slipped through the cordon on private business within the forbidden
area. Only once, once only in all the excitement did the long-haired
horsemen clatter through the streets in a serious charge, scattering
the shrieking pedestrians. That was by way of warning, possibly as
much to the Government as to the populace.

Then the decision was made, and after the Salandra Ministry, in
whom the people had confidence, had returned to power, the ministry
that had broken with Austria and refused her grudging compromises,
the piazza purred like doves and listened to long patriotic speeches
from "representative citizens." No soldiers were needed to keep order
in these immense gatherings. For all were citizens, then, piazza and
palace alike in the face of war.

* * * * *

One easily understands the German Chancellor's scorn over any irregular
expression of public opinion, his disgust that the loose public in the
streets dares to vent any emotion or will other than that suggested to
it by a strong government, above all daring to voice it passionately.
In a nation such as Germany, where the franchise is so hedged about
that even those who have it cannot effectively express their wills,
where political opinion is supplied from a central fount of authority,
where the nation goes into war at the command of the Kaiser and his
military advisers, where a war of "defense" and all other national
interests are controlled by the "high commandment," consisting at the
most of forty or fifty men, while the remaining sixty-five millions of
the people are obedient puppets, nourished on falsehoods, where the
popular emotion can be turned on like an electric current at the order
of the "high commandment,"--now against this enemy, now against that