successor. If the natural ability is found its possessor will probably
lack the knowledge which Mr. Morgan[4] has accumulated, and in the light
of which he directs his operations. It is essential that great
operations - and the business of the future will be conducted on a great
scale - be directed by great wisdom and power. The possessors of high
qualities we now discover by the trying-out process. They can be
discovered in no other way, and great effort can be secured only by the
hope of great reward. Until human nature changes we can expect nothing
different. Socialism implies popular selection of industrial leadership.
Wherever tried thus far in the world's history there has usually been
abject failure. The mass can choose leaders in emotion but not directors
of industry. The selection of experts by the non-expert can be wise only
by accident. If the selection is not popular, then Socialism is tyranny,
as its enemies charge. If it be popular, or in so far as it is popular,
direction is likely to fall to the great persuaders and not to the great
directors. Never did a "peoples party" yet escape the control of the
unscrupulous. No political movements result in so much political and
Social rascality as so-called popular movements originated by earnest
and honest men. I see no reason to suppose that the Socialistic
direction of industrial affairs in any city would be directed from any
other source than the back rooms of the saloons where political
movements are now shaped. If the Socialistic program were to go into
effect tomorrow morning there would be here tonight neither lecturer nor
audience. The good dinner would remain untasted in the ovens. Every
mortal soul of us would be scooting from one Social magnate to another
to assure that we were on the slate for the soft jobs and that nobody
was crowding us off. I have no faith in human nature except as it is
constantly strengthened and purified by struggle. That struggle is an
irrepressible conflict existing in all nature, and from which man cannot
escape. It is better for mankind that it go on openly and in more or