Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/70

66 upon justice. "Wider knowledge," says Lloyd George, "is a creating in the mind of the workman growing dissatisfaction with the conditions under which he is forced to live." Besides, the improvement in economic conditions that has occurred within a life time whets the appetite for something more, and the shortening of the working day gives men time to realize how inferior their state is in comparison with their fondest hopes. The hope of better things in our present social system has to some extent taken the place of religious belief. The failure of incomes among a large portion of the population to keep step with rising prices always makes men chafe. But when the expectations of men for something better are once aroused, such a rise of prices as the last fifteen years have witnessed is doubly trying. When a nation like China, in which ancestor worship and reverence for the past have been time-honored points of view, is shaken to its very foundation by a political and social revolution, we in America who profess democracy as our ideal can hardly hope to escape the sweep of a movement that aims at uplifting the common lot and according the masses a larger voice in the management of affairs. The movement for the betterment of mankind seems destined to go on whatever befalls the fortunes of particular individuals. The forces of democracy are so strong that it matters little whether a Roosevelt, a Taft or a Wilson is president.

Six facts justify a hopeful view of the future. The first is "toleration in religion, the best fruit of the last four centuries." This is fundamental to liberty and promises to save us from frittering away our energies in needless bickerings. The second is our system of public schools, which provides us with a certain minimum of enlightenment. The third is the keen ethical sense of the people. The questions of the day that arouse most interest involve matters of right and wrong. Our most successful politicians are great preachers. The fourth is the spirit of unity that pervades the land. Sectional feeling is at a low ebb. The east and the west, the north and the south, are more nearly one than ever before. The entire country acquiesces in the influence which the states that tried to secede in 1861 now exercise at Washington. Exhibitions of class feeling are, after all, exceptional. Commercial intercourse between different portions of the country makes strongly for community of interest. When one considers how frequently the bonds of affection within the family are strained to the point of breaking, the spirit of concord in the business world is little less than marvelous. The fifth is the success with which large corporations sift out competent leaders. Big business occasionally acquires an element of monopoly and menaces the state itself, but the management of its own affairs is commonly marked by a high degree of efficiency. Rivalry for promotion among capable men is especially keen in the large concern.