reeman's will
As lightning does the will of God"

we are unfit to be citizens of a Republic, undeserving of peace,
prosperity and liberty, and have no right to rise against conditions due
to our own moral and intellectual delinquency. There is a simple way,
Messieurs the Masses to correct public evils: put wise and good men into
power. If you can not do that for you are not yourselves wise, or will
not for you are not yourselves good, you deserve to be oppressed when
you submit and shot when you rise.

To shoot a rioter or lyncher is a high kind of mercy. Suppose that
twenty-five years ago (the longer ago the better) two or three criminal
mobs in succession had been exterminated in that way, "as the law
provides." Suppose that several scores of lives had been so taken,
including even those of "innocent spectators"--though that kind of
angel does not abound in the vicinity of mobs. Suppose that no demagogue
judges had permitted officers in command of the "firing lines" to be
persecuted in the courts. Suppose that these events had writ themselves
large and red in the public memory. How many lives would this have
saved? Just as many as since have been taken and lost by rioters, plus
those that for a long time to come will be taken, and minus those that
were taken at that time. Make your own computation from your own data; I
insist only that a rioter shot in time saves nine.

You know--you, the People--that all this is true. You know that in
a Republic lawlessness is villainy entailing greater evils than it
cures--that it cures none. You know that even the "money power" is
powerful only through your own dishonesty and cowardice. You know that
nobody can bribe or intimidate a voter who will not take a bribe or
suffer himself to be intimidated--that there can be no "money power"
in a nation of honorable and courageous men. You know that "bosses" and
"machines" can not control you if you will not suffer then to divide you
into "parties" by playing upon your credulity and senseless passions.
You know all this, and know it all the time. Yet not a man has the
courage to stand forth and say to your faces what you know in your
hearts. Well, Messieurs the Masses, I don't consider you dangerous--not
very. I have not observed that you want to tear anybody to pieces for
confessing your sins, even if at the same time he confesses his own.
From a considerable experience in that sort of thing I judge that you
rather like it, and t