And, best of all, you increase within yourself
human sympathies and devotions, and thus make yourself more and more
one of the people who in due time, in your turn, it may be your duty
to lead, if the qualities of leadership are in you.
This matter of leadership among public men is becoming more and more
important, because personality in politics is meaning more every day.
Obeying generally, then, your instinct as to the public men whom you
intend to follow, subject your choice to the corrective of cold and
careful analysis.
It is probably true that the greatest danger of our future is the
peril of classes, and inseparably connected with classes the menace of
demagogy. The last decade has revealed signs that the demagogue, in
the modern meaning of that word, is making his appearance in American
civic life.
Such men always seize the most attractive "cause" as argument to the
people for their support. They are quite as willing to pose as the
especial apostles of righteousness and purity as they are to enact the
character of the divinely appointed tribunes of patriotism. Whatever
the political fashion of the day may be, your demagogue will appeal to
it. It makes no difference what methods he finds necessary to use, so
that he can achieve the power and consequence which is his only
purpose.
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