rge measures of present sacrifice." No,
democracy must be led. Leaders they must have. If honest and
disinterested ones are not at hand, selfish and dishonest ones will be
accepted. I grant that leadership is not the greatest need of
democracy, that, of course, is a higher level of knowledge and
intelligence, but I do claim that leadership is, and always will be, the
greatest _present_ need of democracy, since it is only thru that
leadership that the higher intelligence can be reached, without loss,
and in the shortest possible time.

But again, do you point out certain great victories of the common
people, so-called, when they have risen in the power of their might and,
in the exercise of their right, have put down men who had assumed the
right to lead them and were leading them astray? Do you point to the
State of Missouri of a decade ago, and to New York City again and again,
and to England a generation ago, as illustrations? True, in all these
cases and in many others, notable victories had been gained by and for
the people. But is it not also true that in every such case the people
won victories because wisely led? Think you that corruption and
violation of law would have been so checked in Missouri a decade ago and
the breakers of law been so thoroly punished, had it not been for the
clear-headed work of that fearless, public-spirited Joseph W. Folk? Does
not Charles S. Whitman come to your mind when the great struggle in New
York City is mentioned? And Hiram W. Johnson in California? And when we
recall the victories of the people in our own Motherland across the
sea, do we not have at once a mental picture of the "Grand Old Man,"
William Ewart Gladstone? Had it not been for these leaders or others who
might else have taken their places, half of the people whose votes
helped win the victories would never have known that there were such
victories to win. They would never have realized the extent to which
they were being wronged and mis-ruled.

Certain conditions were not quite satisfactory. All people felt, half
unconsciously, that rights were not being respected, that justice was
not being done--that something was wrong somewhere--but that was about
all, about as far as they went or could go. But these leaders, who, in
years gone by, in the colleges and the universities, had been trained to
search for causes, to see relations, and to draw conclusions, had
scented danger from afar. And to the task of ferreting out