s the first way, where it is expressed once in the second form.

That democracies are fickle is one of the oldest criticisms upon them.
We had thought that we were not subject to that criticism, and in the
old days we were not. We had the country debating club and the village
lyceum. We were an agricultural people, sober and slow-moving. We had
few books, they were good books and we read them many times. We had few
newspapers, we knew the men who wrote in them, and when we read an
editorial, our mind was actively challenged by the sincere thinking of
another mind.

To-day, everywhere, we have moved into the cities. The strength of the
country-side is sobriety and slow incubation of the forces of life. Its
vice is stupidity. The strength of the city is keen wittedness,
versatility, quick response. Its vice is fickleness, morbidity,
exhaustion. We have our great blanket sheet newspapers, representing a
party, a clique, a financial interest, with writers lending their brains
out, for money, to write editorials for causes in which they do not
believe. We have the multitude of books, incessantly and hastily
produced; we read much, and scarcely think at all. We have got rid of
the old "three decker" novel, reduced it to a single volume, and then
taken out the climax of the story, publishing it in the corner of the
daily newspaper, as the short story of the day, so that he who runs may
read. If he is a wise man he will run as fast as he can and not read
that stuff at all. We have our ever increasing "movies," with their
incessant titillation of the mind with swift passing impressions, as
disintegrating to intellectual concentration, as they are injurious to
the eyes. The result of it all is an increasing fickleness of temper,
so that the same people who shout most loudly when the popular hero goes
by, the next week cover his very name with vituperation and abuse, if he
offends their slightest whim.

This evil breeds another: fickleness in the people means demagoguery in
the leader, inevitably. We have said to our public men--not in words,
but by the far more impressive language of our conduct--"get money,
power, success, and we will give you more money, power and success, and
not ask you how you got them nor what ends you serve in using them."
That so many have refused the bribe is to their credit, not ours; we
have done what we could to corrupt them.

Finally, we are the most irreverent people in the world. We