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quently fascinated by the intellectual adventure of radicalism, aphase of thought from which they recover when they face therealities of coming to terms with the world. Beginning as an intellectualliberal but emotionally a conservative, as time went onthe intellectual convictions were subdued by the more deeply rootedemotional bias. This is a common plight with many thoughtful menin whose minds there is waged an incessant struggle between theirintellectual processes and their spiritual bias, who arrive at liberalismby logic, yet never quite break away from the conservatism oftheir inner souls and who in the end surrender to the solidly rootedprejudices of the spirit.Many of these so-called liberals are crusaders rather than liberals,and the crusader is not always a liberal. A man may crusade for themost reactionary objectives. But as he is usually expending hisenergies against superior force he cultivates the impression that heis a liberal because he fights for the right against established evil.Crispi came into power at a moment of profound economic distress.Italy was again in economic trouble and once again launchedon a long flight of unbalanced budgets. Against these new difficultieshe struggled in vain. He had denounced unbalanced budgets, butfloated now on the uncertain bosom of continued deficits. Then, asdisorders and clamors for relief filled the air, the statesman who hadbeen a republican revolutionary turned to suppression and the oldMazzinian pacifist turned to imperialism.While he was Foreign Minister in the cabinet of Depretis, Crispibegan to hatch some small schemes of colonial adventure. He beganto stir up suspicions of his neighbors. He was always detecting signsof danger in France and Germany. He told the Italians that colonies"were a necessity of modern life. We cannot remain inert and donothing so that the Powers occupy by themselves all the best partsof the earth." He sowed seeds of future irritation by aiding smallsettlements of Italians in Egypt, Tunis, Constantinople, and Salonica,"to revolatilize their culture." He organized a colony on theRed Sea, calling it Eritrea. He founded Somaliland. He ended bylaunching an attack upon Menelek, the Lion of Judah in Abyssinia.He succeeded in exciting some of the people for a brief period intoan imperialist fever, drawing their minds away from their crushing26