some strong man leads the inevitable reaction. In France people
revolted against a decadent monarchy, and in a dozen years they had a
new emperor. In England they beheaded a king as a protest against
tyranny, and they got a dictator in his place who took little or no
account of parliaments; and finally a second Charles, rather worse than
the first, came to the throne. The everlasting battle between light and
darkness goes on stubbornly all the time, and the gain of the Hosts of
Light is inch by inch. Extraordinary efforts, impetuous charges, which
seem to win for a moment, too often leave the attacking force tired and
exhausted, and the forces of reaction set in and overwhelm them. I am
the friend of revolt if people cannot stand the conditions they live
under, and if they can see no other way. It is better to be men than
slaves. The French Revolution was a tragic episode in history, but when
people suffer intolerably and are insulted in their despair it is
inevitable blood will be shed. One can only say with Whitman:

Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued retribution?
Could I wish humanity different Could I wish the people made of wood and
stone, or that there be no justice in destiny or time?

There is danger in revolution if the revolutionary spirit is much more
advanced than the intellectual, and moral qualities which alone can
secure the success of a revolt. These intellectual and moral qualities
--the skill to organize, the wisdom to control large undertakings, are
not natural gifts but the results of experience. They are evolutionary
products. The emancipation of labor, I believe, will not be gained by
revolution but by prolonged effort, continued month by month and year by
year, in which first this thing is adventured, then that: each
enterprise brings its own gifts of wisdom and experience, and there is
no reaction, because, instead of the violent use of certain powers, the