ople, like the best valets, must
whisper unpleasant truths in the master's ear. It is the court fool, not
the foolish courtier, whom the king can least afford to lose.

Hostile critics of democracy have long pointed out that mediocrity
becomes the rule. They have not been without facts for their support. And
I do not see why we who believe in democracy should not recognize this
danger and trace it to its source. Certainly it is not answered with a
sneer. I have worked in the editorial office of a popular magazine, a
magazine that is known widely as a champion of popular rights. By
personal experience, by intimate conversations, and by looking about, I
think I am pretty well aware of what the influence of business upon
journalism amounts to. I have seen the inside working of business
pressure; articles of my own have been suppressed after they were in
type; friends of mine have told me stories of expurgation, of the
"morganization" of their editorial policy. And in the face of that I
should like to record it as my sincere conviction that no financial power
is one-tenth so corrupting, so insidious, so hostile to originality and
frank statement as the fear of the public which reads the magazine. For
one item suppressed out of respect for a railroad or a bank, nine are
rejected because of the prejudices of the public. This will anger the
farmers, that will arouse the Catholics, another will shock the summer
girl. Anybody can take a fling at poor old Mr. Rockefeller, but the great
mass of average citizens (to which none of us belongs) must be left in
undisturbed possession of its prejudices. In that subservience, and not
in the meddling of Mr. Morgan, is the reason why American journalism is
so flaccid, so repetitious and so dull.

The people should be supreme, yes, its will should be the law of the
land. But it is a caricature of democracy to make it also the law of
individual initiative. One thing it is to say that all proposals must
ultimately win the acceptance of the majority; it is quite another to
propose nothing which is not immediately acceptable. It is as true of the
nation as of the body that one leg cannot go forward very far unless the
whole body follows. That is a different thing from trying to move both
legs forward at the same time. The one is democracy; the other
is--demolatry.

It is better to catch the idol-maker than to smash each idol. It would be
an endless task to hunt down all the masks, the will-o'