“... and the poor souls have absolutely no idea how rotten with corruption their ostensible benefactors are. None whatsoever. Few of your common rabble do. In fact it would not be inaccurate to say that normal is that state of being most easily associated with benign ignorance and a general proclivity to remain so. Our society, our great way of life, our American genius, as you would have it, does not rest on the shoulders of giants, has not been wrought from the earth by a noble race: such fine lineaments as you imagine for yourself are but a mere accident of accumulation, a felicitous distillation from an undifferentiated mash. Ignorance has brought us here, ignorance has carried us forward and ignorance remains our greatest hope and solace. We are nothing without the torpid stupidity governing the general will of our slumbering masses.”
He paused a moment to draw on his cigar and swirl with stolid meditation his glass of exquisite port, adding, as if in answer to his own thoughts: “We have risen above, it is true, and good for us I suppose; but probably best to remember, for what it’s worth, that there can be no above without those wretched things dutifully toiling below.”
