and more costly to effect {148} and less and less efficiently done. We are already faced with the possibility of having to make profound changes in the social system to convince the working-man effectually that his interests and ours in this war are one.
That a very large class of common citizens, incapable of direct military work, has been left morally derelict during all these agonizing months of war has probably not been any less serious a fact, although the recognition of it has not been forced unavoidably on public notice. It must surely be clear that in a nation engaged in an urgent struggle for existence, the presence of a large class who are as sensitive as any to the call of the herd, and yet cannot respond in any active way, contains very grave possibilities. The only response to that relentless calling that can give peace is in service; if that be denied, restlessness, uneasiness, and anxiety must necessarily follow. To such a mental state are very easily added impatience, discontent, exaggerated fears, pessimism, and irritability. It must be remembered that large numbers of such individuals were persons of importance in peace time and retain a great deal of their prestige under the social system we have decided to maintain, although in war time they are obviously without function. This group of idle and flustered parasites has formed a nucleus from which have proceeded some of the many outbursts of disunion which have done so much to prevent this country from developing her resources with smoothness and continuity. It is not suggested that these eruptions of discontent are due to any kind of disloyalty; they are the result of defective morale, and bear all the evidences of coming from persons whose instinctive response to the call of the herd has been frustrated and who, therefore, lack the strength and composure of those whose souls are uplifted by a satisfactory {149} instinctive activity. Moral instability has been characteristic of all the phenomena of disunion we are now considering, such as recrudescences of political animus, attacks on individual members of the Government, outbursts of spy mania, campaigns