When a bullet passes through, it closes up. A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer. The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull. This is not always easy to achieve. The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern.
Every class is unfit to govern.
Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. The men become every year more and more creatures of force, massed about central powerhouses. The conflict is no longer between the men, but between the motors that drive the men, and the men tend to succumb to their own motive forces. No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.