45 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



into foolish actions have been frightened entirely by their own shad- 

 ows ; or that, if by communism is meant a blind bitter irritation with 

 things as they exist, there has not been communism in it. On the con- 

 trary, at the bottom of all this is deep social and political discontent. 

 It is not radical, because it is not intelligent. It has been willing to 

 follow those who promised really nothing ; it has demanded only quack 

 remedies because it is ignorant. But it is this that makes it danger- 

 ous. Ignorance, inflamed by passion, is the most terrible and destruc- 

 tive of monsters. The Jacqueries, the massacres, the reigns of terror, 

 the revolutions which have overthrown one tyrant only to put a worse 

 one in his place, have not been the work of those intelligent enough to 

 see that social and political evils arise from wrong systems, but of 

 those who, not quarreling with systems, charge the evils from which 

 they suffer upon the wickedness of individuals or classes. 



Had this movement involved anything which could properly be 

 styled socialistic or communistic, it would have seemed to me hopeful, 

 for socialism and communism involve some sort of theories which 6how 

 at least a groping for real remedies. But what seems to me ominous 

 in all these events is, that they show how easily our political struggles 

 may pass into all the bitterness and dangers of excited class-feeling 

 without calling forth any principle of improvement or reform. There 

 is a comfortable belief widespread among us that, under a popular 

 government, social and political evils tend to cure themselves by 

 arousing the attention of the people. This would be true if, when 

 the people became conscious of an evil, they stopped to think about 

 its cause and its cure instead of following the first demagogue who, 

 flattering their prejudices and appealing to their passions, promised 

 them a cure. But this is not the lesson of history, nor yet does it 

 seem to me the lesson of observation. What has been passing under 

 my eyes has, with much greater vividness and force than I can convey 

 in such a brief sketch, appeared to me to show the play of the same 

 forces that have over and over again brought despotism out of free- 

 dom, anarchy out of order, and turned progress into retrogression. 

 Popular government is not a new thing. All government in its begin- 

 ning must have been popular government. And under all forms of 

 government the people are the source of power. The force with 

 which despots and tyrants, enslavers and destroyers, have worked has 

 always been the force of the people themselves. Voxpopuli vox Dei ! 

 If that means anything more than that majorities are the source of 

 power, it is as absurd a superstition as the faith in Mumbo Jumbo. 



The danger to social order is not a direct one. The forces that 

 would rally at any open assault upon it have with us overwhelming 

 strength. The real danger comes through forms of legality and meth- 

 ods of government. Tweed and his little band would have been lodged 

 in jail in a trice had they directly attempted their robberies ; yet Tweed 

 and his handful for years levied at their will upon the wealth of New 



