being a lawyer."

Here was new evidence of his perspicacity.

"But surely," I ventured, "you don't feel any regrets concerning your
career, Mr. Watling?"

"No," he said, "that's just the point. But no two of us are made wholly
alike. I hadn't practised law very long before I began to realize that
conditions were changing, that the new forces at work in our industrial
life made the older legal ideals impracticable. It was a case of
choosing between efficiency and inefficiency, and I chose efficiency.
Well, that was my own affair, but when it comes to influencing others--"
He paused. "I want you to see this as I do, not for the sake of
justifying myself, but because I honestly believe there is more to it
than expediency,--a good deal more. There's a weak way of looking at
it, and a strong way. And if I feel sure you understand it, I shall be
satisfied.

"Because things are going to change in this country, Hugh. They are
changing, but they are going to change more. A man has got to make up
his mind what he believes in, and be ready to fight for it. We'll have
to fight for it, sooner perhaps than we realize. We are a nation divided
against ourselves; democracy--Jacksonian democracy, at all events, is
a flat failure, and we may as well acknowledge it. We have a political
system we have outgrown, and which, therefore, we have had to nullify.
There are certain needs, certain tendencies of development in nations
as well as in individuals,--needs stronger than the state, stronger
than the law or constitution. In order to make our resources effective,
combinations of capital are more and more necessary, and no more to be
denied than a chemical process, given the proper ingredients, can be
thwarted. The men who control capital must have a free hand, or the
structure will be destroyed. This compels us to do many things which we
would rather not do, which we might accomplish openly and unopposed if
conditions were frankly recognized, and met by wise statesmanship which
sought to bring about harmony by the reshaping of laws and policies. Do
you follow me?"

"Yes," I answered. "But I have never heard the situation stated
so clearly. Do you think the day will come when statesmanship will
recognize this need?"

"Ah," he said, "I'm afraid not--in my time, at least. But we shall have
to develop that kind of statesmen or go on the rocks. Public opinion
in the old democratic sense is a myth; it must be made by strong
individuals wh