of evildoers.”  In fact the evildoer may not have done so much harm as one might think.  Nor is he really such a hopeless character.  There is good stuff in him, and he yet may be used for many good purposes.  They laugh best who laugh last, and their good-natured laughter was anticipatory.  There are forces working for righteousness which they have experienced.  On the whole things are moving in the right direction and they can afford to be cheerful.

This is the kind of experience which comes to those who are habitually dealing with crude materials rather than with finished products.  They cannot afford to be fastidious; they learn to take things as they come and make the best of them.  The doctrine that things are not as they seem is a cheerful one, to a person who is accustomed to dealing with things which turn out to be better than at first they seemed.  The unknown takes on a friendly guise and awakens a pleasant curiosity.  That is the experience of generations of pioneers and prospectors.  They have found a continent full of resources awaking men of courage and industry.  The opportunities were there; all that was needed was the ability to recognize them when they appeared in disguise.

III

And the human problem has been the same as the material one.  Europe has sent to America not the finished products of her schools and her courts, but millions of people for whom she had no room.  They were in the rough; they had to be made over into a new kind of citizen.  This material has often been of the most unpromising appearance.  It has often seemed to superficial observers that little could be made of it.  But the attempt has been made.  And those who have worked with it, putting skill and patience into their work, have been agreeably surprised.  They have come to see the highest possibilities in the commonest lumps of clay.

The satisfaction that is taken in the common man is not in what he is at the present moment, but in what he has shown himself capable of becoming.  Give him a chance and all the graces may be his.  The American idealist admits that many of his fellow citizens may be rather dreary brethren, but so were many of the kings of whom nothing is remembered but their names and dates.  Only now and then is one seen who is every inch a king.  But such a person is a proof of what may be accomplished.  It may take a long time for the rank and file to catch up with their leaders.  But where the few are to-day the many will be to-morrow; for they are all travelling the same road.

The visitor in the United States, especially if he has spent his time in the great cities of the East, may go away with the idea that democracy is a spent force.  He will see great inequalities in wealth and position.  He will be struck by the fact that autocratic powers are wielded which would not be tolerated in many countries of Europe.  He will notice that it is very difficult to give direct expression to the will of the people.