The whole problem of labor and capital, and of political and industrial freedom, from now on after this war would have been solved in miniature before that window—if I had. My invention for the future of the Red Cross is that it should do what I tried to do at that window, for the American people.
Democracy is a form of government in which the people are essentially autocrats. The difference between an autocracy and a democracy is that the people select their autocrats. The more autocracy the more efficiency.
A people can not have the autocracy they need to get what they want unless they are willing to give over to their representatives the necessary trust pro tem., the necessary ex officio right to be autocrats in their behalf. Democracy is autocracy of the people, for the people, by the people—that is, by the people in spirit to their representatives who express their spirit.
The representatives of the people can not keep the people's autocracy for them unless they keep in touch with the people—that is, unless they advertise to the people and the people feel that they can advertise to them.
In an autocracy the autocracy of the ruler is based on forcing people's attention. In a democracy the autocracy is based on touching men's imaginations, on making people want to fall into line in the right order. If the Kaiser had done this in Germany, Germany would have been the greatest democracy in the world and the greatest nation. If the Kaiser had had the power and genius for advertising of the modern kind, if he had had the power of making people want things in distinction from making them meek and making them take them whether they wanted them or not, he would have invented and set up a working model for America.
Obviously, the more the people desire to form in line the better and more successful all the people in the line will be in getting what they want at the window. The more autocracy people know enough to give their representatives, the better democracy works. In the last analysis the fate of democracy in modern life turns on having autocrats on probation—autocrats selected for their positions by advertising, and kept in position as autocrats as long as they can advertise to the people and as long as the people feel that they can advertise to them.
IX
II—THE RIGHT TO BE WAITED ON