“Many of our millionaires,” resumed the professor, not to be driven from his theme, “and some of the most active and powerful of them all, are as selfish, as rapacious, as arrogant, as ignorant, as corrupt, and as despotic as Russian Boyars or Turkish Bashans. At the same time they are unaware of their danger, are utterly obtuse to their social and moral responsibilities, and conceited with the invulnerable conceit of self-made men. They do not seem to recognize that they are unprotected by an army, or a strong government, or spies, or the machinery of despotism, or any traditions or practices of rule, and they appear to take no thought of the infinite possibilities of disaster which line the path of every to-morrow.”
“You really fear, then, the fulfillment of Macauley’s prophecy, professor?”
“What thoughtful man does not? There is in every large city of our land a multitude unindustrious, unfrugal of life, uncurbed of spirit, undisciplined, uneducated, fretful of small gains, accustomed to freedom of speech and action, jealous of anything which looks like oppression or class rule, unaccustomed to restrictions of any kind, irrreligious, materialistic, discontented, idle, envious, and often drunken.”
“In brief, a powder magazine,” said the doctor. “Great cities have always presented the same problem to rulers, yet civilization lives, nevertheless.”
“Because,” rejoined the professor, “in monarchial Europe the magazine is guarded by trained armies and watchful sentinels, while in our country it is left open and unguarded, and anarchists with lighted torches pass to and fro. In Europe the train of government is built of carefully-selected materials, it is officered by experienced engineers, and at every station the testing hammer rings against the wheels. Here we put in any piece of crystallized iron for wheel or axle, and give the control of the engine to any loud-voiced braggart who can climb into the cab, or any ambitious dotard who chooses to hire the tricksters of the caucus to hoist him there. Then we throw the brakes off, the throttle-valves open, and go screaming down the grade.”
“And how do you propose, John, to avoid a smash-up?” queried the doctor.
“We shall have passed the danger point,” replied the professor, “and entered upon an era of safer and better life for the republic, only when the great millionaires of America shall elect to consider themselves not merely as conquerers on the field of finance, entitled to the spoils of victory, but as trustees for humanity, as suns whose mission it is to draw the waters of affluence from overflowing lake and stream, not to hold those waters above the earth forever, but to distribute them in bounteous and fertilizing showers.”
“And do you suppose, John Thornton, that the people would either appreciate or respond to such seraphic unselfishness on the part of your regenerated and beatified millionaires?
“Dr. Eustace, let me tell you that when the great, industrious, intelligent, patriotic body of workers shall be made to feel that there is no necessary conflict between labor and capital, —when they shall be made to know that any considerable number of our millionaires are seeking further wealth not merely to add to their personal luxury and power, but in order that labor may be helped in turn to higher planes of life, when it can be said truthfully—
“‘Then none was for a party,