ship of State through the strong rapids of the New Peace out of this
forensic levity their training has imposed upon them....

There, again, there are elements of hope. The lawyer has heard much
about himself in the past few years. His conscience may check his
tradition. And we have a Press--it has many faults, but it is no longer
a lawyer's Press....

And the third class which has immediate interests antagonistic to bold
reconstructions of our national methods is that vaguer body, the body of
investing capitalists, the savers, the usurers, who live on dividends.
It is a vast class, but a feeble class in comparison with the other
two; it is a body rather than a class, a weight rather than a power. It
consists of all sorts of people with nothing in common except the
receipt of unearned income....

All these classes, by instinct and the baser kinds of reason also, will
be doing their best to check the rise in prices, stop and reverse the
advance in wages, prevent the debasement of the circulation, and
facilitate the return to a gold standard and a repressive social
stability. They will be resisting any comprehensive national
reconstruction, any increase in public officials, any "conscription" of
land or railways or what not for the urgent civil needs of the State.
They will have fighting against these tendencies something in their own
consciences, something in public opinion, the tradition of public
devotion their own dead sons have revived--and certain other forces.

They will have over against them the obvious urgent necessities of the
time.