That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it ended
when marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win the
battles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategic
railways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealth
now is power as it never was power before--it commands earth and sea and
sky. All power is for those who can handle wealth. On your behalf.... You
must accept facts, and these are facts. The world for the Crowd! The
Crowd as Ruler! Even in your days that creed had been tried and
condemned. To-day it has only one believer--a multiplex, silly one--the
man in the Crowd."
Graham did not answer immediately. He stood lost in sombre
preoccupations.
"No," said Ostrog. "The day of the common man is past. On the open
countryside one man is as good as another, or nearly as good. The earlier
aristocracy had a precarious tenure of strength and audacity. They were
tempered--tempered. There were insurrections, duels, riots. The first
real aristocracy, the first permanent aristocracy, came in with castles
and armour, and vanished before the musket and bow. But this is the
second aristocracy. The real one. Those days of gunpowder and democracy
were only an eddy in the stream. The common man now is a helpless unit.
In these days we have this great machine of the city, and an organisation
complex beyond his understanding."
"Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you are
holding down--something that stirs and presses.
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