economic distress of the masses in the old countries, which prompted them
to think first about the bearing any new idea might have on the question
of livelihood. On the other hand, the general prosperity of the masses in
America and the comparative ease of making a living up to the beginning
of the last quarter of the nineteenth century account for the fact that
it was not till then that the American people began to think seriously of
improving their economic condition by collective action.

"During the negative phase of democracy it had been considered as
differing from monarchy only as two machines might differ, the general
use and purpose of which were the same. With the evolution of the
democratic idea into the second or positive phase, it was recognized that
the transfer of the supreme power from king and nobles to people meant
not merely a change in the forms of government, but a fundamental
revolution in the whole idea of government, its motives, purposes, and
functions--a revolution equivalent to a reversal of polarity of the
entire social system, carrying, so to speak, the entire compass card with
it, and making north south, and east west. Then was seen what seems so
plain to us that it is hard to understand why it was not always seen,
that instead of its being proper for the sovereign people to confine
themselves to the functions which the kings and classes had discharged
when they were in power, the presumption was, on the contrary, since the
interest of kings and classes had always been exactly opposed to those of
the people, that whatever the previous governments had done, the people
as rulers ought not to do, and whatever the previous governments had not
done, it would be presumably for the interest of the people to do; and
that the main use and function of popular government was properly one
which no previous government had ever paid any attention to, namely, the
use of the power of the social organization to raise the material and
moral welfare of the whole body of the sovereign people to the highest