The character of great historic personages is gradually
reflected in the mass. The divine right of kings is followed by the
idea of the divine right of the people, and democracies finally become
ungovernable save by themselves. They have seen and heard too much of
pride and greatness not to have become, in some measure, proud and
defiant of all authority except their own. It may be said the history
of democracies is not one to fill us with confidence, but the truth is
the world has yet to see the democratic State, and of the yet untried we
may think with hope. Beneath the Athenian and other ancient democratic
States lay a substratum of humanity in slavery, and the culture, beauty,
and bravery of these extraordinary peoples were made possible by the
workers in an underworld who had no part in the bright civic life.
We have no more a real democracy in the world today. Democracy in
politics has in no country led to democracy in its economic life. We
still have autocracy in industry as firmly seated on its throne as
theocratic king ruling in the name of a god, or aristocracy ruling by
military power; and the forces represented by these twain, superseded
by the autocrats of industry, have become the allies of the power which
took their place of pride.
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