But who are the people who are to control? Only those who are living and
of electoral age and other qualification? I recall again Bismarck's
definition: "They are the invisible multitude of spirits--the nation of
yesterday and to-morrow." And that invisible multitude of yesterday and
to-morrow, whose mouths are stopped with dust or who have not yet found
human embodiment, must find voice in the multitude of to-day--the
multitude that inherits the yesterdays and has in it the only promise of
to-morrow.
There may be some question there as to its being always the voice of God,
but no one thinks of any other (except to add to it that of the woman).
The "certain knowledge" and the "fulness of power" of Louis XIV have
become the endowments of the average man--and the average man is one-half
or two-thirds of all the voting men of the community or nation, plus one.
But that average man, forgetful of the multitude of yesterday and
ungrateful, has none the less wrought into his very fibre and spirit the
uncompromising individualism, the unconventional neighborliness, and the
frontier fellowships of yesterday.
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