Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/458

Rh subjecting plans for political and social amelioration to scrutiny and investigation. It involved a life-time of running counter to popular tendencies. The man who adopts this course can never expect to attain a popular following such as comes to the man who advocates a happy thought which is believed to lead to prosperity and contentment. He attacked privilege, and naturally the Interests tried to destroy him. He told his contemporaries they were pursuing false and wasteful methods. They disliked to listen to him. When the whole country was laboring under delusions with respect to protectionism and bimetallism, he stood boldly for free trade and sound money. He turned not aside to ride on the wave, but headed straight for his mark, sturdily stemming wind and tide, and no one better than he knew that he could not expect popular applause, or better realized that his achievements could not be measured in the coin with which the politician or the demagogue is paid. like most philosophers who are not more politicians than philosophers, he must wait for the full results of his efforts from the work of his many pupils whom he started upon courses of correct thinking. The seeds he planted by his long years of teaching and by his writings we may hopefully expect to bear a substantial fruit in the strenuous times we must all anticipate in the immediate future. As was said of Socrates, he was more useful in devoting his energies to teaching the youth than if he had tried to rule the state.

It is not at all unlikely that the strongest advocates of Sumner's political philosophy will soon be found among the very class which looked upon him as its enemy when he denounced protectionism.