yet we have not been ravished by the Huns and Vandals engendered 



s Charles Horton Cooley, "Social Organization," p. 145. 



e Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "The Cowardice of Culture," Atlantic 

 Monthly, Vol. 96, 1905, p. 483. 



7 Cooley, op. cit., p. 136. 



s Op. cit., p. 483. 



s Op. cit., Vol. I., p. 293. 



io George Otto Trevelyan, ' ' The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, ' ' Vol. 

 I., pp. 451-454. 



