Читать книгу The Reign of Gilt онлайн

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For signs of the world’s to-morrow, look not in the programs of political parties, not in the plottings of princes or plutocrats, but in the crucible of the chemist.

We have reminded ourselves of the solid ground upon which rests our faith in ourselves as a democratic people with a democratic future. We can therefore proceed, with fairly tranquil minds, to view some of the “perils” to the republic. And of these the greatest, the one that includes them all, is the plutocracy, which fills so many of our thinkers with grim forebodings. Instead of lying awake o’ nights, worrying about it, let us go boldly and democratically forth in the broad day and gaze straight at it in all its grisly vulgarity.

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You stand in front of a huge dam. Its wall rises bare and sheer. You say to yourself: “There can be little water behind it.” But even as you think this, the dam becomes a waterfall, and the waterfall swells into a Niagara. You go round where you see the other side; you find a lake fathoms deep and extending miles up the valley.