300 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 



the defects andduties of others more clearly than its 

 own^_ 



Let us, then, listen for a moment to the criticisms of 

 the grumbler and the social pessimist. 



Is he well to do? Has he been born in the soft and 



dangerously enervating lap of wealth, or social privilege,? 

 Then he will tell us that the greatest danger to the State 

 comes from the growing power of " the masses." 



Is he poor? Does he find the struggle for a livelihood 

 severe? Has society been a mother to others and only a 

 step-mother to him, slow and niggard to reward his toil, 

 swift to bring penalties upon him for faults that are not 

 always his own ? Does not she refuse him the opportunity 

 to win his bread, just as it suits herself ; and when in age 

 or sickness he can win it no longer, provide for his grey 

 head and his bent form no better shelter than the work- 

 house ? ' ' Then," he concludes, not without emphasis 

 " then must her ways be overturned, and a new social 

 structure set up on other foundations where there shall 

 be capitalists no more, nor competition and poverty any 

 more, and where no one can say, ' That is not thine, but 

 mine.' " 



Now, what answer shall be given to these men? To 

 the first I would reply that I believe his diagnosis of the 

 tendencies of the times to be accurate on the whole. The 

 working-man's assertion of his rights is verily growing 

 stronger ; his power over city and State is on the increase. 

 He is gradually learning to combine with his fellows, and 

 a dim sense of his latent might is slowly broadening within 

 him. And already his power is divined by others ; for 

 demagogues pander to him, agitators excite him, and 

 politicians bow their knees to him. What, then, is the 



