sought:
the direction of individual action in industry so as to secure the
greatest good of all. Marxism was one method of accomplishing this, and
its panacea was the doing away with private property in machines and
materials. Two mighty attacks were made on this proposal. One was an
attack on the fundamental democratic foundation: modern European white
industry does not even theoretically seek the good of all, but simply of
all Europeans. This attack was virtually unanswered--indeed some
Socialists openly excluded Negroes and Asiatics from their scheme. From
this it was easy to drift into that form of syndicalism which asks
socialism for the skilled laborer only and leaves the common laborer in
his bonds.

This throws us back on fundamentals. It compels us again to examine the
roots of democracy.

Who may be excluded from a share in the ruling of men? Time and time
again the world has answered:

The Ignorant
The Inexperienced
The Guarded
The Unwilling

That is, we have assumed that only the intelligent should vote, or those
who know how to rule men, or those who are not under benevolent
guardianship, or those who ardently desire the right.

These restrictions are not arguments for the wide distribution of the
ballot--they are rather reasons for restriction addressed to the
self-interest of the present real rulers. We say easily, for instance,
"The ignorant ought not to vote." We would say, "No civilized state
should have citizens too ignorant to participate in government," and
this statement is but a step to the fact: that no state is civilized
which has citizens too ignorant to help rule it. Or, in other words,
education is not a prerequisite to political control--political control
is the cause of popular education.

Again, to make experience a qualification for the franchise is absurd:
it would stop the spread of democracy and make political power
hereditary, a prerequisite of a class, caste, race, or sex. It has of
course been soberly argued that only white folk or Englishmen, or men,
are really capable of exercising sovereign power in a modern state. The
statement proves too much: only yesterday it was Englishmen of high
descent, or men of "blood," or sovereigns "by divine right" who could
rule. Today the civilized world is being ruled by the descendants of
persons who a century ago were pronounced incapable of ever developing a
self-ruling people. In every modern state there must come to the polls
every