Points of Friction
he probably riots in the streets, not clamouring for the flesh-pots of Egypt—that immemorial cry for ease and bondage—inasmuch as the years of his thraldom had been softened by no such indulgence; but simply because the image of the cow is never absent from his mind, or from the minds of those to whom he looks for guidance. The captain of industry and the agitator, the spendthrift and the spendthrift's wife who fling their money ostentatiously to the four winds of heaven, the working-man and the working-woman who exact the largest wage for the least labour, all are actuated by the same motive,—to get as much and to give as little as they can. It is not a principle which makes for citizenship, and it will afford no great help in the hour of the nation's trial. Material progress and party politics are engrossing things; but perhaps Francis Parkman was right when he said that if our progress is to be at the mercy of our
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