then, to
a certain extent on facts of experience, and not entirely on the
hypothesis of the eighteenth century philosophy, that Jefferson's
famous proclamation rested.

Since Jefferson's day the facts have markedly changed. We have
passed beyond the agricultural stage, and have entered the stage of
industrial development. The occupations of our citizens have
become greatly diversified. Large bodies of foreign immigrants
have come to us. If we survey the conditions of American life at
present, we are strongly impressed with the differences that exist
between the various strata of our population: differences in mental
ability, differences in vital energy, differences in the point of
culture attained, differences in capacity to rise. As a consequence,
the Declaration of Independence is treated by many as an obsolete
document, and its assertions as mere bombast and rhetoric;
unjustly so, because the truth which it attempts to convey is valid,
though the form in which the truth is expressed and the grounds on
which it is put are no longer adequate.

We have arrived, then, at this pass: the theological foundation
for the doctrine of human equality has failed or is failing us; the
facts to which the Declaration of Independence appealed have
altered. Are we, then, to give up the belief in human equality--that
priceless postulate of the moral law, the basis alike of democracy
and of private morality? At times it seems to us that the world is
almost ready to do so. Nietzsche in Germany puts it forth as a
philosophic principle that humanity exists not for the democratic
purpose of securing the highest development of all, but for the
aristocratic purpose of producing a race of supermen, an elite of
strong, forceful, "leonine" beings. And in his doctrine that the
many exist as a kind of pedestal for the grandeur of the few, he
finds support the world over. Men are but too ready in this age,
when the energies of the strong have been unfettered and moral
restraints have become weakened, to put Nietzche's doctrine into
practice too. From the Congo we hear appalling accounts of the
cruelty of civilized men in their dealings with the uncivilized.
Rubber and ivory, it appears, must be obtained in large quantities
to secure a handsome profit on investments that have been made in
those regions. Railroads must be built to make the supply of
rubber and of ivory accessible. In consequence, a system of forced
labor, of virtual slavery, has