The knowledge of what to do in industry and how to do it in order to attain the resulting goods rests in the hands and brains of the workers and managers, and the judges of the result are the public.  Consequently it is not so much a question as to whether the world will admit democratic control here as how can such control be long avoided when the people once understand the fundamentals of industry.  How can civilization persist in letting one person or a group of persons, by secret inherent power, determine what goods shall be made—­whether bread or champagne, overcoats or silk socks?  Can so vast a power be kept from the people?

But it may be opportunely asked:  has our experience in electing public officials led us to think that we could run railways, cotton mills, and department stores by popular vote?  The answer is clear:  no, it has not, and the reason has been lack of interest in politics and the tyranny of the Majority.  Politics have not touched the matters of daily life which are nearest the interests of the people—­namely, work and wages; or if they have, they have touched it obscurely and indirectly.  When voting touches the vital, everyday interests of all, nominations and elections will call for more intelligent activity.  Consider too the vast unused and misused power of public rewards to obtain ability and genius for the service of the state.  If millionaires can buy science and art, cannot the Democratic state outbid them not only with money but with the vast ideal of the common weal?

There still remains, however, the problem of the Majority.

What is the cause of the undoubted reaction and alarm that the citizens of democracy continually feel?  It is, I am sure, the failure to feel the full significance of the change of rule from a privileged minority to that of an omnipotent majority, and the assumption that mere majority rule is the last word of government; that majorities have no responsibilities, that they rule by the grace of God.  Granted that government should be based on the consent of the governed, does the consent of a majority at any particular time adequately express the consent of all?  Has the minority, even though a small and unpopular and unfashionable minority, no right to respectful consideration?

I remember that excellent little high school text book, “Nordhoff’s Politics,” where I first read of government, saying this sentence at the beginning of its most important chapter:  “The first duty of a minority is to become a majority.”  This is a statement which has its underlying truth, but it also has its dangerous falsehood; viz., any minority which cannot become a majority is not worthy of any consideration.  But suppose that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority?  Women, for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this land are but a tenth.  Yet to tyrannize over such