Page:War and Other Essays.djvu/278

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242
ESSAYS OF WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER

forms and have carried power over to the "masses"; that is, to the classes powerful by numbers.

It is impossible in this place to trace the immeasurable social effects which are in the way of development, much less to show how mistaken is the received opinion about the causes of the social phenomena which we see about us, whose development has been so greatly accelerated during the nineteenth century. No one can be blind to the interplay of political power and economic interest in the industrial war. Socialism is nothing but a phase of that relation of the parts of the social organization, and its self-satisfied parading of itself as being at once the cause and the arbiter of the new social growth is among the humorous features of the situation.

It is inevitable, however, that the classes which constitute the masses should go on to win all the power which is thrown into their hands by the facts of the situation. In the long run this social antagonism, like those which have preceded it, will be reduced to new harmony; but never by the wit of man, only by the working out of the forces. A movement so vast and so new will have to construct its own institutions. It is vain to speculate as to what they will be. Such a movement will, of course, be attended by a vast chorus of bystanders; some shouting in honor of its triumph, some asserting that they always predicted it, an immense number claiming that they brought it about, some shaking their heads over it and predicting disaster. On the other hand, it is not sound philosophy to say that all other forces should be withdrawn and that the social revolution should go on without hindrance. No revolution is healthful and sound which does not contain all the elements, and the conservative elements must be included in their full force. How then can we have industrial peace? Why