WHAT THE MASSES CONTRIBUTE THE MASSES THE INITITATORS OF SENTIMENT -- THEY LIVE IN THECENTRAL CURRENT OF EXPERIENCE -- DISTINCTION OR PRIVILEDGE APT TO CAUSEISOLATION -- INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTER OF UPPER CLASSES -- THE MASSES SHREWDJUDGES OF PERSONS -- THIS THE MAIN GROUND FOR EXPECTING THAT THE PEOPLEWILL BE RIGHT IN THE LONG RUN -- DEMOCRACY ALWAYS REPRESENTATIVE -- CONCLUSIONThe function of leaders in defining and organizing the confused tendencies of the public mind is evident enough, but just what the masses themselves contribute is perhaps not so apparent. [1] The thought of the undistinguished many is, however, not less important, not necessarily less original, than that of the conspicuous few; the originality of the latter, just because it is more conspicuous, being easy to overestimate. Leadership is only salient initiative; and among the many there may well be increments of initiative which though not salient are yet momentous as a whole.
The originality of the masses is to be found not so much in formulated idea as in sentiment. In capacity to feel and to trust those sentiments which it is the proper aim of social development to express, they are, perhaps, commonly superior to the more distinguished or privileged classes.
The reason is that their experience usually (136) keeps them closer to the springs of human nature, and so more under the control of its primary impulses.
Radical movements aiming to extend the application of higher sentiment have generally been pushed on by the common people, rather than by privileged orders, or by conspicuous leadership of any sort. [2] This seems to be true of Christianity in all ages, and of the many phases of modern democracy and enfranchisement. In American history, particularly, both the revolution which gave us independence and the civil war which abolished slavery and reunited the country, were more generally and steadfastly supported by the masses than by people of education or wealth. Mr. Higginson, writing on the Cowardice of Culture, [3] asserts that at the opening of the Revolution the men of wealth and standing who took the side of liberty were so few that they could be counted, and that "there was never a period in our history, since the American Nation was independent, when it would not have been a calamity to have it controlled by its highly educated men alone." And in England also it was the masses who upheld abolition in the colonies and sympathized with the North in the American struggle.
The common people, as a rule, live more in the central current of human experience than men of wealth or distinction. Domestic morality, religious sentiment, faith in man and God, loyalty to country and the like, are the fruit of the human heart growing in homely conditions, (137) and they easily wither when these conditions are lost To be one among many, without individual pretension; is in one way a position of security and grandeur. One stands, as it were, with the human race at his back, sharing its claim on truth, justice and God. Qui quoerit habere privata amittit communia; [4] the plain man has not conspicuously gained private things, and should be all the richer in things that are common, in faith and fellowship Nothing, perhaps, is healthy that isolates us from the com mon destiny of men, that is merely appropriative and not functional, that is not such as all might rejoice in if they understood it.
Miss Jane Addams has advanced a theory, [5] far from absurd, that the confused and deprived masses of our cities, collected from all lands by immigration, are likely to be the initiators of new and higher ideals for our civilization. Since "ideals are born of situations," they are perhaps well situated for such a function by the almost complete destruction, so far as they are concerned, of old traditions and systems. In this promiscuous mingling of elements everything is cancelled but human nature, and they are thrown back upon that for a new start. They are an " unencumbered proletariat " notable for primary faith and kindness; "simple people who carry in their hearts a desire for mere goodness. They regularly deplete their scanty livelihood in response to a primitive pity, and, independent of the religions they have professed, of the wrongs they have suffered, and of the fixed morality they (138) have been taught, they have an unquenchable desire that charity and simple justice shall regulate men's relations." [6]
Some tendency to isolation and spiritual impoverisments is likely to go with any sort of distinction or privilege. Wealth, culture, reputation, bring special gratifications. These foster special tastes, and these in turn give rise to special ways of living and thinking which imperceptibly separate one from common sympathy and put him in a special class. If one has a good income, for instance, how natural it is to spend it, and how naturally, also, that expenditure withdraws one from familiar intercourse with people who have not a good income. Success means possessions, and possessions are apt to imprison the spirit.
It has always been held that worldly goods, which of course include reputation as well as wealth, make the highest life of the mind difficult if not impossible, devotional orders in nearly all religions requiring personal poverty and lowliness as the condition of edification. Tantum homo impeditur et distrahitur, quantum sibi res attrahit. [7] " Sloth or cowardice," says a psychologist, "creep in with every dollar or guinea we have to guard . . . lives based on having are less free than lives based on either doing or being." [8] "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle." Not for nothing have men of insight agreed upon such propositions as these.