SERVICES THAT SOCIETY NEEDS 301 



duty of those who witness and fear this new phenomenon, 

 and whose fears, I admit, are by no means idle ? 



The answer is not difficult. See to it that you do not 

 leave ' ' the masses," as you call them, in the hands of the 

 most dangerous agitator of all namely, their own 



wrongs. 



I know that "the masses" are ignorant, and that they 

 often blame society for evils which arise from their own 

 wasteful ways. But whenthey have just . complaints 



against no one except_themselves 3 you_ have little to fear 



from them. Men in the wrong have usually little force. 

 Never at any stage of society or in any country, not in 



Russia to-day nor in France when Revolution came has 



the agitator much power to move the masses, unless he 



has been nursed on the milkof their wrongs. 



; -But perhaps our individualistic critic cannot admit this, 

 and maintains that the discontent of the masses and their 

 growing aggression has no other cause than their own 

 ignorance and their own bad will. Then it is another duty 

 which sits at his door, and calls for him to a wiser role and 

 a better even for himself than that of merely grumbling 

 at his times. If he would save the State from the dangers 

 he foresees, let him show the masses that their wrongs are 

 fanciful and their social nostrums false. I do not doubt 

 for a moment who our ruler is about to be in State and 

 city. It is "public opinion" The organization of 

 modern society makes it easy to spread opinion and to 

 mass the motives of men. There is no place now where 

 authority can sit in sheltered quiet. The politician flies 

 his kites to ascertain how the winds are blowing, for he 

 dare not launch his projects "if the winds are adverse." 

 If, as a candidate for City Council or Imperial Parliament, 



