124 Promise and Performance 



easy enough to devise a scheme of government which 

 shall absolutely nullify all these qualities and ensure 

 failure to everybody, whether he deserves success 

 or not. But the best scheme of government can do 

 little more than provide against injustice, and then 

 let the individual rise or fall on his own merits. 

 Of course something can be done by the State act 

 ing in its collective capacity, and in certain instances 

 such action may be necessary to remedy real wrong. 

 Gross misconduct of individuals or corporations may 

 make it necessary for the State or some of its subdi 

 visions to assume the charge of what are called pub 

 lic utilities. But when all that can be done in this 

 way has been done, when every individual has been 

 saved so far as the State can save him from the tyr 

 anny of any other man or body of men, the indi 

 vidual's own qualities of body and mind, his own 

 strength of heart and hand, will remain the deter 

 mining conditions in his career. The people who 

 trust to or exact promises that, if a certain political 

 leader is followed or a certain public policy adopted, 

 this great truth will cease to operate, are not merely 

 leaning on a broken reed, but are working for their 

 own undoing. 



So much for the men who by their demands for 

 the impossible encourage the promise of the impos 

 sible, whether in the domain of economic legislation 

 or of. legislation which has for its object the promo- 



