The new
man could be only a child born of contact between the new and the
old energies.
Both had been familiar since childhood, as the story has shown,
and neither had warped the umpire's judgment by its favors. If
ever judge had reason to be impartial, it was he. The sole object
of his interest and sympathy was the new man, and the longer one
watched, the less could be seen of him. Of the forces behind the
Trusts, one could see something; they owned a complete
organization, with schools, training, wealth and purpose; but of
the forces behind Roosevelt one knew little; their cohesion was
slight; their training irregular; their objects vague. The public
had no idea what practical system it could aim at, or what sort
of men could manage it. The single problem before it was not so
much to control the Trusts as to create the society that could
manage the Trusts. The new American must be either the child of
the new forces or a chance sport of nature. The attraction of
mechanical power had already wrenched the American mind into a
crab-like process which Roosevelt was making heroic efforts to
restore to even action, and he had every right to active support
and sympathy from all the world, especially from the Trusts
themselves so far as they were human; but the doubt persisted
whether the force that educated was really man or nature -- mind
or motion.
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