hand, for every work we would have them carry through. To give each man the
training he deserves is to bring the right man face to face with his own
opportunity. The straight line is the shortest distance between two points
in life as in geometry. For the work of a nation we may not call on Lord
This or Earl That, whose ancestors have lain on velvet for a thousand
years; we want the man who can do the work, who can face the dragon, or
carry the message to Garcia. A man whose nerves are not relaxed by
centuries of luxury will serve us best. Give him a fair chance to try; give
us a fair chance to try him. This is the meaning of democracy; not fuss and
feathers, pomp and gold lace, but accomplishment.

Democracy does not mean equality--just the reverse of this, it means
individual responsibility, equality before the law, of course--equality of
opportunity, but no other equality save that won by faithful service. That
social system which bids men rise must also let them fall if they cannot
maintain themselves. To choose the right man means the dismissal of the
wrong. The weak, the incompetent, the untrained, the dissipated find no
growing welcome in the century which is coming. It will have no place for
unskilled laborers. A bucket of water and a basket of coal will do all that
the unskilled laborer can do if we have skilled men to direct them. The
unskilled laborer is no product of democracy. He exists in spite of
democracy. The children of the republic are entitled to something better. A
generous education, a well-directed education, should be the birthright of
each one of them. Democracy may even intensify natural inequalities. The
man who cannot say no to cheap and vulgar temptations falls all the lower
in the degree to which he is a free agent. In competition with men alert,
loyal, trained and creative, the dullard is condemned to a lifetime of hard
labor, through no direct fault of his own. Keep the capable man down and
you may level the incapable one up. But this the Twentieth Century will not
do. This democracy will not do; this it is not now doing, and this it never